The Henton Deeds Collection
(500 English manuscript deeds on vellum, dating from 1609 to 1890.)

Born in 1901, Helen Spink was one of two women who graduated from the Law School in 1925. She married her classmate, Robert Henton, four years later, after heading the Legal Aid Society in St. Paul.

Helen and Robert became excellent collectors over their careers, first with a collection of historical fashion and household books, and then a collection of maps. Helen also developed a significant collection of books featuring fore-edge paintings, later sold to the Huntington Library in California. In the course of their searching, the Minnesota natives travelled across the United States, and enjoyed particular success at DeForest’s Book Store in New Orleans. There they found a box of English deeds on a visit in the 1930s, which became the seed of a new collection. In 1980, Helen Henton donated the deeds collection to the Law School.

The deeds relate to the sale and lease of property, sometimes taking the form of indentures. Named for the “teeth” that run along their top edges, indentures constitute real or symbolic chirographs, irregularly-cut documents that can be fitted back together for the sake of authentication.