Collection Scope and Content Note

Correspondence, accounts, deeds, mortgages, tax statements, wills, bonds, stock certificates, bills, receipts, business and legal papers, maps, photographs, and movie films of the Davenport family of Angelica, Allegany County, New York and Bath, Steuben County, and of related Cameron, Waterman, French, and other families. Featured most prominently are Charles and Ira Davenport, and their agent, J. W. Waterman. The collection pertains chiefly to investments in lands in New York State, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Nebraska, to interests in mining, railway, mercantile, banking, and other business ventures, and to the settlement of family estates. Includes papers of the Davenport Home for Girls (also known as the Davenport Home for Female Orphan Children), Bath, New York, and the Bath Presbyterian Church.

Topics include western and frontier land speculation and investment, family relations, the problems of amassing capital and absentee ownership, banking, land taxation, forestry, and other matters pertaining to land ownership and management.