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

Collections: mss

Baschard, David

David Baschard Account Book

1763-1774
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 142

David Baschard (sometimes spelled Bichaud) was an innkeeper and merchant in Nantucket during the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Althouth little is known about the specifics of his life, when he died at the age of 50 on Feb. 9, 1770, he left a substantial estate valued at £1000. He left a legacy to his sister Mary and the remainder, including a “negro slave girl” and a pew in the Congregational Meeting House, to his wife Elizabeth (Hussey).

A standard two-column account book, David Baschard’s ledger records the day to day transactions of a Nantucket merchant of the 1760s. Trading actively in a range of sundries and domestic goods such as cloth, apparel, sugar, tea, and tobacco, Baschard also sold liquors of various sorts, including punch, grog, wine, and rum. In addition to his local Nantucket clientele (members of the Starbuck, Coffin, Rotch, and Folger families among them), he traded in towns along the Cape Cod and elsewhere in southeastern Massachusetts, including Harwich, Rochester, Dartmouth, Falmouth, and Martha’s Vineyard. Accounts were settled both in cash and in kind.

Subjects

Hotelkeepers--Massachusetts--Nantucket IslandMerchants--Massachusetts--Nantucket IslandNantucket Island (Mass.)--Economic conditionsNantucket Island (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Account books
Baszak, Mark A.

Mark A. Baszak Papers

1991-1992
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 653

Born in Springfield in 1960 and raised in the Pioneer Valley, Mark A. Baszak received a bachelors degree in music composition and MEd. from UMass Amherst. Beginning shortly after completing graduate study, Baszak played a prominent part for over two decades in promoting the arts at his alma mater, serving as Acting Director of the Performing Arts Division (1987-1989), Coordinator and then Director of the Jazz in July program (1990-2008), Associate Director of Multicultural Programs (1993), and organizer of the Black Musicians Conferences and Festival (1989-1999). As an arts and culture representative of the Massachusetts Hokkaido Sister State Association in the early 1990s, Baszak helped foster exchanges between the sister states, visiting Hokkaido with the first official state delegation in 1991. Baszak died after a brief illness on September 25, 2008.

Documenting the early efforts to build upon the 1990 designation of Hokkaido and Massachusetts as sister states, the Baszak collection includes materials concentrated on the first Hokkaido Week in Amherst and the delegation that accompanied Gov. William Weld to Hokkaido in 1991. In addition to correspondence and memos, the collection includes ephemera collected by Baszak during the various ceremonies and transcripts of speeches delivered.

Subjects

Massachusetts-Hokkaido Sister State Association

Contributors

Baszak, Mark AWeld, William F
Bates Family

Marcia Grover Church Bates Family Papers

1712-1999
11 boxes 5.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 424

Generations of the Bates and Church families based in North Amherst and Ashfield, Massachusetts. Papers include deeds, a will, correspondence, account books (recording day-to-day expenditures on food, clothing, postage, housekeeping supplies, and laborer’s wages), diaries, an oral history, photographs, genealogical notes, and memorabilia related to the family.

Subjects

Ashfield (Mass.)--HistoryBates familyChurch familyFarmers--Massachusetts--AshfieldHotelkeepers--Massachusetts--North AmherstLibraries--Massachusetts--BostonMassachusetts Agricultural College--Alumni and alumnaeMerchants--Massachusetts--North AmherstNorth Amherst (Mass.)--HistoryPrescott (Mass.)--HistoryPublic librarians--MassachusettsStreet-railroads--Massachusetts--EmployeesWeather--Massachusetts--AshfieldWomen--Massachusetts--HistoryWorcester (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Bates, Marcia Church, 1908-2000Church, Cornelia, 1906-1978Church, Lucia Grover, 1877-1943

Types of material

Account booksDeedsDiariesGeneaologiesPhotographsWills
Battey, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Battey Papers

1900-1914
13 items 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 947

Elizabeth Battey served as a Housekeeper for aristocratic English families during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. At the turn of the century, she was employed by Frances Evelyn Greville the Countess of Warwick, and former mistress of the Price of Wales, to oversee the female staff at Warwick Castle, and from 1904 until at least 1914, she was Housekeeper under Richard George Penn Curzon, the 4th Earl Howe, at his estates Godshall and the Woodlands.

The letters of Elizabeth Battey offer insight into the daily life of a member of the upper staff at an aristocratic Edwardian estate, revealing an acute class sensibility and attention to the duties of a woman of her station. The letters are filled with information about the estates on which Battey worked, her famous employers the Countess of Warwick and Earl Howe, and the social milieu she witnessed at a servant’s distance.

Gift of I. Eliot Wentworth, Oct. 2016

Subjects

Aristocracy (Social class)--Great BritainGopsall Estate (England)Housekeepers--Great BritainHowe, Francis Richard Henry Penn Curzon, Earl, 1884-1964Howe, Richard George Penn Curzon, EarlWarwick (England)--Description and travelWarwick Castle (Warwick, England)Warwick, Frances Evelyn Maynard Greville, Countess of, 1861-1938

Contributors

McCulloch, Elizabeth E.
Beach, Samuel

Samuel and Harriett Beach Papers

1829-1903
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1032
Depiction of Business card for J.S. Stannard Oysters, ca.1885
Business card for J.S. Stannard Oysters, ca.1885

Spread out across the early national landscape, the Beach and Cooke families were bound by the ties of family, friendship, and business. The brothers-in-law Samuel Beach, from Branford, Conn., and Samuel G. Cooke, from Mendon, Illinois, both served in the Civil War. As a corporal in the 27th Connecticut Infantry, Beach saw action at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while Cooke served in the west with the 50th Illinois before taking a captain’s commission in the 44th U.S. Colored Troops. Farmers and fruit growers, the two settled in Branford after the war, with Beach establishing Pawson Park, a day resort and picnic grounds that prospered in the 1880s.

