Wayward Family papers

Collection

Identifier: YNHSC.MSS.1776

Staff Only

Scope and Contents note

The Wayward family papers includes material from several Wayward descedents living in the 19th and 20th centuries, and was collected by variou family members. Document types in the collection include correspondence, diaries, clippings, posters and audio tapes about the Wayward family and their various activities.

See the scope and content note for each series for more details about the collection contents.

Dates

Creation: 1847-1963

Creator

Auchincloss, Theresa, 1904-1967 (Person)
Wayward family (Family)

Language of Materials

English

Language of Materials

Collection materials are all in English.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is available for research.

IP Rights

Intellectual property rights have not been transferred to YNHSC; however, the IP rights for a many of the collection materials have expired and passed to the public domain.

Family History

The Wayward family emigrated from England with the original settlers of the fertile Lush River valley in Massachusetts. Makepeace and Constance Wayward, along with five children, were among the founders of City on a Hill when they were expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1657 for unorthodox religious practices.

Significant family members represented in the collection include Asa Wellspring Wayward, Sarah Wayward Lewis, Grover Allen Wayward, and Theresa Wayward Auchincloss, the creator of the collection.

Extent

2.0 Linear Feet (2 record cartons)

Additional Description

Synopsis

Test, test, test

Arrangement note

Arranged in four series: 1. Asa Wellspring diaries. 2. Sarah Wayward Lewis materials. 3. Grover Allen Wayward OFF records. 4. Theresa Wayward Auchinclos materials.

Custodial History note

When Theresa Auchincloss died in 1963, the collection was bequeathed to her grandson George Van Buskirk Smithie. Smithie, at the time interested in his family's distinguished history, found himself in dire financial straints by the mid-1960s and apparently sold some of the earliest materials in the collection to a private collector. Some of this material may constitute a 1991 donation of early Wayward family material to the Pittsfield Athenaeum, but the provenance of that material is unclear. The whereabouts of other material sold by Smithie, if there was addiitonal materials, is unknown. Smithie died of mysterious causes in Boston in 1975, at which time the remaining Wayward family material came into the possession of his sister, Elspeth Smithie Bourgeois, an alumna of Carpe Diem University, who donated the collection in 1986.

Immediate Source of Acquisition note

Donated in 1986 by Elspeth Smithie Bourgeois, a graduate of Carpe Diem University.

Appraisal note

The collection has been appraised by Ernesto Proffitt and Daughters, who notes the primary value of the collection, historical and thus monetary, resides in the 19th century materials diaries of Asa Wellspring Wayward and the journals and correspondence on Sarah Wayward Lewis.

Related Archival Materials note

Other additional Wayward family papers are in the custody of the Pittsfield Athenaeum. Those materials may have been part of the collection housed in YNHSC at one time but were possibly sold to the Pittsfield Athenaeum in the mid-1960s by George VAn Buskirk Smithie, a prior owner of the Wayward family papers now in the custody of Carpe Diem University.

Processing Information note

The collection was inventoried upon accession in 1986, but languished in the Your Name Here Special Collections unprocessed backlog until 2006, when an intern from the Simmons College graduate program processed it. This was done as part of a concerted effort to provide access to the backlog. The 19th century material was refoldered and standard preservation measures were taken. Since several of the letters were deteriorating, all were placed in mylar sleeves to facilitate future use by researchers without further damaging them. The remainder of the collection was processed according to the repository’s basic-level processing guidelines: materials were refoldered only when original folders were deteriorating, arrangement work within individual folders was not done, and fasteners were removed only if visibly rusting. Everything was then arranged alphabetically by type of material.