Bacon Family., 1824-1879.

The Bacons were a Congregational family from New Haven, Conn. Members represented in the correspondence of this collection include the father Leonard, his first wife, Lucy Johnson, and their four children, Rebecca, Benjamin, Leonard W., and Francis (Frank). The father was especially active in the American Colonization Society, and much correspondence pertains to his related activities. Rebecca worked as a missionary teacher for the American Missionary Association among the freedmen in Virginia at Hampton Institute from 1869-1871. Her brother Francis served as a surgeon during the Civil War.

The correspondence is divided into two categories: the business correspondence of Leonard Bacon with various abolitionists, and correspondence between family members. An item of particular interest in the latter group is aletter by Rebecca concerning the final illness of her aunt, Delia Salter Bacon, writer and originator of the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Other subjects include the Amistad schooner, and the colonization of Africa by blacks. Major correspondents include Samuel C. Armstrong, E.W. Baldwin, Elliot Cresson, John G. Fee, Thomas H. Gallaudet, R.R. Gurley, Walter Lowrie, Gerrit Smith, Lewis Tappan, Seth Terry, C. Van Renssellaer, and George Whipple.

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