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Archives at Cornell

Swift family papers

 Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: 19

Scope and content

Letters of George L. Swift, including pictures of self and home, deeds, appraisals, bonds, mortgages, patent exam report, diary, poems, appointment in regiment of cavalry, insurance policy, notes, wills, inventory of estate, and lecture on spirit rapping. Correspondents include Job Pierce, Sabina Underwood, Hiram Swift, Herman Swift, and E.B. Swift; lithographs of H. L. Swift and W. A. Swift; and broadsides used by the Swifts to advertise their lectures on the "magnetic telegraph" and other wonders of electro-magnetism.

Scope and content

Machines used by George Swift to illustrate his lectures were transferred to the College of Engineering.

Dates

  • 1723-1863.

Creator

Biographical / Historical

Members of the Swift family, brothers and cousins, including George Lucien Swift, H.A. Swift, William A. Swift, Edwin B. Swift, and Lewis Swift, from DeRuyter and Clarkson, N.Y., were lecturers on electromagnetism and the telegraph. Lewis Swift became an astronomer and director of the Warner Observatory in Rochester and then the Lowe Observatory near Pasadena.

Extent

.8 cubic feet. (.8 cubic feet.)

Language of Materials

English