Eddy Family Papers, 1805-1919
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Administrative/Biographical History
These are primarily financial and legal papers of the Eddys, a pioneering family in Camden Township, Lorain County, Ohio. Fifty‑six items cover the family's period as farmers in western New York State in the area called the Holland Land Purchase (1805‑1830). John Eddy (1766‑1842) was then the head of the family. These items include two deeds (1816, 1817) to land in Genesee County, New York; a Sheldon, N.Y., school tax bill (1820); and a notice (1829) to quit the land.
Reuben Eddy (1806‑1884), accompanied by his father, John, and mother, Experience, moved to Camden, Ohio, in 1834. Seventy-four items in this collection (1862‑1919) are the papers of Reuben Eddy and of his daughter Annette and of her husband Philip Ritzenthaler. These include Eddy's will (1877); Ritzenthaler's deed to land (1876) in Mower County, Minnesota; a few family letters, photographs, and xeroxed information on geneology from family Bibles.
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative Information
Included within the Eddy papers are legal papers dealing with William W. Whitney (1806‑1872), founder of Kipton, Ohio. Whitney moved from Binghamton, New York, to Camden in 1834, owned the land where the first railroad station was placed in the 1850s, and laid out the town of Kipton, within Camden Township, which he initially named Binghamton. Reuben Eddy was a friend, legal guardian, and then executor of Whitney's estate. (See History of Lorain County, 1879, pp. 291 and 295 for information on Eddy and Whitney.) Ten items relating to Whitney in the Eddy papers include legal guardianship over the insane Whitney (1868, 1870); Whitney's accounts with local businessman J.A. Groot (1865‑1871); two wills of Whitney (1862 and 1872); an inventory of the Whitney estate (1872); and a record of the public sale of Whitney's personal property at auction (1873).
Note: Entry taken from William E. Bigglestone's unpublished "[preliminary] Guide to the Oberlin College Archives," which was prepared as individual entry sheets in a three-ring binder during the early 1980s.
INVENTORY
Box 1
Folder 1
Geneology on Eddy-Ritzenthaler families
(Philip Ritznethaler married Annette Eddy 1879)
Folder 2 (23 items)
N.Y. settlement, 1805-19 Financial and Legal
Papers of farmer John Eddy (1766-1842): Many
personal notes; 1819 account at dry goods store in
Sheldon, N.Y.; two deeds (1816, 1817) to land in
Holland Purchase in Genesee County, N.Y. (see O.
Turner, History of Holland Purchase and New York
State Gazateer, 1860, pp. 321-22 for information on
Holland Purchase. Sheldon was part of Genesee
County and may not have been township 8 or 9
referred to in these deeds)
Folder 3 (21 items)
N.Y. Settlement, 1820-30, Financial Papers of John
Eddy: Mostly personal financial notes of John Eddy;
Sheldon School tax bill for 1820; bill for kitchen items
1827; notice to quit the land in township #7; Holland
Land Purchase, 1829
Folder 4 (12 items)
N.Y. Settlement (n.d. 1810-30?) - Financial Papers of
Eddys: shoemaker's bill; recpie for rheumatic drops;
Nancy Eddy's school bill; dry goods bill; list of 41 men
owed money for labor on farm
Folder 5 (23 items)
Ohio Settlement, 1862-73, Correspondence and Legal
Papers of Reuben Eddy (1806-84), Camden, Ohio;
Report of Treasurer of Camden Schools, 1868; tax bills
and correspondence over land in Mower County,
Minnesota (on Iowa line, third county west of Mississippi
River); and items relating to Eddy's guardianship of
William Whitney (1806-72) and role of executor of
Whitney estate
Folder 6 (45 items)
Ohio Settlement, 1874-1919, Correspondence and
Papers of Eddy-Ritzenthaler family, Kipton, Ohio: tax
bills; deed to land in Mower County, Minnesota (town
#104); will of Reuben Eddy (1877); four letters in German
Folder 7
Printed matter, 1866-1915: photographs (3);
miscellaneous news clippings