The William Bartlett Papers, 1821-1934, 1944-1962 consist of two series -- his Personal Papers and Historical Writings -- both of which reflect Bartlett's long-time interest in documenting the history of the Chippewa Valley region and of his own family. Researchers should be cautioned that the subject matter of the series and subseries overlap considerably; the correspondence files are particularly informative on many topics.
Bartlett's Personal Papers contain biographical information, family papers, an unidentified journal, correspondence, and files on Eau Claire organizations in which Bartlett was involved. The family papers consist primarily of genealogies and death announcements for members of Mrs. Bartlett's family, the Towners. The correspondence file, which comprises the bulk of this series, consists largely of detailed letters from local residents about numerous aspects of Chippewa Valley history since the eighteenth century. There are also letters about Bartlett's book, his involvement in state, county, and local historical societies in Wisconsin and Minnesota, his preparation during the 1920s of a slide show on lumbering, and letters to and from friends and relatives regarding family and social affairs. Also included are several letters from Bartlett to Lieutenant Governor George Comings, 1923, February-October, concerning Comings' criticism of the Wisconsin National Guard; a letter of introduction from Philip La Follette dated April 4, 1930 written for Bartlett while he was studying Wisconsin art; and a few letters written to Mrs. Bartlett after her husband's death, one from a daughter describing her experiences in an earthquake in California. The files on organizations Bartlett was involved in include materials on the Eau Claire County Old Settlers Association (1890-1927), the Prohibition Club (1885-1894), and the Eau Claire school system (1892-1926).
The Historical Writings series contains published and unpublished writings, original unpublished source materials collected by Bartlett, and research notes used in the preparation of his book and of various articles about the history of Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley regions. Some topics included are: the Cornell University lands in Wisconsin (1880-1922), John Deitz of the Cameron Dam (1905-1910 and 1945), the Red River Dam incident during the Civil War (1864-1904), and lumbering in the Chippewa Valley area (1821-1932). The lumbering materials constitute the bulk of this series and are arranged in an alphabetical subject file. Most of the papers are from the Daniel Shaw Lumber Co. but there are also some from the North Western Lumber Co., Porter and Moon, and the Montreal River Logging Co.; D.R. Moon was an officer in the latter three companies. While the majority of these papers concern routine business, there are also several subject files on such topics as the purchase and sale of land, relevant legislation, court cases, lumber dealers, contracts and articles of agreement, and logging camp humor. The documents include ledgers, letterpress copybooks, journals, account books, log mark books, tally books, scale books, and section map books. There is only a small amount of material illustrating the operations of the interlocking directorates that characterized Wisconsin's lumbering industry at this time.
Additional material on Eau Claire activities during World War I and on Old Abe, the Civil War eagle, have been separated from these papers and cataloged as individual collections. Both Bartlett and Marshall Cousins kept files on these topics and exchanged their resources and ideas freely. The World War I material has been organized as Eau Claire Mss BN and the Old Abe collection has been cataloged as Eau Claire Mss BL.
