Hendricks and Hamilton Families papers
Collection
0044-MDHC
The Hendricks, Hamilton, Carter, and Wheeler families were longtime residents of the state of Maryland, particularly the Baltimore area. The Hendricks and Hamilton Families papers date from 1845 to 1961, with the bulk of the material from 1861 to 1920. The collection consists of financial documents, calling cards, ledgers, correspondence, ephemera, documents pertaining to family events, a Methodist hymnal, photographs, daguerreotypes, and other various memorabilia items. These items cover subjects such as family events (visits, marriages, deaths); the financial life of the family; day-to-day events during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; friendships; and religious life of the mid-nineteenth century.
This collection is open for research.
Photocopies of original materials may be provided for a fee and at the discretion of the curator. Please see our Duplication of Materials policy for more information. Queries regarding publication rights and copyright status of materials within this collection should be directed to the appropriate curator.
244 Items
The Hendricks and Hamilton Families papers date from 1845 to 1961, with the bulk of the material from 1861 to 1920. The collection consists of financial documents, calling cards, ledgers, correspondence, ephemera, documents pertaining to family events, a Methodist hymnal, photographs, daguerreotypes, and various memorabilia items. The collection documents subjects such as family events (visits, marriages, deaths); the financial life of the family; day-to-day events during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; friendships; and religious life of the mid-nineteenth century.
The majority of the collection concerns the Hendricks and Hamilton families. There is some material related to the Carter family and very little associated with the Wheelers.
The Hendricks, Hamilton, Carter, and Wheeler families, all forbears of donor Virginia Wheeler Harrold (1910-?), are longtime residents of the state of Maryland. Virginia Harrold grew up in Baltimore with her mother and lived for a time in Silver Spring. The Hamilton and Wheeler families are paternal relations, the Carter and Hendricks families her maternal relations.
Virginia Harrold's parents were Anna (Annie) Maria Carter Wheeler (1888-1962) and James Robert Wheeler. Anna Maria Carter Wheeler had an older brother, Thomas Carter (1880-?), and two older sisters, Sallie Viola Carter Wilhelm (1882-1955) and Mollie Gertrude Carter. Mollie Carter died less than a year after her birth in1886.
Anna Maria Carter Wheeler's mother was Mary Rebecca Hendricks Carter (1847-1939). She married Thomas Carter in 1878 in Baltimore. The family resided in Baltimore City for the next several decades; Mary Carter continued to reside in there after her husband died, first alone and then with the family of her eldest daughter Sallie Carter Wilhelm. Mary Rebecca Carter had several siblings documented through items and photographs in the collection: two sisters, Emma Frances Hendricks (b. 1842) and Hester Ann Hendricks, and three brothers, John Wesley Hendricks, William (Will) Hendricks, and Jacob Franklin (Frank) Hendricks. Mary Carter and Emma Hendricks were both professional seamstresses. In September 1912, Emma, Hester, and Frank were murdered on their family farm in Maryland Line, Maryland, presumably by a hired hand who took his own life. The identity of the murderer was never definitively established however, as there were no witnesses to the murders or the suicide. Mary Rebecca Carter's nephew Herbert C. Hendricks (b. 1872), a banker in nearby New Freedom, Pennsylvania, wrote her about this tragic event.
One of the earliest known branches of Virginia Harrold's family is the Wheelers. Reverend Thomas Wheeler (1816-1866) was born in Annapolis, the son of Thomas Wheeler, Senior and Nancy Hutton Wheeler. Reverend Wheeler began preaching at age eighteen. He married twice; he and his second wife Maria Louise Rives (d.1912) raised their three children in Baltimore and Laurel, Maryland.
Virginia Harrold's paternal great-grandparents, Oliver (b. 1818) and Susan (b. 1825) Hamilton, lived in Petersburg, Virginia during the Civil War. Oliver was born in Maryland, the son of two immigrants from England. Susan Hamilton took out a life insurance policy on her husband from New York Life Insurance in 1857. During the Civil War, the Hamiltons had business dealings with the Confederate States of America. Between 1865 and 1870, Oliver Hamilton moved to Baltimore while his wife remained in Petersburg with their three children Mary Kate Hamilton (1857-1928), William Hamilton (b. 1860), and Anna Hamilton (b. 1865). By 1880, the entire family was reunited in Baltimore. Mary Kate Hamilton married Thomas Rives Wheeler, and their son James Wheeler was the husband of Anna Maria Carter Wheeler. Late in her life, Mary Kate Hamilton Wheeler moved in with her daughter-in-law Anna Maria Carter Wheeler and young granddaughter Virginia Wheeler (Harrold).
The Hendricks and Hamilton families papers has been organized into 3 series.
Virginia Wheeler Harrold donated the materials in May 1962 to the University of Maryland Libraries.
This collection was originally named the Virginia Harrold collection. A detailed inventory was created by the donor at the time of donation and was kept with the inventory created by the original arranger of the collection. Neither the donor's inventory nor the listing created in 1973 accurately described the contents of the collection in 2011. Memorabilia and photographs were separated from the paper materials of the collection. Memorabilia were transferred to the Archives and Manuscripts Department's memorabilia collection. Photographs were placed in paper sleeves and placed in a separate box, and daguerreotypes were also placed in a separate box. Textual materials were separated into seven folders labeled as follows: Calling Cards, Confederate Vouchers, Correspondence, Dress Ledgers, Ledgers/Notebook, Miscellaneous, and Religious Verse.
During the reprocessing of the collection in 2011, photographs were removed from the paper sleeves and housed in Mylar sleeves. A new inventory of materials was done based on the donor's notes and original arranger's work. Items were regrouped into three series based on format; textual materials arranged in subject categories and placed in acid-free folders. Acid-free paper was placed between some materials within folders. A detailed finding aid was then created for the collection.
Members of the Hendricks family appear to have spelled their last name interchangeably between Hendricks and Hendrix as both spellings appear in family documents. However, the family name is consistently spelled 'Hendricks' in the finding aid.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives