Spencer Dudley Corlett diaries

Collection

Identifier: MS C643

Staff Only

Scope and Content

The Spencer Dudley Corlett collection consists primarily of bound copies of Corlett's three travel diaries chronicling four canoe trips Corlett took with his friends during his late teens and early twenties. The first diary describes his trip up the Ohio Canal in 1910 that he took with his friend Alfred Jenkins. The second diary describes Corlett's canoe trip through the Algonquin Provincial Park with his friend Harvey Mierke in 1912. The third diary diary details Corlett's and Mierke's two canoe trips in the Temagami region, one through Lady Evelyn Lake in 1913 and one through Lake Obabika in 1914. The diaries include Corlett's description of the trips illustrated with his photographs and drawings.

A small folder of biographical and background information can be found with this collection, which includes a biography of Spencer Corlett, correspondence of Spencer's daughter Jane Corlett Feick, which gives some background of the diaries and Corlett's travels, and a copy of a map of Old Tannery Acres (used for marketing material) in Hudson, Ohio, a residential development that Corlett helped develop.

Dates

Creation: 1910-2000
Creation: Majority of material found within 1910-1914

Creator

Corlett, Spencer, 1892-1963 (Person)

Restrictions on Access

The collection is available for research use.

Restrictions on Use

The collection is available for research use.

Biography of Spencer Dudley Corlett

Spencer Dudley Corlett (1892-9/4/1963) was an active outdoors man from an early age, and his love for nature continued throughout his life. He graduated from Adelbert College and the Franklin T. Backus Law School of Western Reserve University and began a career as a corporation lawyer. He continued to be very active in his passion of nature and was a founder of the Woods and Waters Club. He also enjoyed drawing, as evident from the many pictures that grace his diaries, along with photographs that he took while on his trips.

Corlett's diaries are important because of the drawings, pictures and descriptions about the different locations that he traveled to. One of Corlett's diaries includes his account of a 1910 canoe trip he took up the Ohio and Erie Canal to the Tuscarawas River, onto the Muskingham River before reaching the Ohio River at Marietta. The account of this journey is particularly unique because two years after Corlett's trip, floods destroyed the canal locks and were never restored.

Extent

0.2 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Travel diaries of Hudson, Ohio, resident Spencer Dudley Corlett. The diaries chronicle his canoe trip up the Ohio and Erie Canal and three canoe trips in Canada.