Jesse Maltby Family Papers, 1807-1887
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
Jesse Maltby (also spelled Maltbie) was born in Norfolk, Connecticut, in 1797. He was one of eleven children of Benjamin and Abigail Maltbie. In 1823, he married Laura M. Baldwin (1798-1824) of Goshen, Connecticut. They had one child, Lorin (dates unknown).
In 1825, a year after his first wife’s death, Jesse Maltby married Salome Collar of Massachusetts. Jesse and Salome Maltby had three children: Laura (Mrs. Selden H. Reed, 1826-1913), Benjamin (dates unknown), and Clarissa (1834-1917).
Jesse Maltby lived in Norfolk, Connecticut, for the first forty years of his life. There he built houses for Solomon Cowles and others. In 1837 or 1838, Jesse Maltby sold his farm to James M. Cowles and moved his family to the Western Reserve. They settled on an eighty-acre farm in Bristol, Trumbull County, Ohio, which Jesse Maltby purchased from Solomon Sager.
In Bristol, Maltby farmed and also served as an agent to sell scythes, and possibly other goods, on commission. He was known for his abolitionist sentiments and active participation in the Underground Railroad.
Jesse Maltby sold his farm in 1854 and subsequently lived in several other places in Bristol Township. He may have relocated to Oberlin in Lorain County during 1854-55 when his daughter, Clarissa, was enrolled in Oberlin College. In 1857 he purchased two lots on West Lorain Street from Oberlin College. He later suffered financial reverses and took up the trade of carpenter and joiner. In the 1873 Oberlin village directory, Jesse Maltby is listed as a mechanic.
The West Lorain Street property was sold to Alfred Platt in 1860. Jesse Maltby later exchanged eighty acres of land in See County, Iowa, for property including a lot on Forest Street in Oberlin. The Maltby family lived in the house he built at 143 Forest Street (9 Forest Street prior to 1894) for over fifty years.
Jesse and Salome Maltby became members of First Congregational Church in Oberlin in 1857. At their golden wedding anniversary in April 1875, Professor Henry Cowles spoke of his early acquaintance with Jesse Maltby during their school days in Norfolk, Connecticut, and S.A. Bushnell told of Maltby’s involvement in the Underground Railroad in Trumbull County.
Jesse Maltby died at his home in Oberlin, Ohio, on December 30, 1884, and Salome Maltby died December 4, 1885. Following their deaths, their daughter Clarissa continued to live in the family home. Her cousin Lydia J. Brockway Maltby (Mrs. Edmund Maltby, 1820-92) also lived with her for a year before her death in 1892. Lydia Maltby was the mother of physicist Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860-1944; A.B. 1882, A.M. 1891) and of Martha Jane Maltby (1850-1932; Lit. 1874, hon. A.M. 1882, Ph.B. 1895). A number of other Maltby cousins also attended Oberlin College, as did Jesse Maltby’s grandsons Selden A. Reed (d. 1904; enr. prep. 1870-71) and Jesse L. Maltby (enr. prep. 1888-90).
Clarissa C. Maltby died on December 4, 1917. She was the last member of her immediate family to pass on, and was survived by two nieces and three nephews, none of whom lived in Oberlin.
The Maltby family farm on Morgan Street later became the property of Oberlin College through the bequest of Charles Martin Hall. It is now part of the Oberlin Golf Course.
Sources Consulted
Richard Byrne, Norfolk (Conn.) Historical Society. E-mail correspondence, June 10 & 18, 2002.
Carol Willsey Bell, Local History & Genealogy Center, Warren-Trumbull (Ohio) County Public Library. E-mail correspondence, June 15, 2002.
A.G. Hibbard, History of the Town of Goshen, Connecticut, with genealogies and biographies based upon the records of Deacon Lewis Mills Norton, 1897 (Hartford, Conn., Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co, 1897).
Jesse Maltby Family Papers, RG 30/338.
Oberlin College Library Autograph File (“M”), RG 16/5.
Oberlin News, 15 April 1875, 2 January 1885, and 14 January 1892.
Oberlin Tribune, 28 March 1913 and 14 December 1917.
Office of the Secretary (RG 5), Deeds and Property Files, "Park Property–Maltby, Reed, Evans".
Author: Melissa Gottwald Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationRG 16/5 Library Autograph File contains deeds for land owned by Jesse Maltby in Oberlin, Ohio (filed under “M”).
Information on land owned by Jesse Maltby, which later became part of the Oberlin Golf Course, may be found in RG 5, Secretary’s Office, Subgroup X, Series 3. Deeds and Property Files, “Park Property–Maltby, Reed, Evans” and in RG 30/9 Irving W. Metcalf Papers, Series 2. C.M. Hall Property Records.
RG 28, Alumni and Development Records contains alumni files for Clarissa C. Maltby, Selden A. Reed, J.L. Maltby, and various cousins of the Jesse Maltby family who attended Oberlin College.
The Jesse Maltby Family Papers primarily relate to the family’s time in Norfolk, Connecticut. A few items date from their residence in Bristolville, Trumbull County, Ohio, during 1837 to the 1850s. The Maltby family’s years in Oberlin, Ohio, are not represented in these documents.
