"My Grandfather's Story," by Helen Steele Pratt, typescript, undated

The James Steele Papers is a very small collection of documents and letters pertaining to James Steele (1808-1859), dated 1841, 1935, 1940 and undated.  The thirteen documents and letters are numbered and described below.  Each page has been placed separately in folders with mylar inserts.  These very fragile documents should not be removed from their mylar covers.  The documents were transcribed; the transcriptions are in the first folder.

The most notable of the three letters among the documents is by Oberlin benefactor and trustee Lewis Tappan to James Steele while Steele was in Sierra Leone during the mission to repatriate the Amistad captives, in December 1841.  The other two letters were addressed to Helen Steele Pratt, James Steele’s granddaughter, by a representative from a dry goods company (1931), and a librarian at Oberlin College (1940).

The other ten documents comprise notes, outlines, and manuscripts on the Steele family by Helen Steele Pratt and others. Also included are notes about Helen Pratt’s grandfather on the Pratt side.