Browse By Collection Title | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections

In Oct. 1884, E. Crampton, working for M. P. Ayers and Co., surveyed the Vermilion Slough (probably the Little Vermilion River in Sidney, South Homer, and Ayers Townships in Champaign County). His notebook includes data on elevations and cuts in the slough, for the purpose of designing changes in it. ...

After serving in the 24th Wis. Vol. Inf. during the Civil War, Arthur MacArthur (1845-1912), father of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, was commissioned in the regular U. S. Army. MacArthur was a brigade and division commander in the Philippines, where he eventually served as military governor in 1901-2, before retiring with ...

A. J. MacDonald collected these materials for a projected book, "The Communities of the United States," which was announced in 1851 but never completed because of MacDonald's death from cholera in 1854. These research items include articles and statements of people concerned with communitarianism in the United States, histories of ...

In these two diaries, British Army officer Donald MacDonald (1791-1872) describes his trips to New Harmony, differences within that community, and efforts to resolve those differences.

William Maclure was a geologist, a patron of science and education, and the founder of the New Harmony Working Men's Institute. This collection contains correspondence between Maclure and Marie D. Fretageot in which they discuss the social experiment at New Harmony, Ind., and the development of its scientific and educational ...

This collection contains four letters written by members of the Macy-Davis family of Illinois and Indiana, all addressed to John M. Davis after he was drafted into the Union Army. Each regard a different aspect of the Civil War and its local impact on the family and their community. Materials include four hand-written letters, signed, and their original envelopes.

In this letter of Mar. 4, 1796, James Madison, then a member of Congress, wrote to Arnold Henry Dohrman, a New York merchant of Dutch origin. Madison, a representative of Dohrman's firm, reports on a protested debt between Dohrman and Philip Mazzei, an Italian architect who assisted Virginia and the ...

This manuscript map of Mahomet Township shows the outlines of most of the township's sections and some of the subdivided parts of those sections. It also shows the Sangamon River and includes dots for a number of properties. Finally, it notes the owners of many parcels. These notations, however, are ...

This collection consists of microfilm prints of articles written by Charles Maltby about his recollections of Abraham Lincoln.

This collection contains the personal papers of Fr. Martin Mangan and includes correspondence, notes, newspaper clippings, outlines of talks given by Fr. Mangan, booklets and flyers, photographs, videotapes, and awards documenting Fr. Mangan's personal life, education, ministry, and social activism in Decatur.

The collection consists mainly of incoming correspondence related to[i] Woman's World[/i], with most of the letters from advertisers and advertising firms. The collection also contains a 1925 scrapbook of re-typed letters from readers and also a 1914 personal letter to Manning concerning the American colony in Santiago, Chile.

The collection consists mainly of incoming correspondence related to[i] Woman's World[/i], with most of the letters from advertisers and advertising firms. The collection also contains a 1925 scrapbook of re-typed letters from readers and also a 1914 personal letter to Manning concerning the American colony in Santiago, Chile.

This collection contains a plat book of Mason, Tazewell, Menard, and Cass County Townships created between 1839 and 1845, a 1933 affidavit testifying to Abraham Lincoln’s involvement in the plat book’s creation, photostat copies of multiple pages from the plat book, and several letters between Helen H. (Mrs. J.D.) Sutter, Donald P. Dow, Mrs. Parsons, James T. Hickey, and R. Gerald McMurtry, dating between 1960 and 1974.

This collection consists of papers that document the history of the Margolins, a Jewish family who migrated to Danville, Illinois, in the 1930s. Materials include copies of biographies, diary entries, photos and legal documents, and correspondence.

Cutting Marsh (1800-73) recorded his experiences during an expedition to the Rock Island and Des Moines areas between June and October, 1834. This "Diary of a Trip to Visit the Sauk and Fox Indians," the original of which is in the Wisconsin Historical Society, relates Cutting's experiences within the villages. ...

The collection, which reflects Martin's interests, contains publications of such groups as the John Birch Society, Carl McIntire's 20th Century Reformation Hour, Citizens' Councils of America, the Manion Forum, and the Christian Action Movement. Primarily covering the period from 1958 to 1968, this material reflects the views of conservatives and ...

This collection includes Mason's incoming correspondence and other papers concentrated in the period 1906-12.  Many of these letters are from the Farmers' Institute secretaries in Springfield, its directors in about ten Congressional districts around the state, and the leaders of institutes in McHenry, Vermilion, and other counties.  The collection also ...

Walter A. Mason of Oakland, Ill., was active in Illinois politics and served as the Coles County Senatorial Campaign Committeeman for the 40th Senatorial District between 1898 and 1900. This collection focuses on the state senatorial campaign of 1900, mainly the reelection of Stanton C. Pemberton, and includes correspondence, newspaper ...

In this letter to Sen. Thomas Henry Carter on Apr. 24, 1911, William Mason (1850-1921), who served in Congress, not only comments on the disputed election of William Lorimer to the U.S. Senate, but also indicates his own interest in being the Republican nominee in 1912. The letter is a copy ...

This collection contains two letters written by Thomas Mather (1795-1853), an early Illinois settler and member of both branches of the Illinois legislature. The letters, written in Kaskaskia and Vandalia, Illinois, date from 1820 and 1826 and discuss business, land, and taxes in Illinois.

This collection consists of the photocopied correspondence of Canute R. Matson, sheriff in Cook County following the Chicago Haymarket Affair in 1886.

This collection contains the records and correspondence of Dr. Edwin May, a surgeon for the Union Army in the United States Civil War.

These letters and account records, of which the Library has transcripts of the originals in the McAllister Manuscripts of the Library Company of Philadelphia, relate to the business affairs of George Croghan, Barnard and Michael Gratz, L. A. Levy, and Joseph Simon.  The letters discuss bills and payments, the sale ...

This collection includes transcripts and copies of records and correspondence documenting the activities of Joseph Henry McChesney prior to and during his time as U.S. Consul at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England (1862-1869).

This collection contains a printed letter from John A. McClernand (1812-1900) of the Brigade Head Quarters in Camp Cairo, Illinois, to Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), dated November 12, 1861. An unknown author added a handwritten note at the bottom of the last page.

A large portion of the McCollum collection relates to the lawsuit which his mother, Vashti Cromwell McCollum, brought against the Champaign School Board in opposition to religious instruction in the public schools of the district. Included are legal briefs as well as papers relating to the case, including press clippings, ...

This 1862 financial report of the London and Northwestern Railroad, written by James Edward McConnell to the Locomotive Expenditure Committee, gives a detailed account of expenditures for increasing locomotive tonnage and shed cover. McConnell (1815-1883) was the Locomotive Superintendent of the London and Northwestern Railroad's Southern Division from 1847 until ...

This collection contains transcripts of letters, telegrams, and speeches documenting Cyrus H. McCormick's involvement in the Democratic Party. The collection includes references to his speech to the 1876 Democratic National Convention; support for his possible candidacy for Illinois Governor or U.S. Senator; and his donation of $10,000 to the Democratic ...

This collection contains eight deeds, a lease document, and a circuit court issued bill, dating from 1826 to 1847, mostly related to Robert H. McDow.

This collection primarily consists of documentation of Patience Jane McGinnis and James M. McGinnis's 1858 journey west from Illinois along the Oregon Trail. It also contains genealogies of the Nesmith and Waggoner families.

This collection consists of personal letters sent from Edward McGlynn to his family and friends from the years 1861 to 1865.

This eight-page transcript is of the report of the visiting committee appointed by the Illinois Annual Conference to attend the examination of the students at McKendree College, a Methodist institution. The report describes favorably the state of learning at the school, the subjects taught, and the attendance at chapel, but ...

This collection consists of the papers of William B. McKinley, a businessman, philanthropist, and politician from Illinois. Materials include personal correspondence, speeches, business records, newspaper clippings, and political pamphlets related to his career and personal life.

This collection contains a contract written and signed by Michael McLain on April 4, 1868. Michael McLain agrees to sell several plots of land in Douglas County, Illinois to the Andrews family for two thousand dollars. This document was donated to the University of Illinois Library by Frank Garland in 1940. ...

