The papers are organized as CORRESPONDENCE, LUCIUS FAIRCHILD PAPERS, BUSINESS RECORDS, FAMILY PAPERS, MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, and PHOTOGRAPHS.
Though available for use for many years, in 2005 the Fairchild collection received some additional arrangement and description. The correspondence was rehoused, but the original arrangement was not changed. The remainder of the collection, which had never been truly arranged, was put in order. At the same time, some correspondence of Fairchild's daughter, Mary Fairchild Morris, previously catalogued as Wis Mss IQ, and some recent donations from the family were added to the Correspondence series. Mrs. Morris' correspondence adds information to this collection about her post-World War I interest in teaching English to Milwaukee immigrants as part of the Wisconsin Committee on Americanization.
The largest and most important part of the collection consists of chronological CORRESPONDENCE in which letters to and from all members of the family are interfiled. For Lucius Fairchild's years of public service, the researcher will also find here some official incoming letters.
The papers were originally sorted and catalogued during the 1920s and the correspondence was interfiled in one chronological file, as was then the custom. In “The Fairchild Papers,” an essay published at the time in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, historian Louise Phelps Kellogg described the collection in an article for a general audience. (A copy of that essay is included in the Fairchild register file in the Archives Research Room.) Some years later a more typical archival register/finding aid was prepared, probably by Archivist Josephine Harper. The following description of the correspondence series quotes that register:
Politics
Of most general interest in the boxes of correspondence are the materials relating to political matters. However, there is but a meager amount of such material, even for the years of the governorship, until about 1879. The years of absence abroad called forth a correspondence with friends in Wisconsin, especially with Senator Timothy O. Howe, and it is for the half dozen years beginning about 1870 that the collection is richest in materials for the study of state and national public affairs.
History of Early Madison
There is also considerable information in the correspondence concerning the history of early Madison. Jairus C. Fairchild opened a mercantile establishment in Madison in 1846, and for the next five years there are a number of letters to and from his brother-in-law and pioneer Milwaukee businessman, Franklin J. Blair, relating to business affairs. These letters often contain invoices of goods and are indicative of prices of goods and types of wares saleable in a frontier state. Early Madison people, home life, household affairs, social life in general, the doings of the legislature, visitors to Madison and the University are discussed in the extensive correspondence of Sarah Fairchild, later Mrs. Sarah Fairchild Dean. These letters form a valuable source of information for social history and description of the life of women in early Madison and Wisconsin. In 1855 the Deans moved to Superior and the letters written by Mrs. Dean from that point throw some light on Superior history in the fifties. Included here is a description of an overland journey from Superior to St. Paul in the winter of 1856.
California Letters
In 1849 Lucius Fairchild joined the gold rush to California, and there are long letters written home by him in the six years he was away. These have been published in Joseph Schafer, ed., California Letters of Lucius Fairchild (Madison, 1931).
Civil War
All three of the Fairchild sons saw service in the War, and there are a number of letters from them, some written from various points in Maryland and Virginia and some from Charles on a gunboat in the Virginia waters. They are largely personal, but relate also the viewpoint and attitude of army officers, aspects of army life, and military maneuvers as described by observing individuals. There are also a few miscellaneous military papers.
Consular and Diplomatic Service
The papers for these years throw light on the activities of a foreign representative of the United States government, and consist of statements of fees and wages, a number of letters descriptive of life in Liverpool, letters of introduction from travelers, a description of a diplomatic ceremony at Madrid, a detailed description of a bull fight, a few papers relating to the Morocco Conference of 1880, and some papers relating to the settlement of the estate of Joseph Dumas in Paris and that of Elizabeth Grenville in Liverpool, a detailed description of a yachting trip in the Argo in Mediterranean water in 1877, letters from business men in England in regard to the financing of American railroads prior to the panic of 1873 and miscellaneous bills for expenses in England.
Miscellaneous Subjects
Under this heading are Jairus C. Fairchild's letters to his wife and business associates in Cleveland in the early forties; a small amount of material relating to Lucius Fairchild's service as a member of the Cherokee Commission in 1889; correspondence, after 1885, with veterans' organizations, especially the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the Grand Army of the Republic; and numerous letters and telegrams received by the family at Fairchild's death in 1896.
There are a host of matters on which this voluminous collection merely touches. Among them are the Hubbell impeachment trial of 1853; a railroad law in the early fifties concerning which there is a letter of James R. Doolittle; Dean & Ruggles' business failure; early Madison buildings; boat building at Necedah; the Fairchild lumbering interests on the Yellow River in Wood County in the period from the late forties to the early sixties (especially early 1861); the cranberry industry in Wood County in 1861; Negro suffrage and the state campaign of 1864, including a letter of Doolittle on the subject; defense of Andrew Johnson's policies in 1866; Green Bay & Mississippi Canal; several letters of Jay Cooke and others in regard to the Duluth and Superior Canal; the Dells of the Chippewa bill; a timber agency, 1871; grants of lands for railroads in the early seventies; Peshtigo fire relief work; Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute; immigration; national exposition of railway appliances in 1883; the Wisconsin Semi-centennial in 1896; genealogy; and investments.
When the CORRESPONDENCE was organized the following individuals were identified as prominent correspondents: Edwin Arnold, Matthew Arnold, John Kindrick Bangs, Hjalmar Hjork Boyeses, James Bryce, Witter Bynner, George W. Cable, Godfrey Rathbone Benson Charnwood, Jay Cooke, James R. Doolittle, Edward Eggleston, Kate Field, Zona Gale, Hamlin Garland, Hannibal Hamlin, Marion Harland, William Dean Howells, John Ireland, Francis Davis Millet, Thomas Nelson Page, Agnes Repplier, James Whitcomb Riley, Theodore Roosevelt, Jeremiah Rusk, Margaret Elizabeth Munson Sangster, Philip Sheridan, Douglass Sherley, William T. Sherman, Francis Hopkinson Smith, G. Trentanove, Lew Wallace, and Edward Randolph Welles.
