Biography

Biography can be seen as an alternative way to view history.  While the main orientation of Between the Lakes Group remains local history, to deny the validity of biography as an expression of history is to waste energy straining for a pointless perfection. 

This insight came as a result of work by one of our summer interns in 2013, who had an interest in women spies.  Historical figures to be sure, they were at the same time people, and to learn about them is to learn about the people they were, in the times they lived.  In other words, biography.

We realized, too, that already in our catalog was biographical material about historical figures -- our lengthy chapter from the History of Torrington about the abolitionist John Brown is a case in point.  In other words, biography simply represents another entry point to the base of historical information we already publish and that we will publish in the future.  And frequently, our publications contain what we've come to call "embedded biography" that might otherwise escape a search!

Please check back frequently to see what new material we have added and to see links to material elsewhere in our catalog that relates to this topic.

Biographical material currently available from Between the Lakes Group:

Collected Biography:

--Noted Women of the Genesee Country by Mary Hotchkin Hoag (undated).  This provides biographical information of noted women of western New York State.

--Goodenough's Clergy of Litchfield County.  Extensive biographical information about Puritan clerics historical of historical interest in Litchfield County, CT.

Biographies of Individuals:

--Mr. Cleveland: A Personal Impression, by Jesse Lynch Williams (1909).  Grover Cleveland, the only President of the United States to serve two non-continuous terms of office, has been the subject of biographies by such luminaries as Rexford G. Tugwell and Allan Nevins, and assuredly his life has been thoroughly studied.  However, this small book of personal reminiscences by someone not involved politics who knew him mainly in Princeton, NJ after his terms as President, offers still a different perspective of the man.  The author, Jesse Lynch Williams (1871 – 1929) was the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama.   87+ pages, in PDF format, download now for $3.00.

--Admiral Andrew H. Foote, an article by W. J. Finan in The Lure of the Litchfield Hills  - Volume XX, no. 3, Winter 1960.

--The Honorable Horatio Seymour: An address by Dr. George L. Miller (1903)

--John Brown: From Torrington to Harpers Ferry from Orcutt’s History of Torrington.  For Torrington people, John Brown was a hometown boy. 

--Governor William Coddington, by Mrs. Sarah K. Birckhead (1913).  Some fascinating biographical information about an important figure in Colonial Rhode Island

--Rose Greenhow in Pinkerton's Spy of the Rebellion.  Included in our collection on woman spies.

--Patience Wright, America's First Female International Spy, in The Lure of the Litchfield Hills  - Volume XX, no. 3, Winter 1960.

--Deceased Herkimer, NY attorneys:  Gaylord Griswold, Sanford Clark, Matthias B. Tallmadge, Michael Hoffman, Simeon Ford, Lauren Ford, William D. Ford, Aaron Hackley, Jr., Charles Gray, James B. Hunt, John C. Underwood, Ezra Graves, Charles A. Burton, Volney Owen, Clinton A. Moon, Maurice Fikes, Jacob H. Weber, Amos H. Prescott, Samuel Earl, Josiah A. Steele, Robert Earl, George W. Smith, Sidney A. Smith, George M. Wirt, John Dryden Henderson, Edward A. Brown, Abram B. Steele, and Robert E. Steele.  Found in The Professional and Public Service of the Deceased Members of the Bar of the Village of Herkimer, NY, By Hon. Charles Bell (1914)