Sunday, January 22, 2017

1859 Letter from Montpelier, Vermont, by Samuel Lasell Fletcher, advising Cousin about Samuel's Mother's Death


June 25, 1859 letter from S. L. Fletcher at Montpelier, Vermont, advising his cousin that Fletcher's mother had died the night before and that Fletcher was leaving "for home" that day for the funeral scheduled for the next day.

S. L. Fletcher was Samuel Lasell Fletcher (abt 1820-1893), son of Joel Fletcher and Dolly (Silsby) Fletcher.  Dolly died June 25, 1859, so "the night before" was actually early on the morning of the 25th.

Transcription

Montpelier
Montpelier, June 25/59

Dear Cousin.  I have just received a dispatch from home saying that Mother died last night.  She is to be buried tomorrow at 11 o'clock.  I leave for home on the 9-10 o'clock train this evening.

Please send word to Aunt Huldah.  Please excuse haste.
Yours, 
S. L. Fletcher

The reverse, below, contains penciled figures, left at a later date when a piece of paper was needed for computation purposes.


The letter asks the cousin to inform Aunt Huldah, who was presumably Dolly's sister Huldah (Silsby) Thompson Colby.  "Cousin" may have been one of Huldah's children.

Dolly (Silsby) Fletcher is buried with her husband Joel and other family members in the East Lempster Cemetery at East Lempster, New Hampshire.

Samuel Lasell Fletcher was born about 1820 at Orwell, Vermont.  On December 23, 1846 at Claremont, New Hampshire, Samuel married Catherine Macauley Jones.  According to Catherine's death record, she was the daughter of Abraham Jones and Susan (Long) Jones.

Samuel was town clerk of Charlestown, New Hampshire, starting about 1849 and was postmaster in the 1850s.  An 1860 court deposition in the case of Backman v. Charlestown indicates that he was in the mercantile business in 1855 and 1856 and perhaps longer.  He was also a trustee of the Connecticut River Savings Bank of Charlestown, New Hampshire.

Samuel and Catherine had at least three children:
  1. Ellen Louisa Fletcher, born about 1849
  2. Katie Marsella Fletcher, born about 1851 and possibly died about 1866
  3. Mary Eliza Fletcher, born about 1854, who married George Gilman Bowen.
Samuel died May 11, 1893 at Canaan, New Hampshire, and Catherine on April 30, 1911 at Charlestown, New Hampshire.  I haven't yet found their place of burial.

If you have corrections and/or additions to the information above, or feel that S. L. Fletcher was another person, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Sources
New Hampshire Marriage Records, 1637-1947
New Hampshire Marriage Records, 1720-1920
U.S. Federal Census
New Hampshire Death Records, 1654-1947

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