In addition to correspondence in the previously described series, the LUCIUS FAIRCHILD PAPERS series consists of letterbooks of outgoing correspondence dating from his tenure as Wisconsin's Secretary of State and Governor. Additional letterbooks contain letters written as consul in Liverpool. Together with files of financial records and reports, this portion of the collection concerns shipping fees collected, assistance to sailors, and services provided to Americans abroad. Two additional cashbooks relate to his service at Paris. Also included in the series are draft and printed speeches and writings, as well as scrapbooks of notes and research materials that were used either for campaigning or for public speaking.
In addition to messages to the Wisconsin Legislature, the writings file includes numerous Memorial Day addresses, remarks at Grand Army of the Republic events, some information on his own military service at Gettysburg and elsewhere, a description of a yachting trip on the Argo in the Mediterranean in 1877, lectures on Spain and the consular service, and information on the Milwaukee & Horicon and the Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien railroads.
Fairchild's papers as clerk of the Dane County Circuit Court are primarily of evidential value, documenting the precise way in which court fees were collected at the time and the daily activities of the court. Additionally, several volumes index the cases by attorney name, and as a result they provide a useful tool for accessing information elsewhere on the legal history of the period.
Lucius Fairchild is also represented by accounts of personal expenditures, brief entry diaries, calling cards with GAR motifs, and invitations, primarily documenting the family's official social life in Liverpool. Memorabilia includes Lucius' Gettysburg prisoner parole form and two disabled veteran pension notices. Fourteen clipping scrapbooks about Fairchild's career are available on microfilm in the Historical Society Library.
BUSINESS RECORDS pertain to the entire family, but particularly to Jairus C. Fairchild and his diverse financial interests. One portion of this series (the receipts, invoices, and bills) was previously arranged chronologically so that all members of the family are now represented therein. Moreover, the early receipts mix both the business and household expenditures of the Jairus Fairchild family. Eventually, however, the file is limited to the personal expenditures of Frances and Lucius Fairchild in Madison and abroad.
The largest portion of the BUSINESS RECORDS consists of daybooks, ledgers, cashbooks, and purchase records for Jairus' various enterprises either alone or in partnership in Ohio and in Madison. A separate category contains extensive documentation about the Watertown and Madison Railroad of which Fairchild was president. Supported by several prominent Madisonians, the city of Madison, and other communities along its route, the railroad fell victim to the panic of 1857. About Jairus' real estate interests there are abstracts, deeds, mortgages, leases and other property records. Of special interest is a deed documenting a transaction between James Duane Doty and Thomas A.B. Boyd that took place at Belmont in 1836 as well as an 1847 land sale by Doty to Fairchild. A separate group of records concern the management of the Jairus Fairchild estate after his death in 1862.
The FAMILY PAPERS are arranged alphabetically by name, with only scant documentation about any particular person. Most members of the nuclear family are represented in the CORRESPONDENCE and BUSINESS RECORDS series however. General papers in this series include genealogical papers of the Fairchild and Bull families probably gathered by Frances Bull Fairchild, and clippings about the Fairchild family and home on Monona Avenue. Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover is represented by two volumes of transcribed letters of her second husband, university professor Obadiah M. Conover; minutes of Mothers in Counsel, a group of young Madison mothers; and account books concerning her real estate holdings. Her first husband, Eliab Dean, is represented only by deeds and property records. Frances Bull Fairchild's public life included experience as a public speaker to women's groups and this part of her life is represented by several complete speeches and unrelated notes. Also well known as a hostess both in Madison and abroad, this part of Mrs. Fairchild's life is represented by guest lists and selected invitations and calling cards. An unidentified notebook recording wedding guests and gifts probably pertains to the wedding of one of her daughters. Both Charles and Cassius are only minimally documented in this series; Cassius by routine military papers and Charles by two volumes pertaining to his service as a U.S. Navy paymaster during the Civil War. In addition to the previously described BUSINESS RECORDS, Jairus Fairchild is represented here by a diary with entries for 1853 and 1859, deeds and land records, and several types of receipts pertaining to his tenure as territorial treasurer.
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS at the end of the collection include material of uncertain provenance. Several accounting volumes document the business of Dr. Josiah D. Weston at Madison; Exeter, Wisconsin; and Natchez, Tennessee. The building he occupied as proprietor of a drug store and grocery store was later occupied by the partnerships of Shields & Sneeden and Dean & Ruggles. The latter partnership involved Eliab Dean, J.C. Fairchild's son-in-law. When Dean & Ruggles moved into the building they may have acquired the Weston books. This provenance is all the more likely because Dean was a cousin of J.D. Weston. There are also loose papers of John T. Wilson, a physician who began operating a drug and grocery business in Madison in 1870 and who drowned one year later. It is possible that the papers, which consist entirely of invoices for merchandise he ordered for his store, were left in a building owned by a member of the Fairchild family. Whatever their provenance, the invoices provide useful detail on goods ordered to establish his mid-19th century pharmacy, as well as the source of those products. The identity of the volume entitled Blanchard & Marsh, is uncertain. It is thought to document a Madison shipping and mercantile business.
PHOTOGRAPHS in the collection consist of 14 groups of portrait albums and loose photographs of Lucius in uniform and civilian dress, his Civil War and European associates, the Fairchild family, their relatives, and their Madison home.
