Description

Holograph, signed with initials.Maria Weston Chapman recounts a visit in Cambridge, apparently to attend a Harvard commencement. Chapman stayed with Sylvia [Ammidon]. She describes the procession into the church. She mentions "that painted stick Robert Winthrop." She describes Edward Everett as "rather a good looking man, intelligent, and not vulgar." During the singing of a hymn, "in came the Godlike" [Daniel Webster], who was greeted with prolonged stamping and clapping. Chapman praises Everett's address, and describes the reception at his presidential house. Negotiations are under way for an [anti-slavery] office in Devonshire Street. Chapman voted against it, but "F[rancis] Jackson is crazy to have it." Francis Jackson is involved in planning a commemoration of [Charles Turner] Torrey and the maintenance of his family. E. G. L. [Ellis Gray Loring] came to look at the rooms in Devonshire Street; Chapman discusses the desirability of letting part of the building, etc. Chapman comments: "I guess we are more than half way through the abolition mark. 15 more years will do it, with activity enough." The mischief is in men like Dr. Amos Farnsworth and Ellis Gray Loring, "shirking & dreading God knows what. The Daughter question weighs them down I fancy." Eliza [Lee Follen] "has got a house building for her in Cambridge."The handwriting In the first four pages of the letter is different than the remaining pages. It may have been dictated to or copied by Lucia Weston or someone else. On bottom of page four, Chapman writes: "I am ordered...

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Boston Public Library

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