Collection ID: A.B83
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Breese, Sidney, 1709-1767, Breese, Samuel Sidney, 1768-1848, and Breese (Family : Breese, Sidney, 1709-1767)
Extent:
33 boxes and 1 package
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Item title, item date], Breese-Stevens-Roby Family Papers, A.B83, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Background

Scope and Content:

Letters, chiefly family in nature, written to and from Breese-Stevens-Roby family members of New Jersey and upstate New York. Also in the collection are family legal and financial papers, literary items, genealogical material, maps, postal forms, prescriptions and recipes, and newspapers. The material encompasses generations of this extended family from the early 1700s to the early 1900s, with concentration from the 1790s to the 1860s.

Samuel Sidney Breese (1768-1848) was a lawyer for Aaron Burr in the 1790s. The collection contains a small group of letters and documents relating to Burr. They are found in Box 30 of the collection. These letters have been indexed in the card index to manuscript letters in the Department.

The collection also contains 16 letters, 1827-1830 and 1840-1849 by relative Samuel Finley Breese Morse. They have also been indexed in the card index in the Department.

Correspondence through 1840 from some others, including Jedidiah Morse, has also been indexed in the card index. A list of these correspondents follows.

Person: Number of Letters

Samuel Beardsley : 1

Samuel Breese (copy; to Aaron Burr): 1

Eleanor Freneau : 7

Thomas Henderson: 1

Andrew Kirkpatrick: 1

Peter Van Brugh Livingston: 1

William Learned Marcy: 1

Abraham Markoe: 1

Jedidiah Morse: 20

Sidney Edward Morse: 1

Richard Cary Morse: 2

Edward Elbridge Salisbury: 3

Gerrit Smith: 2

Peter Smith: 4

Richard Stockton: 1

James Tallmadge: 1

Francis Adrian Van Der Kemp: 1

Benjamin Wright: 1

Silas Wright Jr.: 1

Biographical / Historical:

The earliest correspondence, legal papers, and financial records in the collection relate to Sidney Breese (1709-1767), a native of Shrewsbury, England. He was in New York City by 1763 and maintained a home in Shrewsbury, NJ, a community named for his English birthplace The next generation is represented by his son, Samuel Breese (1737-1800), who lived his entire life in Shrewsbury, NJ.

The following generation included Samuel Sidney Breese (1768-1848). He grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Yale University in 1789. In 1796 he went to Cazenovia, NY as a clerk for the Holland Land Company. He married Helen Burrowes (or Burrows) (1781-1861) in 1801 at the home of her uncle, Benjamin Ledyard, in Aurora, NY. She was the daughter of Major John Burrowes of Revolutionary war fame and his wife Margaret (Forman) Burrowes.

The couple first lived in Cazenovia, then in nearby Whitestown, and after 1813 in Sconondoa, a hamlet in the town of Vernon, Oneida County, NY.

Six of their children grew to adulthood, including:

Samuel Breese (1802-1873)

Margaret (1804-1832) who married Joseph Roby (d. 1847). They had two children, Sidney Breese Roby (1830-1898), who became a Rochester NY businessman, and Margaret Roby (1832-1833).

Elizabeth (b. 1808) who married Augustus Stevens and had four children, Sidney Augustus Stevens (b. 1832), Breese Jacob Stevens (b. 1834), Charles Edward Stevens (b. 1836) and Helen Breese Stevens (b. 1839).

Samuel Sidney Breese (1768-1848) had an older half sister, Elizabeth Ann Breese (1766-1828). She married the clergyman and geographer, Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826). They had eleven children. The three who survived to adulthood were Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), the artist and inventor of the telegraph, Sidney Edwards Morse (1794-1871), an inventor, author, and publisher, and Richard Cary Morse (1795-1868).

Additional biographical and genealogical information on the family can be found in box 20 of the collection.

Acquisition information:
Presented to the University of Rochester Library by Dr. Mary Holmes Stevens Hayes, New York, June 22, 1955; Mrs. Cole Younger, New York, March 20, 1956; Miss Amelia F. Stevens and Mrs. Reginald Jackson, Madison, Wisconsin, July 17 and December 2, 1957, and April 2, 1958; Dr. Ross Roby, March 27, 1969; and Mrs. Joseph Roby, July 21, 1969. This last gift has been arranged separately in Boxes XXXI and XXXII. Box XXXIII was the gift of Ross Roby, December 16, 1987.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

The Breese-Stevens-Roby Family Papers is open for research use. Researchers are advised to contact the Rare Books Special Collections & Preservation Department prior to visiting. Upon arrival, researchers will also be asked to fill out a registration form and provide photo identification.

TERMS OF ACCESS:

In consultation with a curator, reproductions may be made upon request. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from a curator. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions.

PREFERRED CITATION:

[Item title, item date], Breese-Stevens-Roby Family Papers, A.B83, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
Rush Rhees Library
Second Floor, Room 225
755 Library Rd.
Rochester, NY 14627, United States
Link to repository site
CONTACT:
(585) 275-2121
rarebks@library.rochester.edu