Guide to the Reynolds-Day Family Papers 1847-1875 MG 1570

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary
Biographical Note
Scope and Content Note
Access Points
Administrative Information
Bibliography

Container List

Correspondence 1847-1875

Finding aid encoded by Julia Telonidis. January 2005. Production of the EAD 2002 version of this finding aid was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Finding aid written in English.

Biographical Note

The Reynolds and Day families figured prominently in the founding of Orange, New Jersey.

Judge Stephen D. Day (1771-1856) was a direct descendant of George Day, one of the founders of Newark, New Jersey. He was born in Camptown (now Irvington), New Jersey. Day settled in Orange, New Jersey in 1798, and with his partner, John Lindsley, became one of the first merchants in that town. His other business activities included the organization of the Orange Bank, and the formation of the Morris and Essex Railroad Company. Day was also a member of the first Orange Town Committee, a judge in the County Court of Common Pleas, and was a New Jersey State Senator. Day married Lindsley’s sister Sarah, with whom he had six children, of whom three survived: Robert Patton (b. 1799), Eliza (b. 1805), and Charles Rodney (b. 1808). After Sarah’s death Day married Mary Lindsley, the sister of his first wife.

James Everett Reynolds was also a descendant of one of the founding families of Orange, New Jersey. He was the son of Daniel D. Reynolds and Eliza Gurnee, and was a leading businessman and attorney in Orange, and later East Orange, New Jersey. Much of his wealth was derived from earnings on real estate deals. On March 3, 1868, one of the buildings erected by Reynolds on Main Street was destroyed in a fire, which also destroyed the home of Charles Day. The total damage was estimated at forty thousand dollars, which was quite a large sum for the time. Reynolds married Phebe Day, the granddaughter of Stephen D. Day. They had three sons and five daughters.

Clinton G. Reynolds, the brother of James Everett Reynolds, was born in 1835. Also an attorney, Clinton’s business activities were mostly in real estate; most notable of these were his dealings on lands available in the West under the Homestead Act. He was shot dead in his New York office on May 20, 1890.
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Scope and Content Note

The majority of the papers are the correspondence of James Everett Reynolds dating from 1856 to approximately 1868. The bulk of these papers include communications from Reynolds’s brother, Clinton, who was residing in Redwing, Minnesota. The subject matter in these letters and telegrams mainly focuses on their land speculation deals in the western United States during the years 1856 to 1861, as well as personal matters. Other family correspondence is from Reynolds’s father, Daniel, and his sister Fanny, his brother Charlie, and from various cousins. The rest of Reynolds’s letters are from primarily business contacts such as George W. Powers and Company, S.J. Sanger, and from friends such as Ed Dodd and J.K. McLean.

The papers of the Day family are mostly letters addressed to Mrs. Stephen D. Day, as well notes to Eliza Day from her parents, Stephen and Sarah Day. Also included are an invitation for Mary Day to Robert Day and Sallie Young in 1875, and a photocopy of Phebe Day Reynolds’s portrait.

Various unidentified and fragmented letters, possibly belonging to James Everett Reynolds, complete the collection.
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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as: Manuscript Group 1570, Reynolds-Day Family Papers, The New Jersey Historical Society.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Dinwiddie Smith and Phebe K. Bentink-Smith, April 2000.

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Bibliography

Condit, Jotham H. Early Records of the Township of Orange, from 1807 to 1845. (Orange, New Jersey: The Chronicle Press, 1897).

Whittemore, Henry. The Founders and Builders of the Oranges. (Newark, New Jersey: L.J. Hardham, 1896).

Pierson, David Lawson. History of the Oranges to 1921, 4 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1922).

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