William Pierrepont White collection, 1728-1939.
Collection Number: 399

Correspondence, diaries, deeds, accounts, maps, surveys, pamphlets, statements, registers, bills, land contracts, inventories, cashbooks, indentures, minutes, and other records and papers reflecting the westward and southward movement of members of the White and related families, concerning their activities in the development of land, canals, railroads, cotton manufacturing, mining, banking, and highways, chiefly in New York State. The early papers relate to the White family of Middletown, Connecticut, and the development after 1783 of Whitestown, New York, and include the town books (1807-1823) for Richland, New York, church records, early election returns, deeds, documents on the Brothertown Indians, grist mills, civil and criminal cases, slave sales, the War of 1812, the Bank of Utica, and the Pierrepont Land Office. Includes the diary of William Pierrepont White. One group of papers relates to the disposal of the Constable lands and the development of Pierrepont Manor, and contains statements of land contracts (1801-1810) given by William Constable, an inventory of the Constable estate (1829), a memorandum of journeys made by William Constable Pierrepont to the Constable tract, lists of bonds for Ellisburgh, New York (1834-1841), and a series of letters from Franklin B. Hough relating to life boats for Ellisburgh and Oswego, and to other matters.

Also, correspondence, accounts, and other documents of Hugh White, son of the Whitestown proprietor and early concrete manufacturer.

Other papers concern Canvass White, an engineer for the Erie Canal, construction superintendent for the Union Canal of Pennsylvania, the Delaware and Raritan Canal of New Jersey, and the New York Water Works Company, and promoter of the Cohoes Company. Includes the papers of William N. White, vice-president of the Utica Pipe Foundry Company, director of the Utica and Mohawk Railroad Company, of the Jefferson County National Bank, the Rome, Watertown, and Ogdensburg Railroad Company, and other companies; he was the manager of the estate of his father-in-law, William Constable Pierrepont, and an active figure in political, church, and educational affairs. Also the papers of William Pierrepont White, lawyer and businessman of New York and Utica, president of the Oneida Historical Society, and a pioneer in the development of modern highways. Includes papers of the Wheeler, Constable, and Van Wagenen papers, as well as other families; also, Walcott family correspondence beginning with a series of letters (1825-1827) from Walnut Hills, Mississippi, and other series relating to real estate speculation in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Nebraska, to banking in North Dakota, to the management of cotton mills in Georgia and New York, and to oil and mining interests.

Consists of collections #399, #565, #586, and #944.

William Pierrepont White collection. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.