Guide to the Letters for Ezra Cornell Memorial Volume,
1887-1888

Governor of New York.

Correspondence, journal, accounts, clippings, notes, leaflets, blotters, and scrapbooks relating largely to Cornell's political activities and reflecting his interest in governmental problems, his attachment for Roscoe Conkling, and his hatred for Thomas Collier Platt. There is genealogy, correspondence, various obituaries including Ezra and Alonzo Cornell, items about Cornell University, and items pertaining to Cornell's work with the New York, Albany and Buffalo Telegraph Co. including a journal with comments on the telegraph line and an account book recording personal expenses and stock purchased of the Erie & Michigan Telegraph Co. Also includes correspondence relating to the New York State Committee and State Convention of the Republican Party (1871) and letters (1880-1882) written during Cornell's administration as Governor, concerned with appointments, the veto, various reform or political measures, political treachery, elevated companies, railroad commissions, and other matters. Correspondents include Francis C. Barlow, L.E. Chittenden, Roscoe Conkling, Austin Corbin, Howard Crosby, George William Curtis, Theodore L. Cuyler, Noah Davis, William C. DeWitt, Dorman B. Eaton, Francis M. Finch, Charles J. Folger, Jay Gould, Horace Greeley, Benjamin Harrison, Frank Hiscock, H.B. Hyde, J(ohn) N. Knapp, Seth Low, J.N. Matthews, Levi P. Morton, Albert D. North, George W. Parsons, Jackson L. Schultz, Elliott F. Shepard, Charles E

Also, letters collected for an Ezra Cornell Memorial volume. Alonzo Cornell proposed publishing these reminiscences with a Founder's Day speech delivered by Francis M. Finch. Letters and manuscripts include recollections and memorials concerning Ezra Cornell, solicited by his son, via form letters dated November 30 and December 9, 1887. There is no evidence that these were ever published as a memorial volume. The only paper known to have been used is the reminiscence by Andrew Dickson White. It was delivered as a Founder's Day Address in 1890 and published as a pamphlet the same year. Also a manuscript of Alonzo Cornell's A HISTORY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 1865-1900.