Series II: Elizabeth Ellicott Tyson, 1795-1912

The E. B. Smith-E. E. Tyson Collection, MS 3057, focuses around an extended family involved in the Sandy Spring area and in Baltimore. The Maryland Historical Society currently has significant collections relating to the Ellicott and Tyson families, which this collection augments. The E.B. Smith-E. E. Tyson collection includes items from as early as 1795 to 1912, and includes personal correspondence, books of newspaper clippings, journals, and several volumes of pressed plants and flowers (many of them by location and date) and schoolgirl writings. There are also select financial entries and some correspondence related to Jesse Tyson in books that were reused for the clippings and pressed flowers at a later date. The pressed flower books are particularly frail, and may require additional conservation.

The material related to Elizabeth Brooke Tyson Smith includes the largest number of items. The group of 130 letters complements correspondence between Elizabeth and her husband John Marsh Smith which can be found in other MdHS collections including: “Dear Lizzie:” the Papers of John Marsh Smith, 1849-1857, and the Smith-Tyson Papers, 1772-1942, MS 981. Of particular note in MS 3057 is correspondence including letters to and from Elizabeth’s mother, Martha Tyson, who was the biographer of Benjamin Banneker. The correspondence seems to focus primarily on family events, between, the children, parents, grandparents and other relations of Elizabeth Brooke Tyson Smith during a relatively concentrated period of time. They include information on travels, births, deaths, and even problems with nursemaids. Items from the latter part of her life include her personal diary entries and may provide insight into her activities close to the end of her life.

There are extensive Tyson family holdings at the MdHS. Photos in the Grove Hill Photograph Collection, PP156, are from approximately the period of Elizabeth Ellicott Tyson’s residence. Items relating to Elizabeth Ellicott Tyson seem to fall into two broad categories: those relating to her relatives - mother, Mary Tyson, aunt/stepmother Ann Tyson, Uncle George Tyson, and Grandfather Jesse Tyson, and more personal memorabilia. Items relating to Jesse Tyson may complement those of MS 2371, Records, ca. 1800-1826 of Jesse Tyson. The pressed flower books, particularly those relating to the Civil War period, may provide interesting information for that period.

The Civil War materials seems to be generally personal, but the items relating include a by-state list of hospital patients at Smith Farm near Sharpsburg dated September 24, 1862, which was only a week after the battle of Antietam. Located near Keedysville, Maryland, it was used as a hospital following the battle and was owned by Dr. Otto Smith. The telegraph relating to the battle at Franklin may be of interest to the researcher looking for information relating to that event.