The records in this collection span seventy years and have been arranged in three series: Correspondence and Related Material; Companies File; and Land and Leases. To minimize confusion, an attempt has been made to retain the original order of the collection, as created in the Yawkey offices, and to keep together by date or subject related papers of different types. In many cases, therefore, the folder titles list only the most numerous types of papers present within. Also, it should be noted that the personal and business interests of Yawkey, Woodson, the Wausau Group, and the Yawkey Lumber Company were extremely intertwined and complex, and it is possible to find similar records and information in each series. The majority of the papers date from 1920 to 1945.
The GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE AND RELATED MATERIAL series is composed primarily of C.C. Yawkey's office correspondence files, with a small amount of Woodson's correspondence also present. Most of the letters are business related in nature, although many of the correspondents were relatives or friends with whom Yawkey had business dealings. These individuals included Ed Fletcher and Fred M. White, and Yawkey family members whose finances were managed by Cyrus -- Thomas A. Yawkey and Emma A. Gardner Ouerbacker (trust funds), and Margaret and William H. Yawkey (estates). Other correspondents of C.C. Yawkey's were those to whom he lent or gave money for education or for general assistance, particularly former Yawkey employees or their families. Yawkey received numerous requests for funds, and responded to most of the letters with gifts, or with loans, for which he expected repayment. Also included in this series is correspondence pertaining to Yawkey's club and church activities, political donations, and charities.
The largest of the series is the COMPANIES FILE, which contains papers from those companies which Yawkey and Woodson owned, invested in, or administered. Many types of records are included here, and are arranged by company name and then by type of document. The correspondence and related material precedes other types of records, which follow in alphabetical order. The financial records generally consist of annual and monthly financial and operating statements compiled internally by Yawkey company accountants. A few ledgers, journals, and trial balance books from Yawkey Lumber Company and from C.C. Yawkey accounts are also present. Other financial records are more fragmentary and include published annual reports; handwritten or typed trial balances; balance sheets; and tax assessments, statements, and receipts. Maps and blueprints of property maps are to be found with most of the individual company files -- filed either separately or with correspondence and related material. Additional maps have been removed and separated to the Map Collection.
Other types of records included with some company files are stock records and stock certificate books; timber and logging records; timber cruise records (which are some of the earliest records); land ownership records such as deeds, abstracts, contracts, and other legal documents; and copies of photographs (the originals have been separated to the Visual Materials Archive in Madison). Additional records are oil, gas, gold, and silver production records; corporate papers such as articles of incorporation, by-laws, minutes and the like; and paper production records.
The LAND AND LEASES series contains papers, primarily correspondence, deeds and abstracts, relating to tracts of land and timber and leases for mines and for oil and gas exploration. Timber records, oil and gas well and exploration reports, and silver and gold assay data are also included. Although these properties were owned by Yawkey and Woodson and by their corporations, little attempt was made to separate papers by company within the original filing scheme; this arrangement has been retained. As in other series, it is difficult to identify the precise papers of the Yawkey Lumber Company --evidently all were created and filed together. The records in this series have been divided by location of property, for example, by state, and then by county in most cases, or by city or town. Most of the files deal with land owned in Oregon and Wisconsin.
