Archive of Noah Webster's Grandson's College Compositions and Related Materials 72 Documents, Approximately 289 pp

This extensive archive centers on the Fowler family over more than a century. It focuses primarily on the records of William Chauncey Fowler (1793-1881), who graduated from Yale College and was a professor at Middlebury College and Amherst College, and his son William Worthington Fowler (1832-1881), who graduated from Amherst College and was an attorney in New York City before becoming a journalist and writer in Durham, Connecticut. William Chauncey Fowler married Harriet Webster, a daughter of lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843), so later generations are also descendants of Webster. Several other branches and generations of the Fowler family are represented in this archive.

[FOWLER FAMILY.] Archive of correspondence, poetry, college assignments, and other documents, 1790-1932. 72 documents, approximately 289 pp. Good to very good; housed in protective pages.

Highlights and Excerpts
- Writ to Sheriff in case of Caleb Fowler v. Abel Tibbah, April 19, 1793, Partially Printed Document Signed, 1 p.
Caleb Fowler (1727-1807) was the paternal grandfather of William Chauncey Fowler.

- Abiathar Crane, Receipt for payment of tax on right of land in Sterling Township, Vermont, December 28, 1795, Autograph Document Signed, 1 p. Taxpayers include Jonathan Fowler (d. 1806).

- Account of Reuben Fowler with N. W. Chauncey, 1797-1799, Manuscript Document, 4 pp.
Reuben Rose Fowler (1763-1844) was the father of William Chauncey Fowler.

- Harriet Webster Fowler, Autograph Letter Initialed, to William Chauncey Fowler, ca. 1835. 2 pp.
"I have the pleasure of saying that there is evidently a mitigation of fever in William and that he has had a most quiet night.... Yet there is still fever & he requires most careful watching.... Dr Webb was fearful of congestion of the brain. To day is the 14th day since he was taken ill & we think the fever passing off."
"This morning he said, Mother How am I? the first he enquired about himself. Yesterday his grandfather brought him from New York a very large orange. He looked and smiled and said after five minutes consideration very deliberately, ‘You must thank him.' I confess dear husband that I cannot but feel much solicitude for him yet, though every thing looks more favorable."
The grandfather who brought the orange from New York was Noah Webster.

- Harriet Webster Fowler, Autograph Letter, to Eliza Fowler, ca. 1835. 3 pp.
"I have enjoyed this little visit highly, and I can truly say I love this mother dearly. Oh how much I wish to be near you all! I cannot tell you how sorry I feel not to see Catherine with her husband & babe this season. Very much love to them if they are with you."
Eliza Ann Fowler (1769-1849) was the younger sister of William Chauncey Fowler and the sister-in-law of Harriet Webster Fowler.

- "James," Autograph Letter Signed, to William Worthington Fowler, ca. 1845-1850. 4 pp.
"When you have studied till you think you know enough suppose you come out into the Missisipi valley and see what is to be done here. How would you like to sail over our great Western Lakes, or ride over our broad prairies? The teamsters here have large covered wagons which they call Prairie Schooners where they carry besides their loading their bedding and victuals and whenever they are hungry strike a fire and cook their own dinner, they also sleep before the fire even in quite cold weather."
"I left my Grandmother's in Bloomfield the 8th of September with a distant relative of ours who was expecting to come to Toledo Ia with me, and his business caused him to go through New Haven by which I saw many pleasant villages, and staid two days in New Haven. I saw Yale College where you expect to graduate. It is a very pleasant place. We went in a sloop to Albany and it went so slow that we had time to take a fair view of New York City and the beautiful houses on each side of Long Island sound and also on the Hudson River.... you cannot think how many masts there are in New York harbor.... I could see the battery in New York very plain and children playing on the grass and I could see the fountain there."

- Edmund M. Pease, Autograph Letter Signed, to William Worthington Fowler, January 5, 1855, Baltimore, Maryland. 1 p.
"My situation is very pleasant and moderately profitable thus far. I enjoy a great many things connected with life in such a city as this. My only felt deprivation is a want of congenial souls, in the form and likeness of good male young men like, the Class of '54.... So you are intending to push forward in your Law studies. Well do so & prosper. Matthews is also reading Law. You will have him to compete with—so bestir thyself."
"Baltimore is a city of 200,000 souls & nearly as many bodies. Its aristocracy is very much so & its mobocracy quite rowdyish."
Edmund M. Pease (1828-1906) graduated from Amherst College in 1854, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1859, and the Union Theological Seminary around the same time. He served as a surgeon for the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery during the Civil War, before practicing medicine in Springfield, Massachusetts, and New York City.

