Letter to Miss Mary B. Ambercrombie from Skipwith H. Coale, undated

The Eliza Coale Funk Papers represent more than 200 years of Maryland history, from roughly 1758 until 2004. This eclectic collection contains letters, legal papers, literary projects, recipes, organizational documents (such as brochures, directories, and newsletters), and associated photographs and ephemera, most of which belonged to the Chase, Coale, and Funk families. Arranged generally into series by family, the collection is also specifically arranged by chronology, with subseries by subject and/or type of document. The last consideration, by type, was necessary given the great variety of materials Ms. Funk bequeathed to the society.



The majority of the material concerns the Coale family, and in particular, Samuel Chase Coale (b. 1818), a native of Harford County and, through his mother Elizabeth Chase Dugan, a descendent of Justice Samuel Chase, an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court (1796-1811). His relationship to a signer of the Declaration of Independence fortuitously meant inheriting papers connected not only to the Chase family, but also concerning the famous impeachment trial of Samuel Chase (1804-5).



While some of the material dates from the last half of the eighteenth century, the bulk of the collection spans the years 1815-1879, years associated with the life, activities, and relations of Samuel Chase Coale, and from 1960-2004, when the donor, Eliza Coale Funk, was most active in various organizations. The Chase and Coale family letters are valuable sources of social, family, and nineteenth century history. Thanks to Eliza Coale Funk's participation in various historical organizations, the collection also contains a wealth of information-- newsletters, directories, and bulletins--about the activities of groups like the Sons of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames.



As rich as the collection is, there are significant gaps, some of which are mitigated by causal remarks in several documents. The bulk of the material deals with the decades prior to and after the Civil War, but there are few documents specifically related to that conflict. The Samuel Chase Coale divorce documents only include two letters to his wife, so the collection reveals little of Chase's side of the story or his responses to her letters. As regards the Samuel Chase impeachment material, probably the most significant set of items within the collection, the lack of provenance for the editorials to "The American" and especially for the "Remarks" of Samuel Chase will challenge the researcher interested in this important case. Despite these historical and personal lacunae, the collection is a goldmine of Maryland history, genealogy, the culture of correspondence, and the story of early Marylanders like the Coale and Chase families.