Rush Hawkins collection (Ms.2006.05)

The Rush Hawkins Papers (1750-1951 (bulk: 1830-1917)) is a wide-ranging collection that includes correspondence, financial documents, scrapbooks, photographs, artwork, and artifacts. The material represents Hawkins' experience as a Civil War general, as an art collector and philanthropist, and as the husband of Annmary Brown, the oldest living daughter of Nicholas Brown III. Also contained is a large collection of late 18th century correspondence related to the Brown Family, and a large collection of documents and correspondence related to the Civil War, including many Jefferson Davis communications to the Senate of the Confederate States. The papers are arranged in eleven series:

Series 1. Personal Correspondence (1848-1920): (letters, telegrams, greeting cards, invitations). This series includes twenty-two scrapbooks of Rush Hawkins's correspondence, fully indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 1-3, as well as miscellaneous business correspondence and correspondence related to RCH's contributions to war relief (Box 2, folders 19-20). Also included are many loose greeting cards and invitations. "Autograph letters" (Box 12, scrapbook 1) contains material from notable correspondents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Horace Greeley, James McNeil Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Auguste Rodin, Henry W. Longfellow, and Edith Wharton.

Series 2. Biographical material (1833-1920), is divided into seven subseries for Rush C. Hawkins, Annmary Brown Hawkins, Carrie Brown Bajnotti, Paul Bajnotti, Nicholas Brown III, Brown family, and Lorenzo Dow Hawkins, Rush's father. This series includes Rush Hawkins scrapbooks and juvenilia; Annmary Brown Hawkins juvenilia, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and memorial material; Carrie Brown Bajnotti juvenilia and memorial material. Also included is a genealogy chart of the Brown family from 1636 to 1919 (B C46; Box 11, folder 33). This series is partially indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 4 and 5.

Series 3. Travel (1856-1914): This series contains minute documentation of Hawkins's many trips to Europe in order to buy artwork, treat Annmary's respiratory condition, and visit her sister Carrie in Europe. The series contains hotel and business receipts, ship passenger lists, and theater programs, primarily for the years 1870 through 1917.

Series 4. Financial papers (1838-1921) is divided into two subseries: Stocks, Deeds, etc.; and Receipts, etc. The subseries Stocks, Deeds, etc. contains mostly railroad bonds and vouchers, with a miscellaneous collection of deeds and other legal documents; the Receipts, etc. subseries contains household and medical receipts, cancelled checks, bank and real estate accounts.

Series 5. Photographs (1828-1928): Subjects in this series include Rush C. Hawkins, Annmary Brown Hawkins, Carrie Brown Bajnotti, family and friends, unidentified subjects, and the Browns's Choppequonsett home. Many images are mounted, pasted into scrapbooks, or framed and glazed; they include daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, engravings, photographs, cabinet cards, and cartes de visite. This series is partially indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 4 and 5.

Series 6. Subject files (1858-1951): This series includes material collected or written by Rush Hawkins and represents topics he was particularly interested in, such as anti-vivisection; art; the Paris Exposition Universelle; politics and history; printing and book arts (his research on printers of incunabula is in Box 17, folders 2-4, 6); Roman Catholicism (his writings and research on Catholicism are in Box 14, folders 16-19); societies, committees, and memorials; and miscellaneous.

Series 7. Printed material (1831-1913): This series contains a miscellaneous collection of books, broadsides, clippings, ephemera, catalogs, newspapers and journals, and prints on mostly political and historical topics. Included are The Long Roll, a memoir by Charles F. Johnson, one of Hawkins' Zouaves (Box 1, folder 3); and Account of the Assassination of Loyal Citizens of North Carolina, by Rush Hawkins (Box 1, folder 5). The series is partially indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 4 and 5.

Series 8. Personal and Civil War (1860-1917): This series contains a large collection of correspondence and documents relating to the Civil War, including Rush Hawkins' personal war correspondence as well as records of Hawkins's Zouaves (9th Regiment, New York Infantry, later 1st regiment, New York National Guard (Box 11)). Also included is the manuscript copy of Hawkins's A Mission to President Lincoln, his account of an 1861 meeting with the president (Box 16, folder 192). Material in this series represents not only Hawkins' own experience, but also contains letters and documents collected by Hawkins. These include Union documents and correspondence (including Abraham Lincoln, cabinet members and Union generals), as well as a large collection of Confederate correspondence and documents, with a subseries of Jefferson Davis material (Box 16). This series is fully indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 4 and 5.

Series 9. Historical correspondence and documents (1775-1864): Most of the material in this series dates from the 18th century, some of which Hawkins collected and some that was likely held by the Brown family. Notable names are: Benjamin Bowen Carter (whose sister Ann married Nicholas Brown, Junior, grandfather of Annmary Brown), Jonathan Maxcy, Moses Brown, Charles Marsh (1765-1849, US representative from Vermont). Also present are letters from Thomas Jefferson (Box 16, folder 162), Edgar Allan Poe (Box 16, folder 179), Napoleon I (Box 16, folder 165), Nathaniel Greene (Box 16, folder 155). This series is fully indexed in the card file in Box 50, shoeboxes 4 and 5.

Series 10. Realia (1750-1914) is divided into four subseries: Dinnerware (including the wedding china of RCH's mother Louisa H. Hutchinson Hawkins, 1830s (AMB 60); 1790's tea service originally given by Ann Carter Brown to her cousin Mary B. Stelle and inherited by Annmary Brown Hawkins (AMB 55); 1810 Royal Canton soup tureen (Objects 34-35)); Household items (including candle snuffers possibly belonging to Moses Brown (AMB 93 69)); Personal items (including a ladies' fan once belonging to Margery Carter Hutchinson, great-grandmother of Rush Hawkins, 1750 (AMB 80 69); ladies' and men's purses; ladies' shawls, dresses, shoes, fans, and parasols; playing cards, badges, medals, quilts); Relics (primarily locks of hair, as well as a piece of wood from the Charter Oak, which once stood in Hartford, Connecticut; and Clothing (including multiple Zouves military uniforms, shoes, dresses belts, and coats).

Series 11. Index series contains the complete index to RCH correspondence scrapbooks index (Box 50, shoeboxes 1-3). It also contains a complete index to Ser. 8, Personal and Civil War (Hawkins) and Ser. 9, Historical correspondence; a partial index to Ser. 2, Biographical material; Ser. 5, Photographs; Ser. 7, Printed material; and Ser. 10, Realia (Box 50, shoeboxes 4-5).