It was a cold Sunday night in Pittsburgh when James McCandlish sat down and wrote a letter to both his niece Margaret and her father. He is thrilled to get a coat for the winter, and he updates them on the goings on in Pittsburgh. He writes “I don’t want anybody to see this but them that should.”
Mr. Blair has been ill, but he is getting better and has his corn to plant. He is very worried about Mr. Weaver who has become deranged and describes his condition.
It was the Christmas season when twenty-six-year-old Rebekah Armstrong arrived in Carlisle in December 1795 to spend the holiday with her Armstrong relatives. Her uncle, General John Armstrong, had died in March of that year.
Dr. Samuel Allen McCoskry (1751-1818) was one of the first children born in Carlisle. He was a physician, Revolutionary War surgeon, member of the Society of the Society of Cincinnati, Trustee of Dickinson College, and son-in-law of its first president Charles Nisbet. He writes to his brother Dr. William McCoskry (1763-1831) that he and his wife are concerned about their son William’s debts and conduct as well as the impaired heath of the family.
This letter was written by John E. Moore at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania on a Friday afternoon. Although the letter is not dated, it was written after 1847 and before 1856. He is visiting his sister Augusta (Gus) who married Samuel Linn on December 1, 1847. John describes his trip to Bellefonte in full detail. Note: John wrote three pages without a single paragraph, so they have been inserted for the sake of the reader.
Letter: B. Duffield to Joseph A. Murray, 1833. The letter is from 12-year-old Divie Bethune Duffield (1821-1891) the son of Rev. George Duffield of the First Presbyterian Church of Carlisle to his friend 18-year-old Joseph Murray. Joseph was brought up a Presbyterian and received his academic training at Henry Duffield’s Carlisle Institute. Joseph went to Pittsburgh to stay with his Denny relatives and to study at the University of Western Pennsylvania.
Letter: Dr. John Peebles Geddes of Newville to Mrs. Eliza C. Dunn, Franklin County, PA, 1837. The letter was written by Dr. John Peebles Geddes of Newville who would die less than four months after writing this letter. It was full of news of the coming of the railroad, the sheriff sale of the Ege belongings, relatives, neighbors, servants and more.
Dear Sir, I sincerely regret that I am so little able to give you information with regard to that part of your father’s life, which from being least known to yourself, becomes most the object of your enquiries.
Margaret Currey1 writes to her brother William and describes her work days at Carlisle’s Mansion House Hotel. She receives several letters from people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania asking her to work for them, and she is contemplating the merits and drawbacks of each request.
Mary Parker Moore had a privileged life. She was the daughter of Carlisle Attorney Isaac Brown Parker and his wife Maria Ross Veazey. When Mary was 24 years old, she married Johnston Moore from an old and prominent Cumberland County family.