Yates and Harris family collection, 1377-2001.

This collection contains documents, ephemera, photographs, and objects relating to seven generations of the Yates family and two generations of the allied Harris family. The Yates family material centers on the family of Dr. William Yates (1767-1857) of Uttoxeter, England, and Butternuts (now Morris), New York, and his wife Hannah (Palmer) Yates (1781-1869). The collection contains material on Yates family members extending in both directions from this core family. There are more than seventy documents dating from 1377 to 1777 concerning ancestors of Dr. William Yates including his father Harry Yates (1740-1812), grandfather Arthur Yates, great-grandfather Thomas Yates, and great-great-grandfather Humphrey Yates. Much of the collection consists of material created and collected by the surviving children of Dr. William and Hannah Yates: Judge Arthur² Yates (1807-1880), Thomas² Yates (1811-1876), William Palmer² Yates (1813-1894), Trevor² Yates (1815-1877), Captain George Augustus² Yates (1818-1900), Dr. Horatio² Yates (1821-1882), and Dr. Octavius² Yates (1824-1875). The collection also has more recent material relating to the third generation in America particularly for Arthur Gould³ Yates (1843-1909), Franklin³ Yates (1868-1923), and Harry Gustave³ Yates (1874-1918). The Harris family material relates to Winifred³ (Yates) Harris (1873-1945), daughter of George A. and Arianna (Duroe) Yates, her husband William Henry Harris (1874-1925) of Morris, NY, and their children particularly Adah Yvonne Harris (1915-2002).

Most of the material in this collection relates to three families in particular: Dr. William and Hannah Yates, George A. and Arianna Yates, and Henry H. and Winifred (Yates) Harris.

Dr. William Yates and Hannah (Palmer) Yates are represented in this collection by financial papers, social invitations, wills, and correspondence. The collection contains 223 letters received by William from some 65 correspondents. There lecture stubs that document his medical study. His financial papers include bills and receipts, accounts, bonds, and promissory notes. There are thirty deeds, 1803-1851, which provide insight into the purchase and development of the land holdings of an early settler of Butternuts, N.Y. With family members, friends, and business associates living in several different countries, the correspondence received by William and Hannah Yates is particularly interesting. Correspondents Noble Palmer, Anne Porter, Thomas Porter, and Harry Yates include observations on the economic effects of the War of 1812 from Canada, France, and England, respectively. The letters by Anne Porter from Paris include descriptions of Parisian life including dress, food, customs, balls and parties, and fads. A letter written by Anne in 1827, for example, describes the attraction “of a beast called a giroffe” that inspired new print gowns, furniture, hand bags, and giraffe shaped bread. Her later letters, written after her return to England, continues to include observations of the social life she experiences: clubs, lectures, concerts, and library reading rooms. There are more than 260 letters sent to Hannah Yates. Her sister Mary Palmer wrote 147 of these letters between 1822-1864. Mary Palmer, a teacher and administrator, was involved with several academies including the Gilbertsville Boarding school, Oswego Female Seminary, and the Troy Female Seminary. Mary Palmer wrote on a wealth of topics in her letters including economics, politics, and religion particularly abolitionism, banking crisis, slavery, religious revival meetings, and temperance. As noted in her letters, she gave public lectures against the annexation of Texas and the immoral treatment of Native-Americans by the U.S. government.

George Augustus Yates is represented in this collection by business, financial, school, and military papers, and correspondence. There are also deeds, ephemera, invitations, phrenological almanac, and documents produced during his service as an overseer of high ways, vestry of Zion Church, and as an officer in the New York militia. George’s school papers are primarily rewards for merit and penmanship samples. There are more than 560 letters received by George A. Yates in this collection. His military papers consist of muster orders, company roll (1844), soldier lists, and correspondence. The military correspondence includes letters by soldiers Samuel H. Bunnell and Archelaus Stowell written while serving with the 152 Regiment New York Volunteers during the Civil War. There is also a letter by Daniel Tuttle written from Virginia City, Montana Territory in 1867. The financial papers of George A. Yates include bills and receipts, business orders from customers, financial accounts, and insurance records. Much of the business correspondence relates to sheep and merino wool. Arianna (Duroe) Yates has handwritten and printed recipe books. She is also represented by property leases, estate inventory, and personal correspondence. There are 342 letters received by Arianna primarily from her brother Daniel Duroe and her children: Franklin Yates (1868-1923), Ethlene (Yates) Morehouse (1871-1933), Winifred (Yates) Harris (1873-1945), and Harry Gustave Yates (1874-1918).

