Historical Papers Reveal Data On Early Ann Arbor

The director oí the 'UniversitV , historical collections : ment, Dr. Robert Warner calta papers donated recently by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hicks the "best thing thafs turned upm years" concerning Ann Arbor history. j Hicks is president of the Washtenaw County Historical Society. ,, „ Warner wiU mscuss u. "-■ acquisitions in a talk before the society at 8 p.m. Thursday m j Rackham Amphitheatre. ( I The announced topic, ine American Frontier From An . Ann Arbor Attic," is particularly appropiate as some of the correspondence donated by the Hicks offers heretofore unayaüSe Information on the Dakota área when it was still a fronüerj I refhe papers, consisting in large part of correspondence i handed down by members of Mrs Hicks' family, date back Jo 1829 One valuable 1831 letter details household e?uipmen then in use and menüons tha Ann Arbor is still visited bj I focal Indians for traduig pur PThe Dakota Information! comes írom the papers o f, Gcorge Hill, Ann Arbonte (Hill St was named ior him) who was appoinled surveyor general tor the Dakota territones by President Lincoln in the early "warner said this was an important office at that time and HiU's correspondence includes letters to him from prominent government officials ,of the period as weU as his own reports on Dakota sent to friends in Ann Arbor. Hiü's papers add to tte store rf information on Ann Arbor of that era, but the portion of tas corresponderé dealmg m h the situation on the Dakota Frontier concerns an area about which little was known pre Tnïher early Ann hortte co-founder John Allen, wa Ireputed to have been involve ,MU the Temperance Society iVheUier or not this is truc, the new source material does nclude the society's estimatesj of liquor consumption in Ann Arbor in the 1830s. The new acquisitions also contain letters of Henry P. Tappan, first president of the University, who served in that role from 1852 to 1863 and early printed materials from the University. ,. ■ ,. Perhaps most revealing xo ■ ontemporary historians is al handwritten and locally compiled assessment of Ann Arbor residents of the 1840S and 1850S a sort of Ann Arbor Dun and Bradstreet. It Msts carácter attributes and financial prospecte of many local ciüzens-' and has no contemporary counterpart. , Also included is a copy of the original prospectus rer u? - Arbor Land Co., the group of es nss -v ï h 11 3 acepted two days after its ten- rpapers are ondPos Ithe Michigan Histoncal Collections in the Rackham Bui dmg land the meeting of the Historical Society is open to the pubIlic. -