Guide to the Mabel Paul Munroe Mills papers, 1915-1994

(bulk 1928-1949)


The Preservation Society of Newport County
424 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
Tel: 401-847-1000
museumaffairs@newportmansions.org

Published in 2023

Collection Overview

Title: Mabel Paul Munroe Mills papers
Date range: 1915-1994, (bulk 1928-1949)
Creator: Mabel Paul Munroe Mills
Abstract: Correspondence, photographs, and ephemera from the life of Mabel Paul Munroe Mills, with documents related to her social life, interests, and family.
Language of materials: English
Repository: The Preservation Society of Newport County
Collection number: PSNCA.H.026

Scope & content

Included in this collection are correspondence, photographs, and collected papers of Mabel Paul Mills, mostly from the period after she began living at Rockry Hall. The collection does not document her early life or first marriage. Also included in the collection is one folder of correspondence and membership cards related to Paul and Edith Munroe. The postcards in the collection include blank postcards most likely collected by the Mills or Munroe families, and some postcards addressed to other individuals; it is unclear whether these other individuals have any connections to the family or if the postcards were collected as curios. Some of the postcards may relate to the Earle family that owned Rockry Hall from 1914 to 1923.

Several items clearly unrelated to this collection were found in its boxes. Clearly misfiled items have been separated, but it is possible that other items which are not obviously related to the Mills and Munroe families ought not to be part of this collection.

Access Points

Subject Names Subject Organizations Document Types Subject Topics

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in one series, with files organized alphabetically by subject. The earliest processing of the collection filed correspondence both chronologically and alphabetically by correspondent, generally depending on the significance or volume of a correspondent’s letters, a system which the 2023 processing has maintained. There may be some overlap in correspondents between the two groups.

Biographical Note

Mabel Gray Paul Munroe Mills (1875-1961) lived at Rockry Hall, 425 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, from the 1930s until her death. She first married George Sweetzer Munroe, with whom she had two children, Paul (1901-1971) and Faustina (1907-1964). Faustina married John Frederick Degener III in 1930. In 1933, George S. Munroe died, and sometime between 1933 and 1935 she purchased Rockry Hall. It was during this period she married William McMaster Mills (1860-1949).

Mabel Mills was a member of several social and yacht clubs, and her correspondence reflects a busy social life. She supported the Newport Art Association, and her papers show interest in psychology, charitable and religious causes, and the war effort during World War II.

Seth Bradford designed Rockry Hall for Albert Sumner of Boston. Sumner married Catherine Barclay in 1840, and he purchased the land for the house in 1847 from Thomas Aston Coffin. The house was completed in 1847-1848. Sumner died with his wife and child in the sinking of a French steamer in November 1856. The house now sits on two adjoining lots of land. Sumner’s family, including noted abolitionist Charles Sumner and their mother Relief Sumner, sold the property to Newport real estate developer Abraham Peckham for $25,000 in 1864, according to the land records of the city of Newport. Several other residents inhabited the house over the next few decades, including Mrs. E. H. G Slater, Thomas Janney, and, for the summer of 1900, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.

In 1914, Henry Earle acquired the house from a trust of Ethel H. and Paul A. Andrews. Nine years later, he sold it to James W. Dwyer, who soon after sold it to Arthur L. Linn Jr. and Florence M. Linn. They conveyed the property to the Industrial Trust Company in the early 1930s, after which time Mabel Paul Mills purchased it. In 1962, after her death, her son Paul Munroe and his wife Edith Brestow Munroe (1905-1994) acquired the property. Rockry Hall remains a private residence.

Mabel Paul Mills’s grave is in the St. Mary’s Episcopal churchyard in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Access & Use

Access to the collection: The collection is open to the public, and there are no restrictions on access. However, the collection can only be seen by scheduled appointment.
Use of the materials: All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the PSNC Archives and Special Collections are requested to contact the archivist, prior to reproducting, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although the Preservation Society has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim copyright ownership. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the copyright and to obtain any necessary permission from them.
Preferred citation: "Courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County."
Contact information: The Preservation Society of Newport County
424 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
Tel: 401-847-1000
museumaffairs@newportmansions.org

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION  
Acquisition: The Preservation Society of Newport County purchased the papers from the estate of Edith Brestow Munroe, 2 October 1994.
Accruals: Additional accruals are not expected.
Processing information: After acquiring the papers in 1994, the Preservation Society of Newport County organized them loosely by subject. During this round of processing, some items were given identifying numbers, which were written on the objects in pencil. Archivist Genna Duplisea imposed further order, corrected some folder titles, separated some materials, and wrote the finding aid in January-February 2023. She did not remove any of the identifiers written on particular items, and did not add any new identifiers.The archivist organized the calling cards from the wooden box in the collection into alphabetical order, and removed other types of materials such as invitations and place-cards to arrange them with similar materials.Some of the correspondence had been transcribed and typed at some point prior to 2023, and these transcriptions are in the same folders as their sources.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID  
Encoding: Finding aid encoded by Genna Duplisea, Archivist, 10 February 2023.
Descriptive rules: Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Separated material: Newspaper clippings dating from decades after Mrs. Mills’ death, as well as clippings lacking any reference to or annotations by her, were removed from the collection, as were duplicate materials, unmarked blank stationery, and generic advertising materials.Several items unrelated to Mrs. Mills or this purchase were found in the collection and separated. One item, a 1941 radio station map, may or may not have been related to the collection but was separated to be cataloged as a separate item.
Bibliography:
  • Jordy, William H., et al. "Albert Sumner House (Rockry Hall)", [Newport, Rhode Island]. SAH Archipedia. Eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley. Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NE153. Accessed January 26, 2023.
  • Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Newport, Newport County, Rhode Island, 1896. New York: Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1896. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08092_004/. Accessed January 26, 2023.
  • Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Newport, Newport County, Rhode Island, 1950. New York: Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1950. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08092_006/. Accessed January 26, 2023.
  • Stanhope, Clarence, In and around Newport 1892 (Newport, RI: Daily News Job Print, 1892). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/inaroundnewport100stanh/page/28/mode/2up. Accessed January 26, 2023.
  • Newport County, Rhode Island Deed Books. U.S. Land records. https://i2l.uslandrecords.com/RI/Newport/D/Default.aspx. Accessed February 7, 2023.

