MsC 45
Manuscript Register
FAY FAMILY PAPERS
Collection
Dates: 1837 -- 1956
(Bulk Dates: 1900 -- 1940)
400 items, .5 linear feet
This document describes a collection of materials held
by the
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1420
Phone: 319-335-5921
Fax: 319-335-5900
e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
Posted to the Internet: April 2002
Access
and Restrictions: This collection is open for research.
Photographs: Folder 5 (photo
of George Burrier), 11 (Mrs. Oldaker)
Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but
does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this
collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections
Department.
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Biographical Note
Horace Amsden Fay was born in Lebanon,
New Hampshire, in 1827. As an adult, he engaged in the retail crockery trade.
He married Calista Darrah in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1857 and a few
months later the newlyweds relocated to Clinton, Iowa. Shortly thereafter,
they moved to DeWitt, Iowa, the county seat of Clinton County. In the early
eighteen seventies, Horace joined C.E. Shattuck in business at the Clinton
Chair Factory. In 1877, he assumed charge of the DeWitt business of the Clinton
County Advertiser. He spent the remainder of his life in DeWitt, dying
there on March 12, 1905.
Horace Fay had
two sons, Clarence Fay, and Louis E. Fay. Louis, born September 21, 1861,
started as an office boy in the DeWitt business of the Clinton County Advertiser
in 1877, the same year his father was engaged by the paper.
In 1882, Louis
E. Fay bought the newspaper, where, according to a contemporary account in
the Muscatine Semi-Weekly News Tribune, "time, talent and energy zealously
employed, served to develop it from a small weekly to one of the leading democratic
daily papers of the state." At some point, Louis was apparently joined by
his brother Clarence in ownership of the newspaper. Clarence also owned a
jewelry store in Clinton.
At 4:30 on the
morning of November 2, 1902, Clarence and his wife were roused from bed at
gunpoint. A burglar stole thirty-one diamonds, worth $1300, from them. Louis
used his own time and money to track down the burglars. A break came in the
case in April 1904, when George Burrier, who was in jail for another robbery,
confessed to being involved in the Fay burglary, and named the chief burglar
in the case. Louis Fay's work on this case put five criminals behind bars
and implicated Tom Denison, a wealthy "policy king" and gambler who had great
power in Omaha politics. His work also helped to solve the Shercliffe diamond
burglary in which $15,000 worth of diamonds had been stolen in 1892. One and
a half years after they were stolen, the Fay diamonds were returned to Louis
Fay in a meeting on a bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs.
Scope and Contents
These papers cover several generations
of the Fay family and contain several different threads.
Included are legal
documents, deeds, land grants, stock certificates, insurance policies, and
contracts in several names, Fay and Darrah among them. There are two books,
one a printed book of poetry, the other a book of handwritten poetry written
to Calista [Darrah]. There are two folders of materials from the Fay Diamond
Incident, including statements from people involved, some exhibits from one
of the trials, and letters from George Burrier and his mother.
There is also a
folder on "Granny" Oldaker who, at 106, was the oldest living Iowan in 1946.
There is a file containing a postcard of the old stone farmhouse in Clinton,
which is called "the old Fay farm." This was a stop on the underground railroad,
and there are four pictures of the cellar of the woodshed, which apparently
served as a hiding place for escaped slaves.
Also included is
a collection of 250 -- 300 colored postcards of various tourist sites.
Finally, there
is a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of travel stories. There is no byline,
but they are possibly from the Clinton County Advertiser and may have
been written by one of the Fay brothers. In the middle of this scrapbook there
are clippings pertaining to the Fay Diamond Incident.
Related Materials
For more information
on Horace Amdsen Fay and his descendents, see http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~fayfamily/horace.html#marriage2
Inventory
FOLDER 3
Business Papers, 1837 -- 1922. Lands, attorney, and county recorder notes,
miscellaneous. 17 items
FOLDER 4
Deeds (land), 1859 -- 1911 and insurance policy. 13 items
FOLDER
5
Fay Diamond Incident, 1899 -- 1916. Fay's correspondence and photograph of
Geo. Burrier, including correspondence from Leslie M. Shaw. 28 items
FOLDER 6
Fay Diamond Incident: statements made to Fay (etc.); threats on John Conner's
life, 1903. 20 items
FOLDER 7
Fay, Louis E., 1905 -- 1928; stock certificates. 5 items
FOLDER 8
Fay papers. 1 item
FOLDER 9
Greeting cards (1900 -- 1902), Easter and Valentine's Day. 3 items
FOLDER 10
Land grants -- U.S. Government, 1852 -- 1854; signed by Millard Fillmore and
Franklin Pierce. 4 items
FOLDER
11
Mrs. Elizabeth Oldaker and photograph, 1943 -- 1947. 17 items
FOLDER 12
Postcards. 3 bundles
FOLDER 13
Underground railroad and photographs, 1955 -- 1956 (Old Fay Farm). 6 items
