Description:

Smith and Fowler Family Correspondence 126 Items 390 pages 1823-1885

This archive of correspondence and other documents largely centers around the lives of Eliza Van Ness Lyle Smith and her daughter Gertrude Van Ness Smith Fowler. It includes thirteen letters written by Gertrude to her mother, several of which are from the months immediately following her marriage to William W. Fowler. Others are written to these women, both before and after their weddings. Others are written by or to their husbands.

[SMITH and FOWLER FAMILIES.] Archive of correspondence and other documents, 1823-1885. Approximately 126 documents, 390 pp.

Additional Materials
- 22 letters from A. J. Bleecker to Eliza Lyle Smith, 1858-1874. Bleecker was an auctioneer in New York City and husband of Cornelia Bleecker (d. 1859), a relative (perhaps a cousin) of Eliza L. Smith;
- Dozens of letters from nieces and other family members to Eliza Lyle Smith regarding the disposition of inherited property;
- An issue of Punch magazine from September 1852;
- A commemorative issue of the New York Herald from April 19, 1875, the one-hundredth anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (with much anniversary content);
- Two packets of the hair of Simeon P. Smith, who died prematurely at age 38.

Eliza Van Ness Lyle Smith (1811-1896) was born in New York. In 1842, she married Simeon Parsons Smith (1809-1848), and they had three children, including Catherine, who died young; Henry Lyle Smith (1843-1904), who became a physician in Hudson, New York; Gertrude Van Ness Smith Fowler, who married William Worthington Fowler, grandson of Noah Webster.

Simeon Parsons Smith (1809-1848) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Rev. David Smith (1767-1862) and Catherine Chauncey Goodrich Smith (1775-1845). He married Hetty Hosford (1808-1840) in 1833, and they had at least one child. He married Eliza Van Ness Lyle in 1842, and they had three children before his death. He was a merchant in New York City. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, on his return to New York from Washington, D.C.

Gertrude Van Ness Smith Fowler (1846-1933) was born in New York to Simeon P. Smith and Eliza Van Ness Lyle Smith. In 1873, she married William Worthington Fowler, and they had five children.

William Worthington Fowler (1832-1881) was born in Vermont to William Chauncey Fowler and Harriet Webster Fowler, while his father was a professor at Middlebury College. Through his mother, he was a grandson of Noah Webster. He graduated from Amherst College in 1854 and studied law in Amherst, Massachusetts, and New York City before gaining admission to the bar in 1857. He practiced as a lawyer until 1864, when he became a broker. In 1871, he turned to journalism and literature and settled in Durham, Connecticut. In 1873, he married his cousin Gertrude Van Ness Smith (1846-1933), and they had five children, though one died as an infant. He served in the Connecticut Senate in 1875 and the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1879. He was the author of Ten Years in Wall Street (1870), Life and Adventures of Benjamin F. Moneypenny (1873), and Twenty Years of Inside Life in Wall Street (1880).

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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