Scope and Content Note
The correspondence of Whiting Griswold (1814-1874) consists of letters addressed to him over the period 1843-1874. As a prominent lawyer in western Massachusetts and an active politician, Griswold’s advice and counsel were sought by prominent figures from all over the state. This correspondence bulks largest for the 1850s and 1860s and is concerned chiefly with politics on the local, state, and national levels. The disruption of parties in the 1850s is well documented, particularly with regard to the decline of the Whigs and the rise of the Free Soil and American (or Know Nothing) parties, as viewed from the vantage point of the Democratic Party. Other subjects include legal questions, patronage, the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Civil War, and the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853. Among the principal correspondents are Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, George S. Boutwell, Benjamin F. Butler, Caleb Cushing, Benjamin Franklin Hallett (1797-1862), George Frisbie Hoar, George B. Loring, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, James Lyman Whitney, and Henry Wilson.