LAUREL HESSING RESEARCH MATERIALS,, bulk: 1943-1994

Summary: Includes correspondence, lists, and research notes of Laurel Hessing, Free Acres Historian, while compiling her Annotated Anthology of Free Acres Writing (1992).

Much of the correspondence was received from Katharine Clay, Free Acres Town Clerk (1963-1976), and includes biographical information on many residents of Free Acres as well as town history. Other correspondents are Clay's daughter, Kay Williams, Charles Armbruster, Ernestine Benninger, and Alma Jane Bogart, (nee Gitnick). Of particular interest is a 1943 letter about a Japanese-American internment camp, and a list of Free Acreites in the Armed Forces.

Research materials prepared by Hessing include a catalogue of the leases in the collection and a list of leaseholders, (both circa 1980), arranged alphabetically.