News & Updates
Special Collection Acquires "Stampless" Letter from Member of Class of 1848
By Katherine Collett
March 3, 2016
Special Collections and Archives recently acquired a stampless letter from a member of the class of 1848. Edward Fowler Fish (1828-1906) wrote to his 11-year-old sister Lucia Hull Fish (1835-1913) from the college, on October 27th, 1846, care of James Benham, Hammondsport, Steuben Co. [NY]. The letter begins, "Dear Sister, It has been my intention ever since this term commenced, to write to you, but I have kept putting it off till the term is half gone and no letter written yet.”
Edward describes his journey from Hammondsport, where he had been visiting his sister and Uncle James and Aunt Julia Hull Benham, to Clinton (stagecoach to Penn Yan and then to Geneva, car (railroad?) to Oneida, hired carriage from Oneida to Hamilton College), and then the opening of college, with "a great many of the old students back here fitting up their rooms and making other preparations, besides crowds of new ones." He mentions that several students have had to take rooms in private houses for lack of space in the college buildings. "We shall have this year about 180 students, a larger number by 40 than have ever been here before. Old Ham. Coll. Begins to come up. If we increase at this rate for many years, we shall have here one of the largest and best colleges in the Union.”
The letter continues with news about their father's business trip to Utica and family news about their brothers Tom (1832-1908) and Charles (1830-1914). He sends messages to Aunt Julia and Uncle James, with whom Lucia is living, including advice that Aunt Julia “make something to hold your shoulders, for I really think it dangerous to leave them as they are”; he had been talking about how broad-chested Tom is getting, so evidently he is worried about Lucia’s posture. Edward says a note from Thomas "said that he had been out all day after Chestnuts & had gathered about twenty quarts" and relayed messages from younger half-siblings Berry (Samuel Berrien Fish 1839-1879) and Mary (Mary Stephens Fish 1841-1895), who are “waiting to see Brother Eddy.”
The accession record for the letter is available here: http://archives.hamilton.edu/repositories/5/accessions/1996
The information about the Fish family is largely from Findagrave: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=122548862.
Information about the railroad in NY State in the 1840s is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Central_Railroad#Pre-New_York_Central:_1826.E2.80.931853.
