John M. Batchelder

Collection

Identifier: RHC-RC-322

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Batchelder Collection documents the collected correspondence of John M. Batchelder and his son, John K. Batchelder from 1894 to 1951. The collection includes both business and personal correspondence. The business correspondence includes letters to business partners, business customers, sales staff and clients. Also contained in the papers are invoices, business receipts, business telegraphs, transport records and bills. There are several hundred oversized documents in the collection, which include blueprints, pencil and ink drawings of monuments, memorials, a complete layout of land parcels sold by the Gulf Coast Development Company, and a large family tree. These supplemental materials are stored separately from the letter files in the oversized map cabinet. The collection also contains a book that lists the monument companies registered in the United States in the year 1920. The personal correspondence includes love letters, letters from various relatives, and a notable, long standing correspondence with a business partner and friend named Claude Bacchus. Mr. Bacchus managed the affairs of the Gulf Coast Development Corporation. During the 1920s, Mr. Bacchus traveled extensively in Japan, China, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India and Hawaii and conducted his correspondence with J.M. Batchelder from there. The collection also includes personal receipts, bills, tax returns, personal business correspondence, and personal correspondence. The papers document a longstanding land acquisition deal and development plan centered in Algoa, Texas called the Gulf Coast Development Corporation. For a time, John M. Batchelder was the president of the corporation. The development plan existed from at least 1910 through the year 1951. This documentation includes lists of the shareholders in the plan, maps of the properties involved, and some of the correspondence in regards to it. A full obituary of J.M. Batchelder is on page 18 of The American Stone Trade Monthly in Box 34, Folder 39.

Dates

created: 1894-1951
Other: Majority of material found in 1894-1951
Other: Date acquired: 05/21/2012

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on access to the collection.

Conditions Governing Use

Property rights in this collection belong to the Regional History Center; literary rights are dedicated to the public.

Biographical or Historical Information

John M. Batchelder and his son John K. Batchelder were agents for the sale and delivery of wholesale marble and granite to monument and memorial manufacturers, dealers, and retailers. Their business dealt with deliveries of specific types of granite and marble and they were the exclusive midwestern providers of a marble referred to as Balfour Pink. The Batchelders had control of an extensive sales territory that spanned the entire Midwest and significant territories in the eastern and western United States. The collection records indicate that their agency existed from 1894 until 1951. John M. Batchelder was often referred to as Batch and Jack. John M. Batchelder and John K. Batchelder lived and conducted their business at 704 East Second Street, Dixon, Illinois. John M. Batchelder was born in 1862 in Dorset Center, Vermont, and died in Dixon, Illinois on August 27, 1932. He was the husband of Agnes Batchelder and the father of John Keene Batchelder. John Keene was married to Bernice Batchelder and he was the father of two children, John Dudley Batchelder and Joyce Batchelder. Mr. Batchelder’s Vermont roots provided his connections with the marble quarrying businesses located there and these connections established his trade. Mr. Batchelder was a pioneer traveling salesman and his stone agency helped establish the western market for monuments. Mr. Batchelder not only sold and managed the delivery of stone, he also brokered the design of monuments and memorials and at times, designed monuments himself. He was involved in the creation of many notable designs, including a Spanish American War Monument of 1925 in Antelope Park in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Polk County World War One Memorial which was designed in 1924, and a 1910, Tazwell County Memorial, which bore the emblem, “In Memory of the Unfortunate”. Blue prints and tracings of these designs and many others can be seen in the oversize collection. It is interesting to note that Mr. Batchelder’s extensive correspondence with retailers and manufacturers, and quarrymen, was not limited to the stone trade. He was a “wet” man during the “dry” time of the prohibition and was a member of an active anti-prohibition movement. Mr. Batchelder collected recipes for home brewed beer and wine and his correspondence referred to many long standing conversations regarding satiation during “dry” times. Mr. J.M. Batchelder was an active member of the community of Dixon, Illinois and for many years he was the president of the Dixon Board of Education. Mr. Batchelder was an active Mason and Elk and he was a member of the Episcopalian church. He was a long time member of the Dixon Country Club and enjoyed hunting, fishing and golf.

Note written by

Extent

36.75 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement Note

The bulk of the correspondence is organized both chronologically and alphabetically. The papers are dated backwards with the most recent dates at the beginning of the folders. The papers are also loosely alphabetical in that the businesses are generally amassed within a range of letters. This chronological and alphabetical system that Mr. Batchelder utilized staggers the dates, therefore it might be necessary to look in several places for a particular piece of correspondence. Also, there are some pieces of correspondence which do not adhere to the order due to the fact that they are in reference to other letters within the folders. The receipts are organized strictly chronologically. There are documents that cannot be described as correspondence, such as genealogical records, artifacts and photographs that are included at the end of the collection. In so far as possible, these documents are arranged in chronological order unless it is noted otherwise. The correspondence for the years between 1910 and 1913 were arranged slightly differently from the rest of the collection in that they were collected enmasse rather than in smaller increments. These papers are organized in alphabetical folders that range in a longer span of time than the others and some of the businesses represented have their own folders. Oversized materials have been separated. The oversized materials that supplement the correspondence are indicated within the main collection upon a half sheet of paper behind the correspondence that they refer to. The oversize collection is in strict chronological order.