Cyrus Woodman papers, 1833-1889

Author / Creator

Woodman, Cyrus, 1814-1889

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Summary

Papers of a resident of Mineral Point,Wisconsin and Cambridge, Massachusetts, consisting of bound volumes of personal and general business letters, letterpress copies of letters sent, and correspon...

Papers of a resident of Mineral Point,Wisconsin and Cambridge, Massachusetts, consisting of bound volumes of personal and general business letters, letterpress copies of letters sent, and correspondence for several business enterprises with which Woodman was connected.

Six volumes of correspondence and accounts, 1840-1844, deal with Woodman's services in northern Illinois for the Boston and Western Land Company. In 1844 he settled at Mineral Point and joined with Cadwallader C. Washburn in operating a real estate office. The firm entered public lands for settlers, located military warrants, acted as agent between eastern landholders and western purchasers, and also invested in and managed its own extensive agricultural, timber, and mineral lands. A great portion of the correspondence deals with these transactions, which centered at first in western Wisconsin, and spread to Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and other states. As an individual or as a member of this firm, Woodman expanded his activities into allied operations: lumbering on the Saginaw, the upper Wisconsin, the Black, and other rivers; mining in southwestern Wisconsin; establishing the Mineral Point Bank; and investing in railroad stock. From 1862 to 1864 he managed for the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company its grant of pine lands in lower Michigan, and around the year 1870 he superintended the building of the Burlington and Missouri Railroad to Lincoln, Nebraska.

In addition to business affairs, Woodman's correspondence contains his and his friends' expressions of opinion on banking, railroads, politics, contemporary events, and his own personal and family affairs.

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