The Litchfield Historical Society’s Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library is elated to announce the recent acquisition of a significant collection of business records created by Elijah Boardman (1760-1823).

Thanks to the generosity of Elijah and Mary Anna Boardman’s descendants, Joan Boardman Wright McDaniel and her daughter Caroline Boardman McDaniel Lamphier, scholars will be able to pore over this iconic entrepreneur’s ledgers, blotters, and day books. Boardman’s newspaper advertisements reveal that he went to great lengths to bring a variety of foreign goods to this rural market. His ledgers document his intricate pattern of trade in which he shipped local agricultural goods, received in trade or purchased, which he shipped to New York and sold at a premium. He brought back rum, molasses, and a large variety of textiles.

The family retained the papers for generations, first in the Boardman house in New Milford, and, for a number of years, had them on loan to Yale University. Recently, Mrs. Lamphier and Mrs. McDaniel made the decision to donate the 97 volume collection to a historical society. Derin Bray, an art and antiques consultant who did extensive research for To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture and Furniture Makers, 1780-1830, published in 2008 by the Litchfield Historical Society, contacted the family upon learning about their collection. His familiarity with Litchfield County and early republic history enabled him to recognize the significance of the collection and suggest to the owner that the family donate the papers to the Society whose professionally trained staff and regular hours would enable scholars to have regular access to the collection.

These volumes document a business with close ties to Litchfield and to the Society’s existing collections. Prior to embarking on a mercantile venture with his brother Daniel, Boardman served in the American Revolution and trained as a clerk in New Haven. He commenced business as a merchant in New Milford in 1781. The Society holds Boardman & Seymour records, 1794­-1811, a collection of orders, invoices, receipts, and correspondence documenting a partnership between Boardman and Moses Seymour Jr. of Litchfield.

In 1795, Boardman became a member of the Connecticut Land Co., one of the purchasers of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Notes and Proceedings of the Connecticut Land Company, 1795-1809; the Judson Canfield papers 1760-1856; and the Samuel Flewwelling Papers, 1799-1868 are among the Society’s extensive documentation of the settlement of Ohio by Connecticut natives, many of whom migrated from Litchfield County.

Two of the Boardman’s sons, William Whiting Boardman and George Sherman Boardman, attended the Litchfield Law School. Two of their daughters, Caroline Boardman Schreoder and Mary Anna Boardman, attended the Litchfield Female Academy. Schroeder’s schoolgirl diary is in the Society’s Litchfield Female Academy collection.

Boardman became prominent in politics after 1800. He was repeatedly elected to the Connecticut General Assembly and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1821. For this election, Boardman, a democrat, joined Oliver Wolcott (1760-1833) on the Toleration Party ticket. Boardman died on a visit to Ohio in 1823.

Scholars and history buffs alike know well the Ralph Earl painting of Boardman that hangs in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The collection at the Wadsworth Athenaeum boasts the Earl landscape of the Boardman house in New Milford, CT. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA holds the Earl painting of Boardman’s wife, Mary Anna Whiting Boardman, and their son William Whiting Boardman. This collection provides exciting new documentation of significant American works of art.

The collections of the Litchfield Historical Society have long been lauded by enthusiasts of the Early Federal period of American history for their richness in documenting the social and political history of that era. This collection can only serve to enrich existing holdings and expand knowledge about early American commerce, early Connecticut, the Western Reserve, and a host of other topics. The Society will begin processing the collection immediately and hopes to make it available to scholars as soon as possible. It will certainly prove an invaluable resource to all manner of historians and decorative arts scholars, not to mention the added value it will provide the Society’s exhibitions, publications, Web site, and programs.

Litchfield Garden Club Collection, Slide #70

We’ve done a lot of work to prepare finding aids for the many collections of papers in the Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library. We’re still working on those, but have also begun to find ways to provide improved access to our remarkable photograph collections. As part of a Garden Clubs of America project, The Litchfield Garden Club created glass lantern slides to document gardens of members in the 1920s and 30s. This is the only one that depicts a winter scene.

Lura Ambler Liggett by A. Sheldon Pennoyer

The Towne House (also known as Westover) on South Street was built in 1915 by Henry R. Towne and his wife, Cora Tallmadge Towne. He was the founder and president of the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company, a very successful lock manufacturing business in Stamford. His wife was a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Tallmadge. It was later owned by Admiral Hussey and his wife, the garden club member responsible for the slide. Richard and Lura Ambler Liggett purchased the house from the Husseys. The Liggetts later built what is now the Lourdes Shrine, where Mrs. Liggett is depicted in the portrait above.

Portrait Miniature of Noah Webster by William Verstille (1757-1803) Date: February 12, 1788 Held at: Litchfield Historical Society, Size: 1 7/8″ length x 1 1/2″ width

Noah Webster is the subject of a lecture to be given tomorrow night at 7pm at the Oliver Wolcott Library jointly sponsored by the Litchfield Historical Society and the library. Webster is thought to have studied law in Litchfield with Jedediah Strong. You may recognize Strong’s name from an earlier post on intemperance. Though there is no evidence to suggest that Webster attended Tapping Reeve’s school, it is a common enough question that we included his biography in the Ledger.

Tomorrow’s lecture by author Joshua Kendall will focus on his new book, The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession & the Creation of an American Culture. During the course of his research, Kendall contacted the Society to learn what primary sources we have that might illuminate Webster’s life or career. Like many young men and women who studied here, we have only small traces of his life in our collection. They are, however significant ones. Webster wrote a letter to prominent local physician, Dr. Daniel Sheldon, to request a letter of introduction to Sheldon’s son who was serving as Jefferson’s minister to Paris. Webster intended on traveling there for the purpose of completing and publishing his dictionary. Sheldon replied and included the requested letter, wishing Webster luck on his venture.  Another letter to printers in Albany discusses rights for printing Webster’s spelling book. The portrait miniature shown above is the only known image of Noah Webster.

This is a great Archives Month example of how our collections are used. Be sure to check our finding aids and publications catalog for details of our Webster holdings. You can register for the program here.

I am working on creating a presentation for Friday’s Archives Month Lunch and Learn and I realized that I haven’t shared anything about this company, or how we came to be interested in it here on the blog. Documenting Lilac Hedges has been the work of a number of individuals. It all started with an idea for a fundraiser that has yet to come to fruition. Even if it never does, the resources and information we came out of the process with will be more than worth the effort. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but I do want to pique your interest. The fundraising idea was to create beautiful books that told the story of a particular house. Only two copies would be printed, one for our library and one to be sold to the homeowner. So we started to make a short list of houses that we might have enough information and images to create this type of book for. One was on Fern Avenue in Litchfield. The history of the various properties that had been parceled together and taken apart again was fascinating- it includes everything from Echo Farm, the first dairy to commercially bottle milk for distribution in New York city, to the Chase family who eventually created Topsmead. In the early 20th century, the Hinchman family purchased the house and barn on the property and Ralph Hinchman created a studio in that barn. His company would go on to produce greeting cards that were shown and distributed across the country, and include the artistic involvement of a number of influential artists, illustrators and producers. Before starting the company, Hinchman attended Bard and enlisted in the army where he served as a WWII fighter pilot.  Upon his return, he attended Cooper Union in New York.

Ralph Hinchman’s remarkable story could not be told without the assistance of his sister, Elsa Hinchman Clark, who donated much of the material now in our collection; his friend and colleague Jac Venza who shared several of his time to tell us about the company and Ralph’s experiences; Henry D. Bowman, an artist who worked for the company who recently also sent a number of examples of his work; and a number of other local residents who are contacting us to share their stories or artifacts from time spent working with the company. We also extend thanks to intern Benjamin Bradley who devoted the better part of two summers researching, compiling, creating an exhibit, and authoring a finding aid. I have yet to locate the business records, whether they still exist is a mystery. Ralph’s business partner, Francis McIlhenny,  bought out the company and moved it to California. Questions like how many employees Lilac Hedges had at its peak, or what their annual revenue was, have not been answered. We hope to encourage others to share what they know about this uniquely Litchfield venture.

This advertisement appeared in the CJR House Tour bulletin in 1958.