Summary Information
Sherman M. Booth Family Papers
1818-1908
- Booth, Sherman M., 1812-1904
Milwaukee Mss BB; Micro 145
4.0 cubic feet (10 archives boxes) and 1 reel of microfilm (35 mm)
UW-Milwaukee Libraries, Archives / Milwaukee Area Research Ctr. (Map)Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers of Sherman Booth, a 19th-century Wisconsin abolitionist agitator, politician, lecturer, and publisher. Includes correspondence concerning Booth family affairs; miscellaneous school and church materials collected by Booth's daughters while living in Connecticut; Civil War soldiers' medical examination records; family diaries; and school notebooks of Lillian May Booth, one of Sherman Booth's daughters. The majority of the collection consists of approximately 3,000 letters. Only about 145 were written by Sherman Booth; the rest concern the family of Adeline P. Corss (mother of the second Mrs. Booth). There are also school and church items which were acquired by Mary Ella and Lillian May in the course of their work; and copies of Booth materials held elsewhere.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mil000bb ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Sherman Booth, best known in Wisconsin history as an abolitionist agitator, was also a politician, lecturer, and publisher of prominence in Wisconsin between 1850 and 1865. Born in Davenport, New York in 1812, he graduated from Yale and taught for a short while. He soon learned that his imposing size and deep voice of oratorical quality made him an impressive figure on the lecture platform, and he spent several years in New York state lecturing on temperance and guiding the Liberty Party.
Moving to Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1848, he first helped publish the American Freeman there, changed its name to the Wisconsin Freeman and moved it to Milwaukee, and then published the Free Democrat. In 1848 he helped organize the Free Democrat, or Free Soil Party, and published the Barnburner during the election of that year. He played a part in the formation of the Republican Party from Whigs and Free Soilers, but although he was active in politics, Booth never held office.
His open opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act helped to precipitate the Glover incident of 1854, when his activities aided the escape of a former Negro slave from Federal custody. For his part in Glover's release, Booth was arrested. This started a long period of litigation, and although he was finally pardoned by President Buchanan, it is reported that Booth withstood “19 trials running through 13 years, was fined twice, imprisoned 3 times, and spent $35,000” for his defense.
During the Civil War he published Daily Life in Milwaukee, for which his wife, a poet and writer of children's stories then living in Switzerland, was a correspondent. In 1868 he went to Chicago to manage the Chicago Newspaper Union, represented the Union in Philadelphia from 1876 to 1879, and returned to Chicago in 1879. There he contributed to the Chicago Tribune, was Superintendent of House Removals for a time, served as U.S. Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, and manufactured and sold fireplace grates.
Sherman Booth was first married to Margaret Tufts of New Haven, Connecticut; but she and their three children had died by 1849. In that year he married Mary Humphrey Corss of Hartford, Connecticut, while she was visiting in Wisconsin. To them were born three daughters, Mary Ella, Alice, and Lillian May. Alice died in infancy, but Mary Ella and Lillian May became school teachers in Connecticut, and between 1870 and 1897 were estranged from their father. Their mother had died in 1865, and two years later Booth had married Augusta A. Smith of Burnett, Wisconsin. Their children were Grace, Jessie, Sherman M. II, Blanch, and Laura.
In his later years Booth made his home in Chicago, but was also active on his farm at Burnett, Wisconsin. It was to this farm that his daughters, Mary Ella and Lillian May moved in 1900, penniless and ill, after their reconciliation with Booth.
Scope and Content Note
This collection has been divided into three series: Correspondence, Prose and Poetry, and Other Material.
The Correspondence is found in boxes 1-7 and 10. Of the estimated 3,000 letters in this collection, only about 145 were written by Sherman Booth himself. These are mainly to his daughters, and to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Adeline P. Corss. In his letters of the 1850's may be found frequent mention of his imprisonment and trials. His second wife, Mary, wrote many letters to her mother and to her sister, Jane; and her letters also describe Booth's troubles over his abolitionist activities.
Booth's own letters span the period from the 1840s through the 1900s. The bulk of his letters (92) were written in the 1860s. The rest of his letters were dated as follows: 1849 (4); 1850s (23); 1870s (7); 1890s (9); 1900s (9); and undated (1).
