Scope and arrangement
The Hale Family Papers span the years 1818 to 1874 and consist of handwritten and printed documents including letters, legal papers, accounts, actuarial charts, leaflets, and architectural prints. They are organized into six subgroups and eleven series, given on the container list.
Most of Benjamin Hale's letters in the collection are to family members and are of a personal nature. His lectures given at Geneva College are on religious topics.
Josiah Little Hale's letters received mainly pertain to business. His papers as chairman of the Building Committee, Church of the Pilgrims, include accounts and contracts. There is also a lithographed church ground plan with pew prices - and penciled-in family names - as well as a lithograph by Nathaniel Currier's shop of the plan of pews for the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church in New York. Thomas's papers as treasurer of the Church of the Pilgrims are mostly receipts.
The letters and letters received of the Reverend John C. March discuss religious as well as personal matters. His fellow seminarian Jacob Stone is a prominent correspondent.
The largest series is the Hale family's insurance company papers, which are the business papers of Josiah Little, Thomas, and Moses Little Hale, as well as insurance policies held by other family members. They are organized by the name of the insurance firm. The series contains some interesting printed ephemera; as do other series. An example filed with the Merchants Marine Insurance Company papers is an 1841 leaflet of the. Sailor's Home on Cherry Street, erected by the American Seamen's Friend Society.
The Hale family papers are arranged in six series: