Noble E. Dawson papers

Collection

Identifier: USGPL-NED

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

The Noble E. Dawson papers contains correspondence, transcripts, scrapbooks, ephemera, and photographs related to Dawson's position and a transcriber and stenographer for Ulysses S. Grant as Grant was writing his Personal Memoirs. The collection contains correspondence with many members of the Grant family, including Fred Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., Nellie Grant, and Jesse Grant. It also includes correspondence with Robert Todd Lincoln, sculptor Karl Gerhardt, General Grenville Dodge, and many others. Ephemera includes programs from Grant memorials, banquets, and wedding invitations. The materials in this collection range from 1860 to 1920.

Dates

Majority of material found within 1860 - 1920

Creator

Dawson, Noble E., -1916 (Person)

Biographical Note

Noble Edmunds Dawson was born in Iowa on March 17, 1843. During the Civil War he served in he 19th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment, enlisting as a Corporal in July 1862 and mustering out as a Seconf lieutenant in 1865. He was taken prisoner in September 1862 in Atchfalaya, Louisiana and released in July 1865. After the war, he worked as a stenographic reporter for the United States House of Representatives. In 1881, he accompanied former President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia Grant on a business trip to Mexico as a private secretary. Through this relationship he remained in the President's service as a secretary as Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs until the end of his life. Dawson became a lawyer, living in Washington, DC. He was married to Laura G. dawson and they had five children. One of his sons, Claude I. Dawson, joined the Foreign Service as Consul to Mexico, Spain, and Brazil. Dawson died July 8, 1916.