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[Identification of item], Alfred Cumming Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The Alfred Cumming Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library as a gift in 1933 and 1940.
Processed by Rubenstein Library Staff, 1989
Encoded by Meghan Lyon, August 2011
This collection is minimally processed: materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition.
Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory:
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
Alfred Cumming was born in 1802 in Augusta, Georgia. As Mayor of the city of Augusta, he achieved prominence by his active work in curbing a yellow fever epidemic. In May 1857, President James Buchanan appointed him the second Governor of Utah Territory, following Brigham Young. His trip West took several months and included a winter near Fort Bridger. He finally arrived in Utah with his wife, Elizabeth, in the spring of 1858. At the time, the territory was in conflict as the Mormon settlers resisted federal interference regarding slavery, polygamy, and states' rights. He was fairly successful in quieting the situation, and was backed up by an army detachment under Albert Sidney Johnston.
At the end of his four-year term, Cumming returned to Washington, D.C. His return to Augusta was postponed by the Civil War, and he arrived there the summer of 1864. His wife died in 1867; Alfred died in 1873.
Family and political correspondence of William Clay Cumming; Thomas Cumming; and Alfred Cumming (1802-1873), participant in the "Mormon War," 1857-1861, with material on Mormon history and frontier and pioneer life. Letters of William Clay Cumming, brother of Alfred Cumming, 1805-1818, contain mention of books read and studied at Princeton College, Princeton, New Jersey, in 1805; description of studies, living arrangements, and teachers in the Litchfield Law School, operated at Litchfield, Connecticut, by Tapping Reeve; accounts of violent opposition to Federalism in New England; description of climate and countryside around Litchfield; participation of William Clay Cumming's brother, Joseph, in disturbances at Princeton College, 1807; his activities in the War of 1812 as commander of a company in Florida, campaigns in New York as a colonel, criticisms of officers, a dispute with General George Izard, adoption of a system of discipline for the infantry; description of a trip in 1815 from New York to New Orleans with accounts of Louisville, Lexington, and the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, Asheville, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana; a few comments on Brazil and Uruguay, which he visited in 1816; and mention of John McDonogh. A series of letters by Elizabeth Wells (Randall) Cumming to members of her family describes the arduous trip to Utah, scenery, frontier conditions, and Indian troubles. The collection includes hints of discrepancies in Cumming's account with the U.S. government while territorial governor. Included also are nine volumes: journal of an expedition to the Blackfoot Indians with notes and instructions, 1855; two letter books and official proceedings of a commission to hold council with Blackfoot and other Indian tribes, 1855; two letterpress copy books, 1857-1861, 1859-1860, containing copies of letters to government officials, and to James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, John B. Floyd, A. S. Johnston, and Brigham Young; and four scrapbooks containing news paper clippings and broadsides. Among the correspondents are W. W. Bibb, J. S. Black, James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Alfred Cumming, J. B. Floyd, Albert Sidney Johnston, William Medill, B. F. Perry, Franklin Pierce, Alexander H. Stephens, G. M. Troup, and Brigham Young.
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Some high-value items have been removed to secure storage. Duplicates remain with the collection.