Archival Collections

Photographs and personal papers, 1828-1931, of the Anderson, Craig, Hargis, Holden, Kryger, McConaughy, and Pape families of Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Tallahassee and Deland, Florida. Includes records concerning Dr. Warren E. Anderson and early hospitals in Pensacola including St. Anthony's Sanitarium and the Pensacola Infirmary among others, and early nurses training under F. Elizabeth Crowell.

Family papers, 1863-1925, relating to the Baker family of Jackson County, Florida and the William H. Watson family of Pensacola, Florida. Includes land deeds, conveyances, tax receipts, family letters, lineage chart and photographs. Principal correspondents include James L.G. Baker, James L. Baker, Mary Jane Daffin, James S. Baker, William H. Watson, Jr., James B. Watson and Mrs. Elizabeth Dickinson.

The records of the firm are extensive as it was the corporate attorney for numerous West Florida businesses including railroad andlumber companies. Select subjects include the American Lumber Company, Bagdad Land and Lumber Company, the Birmingham, Columbus and St. Andrews Railroad Company, Children's Home Society of Florida, Escambia County School Board, Escambia Gulf Beach Resort, First National Bank of Pensacola, First Methodist Episcopal Church, Duncan U. Fletcher, Florida Chautauqua, Florida Colonization and Industrial Company of Chicago, Forbes Company, German-American Lumber Company, Gulf Power Company, Kupfrian Park Company, Okaloosa County, City of Pensacola, Pensacola Electric Company. Pensacola Electric Terminal Company (streetcars), Pensacola and Hervey Hotel (San Carlos Hotel), Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, South Florida Stores Corporation (Piggly-Wiggly stores) Tampa Electric Company, and Valparaiso Development Company. Other files include such topics as bank closures, suits to recover Union Army damages during the Civil War, workmen's compensation cases, boundary disputes, the street car strike in 1908, operation of businesses, and records accumulated by the businesses and partners reflecting civic and social life in the West Florida region.

Photocopies of manuscript letters, including a letter to Caesar A. Rodney in 1821 on Jackson's treatment of Governor Callava, as well as letters to his wife Caroline Brackenridge, 1827-1832, written from Pensacola, Tallahassee, Alaqua, the Live Oak Reservation, and other places in West Florida regarding business and legal affairs in the Territory.  With draft and final typescript transcripts.

Documents in manuscript and three printed forms filled out in manuscript originating in British East and West Florida, Territorial Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi, dating from 1773 to 1868.

Photocopies of a diary of a trip south, 1921, and a scrapbook, 1881-1978, of William George Bruce, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin businessman and Pensacola, Florida shipyard owner. The diary documents Mr. Bruce's trip to New Orleans and Pensacola, including the Pensacola Navy Yard, and the Bruce, Ollinger, and Watson families, with photographs. The scrapbook covers newspaper clippings, especially family marriages and deaths, for Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Pensacola, Milton, Bagdad and Blackwater, Florida. Subjects include poetry, yellow fever, race problems, and the Blackwater Academy. A separate index ia available.

Personal papers, 1840-1979, including records as a student, 1916-1919; as a teacher at Pensacola High School, 1928-1967; memorabilia and letters about life at Florida State College for Women, 1919-1923; summer studies at Columbia, 1929; the University of Virginia, 1938; and the University of Wisconsin, 1930. Includes considerable family records of her parents, John McMillan Burrow and Nelle Agnes Barrington Burrow and other relatives including the Anderson, Burrow, Cresap, Pyle, and Vaughn families of Pensacola; the Barrington, Burrow, Conner families of Wabash, Indiana; and the Medbury and Phillips families of St. Mary's, Ohio.

This collection contains a letter from Captain William H. Chase of Pensacola, Florida, to Lieutenant A. H. Bowman, an Army Engineer, directing Bowman to make a survey of the Pensacola area to find a shorter navigation route. A partial transcript of the letter is also available.

This collection contains a selection of business letters that serve as examples of early business letterheads from various places in Florida. They are quite elaborate and contain pictures, maps and extensive advertising. They are from different towns and cities in Florida and date from 1879-1896. The letters are mostly to W.D. Bloxham and W.D. Barnes, both comptrollers for the state of Florida. Barnes was comptroller from 1881-1890 and Bloxham from 1890-1897.