The documents concerning William Henry Harris (1874-1924) in this collection primarily concern his business interests and include bills and receipts, accounts for his farm called “The Glen”, and business correspondence particularly with farm equipment manufacturers. Winifred (Yates) Harris (1873-1945) is the most represented family member in this collection with art work, diary, financial papers, school papers, scrapbook, recipes, and correspondence. Her school papers include penmanship practice, samples of school work from 1881-1894, and eighteen volumes with handwritten notes on a variety of academic subjects kept as she progressed through her education. These notes include subjects such as mathematics, history, literature, chemistry, and zoology. The diary kept by Winifred Harris has entries from 1888 to 1939 in twenty-six volumes. Her financial papers include receipts and seventeen volumes of account books with entries from 1881 to 1923. This collection contains more than 400 letters or postcards Winifred received from twenty-four correspondents. Prominent correspondents include daughter Corinne Colvin, a teacher at the Granville School (Catskill, NY); sister Ethlene Morehouse of Garrattsville, NY; Anna Turnbull; Daniel and Katherine Duroe of St. Luke’s Rectory in Pittsburgh, Penn.; Annah Guernsey; and mother Arianna Corbin (Duroe) Yates of Morris, NY. Daughter Adah Yvonne Harris (1915-2002) is represented in this collection by school papers, personal correspondence, scrapbooks, business correspondence, and an inventory relating to her store, The Beehive Antiques and Honey Shop. Her scrapbooks relate to her interest in antiques, architecture, celebrities and other personages, and poetry and songs.

Other items of interest include volumes of cypher math exercises dating from the 1830’s and 1840’s produced by Arthur Yates, Octavius Yates, and Henry Yates, who died at age seventeen. There is a small hand-sewed volume of thirty pages with handwritten recipes kept by Annis Palmer dated 1817. In addition to the diary of Winifred (Yates) Harris discussed above, Horatio Yates, Franklin Yates, Ethlene Yates, Henry W. North, and Mary Palmer have diaries preserved within the collection. The diary of Horatio Yates consists of two volumes dating from 1833 and 1835 written while an apprentice in his uncle’s apothecary shop in Kinston, Canada. The diary of Franklin Yates of Morris, New York has entries dating from 1880 to 1884. The diary of Ethlene Yates, daughter of George A. and Arianna Corbin (Duroe) Yates, consists of three volumes produced in 1884 and 1885 prior to her marriage to Elbert Lyon Morehouse. The diary of Mary Palmer has entries from 1853 to 1866 in six volumes. There is also the diary of Henry W. North from 1871 to 1887 in three volumes and his account book with entries from 1866 to 1870. The collection contains more than sixty unattributed manuscripts including several account books; meteorological daily readings 1847-1863; First Baptist Sunday School (Brookfield, N.Y.) records 1894-1909; and St. Agnes Guild of Noblesville Treasurer’s book 1904-1907.

This collection was appraised by Amy Buchholz and John DeForest of Brothertown Books. Their appraisal, summarized below, includes a general description of the collection and particularly the content of the family letters.

William Yates was of the landed gentry in England; a Baronet, with land, property, title, and an avocation. He was trained as a physician at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in England, in the late 1790’s. He ran a private institution for the insane in England and was highly respected and comfortably positioned in society. What causes a well-respected person to uproot self … and sail across … to what was essentially a wilderness, compared to the comfort of their lives in their homeland? Doctor Yates did just that and one has in these letters and documents a record of the preparation, emigration, and the subsequent establishment of the family as pioneer settlers in rural America.

The family letters contain a wealth of material on daily routines … gardens, business, health, clothing, building houses and barns and places of business … nothing was done without discussing it first, and frequently to great length. Death and sickness were a very real presence and we are given access to the emotions and feelings of this family.

The Yates family were a church-attending family and … partook of many church activities. There is a wealth of material on the organization and history of local churches as well as enlightening letters on the religious sensibilities of family members.

The family’s travel was discussed in great detail. There is much about the transportation on the rivers: logs, rafts, packet boats. We have records of several transatlantic voyages. All manner of conveyances were used and discussed in detail including schedules, cost of passage, and the names of ships. There is a good deal of discussion on development of the canals and railways. The family members also describe in detail the places visited including their opinions of local customs and accommodation.

William Palmer Yates, a jeweler and watchmaker, lived in Alabama (Gainesville and Montgomery), Mississippi (Columbus), and Georgia (Macon) during the 1830’s and his letters often record Southern attitudes and reaction to politics and national events. Horatio and Octavius Yates were apprenticed to Hannah’s brother Noble Palmer who owned an apothecary shop in Kingston, Canada, a military out-post at the time. Their letters include discussions of family news, health, and local events such as cholera epidemics, unrest, celebration of Queen Victoria’s coronation, and the 1838 Canadian rebellion. Octavius Yates studied law then switched to medicine. Both Horatio and Octavius Yates studied medicine in England and France and became noted surgeons. The letters they wrote while medical students abroad provide fascinating accounts of young Americans overseas. For example, Octavius witnessed and wrote about the “second French revolution” or insurrection in Paris in 1848.

There is a great wealth of material written in the family correspondence on such early American business and professional ventures as lumbering and sawmills, jewelry and watch making, carriage and wagon making, import and export, retail sales, medicine, law, teaching … as well as much else. Farming, with all of its various industrious needs and activities, is one of the principle discussions that is ongoing through many letters. Common topics include crops, livestock, maple sugar, fencing, barn construction, feeds, agricultural experiments, and the trade in such, both national and international of their industry.

The letters contain a vast amount of discussion on political topics relating to Whigs and Tories, Democrats, Free-Soilers, Locofocos, socialism, national and local elections, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James Polk, and Abraham Lincoln. Historical subjects discussed include slavery and abolition, admission of Texas to the Union, Seminole Indian War, Black Hawk, Mexican War, and the Temperance movement.