Papers, 1773-1979.

The letters of Rev. George B. Cheever and Rev. Henry T. Cheever deal with their pastoral activity, problems with their parishes due to their involvement with controversial reform movements, and contacts with abolitionist leaders such as Charles Sumner (1811-1874) and Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) in 1860, and the Tappan brothers. Henry T. Cheever kept diaries and wrote letters concerning his studies at Bowdoin College and his trips to Spain in the 1830s and Hawaii in the 1840s, and received several letters from missionaries, e.g., Elias Bond (1813-1896), and Hawaiian students.

There are also letters of Henry's wife, Jane T. Cheever. He letters refer to social activities in Jewett City, Conn., and Worcester, Mass., and the rearing of her daughters.

The collection also contains voluminous correspondence of Henry and Jane's four daughters: Charlotte Barrell Cheever Tucker, Ellen Tyler Cheever Rockwood, Elizabeth Bancroft Cheever Wheeler, and Louisa Sewall Cheever. All four women wrote to one another and to firiends and relatives concerning their social and educational activities at Smith College during the late 1870s and early 1880s, their travels in Europe, and their many social activities in which they engaged in Worcester (Charlotte and Ellen live principally with their aunt, Elizabeth Washburn), especially the courtships of the three elder daughters. Ellen Rockwood generated correspondence with various genealogists, while her mother-in-law, Caroline Washburn Rockwood (1844-1923), wrote of her controversial decisions to join the Christian Science religion and to pursue a music-teaching career in the South during the early 1900s.

The Wheeler family correspondence is primarily a record of life in Lincoln and Worcester during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Leonard Wheeler's correspondence includes many letters concerning his medical studies in Germany and Austria in the 1870s, while Thomas B. Wheeler wrote of his efforts to establish a grain company in Troy, Ohio, in the late 1860s, and his earlier venture as a cotton merchant in the South. Other Wheeler letters recorded social activities, family illnesses, scandals, marriages, and deaths.

The collection also contains correspondence of Leonard and Elizabeth's four children: Dr. Bancroft Cheever Wheeler, Leonard Wheeler, Jr., Eunice Wheeler, and Nathaniel Wheeler. The four wrote to one another, their parents, and other relatives and friends concerning their social activities and life at their respective schools and colleges. Bancroft and Leonard, Jr. attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and Harvard University, Eunice attended Smith College, and Nathaniel was a graduate of the Middlesex School in Concord, Mass., and Harvard. They also wrote of their music lessons, their travels in Europe and their summers at the Jonathan Sayward house in York, Me. Leonard, Jr., an attorney, was a colonel with the Army in Washington during World War II and later participated in the prosecution of the Nuremberg Trials. He and his wife, Cornelia Balch Wheeler (1909- ), wrote of this and of life in general in Alexandria, Va., during the war. Nathaniel served in the Pacific during World War II and wrote many letters to his mother and sister during his tour of duty.

The remainder of the collection consists of letters from friends and relatives of the Cheevers and Wheelers. There are folders representing forty-one correspondents, as well as other letters grouped generally in the incoming correspondence folders. Many letters are addressed to Henry T. Cheever by ministerial colleagues and concern political and religious issues, e.g., Henry Sibree ( - ) of New York City wrote regarding the conflicts of Henry Cheever's brother, George, with his parishioners.

The volumes include diaries and travel journals and accounts of household expenses of many of the principal family correspondents. Among the material in the boxes are legal documents, church business papers, newsclippings of or concerning family members or political issues, school report cards, bills and receipts, speeches and addresses written mainly by Henry T. Cheever, rough drafts of his chapters, biographical and genealogical data, and diplomas.  Read more...