Conservation, Manuscripts

$500 [For supplies to house the addition]

In order to make these materials available for use, they need to be arranged and housed in archival folders and boxes. A selection of particularly fragile items will need mylar enclosures. The cost of these supplies will do much for getting these materials in front of students and researchers.

In September 2023, the Clements Library added hundreds of letters, documents, court records, investigative papers, and other materials to its King Family Papers. The focus of the addition is merchant William H. King, his mental health issues, and his institutionalization in the McLean Asylum in Massachusetts. A key factor in these papers is Eugenia Ross, a woman who claimed that the man in the asylum was not William King, but was instead her uncle Pelatiah Gordon. Mrs. Ross unsuccessfully attempted to secure King’s release from the facility, and then after King’s death she engaged in a series of lawsuits claiming his property.