Henry Ledyard (1812-1880) was born in New York City on May 5, 1812. He graduated from Columbia College in 1830 and soon after began practicing law in New York. When Lewis Cass (1782-1866), a military officer and politician of Michigan, served as an Ambassador to France from 1836-1846, Ledyard accompanied him to Paris as one of his chargé d’affaires. In 1844, Ledyard returned to the United States and moved to Detroit where he played an active role in the local government and the development of the city. Ledyard was instrumental in establishing the State Savings Bank, the Elwood Cemetery, the Board of Water Commissioners, and was a member of the Board of Education. He also served as alderman of the city from 1849-1850, and was the mayor in 1855. In 1857, he was elected Senator, but resigned his seat when Lewis Cass was appointed Secretary of State under President James Buchanan. Ledyard accompanied Cass to Washington, D.C., and remained there until 1861. At that point, Ledyard moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where he lived until his death. In Newport, he served as the first president of the Newport Hospital, and was the president of the Redwood Library from 1872-1874.
In 1839, Henry Ledyard married Matilda Frances Cass (1808-1898) with whom he had five children: Elizabeth (1840-1918), Henry Brockholst Ledyard (1844-1921), Susan Livingston (1844-1877), Lewis Cass (1851-1932), and Matilda Spencer (b. 1860). Ledyard passed away on June 7, 1880, in London, England, during a brief visit to Europe.
Access is open to members and researchers at the Redwood Library and Athenaeum.
This collection is owned by the Redwood Library and Athenaeum. Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the Special Collections Librarian of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum.
Henry Ledyard collection, RLC.Ms.565, Redwood Library and Athenaeum.
This collection consists of letters and legal documents both received and collected by Henry Ledyard. Many of the letters in this collection were written to Ledyard, unless otherwise noted, and typically concern his work in Paris, France, while working on Lewis Cass’s staff. Some of these letters are written in French. Also included is a list of the letters presented to the Redwood Library by Ledyard in October 1869.
Letters and legal documents collected by Ledyard are typically from the colonial era and document both Newport and early American history. Items of particular note include: the 1726 document signed by various Newport citizens which established a Fire Bucket Company in Newport to develop a protocol if a fire were to start in town; a remonstrance from Boston citizens to the British Parliament in 1764 addressing their concerns about stamp taxes and the sugar trade; and an 1805 letter from President Thomas Jefferson to William C. C. Claiborne, governor of the Territory of Orleans, concerning a gift of private lands in that area to General Lafayette of France.
This collection is arranged by the folio number that was assigned to them by Redwood Library Staff when this collection was placed into the former Steel Cabinet collection.
Gift of Henry Ledyard, 1869 October (see item 27)
Prior to processing in 2014, this collection was found within the Steel Cabinet collection: Drawer 7, Folder 2. The majority of the materials in this collection are glued onto larger pieces of paper with more than one document typically glued onto one of the sheets of paper. As a result, the documents do not appear to be in any type of discernable order. The larger sheets of paper with the documents glued on them were numbered and two indexes were created, most likely by Library staff at an unknown time. The first index is an alphabetical listing of all the names associated with each document and the second index is by the document’s assigned folio number. These indexes can be found in the folder for this collection.
In addition, it appears as though some documents were added to this collection after Ledyard’s initial gift in 1869. There is no other documentation describing their acquisition.
Folio 16: Insurance papers, signed by various Newport citizens, 1757 Mar 11 can now be found in: RLC.Ms.029, Box 2, Folder 2, Collection of Redwood family papers.
Legal papers on the estate of Henry Ledyard, HLS MS 1344, Harvard Law School Library.
The original copy of Benjamin Franklin’s April 5, 1744, letter concerning the formation of a Literary Society is most likely found at the New-York Historical Society and a transcript of such can also be found at the Library of Congress.