Scope and Contents:
Almeron Wheat was a prominent Quincy attorney and an associate of Orville Hickman Browning. The letters in this collection are addressed either directly to Wheat or to law firms in Quincy, Illinois, of which Wheat was a member. The letters pertain to legal issues in Quincy, Nauvoo, Warsaw, Carthage, Charleston, Jacksonville, and Springfield, Illinois, and in Eastern cities including Philadelphia. Among the issues discussed in the letters are land surveys, auctions on redeemed lands, case decisions and their execution, mortgages, the settling of claims and law suits (especially for collection of debts), a divorce case involving the custody of children, an appointment for public administrator, conveyance of messages by telegraph, and local politics.