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Letters to Flagg from political figures of the Jackson-Van Buren era. The correspondence is particularly useful in shedding light on the conduct of the national campaign of 1848, when Van Buren ran as an independent candidate for the presidency. There are 90 letters written to Flagg, among which are 41 from Martin Van Buren, 34 from Preston King, and nine from John A. Dix.

The collection consists of letters from celebrities in various fields, largely addressed to Harry Harkness Flagler. Included are letters of Ambrose Bierce, Thomas A. Edison, Edwin Forrest, Andrew Jackson, Rudyard Kipling, Richard Mansfield, John D. Rockefeller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Ruskin, Constantin Stanislavsky, and George Washington. Especially noteworthy are five letters of Charles Dickens, bound together in one volume.

Letters and papers of Olcott. Among the subjects covered are the history of the Bank; banks and politics in New York during the Jacksonian era; the operations of the safety Fund Banking System; land acquisition in the West, particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and western New York; the Boston and Albany Railroad; the Corning Land Company; and the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. The papers are divided into the following groups: letters received, including correspondence with Martin Van Buren, Samuel P. Chase, William Henry Seward, William B. Astor, Silas Wright, William Kent, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Horatio Seymour; documents including land deeds, wills, leases, bonds, sureties, orders to pay, checks, bank ledgers, partnership agreements, earnings reports, tax assessments, and land sales; household bills and receipts; bank notes including excellent examples of early American currency; miscellaneous account books, photographs, and printed material; patents for Michigan and Ohio lands to William Thompson, Thomas W. Olcott, and Garrit Denniston signed by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren (proxy signatures).