Scope and Content Note
The papers of Daniel Scott Lamont (1851-1905) span the years 1853 to 1928, with the greatest portion covering the period 1893-1905. The collection is organized in five series: General Correspondence, Letterbooks, Diaries, Papers Relating to Grover Cleveland, and Miscellany.
Included are letters by Lamont to a friend, Milford C. Bean, written in the 1860s while Lamont was a student at Union College in Schenectady, New York, that reveal an early interest in politics. Other papers reflect his role and interest in New York state Democratic politics in the 1870s and 1880s when he first met Grover Cleveland. The close relationship between the two men is indicated in a series of memoranda of conversations between the two from December 1892 to late February 1893. Letters to Lamont and his wife, Julia, from President Cleveland and Frances Folsom Cleveland during the years 1886-1906 reveal the closeness of their relationship.
Important items in the collection include letterbooks kept by Lamont of copies of telegrams sent and received by the executive mansion during 1885-1888. There is also personal correspondence and letterbooks for when Lamont was secretary of war, 1893-1897, and after, reflecting the administration of the War Department and Lamont’s influence with the president. Material after 1897 relates chiefly to his financial interests, especially to his work as vice president of the Northern Pacific Railway Company and as member of the boards of other corporations. A principal topic of the correspondence is the development of railroads in this country and abroad.
Prominent correspondents in addition to Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom Cleveland include Joseph D. Bryant, physician in charge of the operation on President Cleveland’s mouth, Edward R. Bacon, Milford C. Bean, August Belmont, Perry Belmont, Erastus Cornelius Benedict, Wilson Shannon Bissell, Andrew Carnegie, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Grover Cleveland, Donald McDonald Dickinson, Richard Watson Gilder, William Russell Grace, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, James J. Hill, Daniel Manning, J. Sterling Morton, Richard Olney, Alton B. Parker, James Stillman, William C. Whitney, and Lamont's wife, Julia Kinney Lamont.