Collections

This collection consists of six leather bound diaries that contain a record of Henry Fairfax Ayres' life from 1928 to 1944. Three volumes (1928-1938) contain detailed information about his activities as a pilot, including a record of flights completed, record of hunting trips, and comments about life in New York City, New York.

The Paul Ayres Rockwell Papers consists primarily of Rockwell's personal archive and research collection on the history of the French and American volunteer air combat corps, the "Lafayette Escadrille," and the American volunteers of the French Foreign Legion during the First World War. Highlights of this collection include the war period letters to Paul Rockwell from various pilots and related officials of the Lafayette Escadrille, members of the French Foreign Legion and the letters of his brother, the famous American combat aviator Kiffin Yates Rockwell and his mother Loula Rockwell. Another important feature of this collection is the large assortment of related original photographs taken by Paul Rockwell during the war while documenting his and his brother's experiences in the field. The photographic holdings also include a substantial cache of collected imagery relative to the key subjects. After the First World War, as Lafayette Escadrille historian, Paul Rockwell continued to expand upon the archive to include content related to the lives of the veterans, unit reunions, memorials, reminiscences through about 1980. Lastly, the collection is rich with primary and secondary resources pertaining to Rockwell family genealogy, Paul Rockwell's biographical history, and general history of both world wars.