Peake Family Papers

The Peake Family Papers consist of approximately six linear feet of correspondence, bound manuscripts, diaries and other miscellaneous papers. The chronological span of the collection is from 1793 to 1955, with the heaviest concentration of material falling between 1840 and 1900.

The Peake collection offers a revealing look at the interests and activities of four generations of a Vermont family. There are many early nineteenth century bills, receipts and deeds relating to Seth Peake's financial and real estate transactions in the Bristol area, as well as some Samuel Holley military manuscripts from Holley's service in the Champlain Valley during the War of 1812. The papers of Royal Whitman Peake dominate the second-generation material, providing details of various aspects of his long life: Middlebury College student papers from the 1820s; state militia manuscripts from the 1860; a long (1827-65) series of letters from his college roomate, Joseph S. Clark, who became a merchant in Augusta, Georgia; papers concerning Peake's extensive real estate investments in Milwaukee and Chicago from the late 1830s on; and 48 years of his diaries.

Most of the third-generation Peake papers relate to Royal Whitman Peake's two sons, Peveril Stedman and Willis Royal Peake. Their papers include considerable correspondence to and from home when they were students at Troy Conference Academy in Poultney, Vermont, in the late 1840s and at Norwich University and Alden Partridge's National Military College in Brandywine Springs, Pennsylvania, in the early 1850s. Peveril S. Peake's adult letters to his father detail his successive careers as a Milwaukee bank clerk, Shoreham, Vermont, farmer, Chicago merchant, and officer of the Maywood Company, which pioneered the development of one of Chicago's suburbs in the early 1870s. Willis R. Peake's adult papers reflect his decision to remain in Bristol, dealing largely with his investments and other interests in Addison County, The considerable overlap between Willis R.'s and Royal W.'s diaries offers brief but occasionally interesting joint comments on local events and activities.

The fourth-generation manuscripts in the collection are those of Royal Willis Peake, like his father and grandfather a lifelong resident of Bristol. His papers include some University of Vermont students notes from the late 1890s, family letters and financial materials, correspondence about his and his father's interests in hunting, fishing and boating on Lake Champlain, and several diaries.

Although the great majority of the Peake papers deal with the men in the family, there is some interesting material relating directly to the women as well. The papers of Jane A. G. Holley Peake (1810-1850) include autograph albums, letters to her husband and sons, and a series of letters in the 1830s and '40s from her friend Jane Betsy Warren Ripley of Middlebury and Rutland. The collection also contains a few diaries and letters of Kate Riley Peake (1846-1913), and many letters from Kate Field Peake (1890-1980) to her husband-to-be Royal Willis Peake during their 1922 courtship.

The basic arrangement of the collection is chronological, with bound volumes and diaries following as separate subsections after the correspondence and other loose manuscripts. Folder 1 of Carton 1 contains biographical and genealogical material that may prove helpful in sorting out the relationships between the various Peakes and Holleys represented in the papers.

The Peake Family Papers came to the University of Vermont in December 1983 under a purchase-and-gift agreement with Peveril F. Peake. Mr. Peake's (ex-UVM 1951) donation was in memory of his father, Royal Willis Peake (ex-UVM 1900).

June 1985