Scope and Contents:
This collection contains one album dating from 1833-1837 that likely belonged to Emily Caroline Bates, daughter of Fredrick Bates, who was the second Governor of Missouri.
Emily Caroline Bates was born in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1820 to Fredrick Bates and Nancy Opie Ball Bates. Emily Bates married her first cousin, Robert Alfred Walton, in 1838 and together they had one son, Fredrick Walton. She died in St. Charles Missouri in 1891.
The album is a bound volume titled "Ladies Album, 1831" that contains mostly blank pages with a few printed illustrations scattered throughout. In the album, the friends and family of Emily Bates wrote small notes to her, some of which are signed and dated. These notes include poems, acrostics, short letters, and quotations. The front and back covers are signed "Emily C. Bates, St. Charles Missouri, 1836."
This collection was donated to the Library in 1963 as part of the Harry E. Pratt Papers (MS 202).