Our Growing Collections

JEAN W. ASHTON

Backer gift. Several volumes of cHppings, as well as books from his
hbrary and letters to him from Ronald Reagan and Lucius Clay,
have been added to the John Backer papers by his widow, Mrs.
Evelyn Backer. Backer (A.M., 1955) was the author of several
books on international affairs and served in the Economic
Division of General Clay's military government in Germany from
1945 to 1948.

Brown gift. Mrs. Mary Murray Brown, the niece of Columbia's
twelfth president, Nicholas Murray Butler, has donated to the
Libraries the travel diary of their mumal ancestor Morgan John
Rhees (also spelled Rhys). Rhees, a Baptist minister from Wales,
traveled throughout New York and the middle colonies in 1794
and 1795, seeking a new home for his dissident congregation.
Rhees's diary contains curious and sometimes pungent observa¬
tions about the nation in its infancy: "In company the other day,"
he notes, "when observing what madness it would be for England
to run the risk of a war with the United States, a lady exclaimed:
'What! Great Britain conquer America! No; we might take up
that Little Island and plunge her into one of our lakes!' If
American women have imbibed such spirit, what are you to expect
from the men?" He also observes that Columbia College "is
established on a very liberal plan, and likely to be the seat of
scientific knowledge." Rhees includes vivid picmres of life on the
frontier, describing at length his encounters with both
friendly and hostile American Indians. Along with the diary,
Mrs. Brown contributed several related items, including an early
nineteenth-century handwritten manuscript memorial of Ann
Loxley Rhees, the wife of Morgan John, prepared by her daughter
Eliza Murray and copied in elegant calHgraphy by her grandson.

Henneman gift. Sixty letters have been added to our collection of
William Peterfield Trent papers by Mr. John Bell Henneman, Jr.
Trent, a professor of English literature at Columbia from 1900
 

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