![]() Charles Nicholas, by two friends, Anicartha Miller and Elizabeth Spencer. Written many years after Matilda’s death, the six letters I had been assigned were among those sent to her sister Ann, the now widowed Mrs. ![]() Despite this tragedy, the two families remained close in subsequent decades. Unfortunately, Matilda died of illness before they were able to wed. In 1809 a young Irving was engaged to be married to Matilda Hoffman, daughter of Judge Josiah Ogden Hoffman and younger sister to Ann Alice Hoffman. The Hoffman Family manuscript collection made its way to Historic Hudson Valley because of the family’s deep connection with the writer Washington Irving. For my first assignment as a virtual intern transcribing letters from the Hoffman Family collection in the Women’s History Institute at Historic Hudson Valley, I knew within the first lines that I had come across one of those treasures. Often these little paper miracles, somehow saved and salvaged over the years, can, as one of my correspondents charmingly penned, introduce us to “the very shovel and tongs of fireplace.” However, within such beautiful intricacies of domesticity is also the chance to uncover a long-hidden truth, a forgotten moment in time, or a person we never knew. Transcribing letters from two centuries ago is much like archaeology the reader carefully sifts through words eagerly anticipating what treasures might await.
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