Box 1

Scope and Contents: Steele imagines the enjoyment his sister must have had at the Guilderland Center parsonage house on New Year's Eve. He will not return until the spring. His roommate is a "fine young man." He will leave Grammar School in the spring, and is applying to enter the College with three others. He wants to join the Philoclean Society (not his father's). He is now a member of a secret society in Rutgers College that includes twelve members. He went into New York...

Scope and Contents: On the evening of March 4, two expresses travelling from Washington, D.C. to New York City, came through New Brunswick to carry the news of Benjamin Harrison's inauguration. Holloway expects to enter college in April with three or four schoolmates. Long discussion of the comings and goings back home. His roommate is named David Cole, Class of 1842, the son of a minister in the D.C., Dutch Reformed Church. He writes, "They are repairing Rutgers College and have...

Scope and Contents: Has been in New Brunswick for two and a half weeks. "I like it very well, it is a very healthy place and considerable life in it. The grammar school which I attend is a fine institution there are 100 students and three teachers. The principle [sic] Mr. James Furgeson is a man of splendid talents and he keeps the students in his department in very strict order." More about studies, his fellow lodgers. Mr. Hasbrouck, a lawyer of Kingston, chosen for...

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Examination takes place on the 7th of October; he is anxious to get home and see all his friends. His "chum" Ganse, a member of the theological seminary, is from 495 Broadway and is a graduate of Columbia College. Steele is studying Greek and Virgil and is going to enter college at the end of the year.

Scope and Contents: Studies are proceeding rapidly. "Mr. Furgeson intends to leave the Grammar school in the Spring and he is preparing a class of ten to enter college at that time of which I am a member. And probably before I come home I shall be a member of Rutgers College." Steele moved to a rooming house which charges only $2 per week. As Ganse did not move with him, his new chum is Mr. Cole. Ganse is sick in New York with an ulcer in his throat and will probably not...

Scope and Contents: John Gardner, Class of 1844, returned to the adjoining room after delivering temperance addresses at a school on Staten Island. Less than half as many additions to Rutgers College this term as last. Mr. Strong has been deranged for two weeks from studying entirely too hard. Steele has commenced Rhetoric and Metaphysics, both very hard. Asks his sister to take care of this at home this winter and not to break the old sleigh, which must last three or four winters...

Scope and Contents: His sister has visited and sailed back to Guilderland from New Brunswick via New York City and Albany. He considers the scenery between New Brunswick and New York to be delightful. His sister is to marry a Mr. Coney; Steele thinks her entirely too young at twenty. Much excitement in New Brunswick over John Tyler's passing through. "He arrived in the cars from Princetown, stayed about two hours, made quite a speech and was cheered quite heartily." All are...