Phelps Collection in the Huntington Library
PHELPS, WILLIAM WALTER (1839-94)
199 pieces, 1800-1925
William Walter Phelps, lawyer and diplomat, was born in New York 1838, practiced law until 1868, and moved to New Jersey, where he represented the state in Congress from 1873 to 1875. Active in Republican politics and a good friend of James G. Blaine, Phelps was appointed U.S. minister to Austria-Hungary in 1881 and to Germany in 1889-93, and was a commissioner to the Berlin Conference on Samoan Affairs in 1889. After an active diplomatic and social life in Berlin (where his daughter Marian married the German under-secretary of the interior, Dr. Franz von Rottenburg), Phelps returned to New Jersey in 1893 to accept an appointment as judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals. He was also active in business, serving on the boards of directors of several eastern banks and railroads, and purchasing a newspaper. Phelps died in 1894.
Subject matter: Phelps's social and diplomatic life while minister n Berlin, including the Samoan Conference and Samoan affairs, American politics and the Republican Party, and Phelps's social life and correspondence with several leading American literary figures. Also includes papers concerning John C. Eno's embezzlement of three million dollars from the Second National Bank of New York (of which Phelps was a director), and Phelps's negotiations with Eno's millionaire father to make good the loss. Strongest for the period 1876-93.
Significant people: Herbert Nikolaus von BISMARCK (2), James G. BLAINE (30), Samuel Langhorne CLEMENS (7), Eugene FIELD (4, including a poem dedicated to Phelps), Benjamin HARRISON (5), and Joseph PULITZER (4).
Physical description: letters, documents, manuscript, and many newspaper clippings, with some photographs.
Source: purchased from Mrs. Francis Phelps Penry, December, 1963.
American Historical Manuscripts in the Huntington Library pp. 286 - 287.