Correspondence (1817-87) discusses topics such as family news, religion, and Jesse Maltby’s business dealings. More information about Maltby’s business affairs is found in accounts (1823-44), contracts (1827-36, n.d.), and property deeds (1820-54). The papers contain a number of essays and poems, on general subjects such as the importance of education and beauty. The essays may have been written by pupils taught by Laura M. Baldwin (Jesse Maltby’s first wife) in Goshen, Connecticut. Miscellaneous items include tax receipts, directions for preparing various colors of Reynolds paint, and Laura M. Baldwin’s teaching certificate (1817).
INVENTORY
Box 1
Accounts and Receipts, 1823, 1836, 1843-44
(see also Correspondence, 24
September 1836)
Contracts and Accounts for Houses built by Jesse Maltby
Warren Cone, Norfolk, Conn., 1835-36
(see also Correspondence,
24 September 1836)
Solomon Cowles, Norfolk, Conn., 1827
Aaron Gilbert, n.d.
Correspondence
18 November 1817
Ira Baldwin, Lexington, to “Dear
Friends” (Mariah Herd and Laury
Baldwin), on theme of religion
14 October 1822
Sylvia Tolles, Winchester, to her aunt
Miss Laura M. Baldwin, Goshen,
relating family news
24 September 1836
unsigned, incomplete letter to Mr. Isaac
Bull (?), complaining of the poor
quality of “Spanish White” (or
putty) purchased by the writer
on 14 July 1836
[also written on this paper are several
accounts for various individuals,
1836]
17 August 1840
Jesse Maltby, Bristol, [Ohio], to Mr. John
Dewel, regarding scythes left
with Maltby to sell on commission
3 March 1842
Jesse Maltby, Bristolville, [Ohio], to
Messrs. E.E. Ryan & Co., regarding
Ryan & Co.’s wish to procure an
agent to sell cloth, postscript refers
to arrangements for a sale of
scythes by Capt. John Dewel
5 May 1887
“Aunt Sybil,” North Cornwall, Conn.,
to “Dear Niece” (Laura [?]), relating
family news and family history.
Essays (by author)
Dickinson, Lemira, “On the importance of an
education,” n.d. (1 p.)
Jones, Laura, “On Happiness,” n.d. (1 p.)
Jones, Laura, “On Friendship,” n.d. (2 pp.)
Huntley, Lydia - see miscellaneous poems below
Phelps, Rebecca, “On Happiness” (Goshen,
Litchfield County, Conn.) n.d. (1 p.)
Box 1 (cont.)
Essays and Poems (no author indicated)
"Beauty,” n.d. (1 p.)
“The evening,” n.d. (1 p.)
“Hymn to be sung by the Charity Children of
the Dutch Reformed Church, New York,
November 1807” (1 p.)
“A hymn sung by the young people at the
interment of Laura Smith of Austinburg,
who died January 23d, 1823 (at 19
years) — (A Call to Youth),” 1823 (1 p.)
“Lines composed on the death of an interesting
youth,” n.d. (4 pp.)
Miscellaneous poems, n.d. (3 pp.)
“An excuse for not fulfilling an
engagement” (written in school
by Lydia Huntley)
“Melancholy”
“Ode to sensibility”
“Pleasures of recollection”
“To the ladies”
“A wish”
untitled
“On profane swearing” (author illegible), n.d. (1 p.)
“Sophronia,” n.d. (4 pp.)
“There can be no happiness without virtue,”
n.d. (3 pp.)
Untitled Poem (to a friend), n.d. (1p.)
Miscellany
Baldwin, Jonathan F. “Book of definitions” (22 pp.)
Norfolk, [Conn.], 8 November 1815
Baldwin, Laura. Teaching certificate, Goshen,
[Litchfield County, Conn.], 2 May 1817
Reynolds Directions for Painting (14 pp.) n.d.
Property Deeds and Mortgage
Jesse Maltbie to Norfolk School Society, Conn.,
deed, 2 December 1820
Uriah Brown to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk,
Litchfield County, Conn.,
2 December 1820
Solomon Cowls [or Cowles] to Jesse Maltbie,
deed, Norfolk, Litchfield County, Conn.,
19 January 1821
Uriah Brown to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk,
Litchfield County, Conn.,
18 January 1821
Benoni Mills to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk,
Litchfield County, Conn., 20 April 1822
Ephraim Norton to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk,
Litchfield County, Conn., 3 June 1825
Box 1 (cont.)
Property Deeds and Mortgage (cont.)
Stephen Norton and Ephraim Norton to Jesse
Maltbie, deed, Norfolk, Litchfield County,
Conn., 6 June 1825
Stephen Norton and Ephraim Norton to Jesse
Maltbie, deed, Norfolk Litchfield County,
Conn., 15 June 1825
Aaron Case to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk
Litchfield County, Conn., 13 April 1826
Nathan Atwood to Jesse Maltbie, Norfolk Litchfield
County, Conn., 12 February 1827
Jesse Maltbie to State of Connecticut, School
Fund, mortgage on Norfolk, Conn.,
property, March 1828 (2 documents)
Nathan Atwood to Jesse Maltbie, deed, Norfolk
Litchfield County, Conn., 29 March 1828
Oren and Catharine Baldwin to Jesse Maltby,
deed of sale for 120 acres in See County,
Iowa, 30 October 1854
Tax Receipts, Jesse and Salome Maltbie, Trumbull County, Ohio, 1847, 1850-52