The original letters written by Sherman Booth are interspersed throughout the collection. Due to the amount of time it takes to find all of them, photocopies are available to researchers. The photocopied letters are in box 10. They are arranged by their original location in the boxes and folders. The original letters are still available in boxes 1 through 7.
By far the largest part of the collection concerns the family of Adeline P. Corss, mother of the second Mrs. Booth. Booth's daughters, Mary Ella and Lillian May, lived with her in Connecticut for many years. When they moved to Wisconsin to their father's farm, they brought the Corss family correspondence with them.
Although Mr. and Mrs. Booth's letters to Connecticut were frequent during the years from 1860 to 1865, they almost completely ignore references to the Civil War and the national struggle. The letters are concerned, instead, with Booth's own problems and family affairs.
In the years between 1870 and 1890 the Booth sisters received a total of six letters from the Rev. J.J. Enmegahbauh, the first Indian ordained by Bishop Kemper. These were written from the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota.
Added to Box 1 were copies of correspondence from the Booth Collection and the S. P. Chase Collection in the Library of Congress covering the period 1849, April 5 to 1864, May 2.
Prose and Poetry is found in box 7. It includes materials by mostly unidentified writers from 1833-1901.
The Other Material is found in boxes 8 and 9 and on microfilm. The miscellaneous material in Box 8 includes mainly school and church items acquired by Mary Ella and Lillian May Booth in the course of their work. Also in Box 8 are genealogical information and photostats of pictures of family members, which were removed from the Anita McCormick Blaine Papers in the McCormick Collection. (Blanch Booth Angster, daughter of Sherman Booth, was Mrs. Blaine's secretary for about 50 years.)
Box 9 contains records of soldier's medical examinations in applying for pensions, account books, diaries of Adeline, Mary and Jane Corss, and school notebooks of Lillian May Booth.
Part of a diary kept by Adeline Corss, 1847-1873, which includes references to Booth, is available only on microfilm.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Mrs. Sherman Booth II, August and October 1958.
Contents List
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Milwaukee Mss BB
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Correspondence
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Box
1
Folder
1
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Box
1
Folder
2
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Box
1
Folder
3
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Box
1
Folder
4
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Box
1
Folder
5
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Box
1
Folder
6
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Box
2
Folder
1
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Box
2
Folder
2
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Box
2
Folder
3
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Box
2
Folder
4
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Box
2
Folder
5
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Box
2
Folder
6
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Box
2
Folder
7
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Box
3
Folder
1
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Box
3
Folder
2
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Box
3
Folder
3
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Box
3
Folder
4
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Box
3
Folder
5
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Box
3
Folder
6
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Box
4
Folder
1-6
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1870-1879
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Box
5
Folder
1-8
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1880-1890
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Box
6
Folder
1-8
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1891-1908
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Box
7
Folder
1-5
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Undated
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Box
10
Folder
1-7
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Photocopies of Booth letters, 1849-1908
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Box
1
Folder
7
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Prose and Poetry
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Box
7
Folder
6
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1833-1901
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Box
7
Folder
7-8
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undated
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Other Material
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Diaries
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Box
9
Volume
4
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Jane Corss, 1853-1858
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Box
9
Volume
7
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Jane Corss and Mary Corss, 1844
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Box
9
Volume
3
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Probably of Adeline P. Corss, 1830
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Box
9
Volume
8
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Mrs. Adeline P. Corss, 1831-1833
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Micro 145
Reel
1
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Mrs. Adeline P. Corss, 1847-1873
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Milwaukee Mss BB
Box
8
Folder
5
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Genealogical information and photostats of family portraits, undated
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Box
9
Volume
1
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Record of soldier's medical examinations in applying for pensions, indexed, 1865
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Box
8
Folder
6
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School material, 1845-1899
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Box
9
Volume
5-6
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School notebooks, Lillian May Booth, circa 1875 and circa 1874
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Box
9
Volume
2
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Account book of John Kirk, relative of the third Mrs. Sherman Booth, 1875-1877
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Accounts, receipts, and miscellaneous financial materials
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Box
8
Folder
1
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1825-1859
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Box
8
Folder
2
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1860-1877
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Box
8
Folder
3
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1880-1902
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Box
8
Folder
4
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Cards, programs, and miscellaneous materials, 1830-1900, undated
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