    • Inventory

    Box 1, Folder 1.1 Battle Creek Sanitarium
    		 1936-1939
    Box 5, Folder 5 Calling Card box
    		 1915-1917, 1935-1954, undated
    Box 4, Folder 4.1 Calling Cards
    		 undated
    Box 1, Folder 1.2 Correspondence (1/6)
    		 1932-1935
    Box 1, Folder 1.3 Correspondence (2/6)
    		 1936-1937
    Box 1, Folder 1.4 Correspondence (3/6)
    		 1938-1939
    Box 1, Folder 1.5 Correspondence (4/6)
    		 1940-1941
    Box 1, Folder 1.6 Correspondence (5/6)
    		 1942-1943
    Box 1, Folder 1.7 Correspondence (6/6)
    		 1944-1947
    Box 1, Folder 1.8 Correspondence (7/8)
    		 undated
    Box 1, Folder 1.9 Correspondence (8/8)
    		 undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.1 Correspondence -- Cullen, Marie R.
    		 1944-1946
    Box 2, Folder 2.2 Correspondence -- Degener, Faustina Munroe ("Baby")
    		 1934-1935
    Box 2, Folder 2.3 Correspondence -- Mills, William McMaster ("Billie")
    		 undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.4 Correspondence -- Munroe, Paul ("Sonny")
    		 1937-1946, no year
    Box 2, Folder 2.5 Correspondence -- Newport Art Museum and Maud Howe Elliott
    		 1936-1939
    Box 2, Folder 4.3 Correspondence -- Postcards (1/2)
    		 1915-1917, 1935-1954, undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.6 Correspondence -- Postcards (2/2)
    		 undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.7 Correspondence -- Stationery
    		 1947-1994
    Box 2, Folder 2.8 Correspondence -- Western Union telegrams
    		 1935-1938
    Box 2, Folder 2.9 Correspondence -- Wetmore, Edith
    		 1936-1946
    Box 2, Folder 2.10 Correspondence -- Wetmore, Maude
    		 1935-1948
    Box 2, Folder 2.11 Correspondence -- Whitehouse, Hoppin
    		 1943, undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.12 Ephemera -- Newport and Rhode Island
    		 1942-1945
    Box 2, Folder 2.13 Ephemera -- Palm Beach et al
    		 undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.14 Financial documents
    		 ca. 1940-1949
    Box 2, Folder 2.15 General American Credits report on Edith L. Breslow
    		 1935
    Box 2, Folder 2.16 Hotel Pierre bills
    		 1944-1946
    Box 2, Folder 2.17 Invitations: Social, events
    		 Bef. 1949
    Box 2, Folder 2.18 Invitations: Wedding
    		 1928-1944, undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.19 Lists: Guests (1/3)
    		 1937-1946, no year
    Box 2, Folder 2.20 Lists: Guests (2/3)
    		 undated
    Box 2, Folder 2.21 Lists: Guests (3/3)
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.1 Menus
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.2 Munroe, Edith and Paul
    		 1947-1994
    Box 3, Folder 3.3 Newport Trust Company
    		 1944-1947
    Box 3, Folder 3.4 Newspaper articles: Social
    		 1932-1939
    Box 3, Folder 3.5 Newspaper articles: World War II
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.6 Notes and collected papers
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.7 Oldport Days
    		 ca. 1936-1938
    Box 3, Folder 3.8 Philanthropy and religious organizations
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.9 Photographic negatives -- exterior views of unidentified buildings
    		 1940
    Box 3, Folder 3.10 Photographic negatives -- exterior views, people, automobiles
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.11 Photographic negatives -- people outside with dog
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.12 Photographic negatives -- Rockry Hall grounds, bef. 1949
    		 Before 1949
    Box 3, Folder 3.13 Photographic negatives -- Rockry Hall grounds, portraits possibly of Mrs. Mills
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.14 Photographic negatives -- Rockry Hall grounds; Oldport Days
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.15 Photographic negatives and prints -- Palm Beach
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.16 Photographic negatives and prints -- Rockry Hall grounds, people outside; automobiles
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.17 Photographic prints -- portraits and landscapes
    		 undated
    Box 4, Folder 4.2 Placecards
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.18 Recipes
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.19 Social clubs and memberships
    		 undated
    Box 3, Folder 3.20 Travel
    		 undated