Collection, 1840-2012, documenting the Cannon and Cole Families. The collection principally consists of correspondence, field notes, and maps created and assembled by Geoge H. Cannon, documenting his work as a land surveyor in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Included in the collection are some of Cannon’s diaries, as well as a memoir Cannon penned around 1906 using notes from his 1846 surveying journey around Lake Superior. The memoir details his encounters with native and European residents of the settlements his party visited and commenting on such matters as the geology and terrain of the Upper Peninsula. Near the time of his death, Cannon wrote out the contents of his memoir in the style of popular contemporary narratives, but the manuscript remained unpublished until 1982, when a senior student at Kalamazoo College transcribed it as “A Narrative of One Year in the Wilderness.” This bound volume includes illustrations, explicative footnotes, and an elaboration on the history of Cannon and the project.

Also included in the collection are several objects relating to Cannon’s surveying work. Cannon worked closely with many surveying and geological contemporaries, including Douglass Houghton and William A. (Austin) Burt, the latter who was responsible for the invention of a solar compass in 1835 and the prime surveyor of the Wisconsin-Michigan boundary in 1847. Included in the collection is a solar compass, slide rule, and book on surveying owned by Cannon. Documents, essays, and correspondence in the collection document Burt’s invention of the solar compass and his surveying work in the region, particularly related to the Wisconsin-Michigan border, of which, Cannon sought to demonstrate deprived Michigan of nearly six hundred square miles of territory.

While the vast majority of the collection consists of records created and retained by George H. Cannon, there is a small subset of records created following Cannon’s death in December 1909. This material consists mostly of notes, correspondence, and a self-published manuscript on the Cannon and Cole family genealogies and dates from approximately 1915-1916, 1930 and 1976-1983. Included is a self-published family history written by Carrie Alta Bullock Cannon, the mother of Glen H. Cannon, a great-grandson of George Cannon. Correspondence from this period documents family genealogical research conducted by various Cannon descendants who retained Cannon’s papers and along with their own research.