This collection contains two volumes of records of the McLean County Cooperation Society, also known as the Christian Missionary Society of McLean County, the Missionary Cooperation, the McLean County Missionary Cooperation Society, and the Missionary Society of McLean County.  The first volume contains the constitution of the organization and meeting ...

This volume served as both a record book for School District No. 4 and as "David Bierbower's Day Book."  Bierbower of Saybrook, Ill., was clerk of the Board of Directors of Martin Township School.  The volume includes records of the elections of directors of the school district, plans for levying ...

This school plat book contains maps of the McLean county school districts by township from 1859 to1871. It includes 152 pages of entries and an index by township. All but one of the thirty-nine townships have at least two entries. These entries occasionally indicate district changes.

This collection contains meeting minutes for the McLean, Ill., Board of Trustees, 1890-1906, ordinances pertaining to the construction of cement sidewalks, two treasurer's reports, and an oath recited by Lafayette Archer upon becoming a trustee.

This collection contains correspondence and personal records of the McNitt family of Montgomery County, Illinois. The correspondence, which makes up the bulk of the collection, is largely directed to Sophronia, Hellen, and Priscilla ("Jennie") McNitt, the three daughters of the family.

This collection contains a legal notice requesting any justice of the peace of the State of Illinois to question an individual named McCrilli concerning a case pending in Brandenburg, Kentucky, dated January 18, 1843. The request was placed by William Fairleigh of the Meade County and Circuit Courts.

This collection consists of records and personal papers from the Meharry family. The Meharry family owned several farms in Champaign County, Illinois and Tippecanoe County, Indiana during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection includes correspondence, business records, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other materials.

This collection consists of Pierre Menard's personal and business records, letter book, and microfilm containing personal and business correspondence of Menard, his family, and others.

The collection of Robert Merideth's publications includes [i]Transformations: A Dictionary of Contemporary Changes[/i] (1979) as well as a number of his articles, essays, and poems. Merideth (1935-) received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and served as head of American Studies at Miami University (Ohio) and the University of California ...

Benjamin Green, one of the first settlers of Morgan County, Illinois, asked his youngest daughter, Elizabeth Green Merras, to write this letter of Dec. 9, 1861, to relatives in England. The letter primarily concerns the inclusion of a woodcut of the Green home on a projected Scott County map, but ...

This collection contains a letter from Elizabeth Ambrose Merrill to Anna Burnham of Fort Towson, Oklahoma. Written from October 23 to November 8, 1837, Merrill described the events leading up to the murder of Elijah Lovejoy by an anti-abolition mob in Alton, Illinois.

The Sybil Mervis Collection on Central Illinois Jewish Communities contains materials accumulated by Sybil Mervis, a longtime Jewish resident of Danville, Illinois. This collection is comprised of Mervis's writings, research materials, and donation documents. These materials encompass the Jewish communities of Danville and Bloomington, as well as others across central Illinois and Indiana. The collection also includes Sybil Mervis’s research on Jewish life and culture more broadly.

This collection includes both an album of the photographs used in Frederick Hill Meserve and Carl Sandburg's [i]The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln [/i](1944) and a selection of prints of Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and others given by Meserve to Harry E. Pratt.

John Messinger migrated to Illinois in 1802 where he worked as a surveyor, cartographer, and educator, and also became involved in politics. This collection mainly contains transcripts of Messinger's correspondence, made from originals in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, but it also includes a surveying notebook, land deeds, agreements for ...

This collection includes photocopies of the society's 1852 constitution, a list of early burials with a map, statements of receipts and disbursements, and minutes of the association's trustees meetings, from the 1880s to the mid-twentieth century. The collection also contains correspondence between Lee Sutton, an association member, and August Cooper, ...

This "Report of Peoria Indians" by Truman Michelson (8 pages, 1916) was based upon three weeks of field work authorized by the Illinois Centennial Commission. The paper discusses the inroads of other cultures on the Peoria Indians' linguistics, folklore, mythology, social organization, dances, population, and historical relations. The collection also ...

This distillery and general accounts volume was kept by Daniel Millar of Franklin County, Pa. Millar used the book for records of a number of businesses, including his distillery and general store, as well as his real estate and farming interests. The volume also includes home remedies for common ailments, ...

