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Daniel Torrey Papers (Digitized Content)

9 Items Full Collection Description

The digitized content of the Daniel Torrey Papers consists of personal and business papers dating from 1832-1869 of Daniel Torrey, a shop owner and craftsman who lived in Illinois and Missouri in the mid-1800s.

Daniel Torrey (1808-1896) was a scythe maker and owned a wagon and blacksmithing shop in Payson, Adams County, Illinois. He married his first wife, Florinda Thompson in Maine in 1830, and together they had three children. In the 1830s the Torreys moved from Maine to Quincy, Illinois, and later, to Payson, where he established his shop. After his first wife's death in 1842, he married Priscilla Blood, and together they had seven children. In 1856 they moved to Missouri and, after 1870, to Fairbury, Nebraska.

The digitized content consists of materials from Torrey's time in Maine, Illinois, and Missouri, and includes a small notebook, filled with diary entries; personal and business documents and financial records, including a letter from his second wife's relative, Amos Blood, regarding an order of steel ploughs and other farm equipment; and home remedies for common illnesses.

The Illinois History and Lincoln Collections unit at the University of Illinois Library manages the physical items of the Daniel Torrey Papers (MS 844). The collection was partially digitized in 2018. For more information, contact an archivist at ihlc@library.illinois.edu.

Letter from Amos Blood to Daniel Torrey, January 27, 1846 — Page_001