Scope and Content Note
The papers of Benjamin Helm Bristow (1832-1896) span the years 1839-1932, with the bulk of the material from 1874 to 1896. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches, biographical material, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, other printed materials, and photographs relating primarily to Bristow's service as solicitor general and secretary of the treasury in President Ulysses S. Grant's administrations and to his New York City law firm. Included are a letterpress book of incoming and outgoing correspondence of the commissioner of internal revenue concerning the whiskey frauds of 1875.
Among the correspondents are William W. Belknap, James Gillespie Blaine, Henry V. Boynton, George William Childs, David Davis, Anthony Joseph Drexel, George F. Edmunds, Hamilton Fish (1808-1893), William Cassius Goodloe, Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall Harlan, W. A. Meriwether, Horace Porter, and Noah Haynes Swayne.