Scope and Content Note
The papers of William Bebb (1802-1873) span the years 1705-1849, with the bulk of the material dating from 1812 to 1849. The papers consist of pages from a dismantled autograph album containing approximately 140 letters and clipped signatures. Portions of an appraisal containing a partial description of the album is available in the Manuscript Reading Room. The album appears to have been started for Bebb by his father, Edward Bebb, and Samuel Roberts (1800-1885), Welsh political reformer and founder of a Welsh settlement in Tennessee. The first part of the collection contains letters and signatures of British politicians, military figures, authors, and missionaries in India, China, and Africa. Included are letters from John Bright (1811-1889), Thomas Babington Macaulay, Francis Palgrave, Robert Peel (1788-1850), and Henry Richard (1812-1898).
The second part of the collection consists largely of letters from prominent Americans addressed to or collected by William Bebb. Included among the collected items is a letter from Thomas Jefferson in 1807 concerning the use of volunteer forces against Native American attacks west of the Mississippi, a letter from Andrew Jackson concerning a Creek uprising on the southern frontier in 1813, and a letter from William Henry Harrison regarding his victory against combined British and Native American forces on the banks of the Thames River in southeastern Ontario in 1813. Bebb also acquired letters written by John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Alexander J. Dallas, Charles Hammond (1779-1840), William Hull (1753-1825), James Winchester (1752-1826), and Thomas Worthington (1773-1827), among others. Bebb's own correspondence includes letters from John Brough, Thomas Corwin, Thomas Ewing (1789-1871), Seabury Ford, Horace Greeley, John McLean, Samuel Finley Vinton, James Whitcomb, and John C. Wright (1783-1861). Whig and Ohio politics are discussed in many of these letters.