Grahame Hardy Collection, 1849-1909

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Summary

Creators:
Hardy, Grahame H.
Abstract:
This collection contains documents, manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera assembled by author and collector Grahame H. Hardy reflecting a range of legal, administrative, municipal, and real estate-related transactions initiated by railroad and mining interests, businessmen, and municipalities in the San Francisco Bay area, Northern California, and western Nevada in the second half of the 19th century. The correspondence also contains letters between parties involved in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal.
Extent:
85 items in 4 boxes
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection was assembled by author and collector Grahame H. Hardy, the chronologically-arranged collection is divided into three series: documents and manuscripts; correspondence; and ephemera.

The documents and manuscripts demonstrate the range of legal, administrative, municipal, and real estate-related transactions initiated by railroad and mining interests, businessmen, and municipalities in the San Francisco Bay area, Northern California, and western Nevada. Included in this series are legal proceedings, title deeds, mining reports and claims.

Correspondence includes business and personal letters to and from Northern California lawyers, railroad and mining entrepreneurs in California and Nevada, and parties involved in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal. Included in this series are letters pertaining to the case of Daniel Sill, a San Francisco-based blacksmith and the trial of A.J. Jackson, an African American tried and acquitted in Marysville, California.

Lastly, ephemera include four items: a Mission Homestead Association certificate of stock; one check payable to Jack H. Haverly, a promoter of minstrel shows, from theater producers and brothers, Gustave Frohman and Charles Frohman; the baptism certificate of Everett Loftus Saxondale Kenna; and an undated glossary of mining terms.

Prominent persons and organizations featured in the collection include:

  • California Academy of Sciences, founded in 1853 as the one of the first scientific academies west of the Atlantic seaboard.
  • Central Pacific Railroad Company, established in 1861 and financed in part by Leland Stanford and Collis P. Huntington, who are also mentioned in the collection.
  • William Heath Davis (1822-1909), San Francisco merchant and author, spouse of Maria de Jesús Estudillo, who played a key role in the founding of the California cities of Oakland and San Diego.
  • John Brooks Felton (1827-1877), San Francisco Bay Area lawyer and judge, as well as one-time mayor of Oakland, California.
  • Joseph Pendleton Hoge (1810-1891), former U.S. Representative of Illinois and later lawyer and judge of the San Francisco Superior Court.
  • M.G. Upton, former official reporter of the California Assembly and author of the urban planning critique, “The Plan of San Francisco” (1869).

Acquisition information:
Purchased from Grahame Hardy, May 1945, August 1946, and July 1953.
Arrangement:

The collection is divided into three series: Documents and manuscripts; Correspondence; and Ephemera. Arranged chronologically.

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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