William B. Sprague and Joseph H. Hedges collection, 1840-1909

Summary

Creator:

Sprague, William B. (William Buell), 1795-1876 and Hedges, Joseph H., ca. 1828-1905

Abstract:

The William B. Sprague and Joseph H. Hedges collection is made up of 134 letters, notes, and fragments largely dating between 1842 and 1899. The correspondence, largely outgoing letters from W. B. Sprague and J. H. Hedges, concerns the autograph and other collecting activities of William B. Sprague of Albany, New York; Eliza H. A. Allen of Providence, Rhode Island; Eliza's cousin Elizabeth Rotch Arnold of New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Joseph H. Hedges of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Extent:

0.25 lin. ft.

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Garrett Morton, October 2017

Background

Scope and Content:

The William B. Sprague and Joseph H. Hedges collection is made up of 133 letters, notes, and fragments largely dating between 1842 and 1899. The correspondence, largely outgoing letters from W. B. Sprague and J. H. Hedges, concerns the autograph and other collecting activities of William B. Sprague of Albany, New York; Eliza H. A. Allen of Providence, Rhode Island; Eliza's cousin Elizabeth Rotch Arnold of New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Joseph H. Hedges of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The papers are arranged in three groups: letters by William B. Sprague; correspondence of Joseph H. Hedges; and other correspondence, notes, and fragments. William B. Sprague's primary recipients were Eliza H. A. Allen (80 letters) and her cousin Elizabeth Rotch Arnold (19 letters), with an additional seven letters to other recipients. Joseph Hedges's correspondence includes 19 incoming and outgoing letters. An additional eight miscellaneous letters, notes, and fragments complete the collection.

William Sprague's letters largely related to the contents of his, Allen's, and Arnold's collections, recent acquisitions, desiderata, and trades/gifts of autographs between Sprague and Allen and between Sprague and Arnold. They also touch on other collecting activities. On multiple occasions Eliza Allen and Elizabeth Arnold sent Sprague contributions to his wife Henrietta's collection of shells (see for example W. B. Sprague to Elizabeth R. Arnold, November 2, 1842, and January 21, 1843), which Sprague often reciprocated with gifts of autographs. He also discussed with them his use of the franking privilege of various friends in Congress.

William B. Sprague's 80 letters to Eliza H. A. Allen date from 1840 to 1875 (bulk 1840-1850). They are mostly in his own hand (with the exception of four letters in the hand of an amanuensis), and signed variously "WB Sprague" and "WBS." He sent them largely from Albany, New York; other locations include Boston, Massachusetts; Flushing, New York; and Andover, Connecticut. Toward the end of their correspondence, multiple years passed between letters.

Correspondence with Elizabeth R. Arnold in this collection is comprised of 19 incoming letters from Sprague. They are entirely in his own hand and signed variously "WB Sprague" and "WBS". He sent them from Albany, New York, 1842-1849.

The Sprague miscellaneous correspondence contains eight letters dating from 1828-1862:

• One letter from Sprague to Robert Gilmore, of Baltimore, Maryland, another pioneer of American autograph collecting, regarding an exchange of autograph specimens.
• One letter from Sprague to Joseph B. Boyd of Cincinnati, Ohio, regarding books, autographs, and material relating to William Whipple.
• One letter to Sprague from C. F. Mercer, likely Charles Fenton Mercer, son of Revolutionary politician James Mercer, regarding Mercer's potential gift of autographs to Sprague.
• One letter to Sprague from Isaac Taylor, of Stamford, Essex, another autograph collector, regarding their collections.
• One letter from Sprague to Mrs. David Coffin of New Bedford about her shipment of shells which he is adding to his collection and his efforts to preapre autographs to send in return.
• Three letters from Sprague to unknown recipients, likely other collectors, regarding various exchanges and gifts of autographs.

The incoming and outgoing letters of Joseph Hedges date from 1843 to 1899 and pertain to a variety of subjects. Many of his correspondents were autograph dealers and other autograph collectors, and wrote about the purchase and trade of autographs. Hedges signed his letters variously "JH Hedges" and "JHH."

