The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Transport

Berlin, Bolton, Feltonville Stage Coach Line

Berlin, Bolton, & Feltonville Stage Ledger

1854-1867
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 138

Stage coach line that carried passengers and mail from Berlin, Bolton, and Feltonville (Hudson) to the Boston area. Includes account book documenting expenses of running the line, with passenger fares recorded elsewhere. Last several pages contain an individual’s accounts, as well as photocopies of passages about the stage coach line and a poem written when the company folded. Amos Sawyer, Jr., and his son-in-law Lorren Arnold ran the business.

Subjects

Berlin (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryBolton (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryFreight and freightage--MassachusettsStagecoach lines--Massachusetts

Contributors

Berlin, Bolton, & Feltonville Stage

Types of material

Account books
Boston & Albany Railroad Company. Engineering Department

Boston & Albany Railroad Engineering Department Map Collection

1833-1920
19 v.
Call no.: MS 130

The Boston and Albany Railroad was formed between 1867 and 1870 from the merger of three existing lines, the Boston and Worcester (chartered 1831), the Western (1833), and the Castleton and West Stockbridge (1834). The corporation was a primary east-west transit through the Commonwealth, with branches connecting towns including Athol, Ware, North Adams, and Hudson, N.Y.

The nineteen atlases comprising this collection include detailed plans documenting the location and ownership of rights of way, land-takings, and other land transfers to or from the railroad company. Dating from the early years of operation for the corporation to just after the turn of the century, the atlases include maps of predecessor lines (Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation and Western Rail-Road), as well as the Grand Junction Railway Company (Charlestown, Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea), the Ware River Railroad, and the Chester and Becket Railroad.

Subjects

Boston and Albany Railroad Co.--MapsBoston and Worcester Railroad Corporation--MapsChester and Becket Railroad--MapsGrand Junction Railway Company--MapsRailroads--Massachusetts--MapsReal property--Massachusetts--MapsWare River Railroad--MapsWestern Rail-Road Corporation--Maps

Contributors

Boston & Albany Railroad Company. Engineering Department

Types of material

Maps
Boston & Maine Railroad. Fitchburg Division

Boston and Maine Railroad Fitchburg Division Records

1918-1958
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 475

Chartered in June 1835, the Boston and Maine Railroad was the dominant railroad of northern New England for nearly one hundred years. This collection consists of records from the Engineering Department of the Fitchburg Division relating to the maintenance of bridges in Massachusetts, including correspondence, accident reports, financial records and progress reports on work recommended by bridge inspectors.

Subjects

Railroad companies--United States--History--20th century

Contributors

Boston and Maine Railroad. Fitchburg Division
Brazier, Frederick William

Frederick William Brazier Scrapbooks

1888-1936 Bulk: 1888-1915
2 vols. 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1197

Frederick William Brazier (1852-1936) began his railroad career in 1877 as a car builder in his hometown of Boston, before working his way up the railroad business in Fitchburg, MA, where he was also involved with politics, including elected positions such as acting mayor of the city in 1893. He and his family then moved in 1893 to Chicago, IL, while he worked for the Illinois Central Railroad, and then left in 1899 for Yonkers, NY, where Brazier had an office in Grand Central Station while working for the New York Central Railroad. He concluded his career as Superintendent of Rolling Stock for the New York Central Railroad.

Brazier kept scrapbooks about the railroad throughout his life, and this collection includes two small (8×10) scrapbooks filled with clippings about the Fitchburg Railroad (and the town of Fitchburg in general), with a few pages about the New York Central Railroad. In addition to clippings, there is a small amount of related ephemera as well as personal items such as correspondence, Christmas cards, a few family photographs, and a 1904 pin recognizing Brazier as president of the Master Car Builders Association. Some scrapbook pages are stuck together and therefore inaccessible. A short biography of Brazier as well as his own essay, “My Railroad Service,” were included by the donor, a great-granddaughter of Brazier’s.

Gift of Jean Kilbourne, 2023.

Subjects

Boston and Maine Railroad. Fitchburg DivisionFitchburg Railroad CompanyRailroad companies--United States--History
Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-

Alfred Alexander Brown Papers

1935-1979
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: FS 043

Before his graduate work at Amherst College and Harvard University, Alfred Brown received both his bachelor’s (1931) and master’s (1933) degrees from Massachusetts State College in animal husbandry and agricultural economics. In 1935, he returned to his alma mater as assistant research professor in Agricultural Economics, earning promotion to full professor in 1948, with a focus on Marketing and Transportation. During World War II, Brown served as a transportation economist with the War Food Administration and as a consultant for the Office of Defense Transportation. Although Brown retired from teaching in 1972, he continued to work as a consultant for the United States Department of Transportation in Africa until his death in 2000.

The Brown Papers include published and unpublished transportation writings, correspondence, biographical and personal notes as well as notes for research and teaching, newsclippings, motion picture films, and slides. Also included among the papers are files related to Brown’s university service, including the Alumni War Memorial Fund, the University Centennial Committee, and the Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa.