This collection contains a letter from Louisa Miller to her sister-in-law Susan G. Wort. The letter was written in September of 1863 and describes Louisa Miller’s opinions on the abolitionist movement and Ohio senator Clement Vallandigham, as well as conveying information about Miller’s neighbors and crops.

Horace Miller moved from Mount Morris, N.Y., to Kishwaukee, Winnebago County, Ill., in 1839. This collection contains 14 letters to Horace from his brother, Ezra, from Brooklyn, N.Y., and two notebooks used by Horace's daughter, Nancy (1823-1909), to record poetry and family biographical sketches. The collection also contains a lengthy ...

The collection contains a large amount of correspondence to and from Abel and Elizabeth Mills concerning the meetings of the Religious Society of Friends. Also included are business papers, bills and receipts, cancelled checks, account books, land records of Mills and his customers, insurance policies, guardianship papers, birth and death ...

This collection preserves the church's financial journals, records of auxiliary organizations, and related documents. Of special note are the nearly complete records of the church's Sunday Schools. Included in this group is the record book, 1876-77, of the village's independent Sunday School, which predated the Milmine Christian Church. The collection ...

Milmine, Dillow, and Hawver were rural school districts in southwestern Piatt County, Illinois. They comprised respectively Piatt County School Districts 77, 72, and 74, until they were consolidated into the Bement School District in 1948. This collection contains records of the three school districts' one or two room primary schools, ...

The collection includes Milner's Civil War letters and diary as well as miscellaneous and family correspondence, writings, speeches, topical files, photographs, artifacts, and ephemera. The topical files include materials on temperance, schooling and education, and various churches as well as numerous other subjects. Among the many items of interest are ...

This order book of the Second Brigade, Missouri Volunteers, for the period from Aug. 1861 to Mar. 1862, contains orders for recruitment, drill maneuvers and movements, and the formation of the Brigade and its regiments, which included the 25th, 36th, and 44th Ill. Vol. Inf., 3rd, 12th, and 17th Mo. ...

This collection includes four items relating to Arthur Wergs Mitchell (1882-1968), who served as the Illinois Representative for the First Congressional District from 1935 until 1943. The materials in this collection include a mounted photograph of Wergs, two Congressional Records, and a slip-bill (a bill published as an unbound pamphlet) printing of Bill H. R. 2251.

On Jan. 2, 1840, William Mitchell of Peoria, Ill., wrote this letter to William Jessop & Sons in New York, drawing $170. on his account in favor of Isaac Underhill. In 1946, the Library acquired the item by auction from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

In 1927, the Montevideo Building Corporation built one of Champaign-Urbana's earliest cooperative apartment buildings at the northeast corner of Nevada Street and Coler Avenue in Urbana (now 706 S. Coler Ave.). The Montevideo's architect was George E. Ramey. The original owners were W. S. Bagley, C. E. Gates, Paul Landis, ...

This collection contains reports from several railroads operating in and through Montgomery County, Illinois, as well as four other documents related to the operation of railroads in the county during the late 19th century. Railroads include Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railway Company; Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway Company; Indianapolis & ...

This collection includes a typescript copy of a speech given by Tom Mooney in Centralia, Illinois, on September 23, 1939. Mooney gave this speech at a reception thrown in his honor eight months after his release from prison.

Part I of the collection contains personal papers of and biographical material about Harlan E. Moore. Part II contains correspondence and material relating to the administration and finances of the Harlan E. Moore and Co. Part III contains correspondence and material relating to the administration, finances, legal cases, and philanthropy ...

This collection contains a photostat of James Moore's commission as Captain of Militia at Bellefontaine, near Waterloo, Ill., issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia, dated June 10, 1782, continued in 1787, and endorsed by Lieut. Francois Saucier. Accompanying this document are letters of Mary E. Clark, Frank L. Davis, and ...

This collection contains genealogical lists and handwritten notes concerning the ancestry of the Moore family and families related by marriage, including the Wilderman, Hunt, and Patterson families. 

This collection contains a fifteen-page poll book from the election of Aug. 2, 1824, in Morgan County, Ill. The voters are listed by precinct, and there are sworn statements concerning the number of votes each candidate received.

