Brainerd Family collection

Rossmann is the granddaughter of Pres. Ezra Brainerd.

Rossmann’s mother, Katherine Wright Brainerd Eddy (KBE), was the youngest of EB’s eight children, a child from his second marriage to Mary Wright (m.1897).

EB’s first wife was Frances Viola Rockwell (m.1868).

Rossman received the materials from her mother Katherine, who died in 1978.

Katherine received the papers from her sister-in-law Edith Hubbard Brainerd, who was married to Katherine’s half-brother Ezra Brainerd, Jr. (EB’s only son).

In 1960, prior to the sale of Springside, the Brainerd family home in Middlebury, to the Paul Cubeta family, EB Jr. cleaned out the family papers at Springside with his younger sister Alice Beaumelle Brainerd Nelson. EB Jr. took the papers to his home in Washington, D.C. where they were transferred to legal document boxes. When EB Jr. died in 1963 in Washington, D.C., his wife Edith transferred the papers to her youngest half-sister-in-law, Katherine.

The collection has been used as resource for writing family histories and memoirs. Besides KBE and EB Jr. creating histories, John Haltigan (son-in-law to EB Jr.) also added material to the collection.

EB was born in 1844 and grew up in St. Albans, VT, graduated from Middlebury College in 1864, became a faculty member in 1868 and college president in 1885. The collection includes essays, orations, diaries, and programs beginning from his grade school years in St. Alban’s Union School through his undergraduate years at MC, 1860-1864. The collection also includes scientific notes and book drafts for his publications on violets and blackberries, as well as notes for articles co-written with MC Geology professor Henry Seely about their scientific research tours on Lake Champlain.

Also included:

Research notes from Rossmann’s uncle Ezra Brainerd, Jr. on the genealogy of EB’s mother Catherine Wood, who grew up in Malone, NY. Also letters to EB from his father Lawrence Robbins Brainerd.