I've written before about how to find clues in old letters and how they can be really powerful for telling a family story. Sadly, my own family stopped being packrats sometime between the 1970s recession and the invention of email so there is very little paper floating around in my siblings' attics to get excited about. But somewhere along the line, postage stamp collecting became popular again and old "covers" (stamped envelopes) began popping up on online auction sites. For a genealogist, online auctions can be like unexpected gifts sent by a favorite uncle if a letter is still inside the envelope!
 
I have been conducting a community study to compile a census of who lived in my colonial town in the early 1700s, well before the first national census was taken. In the process, I've "met" some wildly interesting families who were the foundation of the modern town's celebrated character. For example, any real estate agent will tell you about how the town's school system is rated in the top 10 in the state. What they don't know is how the priority for topnotch education was set when the first private school was established in 1780. (see my previous post "Private Schools of Northborough, Mass. (1700-1900)"). Following the earliest town families into the 1800s has also been an excellent rabbit hole to fall  into and I marvel to see how their strong principles and beliefs endured through time.
 
One well-known family was that of Reverend Joseph Allen. The town minister ran a boys' school from 1818–1852 and his family's story won my heart. I even have a long-standing automatic search on eBay that has sent me everything from a book authored by his granddaughter to a photo album bought in a dusty old shop on the Gloucester (MA) waterfront. This week, an 1843 letter "cover" popped up on eBay and not only was the original letter included, but (bless the seller's soul) he uploaded clear images of all of the pages.
 
Happy dance ensued (my apologies to anyone peering through my office window at the time). Why? Because there aren't many 175-year-old letters kicking around to give a front row view of local history. And because this one tells the story a girl spending time at a boys' school, so it will prove to be an even more unique slice of life… one that will now not get lost to time. 

Susan (Grout) Holbrook Gale 

....was born in Westborough, MA in 1797. She was the eldest of the two daughters of Esquire Seth Grout and wife Susannah Haskell. When Susan was 23 years old, she married Daniel Holbrook Jr. of Northborough and they settled into a home on the Turnpike Road in Westborough.

Her father owned and operated “Grout’s Store” in downtown Westborough, where husband Daniel was also a merchant. Barely five months after Susan married Daniel, their son Charles was born, which at that time could have proven scandalous. However, possibly due to the good standing of the respectable family in town, no one publically noted the short pregnancy. The couple also had the resources to send son Charles to attend the Worcester County Manual Labor High School, the private boys school that eventually become the renowned Worcester Academy of Worcester, Massachusetts.
 
Susan was only 25 when her father died and she inherited both his business and real estate. Notably uncommon for women of that time, she retained sole ownership of the store, along with several other Westborough properties that belonged to her late father. Given that her father was confident that she was able to manage real estate and that her husband freely worked side-by-side with her at her store, she can certainly be characterized as a capable, independent, and intelligent woman of her time.

A stamp collector recently listed an envelope on eBay for its postal cancellation. As a genealogist, I saw it more specifically as an envelope that happened to still have a letter from 1875 still inside. As serendipity usually has it with these things, the story told by a visitor to Northborough, MA has an intriguing plot, curious characters, and an ending that could only have been written this afternoon by myself and a willing fellow mystery-solver. 

Mrs. Viola Holbrook, staying at the home of her Aunt Susan's husband Cyrus Gale, wrote to her own husband back home in New York City about such quaint things as slipper orders and glove sizes. She also recounted what she learned in several letters she had received over a very short time: that her Aunt Nellie's fiancé had cheated on her and called off the wedding that was to happen within the month. Nellie had fled to a hotel in NYC to escape her shame and hide her sorrow. Viola, having none of that, instructed her husband to find Nellie and console her in Viola's stead.

Who was Viola Holbrook and why was she visiting a small town in MA, so far from the social buzz of Manhattan? Who was Nellie and how exactly was she related to the Holbrooks? Did Nellie ever marry…and whom?

The strategy: (1) Read the letter. Many times. Make note of places, names, and possible relationships. (2) Sketch out the family trees of each identifiable person mentioned in the letter. (3) Research each person on the trees to locate correlating evidence and establish how the people are related. 

Tips: (1) Nicknames (such as "Nellie") aren't always used in historical documents. Search using the more formal version of common nicknames for better results. (2) Family relationships (references to "aunt" or "Mother") may be for a spouse's family as well. 

The bonus: Ask the question "What happened next?" to initiate another research plan. In this case, we found that the scorned bride-to-be took back her philandering fiancé to eventually live in North Carolina with their servants. Who knew a simple census enumeration could tell such a complicated story about betrayal, sorrow, forgiveness, and deep devotion?