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Ellie’s perfect
Ellie Stoneroad was perfect–at least, according to a quarterly report from the Harrisburg Female Seminary. According to her principal, S.E. Dixon, Ellie attained perfect “4” scores in all subjects–ancient geography, composition, algebra, zoology, evidences of Christianity, Butler’s analogy, music, and family departments. She was perfectly punctual and perfectly behaved, as well.
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A catalogue for Ellie’s alma mater
Dear Ellie Stoneroad, packrat that she seems to have been, saved three catalogues from her alma mater, the short-lived Harrisburg Female Seminary. The seminary, which lasted from 1849 to 1867, was located at the junction of Locust Street and present-day Court Street in Harrisburg–coincidentally at the very spot of the parking garage serving the office building where I interned one summer in college. (I did not realize this at the time, however.) Despite its short life, the seminary seems to have attracted substantial backing during its time. Its catalogue lists recommendations from many, including William F. Johnson, the former governor of Pennsylvania. Names of its backers read like a who’s…
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Schoolgirl Scribblings
Tucked away for a century or more between pages 142 and 143 of D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation (Vol. II) was a pristine sheet, embossed, written upon in pencil and pen by Ellie Stoneroad. It survives from Ellie’s schoolgirl days at the Harrisburg Female Seminary. It’s faint, not very easy to read, but brings a smile nonetheless for the sheer normalcy of the things written upon it. Ellie wrote multiple times on it the months and days of the week and their meanings (“July -Julius Ceasar,” “Monday-Moon’s Day,” “Friday-Frea’s Day”), an abortive French verb conjugation (“voyais, voyons”), and her last name and city (Stoneroad, Harrisburg). There appears (twice) the instruction “Write…
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Book of Memorandum
This is a mysterious find, because it’s devoid of context, and because I can barely read it. But it’s fascinating all the same. This is a long, handwritten ledger, marked “Book of Memorandum” at the top, dating from 1878. It contains line after line of names, each with a date, and some with explanatory notes. It’s from Honey Grove, Pennsylvania, and appears to be from a place of business. The old mill? A store? It records visitors and, I would suppose, workers and the hours they worked. It deserves more than a quick glance. Here are a few selected pages.
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Ellie’s getting married
My three-greats grandmother, Ellie Stoneroad Patterson, seems to have come from a family of some means. She went to a private school in Harrisburg and spent her twenties unmarried–this was in the mid-1800s–and lived with her mother, traveling a bit, including to Iowa to visit her sister. She married John Lyon Patterson in March 1872, at the age of thirty, and moved from Mifflin County to Juniata County, leaving behind her community, her congregation, and the Sunday School class she taught. This letter, written to Ellie from her Lewistown friend E.K. Gibson in March 1872, was evidently sent after Ellie had moved away to join her new husband J.L. Patterson in Pleasant…
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Drawings on the last page
My grandfather, John P. Henry Jr., undertaker by training and trade, attended Philadelphia’s Eckels College of Mortuary Science in the 1940s. The contents of his mortuary school notebook are fascinating in their own right, covering such topics as embalming, record keeping, and obituary writing. The book will be the subject of future exploration. But first, I’ll share this: a page of drawings of popular cartoon characters, on the last page of the notebook. I don’t know if he sketched these freely or traced them. I will never know if he drew these while bored in class, or after hours while studying, or at Kimmel’s Funeral Home, where he first worked. Those details are…
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The drunkard shall come to poverty
My three-greats grandmother, Ellie Stoneroad Patterson, was quite devout. Sprinkled throughout her papers are many references to her lord and savior; she taught Sunday School, worried after her pupils’ souls, and generally fretted about living as morally pure a life as possible. In 1858, at the age of 16, she (along with, presumably, the rest of her Sunday School), signed a pledge as a member of the Band of Hope, vowing never to use intoxicating drinks. I suppose she would feel great shame over her descendants’ wicked ways.
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Grave stone, paid in full
My four-greats grandmother, Margaret Sigler Stoneroad (last written about as the subject of an acrostic urging her to remain chaste), died on May 29, 1876, with burial in her home in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. On August 8, 1876, her son-in-law, John Lyon Patterson (husband of Ellie Stoneroad Patterson) paid $38 for a set of gravestones for Margaret’s grave to Charles Stratford Jr. Stratford owned and operated Mount Union Marble Works and Lewistown Marble Works, a business he carried on from his father, Charles Stratford Sr., a marble cutter born in 1812 in Cheltenham, England.
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The eldest son
I’ve mentioned before that seemingly random scraps of paper are stuffed into books that have come into the possession of both me and my cousin. These books, mostly from my great great great grandmother, Ellie Stoneroad Patterson, seemed to be repositories of various clippings of value to the family–announcements, recipes, religious tracts, and other items of note. Case in point: this announcement, clipped from the Port Royal Times of January 23, 1890, noting the passing of 13-year-old Thomas Patterson, eldest son of Ellie and her husband, John Lyon Patterson. As though realizing her great great great grandson would stumble upon this 125 years later, Ellie–or maybe her daughter, Grace Patterson Henry, who…
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A Stevengraph bookmark
Found in one of the many old books in my grandfather’s house was this bookmark dating from 1876, celebrating the centennial of the United States. It’s a woven, pure silk bookmark, featuring George Washington, produced by the Thomas Stevens company of Coventry, England. Thomas Stevens was a prominent producer of woven silk bookmarks during the Victorian era. He claimed to have produced 900 bookmark designs over his career. It comes as no surprise that collectors value these Stevengraph bookmarks and that a site exists chronicling each design, including the centennial design. Were I to sell this bookmark–and I won’t–I might be able to fetch $40-50. Were it to include its original…