Overview
Business accounts and French merchants' documents of American merchant Allan Melvill, father of author Herman Melville.
Dates
- Creation: 1801-1869
- Creation: Majority of material found in 1801-1823
Creator
- Melvill, Allan, 1782-1832 (Person)
Condition Description
Many included documents are fragile and will require careful handling.
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff for retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.15 linear feet (1 box)Collection of documents originally housed in paper boards bearing the title "Patterns Miss Fanny Melville's". Includes accounts of transactions with various individuals; a "ship book" detailing an 1804 consignment bound for London; a letter from a friend in financial trouble; printed and manuscript prices-current sheets from French dry goods and other merchants of Grenoble, Lyon, and Paris; and a receipt for goods bought by Mrs. H. Melville from P. Cole in 1869.
Biographical / Historical
Allan Melvill, father of writer Herman Melville, was an American merchant who imported cloth and clothing and sold it in Albany (N.Y.) and New York City. His parents were Thomas Melvill and Maria Gansevoort; his grandfather was General Peter Gansevoort, hero of Fort Stan-wix in the American Revolution.
Arrangement
Arranged in folders of similar types of material by the archivist.
Custodial History
Collection previously belonged to the Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2023M-52. Purchased from Christie's with the Robert Newman Library Leadership Fund, 2022 September 15.
Processing Information
This collection was processed to a basic level with minimal rehousing, organization, and preservation. (Melanie Wisner, 2022)
Creator
- Melvill, Allan, 1782-1832 (Person)
- Reese, William S. (former owner., Person)
- Title
- Melvill, Allan, 1782-1832. Allan Melvill business papers, 1801-1869 (MS Am 3423): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Date
- 2022 December 12
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hou03516
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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