Galusha family collection

CATALOG NUMBER: LOWE - 6111
PREPARED BY: CLEE A. ACE and DAN WALSH
LOWELL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
CURATORIAL DEPARTMENT
April 2000

PREFACE

This document, Finding Aid for the Galusha Family Collection (1820 - 1900), describes a group of letters and other items collected by J. Lynwood Smith of South Hero, Vermont, and donated to Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was completed in April 2000 and is the result of a transcription project carried out for the Lowell National Historical Park by Clee A. Ace, volunteer, with the help of Dan Walsh, Museum Specialist.

This finding aid lists all of the materials in the collection that Smith donated to the park, as well as nine items concerning the Civil War, the originals of which were returned to the donor as part of the Accession agreement. The remaining original items are held in the Cultural Resources collections in the Curatorial Department. Transcriptions and photocopies of all original documents were created and are maintained in both the Library and the Curatorial Department in the park.

Researchers are requested to contact the park Librarian for assistance in accessing and using this material. If original documents must be consulted, researchers are requested to contact the park Curatorial Department.

The donor gave all his rights to the collection to Lowell National Historical Park. This includes copyright to the letters written by his family. Copyright to items written by other individuals rests with the authors and their heirs for the period of the author's life plus seventy years, or for one hundred years from the date the items were created, if the authors date of death is unknown. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish.

Publishing authors are requested to cite their use of this collection in the following manner: Letter number, Galusha Family Collection, Lowell National Historical Park.

INTRODUCTION

This finding aid describes materials in the Galusha Family Collection, 1820 to 1900. It consists primarily of letters and a variety of other small items which have been photocopied and transcribed.

The collection was processed in the order in which it was received. An eighteen-field inventory form was created in Microsoft Access into which each item was entered. The letter transcriptions were generated in Microsoft Word in a folder named Galusha Letters, containing files Galusha 001 – Galusha 189. Transcriptions of the original Civil War letters, ultimately returned to the donor, were named Galusha 181-CW-1 to Galusha 188-CW-8. Item 189-CW-9 is a printed ballad which was copied from the original.

The inventory is found in a Microsoft Access file named galuslet.db1 which is available for use. Galuslet.db1 contains a table which allows users to arrange the data in various ways, for example by sender's or recipient's name, by sender's or recipient's geographic location, or chronologically. Researchers are cautioned not to manipulate the park's database but rather to request a copy for their own use and sorting. The integrity of the data depends on all columns being included in the sort process, whichever column of data is used for the sort.

There are nine items for which there are photocopies but no transcriptions. They are either printed material, such as business cards, wedding invitations, or fabrics.

Addendum:

Subsequent to the creation of this Finding Aid additional material was provided by the donor. It consists of five letters, Galusha 196 - to Galusha 200 and six Civil War letters - Galusha 190 - CW-10 to to Galusha 195 - CW-15, and Polly Galusha's signed Polyglot Bible.

 

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