Subjects

Massachusetts State College--FacultyMassachusetts State College. Department of Agricultural EconomicsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Agricultural Economics

Contributors

Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-
Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Company

Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Company Records

1799
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 088

Authorized in March 1799, the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Company constructed a toll road through miles of rough terrain and sparse settlements, connecting Leominster, Athol, Greenfield, and Northfield. Having opened areas to land travel that had previously been accessible only over rivers, the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike ceased operations in 1833 after years of declining revenues.

The collection consists primarily of one volume of records of the directors of the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike, including minutes of meetings, accounts of tolls collected, and drafts of letters.

Subjects

Toll roads--Massachusetts

Contributors

Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Company
Fitchburg Railroad

Fitchburg Railroad Ledger

1884-1887
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 181 bd

The Fitchburg Railroad was incorporated in 1842 to build a rail line across northern Massachusetts from Boston to Fitchburg, but eventually extended its operations through the Hoosac Tunnel, and into Vermont and New York. In 1900, the Fitchburg Railroad was leased for 99 years to the Boston and Maine. It operated as the Fitchburg Division until the two companies merged in 1919.

Organized station by station and by date, this ledger is a ticket account from Fitchburg and connecting railroads. Each page is printed as a form covering one year of transactions for a single station, with a running account of highest number of tickets received, highest sold, and (occasionally) the cost of tickets.

Separated from the Rodney Hunt Co. Records

Subjects

Railroad companies--Massachusetts--19th century

Contributors

Fitchburg Railroad Company
Great Barrington and Alford Turnpike Corporation

Great Barrington and Alford Turnpike Corporation Records

1833-1846
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 033 bd

In June 1811, the Great Barrington and Alford Turnpike Corporation was incorporated with the aim of constructing a road at the northern end of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Turnpike, stretching from Great Barrington, Mass., through Alford and North Egremont before crossing the state line and ending in Hudson, New York. Under the direction of Josiah Milland and Jacob and John Van Deusen (who lived near the road), the corporation was apparently not exceptionally profitable. A leg of the turnpike through Great Barrington was made free in 1831, and in 1846, having failed in their petition to receive compensation for loss of privileges, the corporation transferred the road into public management.

Although only a slender 21 pages in length, this record book is nearly the only documentation of the finances for a small, but typical turnpike company in antebellum Massachusetts. The book includes somewhat sparse records of receipts from the toll booths and expenditures for maintenance, extending from 1833 until the corporation was dissolved in 1846. At the end of the book are two pages of personal expenses associated with a trip to Ohio.

Subjects

Great Barrington (Mass.)--HistoryToll roads--Massachusetts

Contributors

Milland, JosiahVan Deusen, Jacob H.Van Deusen, John
Griswold, Whiting, 1814-1874

Whiting Griswold Papers

1837-1890
5 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 814

A politician hailing from Greenfield, Mass., Whiting Griswold was born in Buckland on Nov. 12, 1814, the son of Maj. Joseph Griswold. Earning his way through Amherst College (BA, 1838) by teaching in the local schools, Griswold studied law in the offices of Grennell and Aiken, but politics soon came to dominate his life. A serious player in partisan politics, he won election as a Democrat to the state House in 1848-1850 and then the Senate in 1851-1852. After taking part in the state Constitutional Convention of 1853, Griswold supported Buchanan for the presidency in 1856, but changed party to support Lincoln, winning terms in the state Senate on a Coalition vote in 1862 and as a Republican in 1869. Griswold was twice married: first, to Jane M. Martindale (1844), with whom he had two children, and second to Frances L. Clarke (1856), with whom he had three children, including the attorney Freeman Clarke Griswold (1858-1910), a graduate of Yale and Harvard law school (1884), who represented Greenfield in the State House in 1888.

The Griswold papers are dense collection documenting the lives and careers of two state-level politicians in Massachusetts during the years straddling the Civil War. Contents range from discussions of the political crises of the 1850s and Civil War to political agitation over railroad construction in Franklin County, to elections, political speeches, and papers written as a student. The collection includes five letters of the Transcendentalist minister James Freeman Clarke and some essays and correspondence from Freeman Griswold.

Acquired from M&S Rare Books, Mar. 2014

Subjects

Greenfield (Mass.)--HistoryMassachusetts--Politics and governmentMassachusetts. HouseMassachusetts. Senate

Contributors

Griswold, Freeman Clarke

Types of material

Broadsides
Taylor, Levi E. (Levi Ely), 1795-1858

Levi E. Taylor Daybook

1836-1843
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 483 bd

The wheelwright Levi Ely Taylor was born in Longmeadow, Mass., on Nov. 17, 1795, the son of Nathaniel and Jerusha Taylor. Marrying a woman from Rocky Hill, Conn., Laura Peirce, he settled in Longmeadow and built a prosperous life for himself in his trade. His eldest son, Newton, followed him into the business.

Taylor’s daybook contains careful records of a wheelwright from Longmeadow, Mass., documenting his varied work in the repair of carriages. The transactions that appear in the volume range from making whiffletrees to shortening wheels, making and fitting out carriage seats, and painting and varnishing vehicles, with occasional forays into selling goods such as wheelbarrows and straw cutters.

Subjects

Carriage industry--History--Massachusetts--LongmeadowLongmeadow (Mass.)--HistoryWheelwrights--Massachusetts--Longmeadow

Types of material

Daybooks