Harward House in Bowdoinham, 1938

The collection contains print and manuscript material from the family papers and genealogical research of the compiler, Clara Hawkins Mellen. The bulk of the collection dates from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War to the mid-20th century, and consists of genealogical notes, charts, and correspondence; ancestral and family correspondence, including Civil War (Ashton Hawkins) and Revolutionary War (Henry Sewall, Jr.) correspondence; diaries, including a copy of Henry Sewall, Jr.'s revolutionary war diary; documents; and clippings. Families represented include: the Clark family of Massachusetts; the Cony family of Augusta, Maine; the Harward family of Bowdoinham, Maine; the Hawkins family of Kentucky and Tennessee; the Manley family of Augusta, Maine; the Mellen family of Massachusetts; the Sewall family of Augusta, Maine; the Seymour-Ledyard and Seymour-Lincoln families of Cheltenham, England; and the Snow family of Massachusetts.

Among the major correspondents, most in government or the military, are: Salmon Portland Chase, James Abram Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, Henry Wager Halleck, Benjamin Harrison, William Heath, Andrew Johnson, Frank Andrew Munsey, Albion Keith Parris, Timothy Pickering, Whitelaw Reid, William Tecumseh Sherman, Charles Sumner, John Quincy Adams, and George Washington.

Correspondents with twenty or more letters include: Gardiner Hawkins of Greenville, S.C.; Edward Verrall Lucas, essayist and member of the staff of Punch; William Proctor Mellen, Treasury agent; Stephen Caldwell Millett, Jr. of New York; William J. Palmer of the Denver office of the Kansas Pacific Railway; Henry Sewall, Jr., (Revolutionary War captain), Henry Sewall Sr. and Jotham Sewall, his father and brother. Principal correspondents with connections to the College include: Salmon Chase, Frank Andrew Munsey, Albion Keith Parris, and Jotham Bradbury Sewall.