George Morgan was a junior member of the Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan company who came to Illinois in 1766 to direct the firm's venture in western trade. This collection documents Morgan's personal and business activities, as well as the lives of his descendents. A significant portion of the correspondence in ...

The collection contains letters, pamphlets, posters, reports, minutes of various organizations, speeches, reports of trials, and clippings on all phases of the Morgans' activities and interests, as well as materials on [i]The Provoker[/i]. The collection concerns labor organizations and socialism as well as political, social, philosophical and legal subjects. Specifically ...

Emma Morris of DuQuoin, Ill., wrote these letters to her husband in 1900. In the first three, she reports on family matters; in the fourth, written during a visit to Mt. Vernon, Ill., she asks for news from home.

Johnson Morris held an account with A. J. Laurence, a dealer in "Staple and Fancy Dry Goods, Carpets, Boots, Shoes, etc." in Paxton, Ill. This statement lists purchases made by Morris from Jan. to June 1892. Mrs. Theodore Gladhill of Champaign, Ill., donated the statement to the Library in 1972.

This collection contains two letters written by Ella H. Morrison, wife of Congressman William Ralls Morrison. Ella Morrison writes to a family member in Waterloo, Illinois from Willard's Hotel in Washington, D. C. In her letters dated January 3 and March 10, 1891, she discusses local activities, music, reading about ...

This collection contains a record book from the Morton Smith Company located in Rock Island County, Illinois. The company sold and repaired farm equipment. The business record book contains lists of customers' account balances from 1834 to 1835. The records kept each patron's name, date, payment due, and serviced provided. Examples ...

Richard Morton's study of "The Benevolent Boss: Roger C. Sullivan and the Rise of the Chicago Democratic Organization, 1861-1920," sets forth in detail the remarkable political career of Roger C. Sullivan. Sullivan was the principal founder and the first boss of the Chicago Democratic organization, or "machine," which he and ...

This collection contains two letters, dated 1842 and 1845, written by John Moses, a clerk and later an itinerant bookseller in Illinois, to his friend George Battles. The letters touched on politics, the friendship between the two men, and various aspects of the book business.

This collection consists of material collected by Bertha Bradley Moss about the Progressive Miners of America, Illinois coal mining, and miners. Materials include newspapers and clippings, biographical materials on Alexander “General” Bradley and Mary G. Harris “Mother” Jones, ephemera, and correspondence.

This collection contains five photographs of the faculty and grounds of the Mount Carroll Seminary in Mount Carroll, Illinois.

The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church was established in Franklin County, Ill., near Brownings' Hill (sometimes called Springs Settlement). This small volume, of which the Library has a 70-page transcript, contains records for the church from 1829 to 1865. The first entries in the volume were apparently copied from other records ...

This collection includes the original copy of the legislative act of Feb. 16, 1865, incorporating the "Mount Zion (Illinois) Male and Female Seminary" on Feb. 16, 1865.  It names Alexander W. Bell, Samuel K. Smith, Robert T. Marlow, John Scott, and John C. Smith as trustees, and specifies that the ...

Louise Mowder of White Hall, Ill., used this "Album of Love" from 1857 to 1903 to record poems and personal sentiments written by her friends and family.  Among those who contributed to the album were Peter Cartwright, a Methodist preacher, and Louisa's granddaughter, Ameda Ruth King, a member of the ...

The collection contains photocopies of Mozley's letters to his wife Jane and their five children.  The correspondence mainly focuses on family affairs, but Mozley also describes a battlefield after the Seven Days' Battle and shares a "Yankee" prisoner's views on the length of the war.  Mozley's death from pleurisy at ...

This collection includes correspondence, records, and miscellaneous printed works collected by Thomas Munroe. Thomas Munroe studied medicine at the University of Maryland and practiced in Jacksonville and Rushville, Illinois for several years.

The Richard Murphy Papers consist of notes, papers, and pamphlets collected by Professor Richard Murphy while at the Illinois Constitutional Convention from 1969 to 1970. Murphy held the position of Parliamentarian at the Constitutional Convention.