The paper of Samuel and Harriett Beach contain family correspondence from two generations of Connecticut family in the mid-nineteenth century. Of particular note are 31 war-date letters and a post-war memoir of the battle of Fredericksburg from Samuel Beach, and three war-date letters from Samuel G. Cooke. The collection also includes an interesting, though scattered series of letters relating to the creation and operation of the day resort, Pawson Park.

Acquired from William Reese, April 2018
Beacon Hill Friends Meeting

Beacon Hill Friends Meeting Records

1960-2008
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B433

The Beacon Hill Friends Meeting began in 1958 as a worship group in Boston under the care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting and was set off as its own monthly meeting in 1980. Since that time it has fallen under the aegis of Salem Quarterly Meeting.

Since their establishment as a monthly meeting in 1980, Beacon Hill Friends have regularly maintained minutes of business meetings and published a newsletter, although some gaps persist.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Behrendt, Tom

Tom Behrendt Papers

1978-2003
3 boxes 3.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 870
Depiction of Backpage of Madness Network News, Spring 1978, Vol. 4: No. 6. Photo by Kelso Walker.
Backpage of Madness Network News, Spring 1978, Vol. 4: No. 6. Photo by Kelso Walker.

The attorney Tom Behrendt has worked for years in the cause of civil rights for people with mental disabilities. A past president and long-time member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy, Behrendt served previously as Legal Director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project and he was a founding member of the Special Litigation and Appeals Unit of the Mental Hygiene Legal Service in New York. Behrendt’s involvements have included work with organizations such as Project Release, the Free Association, Advocacy Unlimited, and PAIMI (Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness).

The collection consists of a wide array of publications and documents relating the psychiatric survivors movement and Behrendt’s advocacy work. In addition to materials relating to NARPA conferences and a long run of NARPA’s newsletter, The Rights Tenet, the collection includes newsletters and other materials relating to the movement and issues such as electroconvulsive therapy.

Subjects

Electroconvulsive therapyMental health lawsNational Association for Rights Protection and AdvocacyPsychiatric survivors movement

Contributors

Project Release
Belanger, J. William, 1907-1986

J. William Belanger Papers

1932-1986
3 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 117

A leader in organized labor, William Belanger began as an organizer for the AFL’s United Textile Workers in 1932, eventually becoming the New England Regional Director and International Vice President of the TWUA and in 1958, the first President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.

The Belanger Papers provide insight into the long career in labor activism, and include correspondence, writings, subject files, and printed materials. Of particular interest is a series of four oversized scrapbooks that cover Belanger’s career from 1934 through his final position as Director of the Massachusetts Department of Employment Security. These are especially enlightening on labor’s political activities, the CIO’s success in thwarting anti-labor referenda in 1948, and the efforts to expel Communists from the labor movement.

Subjects

Elections--Massachusetts--History--20th centuryLabor leaders--New England--BiographyLabor unions--MassachusettsMassachusetts--Politics and government--1865-1950New England--Economic conditions--20th centuryTextile Workers Organizing CommitteeTextile Workers Union of AmericaTextile industry--MassachusettsTextile workers--Labor unions--New England

Contributors

Belanger, J. William, 1907-1986

Types of material

PhotographsScrapbooks
Belcher Family

Belcher Family Account Books

1847-1858
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 208 bd

Owners of a butcher shop in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Includes customer names, prices of meat, form of payment (principally cash), and Belcher family information.

Subjects

Belcher familyButchers--Massachusetts--FoxboroughConsumers--Massachusetts--FoxboroughDiet--Massachusetts--FoxboroughFoxborough (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryMeat--Prices--Massachusetts--FoxboroughShopping--Massachusetts--Foxborough

Contributors

Belcher, Lewis T., b. 1798Belcher, Lewis W., b. 1826

Types of material

Account books
Belchertown Sentinel

Belchertown Sentinel Collection

1915-2003
1283 digital items
Call no.: MS 845

A weekly community newspaper from a small town in western Massachusetts, the Belchertown Sentinel began publication in 1915. Featuring a mix of news and features focusing on Belchertown and adjoining communities of Amherst and Granby, the Sentinel was edited and published by its founder, Lewis H. Blackmer, for fifty years. Since changing hands twice in the period 1965-1975, the Sentinel has been published by Turley Publications. In 2013, with the centennial of the paper drawing near, the publisher and the Belchertown Historical Society cooperated on a project to digitize 88 years of the Sentinel funded by a grant from the Community Preservation Committee.

The Sentinel collection consists of digital copies only of the newspaper from its founding through 2003.

Subjects

Amherst (Mass.)--History--20th centuryBelchertown (Mass.)--History--20th centuryGranby (Mass.)--History--20th centuryNewspapers--Massachusetts--Belchertown