- Charles C. Fowler, Autograph Letter Signed, to William Worthington Fowler, June 27, 1855, New York, New York. 2 pp.
"I entered up judgment and filed Judgt. Roll yesterday in my first case.... I also issued Execution to the sheriff of the city and County of N.Y. Henry G. DeForest has recommended me to certain Collecting Lawyers in Baltimore from whom I expect every now and then a claim. Alexander of my class in Yale has put a suit for $150.00 in my hands. I am reading hard. Shall finish Story on Partnership in a few days. This I have read with very little benefit apparently. Story has not a concise manner of writing and I find it difficult to get at the gist of the matter."
"I have not heard from Emily since last week—no a week ago last Saturday. She was then suffering greatly from a broken breast. I am anxious to learn her condition. Love to Father."
Charles C. Fowler (1829-1876) was William Chauncey Fowler's oldest son and William Worthington Fowler's older brother. Charles C. Fowler graduated from Amherst College in 1851 and became an attorney in New York City.

- Account of William C. Fowler with Charles F. Hand, June 27, 1866, Durham Center, Connecticut. Manuscript Document Signed, 1 p.

- William Worthington Fowler, Autograph Letter Signed, to his mother Harriet Webster Fowler, January 31, 1873. 1 p.
"Martha is not well today & Gertrude shows herself efficient by stepping into the gap. She has thus far proven herself the best & dearest of wives & her husband appreciates her."
William Worthington Fowler and Gertrude Van Ness Smith married on January 7, 1873, twenty-four days before he wrote this letter.

- Several manuscripts by William Worthington Fowler, written as a college student or during his career as a journalist, ca. 1850s, 1870s, including:
   - "Scandinavian Mythology," 9 pp.
   - "Works of Byron," 6 pp.
   - "Venice," 5 pp.
   - "The Study of the Classics an Incentive to Patriotism," 4 pp.
   - "The Model Republic," 3 pp.
   - "Petrarch," 6 pp.
   - "The Value of National Heirlooms," 3 pp.
   - Assessment of Ancient Alexandria, September 1, 1853, 9 pp.
   - "The Divinities of the Sea," 2 pp.
   - "The Value of the Imagination in Practical Life," 3 pp.
    - "A Nation's Ideal," 3 pp.
   - "The Four Poetic Ages of a Nation," 6 pp.
   - "On the Structure of Model Republics," 6 pp.
   - "The Growth of Truth," 5 pp.
   - "Egyptian and Grecian Architecture," 4 pp.

- Playtime Story Book, illustrated by Maud Humphrey. Buffalo, New York: Hayes Lithographing Co., [ca. 1901]. 24 pp.
Illustrator Maud Humphrey (1686-1940) was the mother of actor Humphrey Bogart.

- Jessie M. Dauchy, Autograph Letter Signed, to William Chauncey Fowler, July 29, 1932, Wethersfield, Connecticut. 4 pp.
"I am very much pleased to have the material you sent, for I am much interested in the life of Washington and his relation to Connecticut History."
"I hope too that your project for having the travels of Washington through Connecticut—marked with suitable markers—will soon be accomplished. For Connecticut is full of history—and no state has finer old families than this."
Jessie M. Dauchy (1867-1939) was a hostess at the Joseph Webb House in Wethersfield, Connecticut, which served as George Washington's headquarters in May 1781, when he met with Comte de Rochambeau.

William Chauncey Fowler (1793-1881) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1816. After teaching in Virginia for a year, he became a tutor at Yale from 1819 to 1824. He was licensed to preach and ordained a pastor of the Congregational Church in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1825. That same year, he married Harriet Webster (1797-1844), one of the daughters of Noah Webster. They had four children. From 1827 to 1838, he taught at Middlebury College in Vermont, and from 1838 to 1843, at Amherst College. In 1858, he moved to Durham, Connecticut, where he wrote a series of English grammar books and a variety of other books, including a History of Durham (1872).

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. 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).

William Chauncey Fowler (1875-1941) was born in Hudson, New York, and was the grandson and namesake of the Yale-educated professor and scholar William Chauncey Fowler (1793-1881), who wrote a history of Durham, Connecticut (1872) and was a son-in-law of Noah Webster. The younger Fowler moved to Durham with his family as an infant and lived there for the rest of his life, working as a farmer. He never married. He was also a sort of local historian.

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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