Information Sheet

 

 

R            Fairbanks, Jonathan, 1828-1917.

75                    Papers, 1850-1929 (bulk 1860-1916).

                                    One folder and four volumes.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

This collection consists of correspondence and notebooks of Jonathan Fairbanks, an educa­tor and businessman who came to Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, from St. Marys, Ohio, in 1866.  The correspon­dence consists primarily of letters received from friends and family in Mas­sa­chu­setts and Ohio.  The notebooks generally concern personal business and financial mat­ters.

 

Jonathan Fairbanks was born in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1828.  He taught school in Mas­sa­chu­setts and Delaware before moving to St. Marys, Ohio, sometime after 1855.  He taught school at St. Marys and Piqua, Ohio, before moving to Springfield, Missouri, in 1866.  Fairbanks engaged in the lumber trade and the real estate business in Springfield.  He also served terms as mayor of Springfield, member of the Board of Education, and Superintendent of Public Schools.

 

The Fairbanks papers consist of one folder of correspondence received and four notebooks.  The correspondence includes primarily letters addressed to Fairbanks but also in­cludes a descrip­tion by Fairbanks of his move from Ohio to Missouri in 1866.  There is also a copy of an agree­ment between John M. Richardson and S. L. Wilber, attorneys at Springfield, with whom Fair­banks had apparently entered into an agreement before he left Ohio.

 

The notebooks feature a diary and journal, a financial ledger, and a notebook with miscella­neous memoranda.  Volume One is perhaps the most useful.  It includes the records of the St. Marys [Ohio] Union School, ca. 1860-1862, and a description of a steam engine for mill work at Piqua, Ohio, 1863.  There are also entries for 1870-1871 which note construction of the Kansas City, Springfield and Memphis Railroad, the business affairs of John M. Richardson, the lynch­ing of an accused rapist at Springfield, and the production of a sawmill which Fairbanks operated near Lamar, Missouri.  There are a few brisk notes on the various mu­nicipal offices he held in Spring­field.

 

Volumes two through four include personal expense accounts as well as accounts of persons indebted to Fairbanks.  Volume Three contains thirty-five pages of prose and poetry written ca. 1851, and journal entries for 1905-1907.  Enclosed in this volume are newspaper clippings con­cerning Fairbanks’s career as a schoolteacher in St. Marys, Ohio, and the public school system in Springfield, Missouri.

 

 

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