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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 576

Christophe Daniel Ebeling letters to William Bentley and other letters

Overview

Letters from German librarian and professor, Christophe Daniel Ebeling, to American minister and scholar, William Bentley, with a few letters to Ebeling from others.

Dates

  • Creation: 1795-1817

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English and German.

Conditions Governing Access

Restricted because of fragility. Permission of curator required.

Extent

.5 linear feet (1 box)

42 autograph manuscript letters, in English, (signed by Ebeling) to William Bentley; also with 3 letters to Ebeling from Nathaniel Silsbee, Van Staphorst & Co., and John Robison. The letters concern the exchange between Ebeling (in Hamburg, Germany) and Bentley (in Salem, Massachusetts) of parcels containing books, newspapers, and manuscripts. The letters to Ebeling concern Silsbee, Robison, and Van Staphorts & Co. couriering or shipping books to or from Bentley.

The letters have been disbound and the boards from the bound volume and the 1844 donor letter are housed at the end of the collection.

Biographical / Historical

Christophe Daniel Ebeling (1741-1817) was librarian of the Stadtsbibliothek and professor at the University of Hamburg. Part of his personal collection of Americana was bought by Israel Thorndike and presented to Harvard College in 1818. William Bentley (1759-1819) was an American Unitarian minister, scholar, columnist, and diarist. He received an AB from Harvard College in 1777. Bentley amassed a library of over 4,000 volumes, one of the largest private libraries in America at the time.

Arrangement

Arranged into the following series:

  1. I. Christophe Daniel Ebeling letters to William Bentley
  2. II. Letters to Christophe Daniel Ebeling
  3. III. Other material

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

No accession number. Gift of William B. Fowle of Boston (nephew of William Bentley); received: 1844 July 3.

Processing Information

Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt

Title
Ebeling, Christophe Daniel,1741-1817. Christophe Daniel Ebeling letters to William Bentley and other letters, 1795-1817: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou02157

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.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440