The collection includes eight additional letters, notes, and fragments. It includes five letters sent by Bangs, Merwin and Co.; John J. Morris; Adrian H. Joline; Charles H. Morse; and Lyman C. Draper. It also includes a list of autograph materials, an autographed note mounted on cardstock, and a cardstock folder fragment bearing fragments of notes.

Biographical / Historical:

William B. Sprague (William Buell Sprague) was born in Andover, Connecticut, on October 16, 1795, to parents Benjamin Sprague and Sibyl Buell. After graduating with honors in 1815 from Yale College, he spent a year in Virginia acting as tutor to the children of Major Lawrence Lewis (a nephew of George Washington) and his wife Eleanor Park Custis (a grand-daughter of Martha Washington). He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1819, after which he was ordained as pastor of the Congregational church in West Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1829, he pursued a ministry at the Second Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York, where he remained until his retirement in 1869. He lived with his son in Flushing, New York, from his retirement until his death in 1876.

Sprague married three times: in 1820 to Charlotte Eaton, in 1824 to Mary Lathrop, and in 1840 to Henrietta Burnett (or Burritt) Lathrop. Charlotte Eaton died in 1821, less than a year after their marriage. Mary Lathrop died after thirteen years of marriage. Of Sprague's ten children, eight survived beyond childhood: the only child from his first marriage, three children from his second marriage, and four from his third marriage.

Sprague was a prominent 19th-century American autograph collector. He is recognized as a pioneer in the field, beside others such as Israel K. Tefft and Robert Gilmore, and is believed to have been the first person to collect as a set the autographs of all fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence. He appears to have begun his collecting in 1815, when he acquired as the seed of his collection approximately 1,500 letters of George Washington, given to him by Judge Bushrod Washington (Washington's nephew, who inherited his uncle's papers). Sprague devoted enormous time and energy to his autograph collection, enlarging it by contacting descendants and family members of prominent American and European figures to obtain their autographed, signed papers. He maintained correspondence with other collectors, with whom he traded, made gift of, and received autograph specimens. Over the course of his life, he amassed an enormous collection, numbering up to 40,000 manuscripts, which was divided among multiple recipients upon his death.

W. B. Sprague was a prolific writer, speaker, and scholar of American ecumenical history; his most influential work being the nine-volume The Annals of the American Pulpit... (1857-1869).

Joseph H. Hedges (Joseph Harrison Hedges), of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was born in 1828 and died in 1905. He worked as a bookkeeper and became an autograph collector. Hedges married Caroline M. Gray in 1848 and by 1860 had at least three children, Caroline, Ida, and Mary.

Acquisition Information:

2015, 2024. M-2828.4, M-5093, M-8138.4 .

Arrangement:

The William B. Sprague and Joseph H. Hedges collection is arranged into three groups, as they arrived at the William L. Clements Library.

• Letters by William B. Sprague, arranged by recipient
• Correspondence of Joseph H. Hedges, arranged chronologically
• Other correspondence, notes, and fragments

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Related Materials

Additional letters of William B. Sprague may be found in the Clements Library's Duane Norman Diedrich Collection, Richard Cary Morse Papers, Book Collectors Collection, and African American and African Diaspora Collection.

Bibliography

Coalter, Milton J. "Sprague, William Buell," in American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press, February 2000.

Draper, Lyman Copeland. An Essay on the Autographic Collections of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution: from vol. xth, Wisconsin Historical Society Collections. New York: Burns & Sons, 1889.

Maas, Richard. "William Buell Sprague, Super Collector," in Manuscripts XXVII, no. 4 (Fall 1975): 247-255.

Subjects

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Subjects:

Autographs--Collectors and collecting.
Collectors and collecting--United States--History--19th century.
Franking privilege--United States.
Shells--Collectors and collecting.
Women collectors--United States.

Formats:

Letters (correspondence)

Names:

Bangs, Merwin & Co.
Allen, Eliza Harriet Arnold, 1796-1873.
Arnold, Elizabeth Rotch.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, 1815-1891.
Green, Jesse Cope, 1817-1920.
Hughes, Joseph H.
Joline, Adrian H. (Adrian Hoffman), 1850-1912.
Mercer, C. F.
Morris, John J.
Morse, Charles H.
Taylor, Isaac.

Places:

Albany (N.Y.)