Love Nineteenth-Century American Style, and Seventeenth-Century Style 40 Items Over 100 Pages

This archive of love letters consists of three dozen letters written by Simeon P. Smith to Eliza Lyle in the six months before they married in June 1842, and one from her to him in the same period. He was in New York City, while she was in Upper Red Hook, New York, ninety miles north on the eastern side of the Hudson River. One additional letter by Judge Henry W. Taylor transcribes a love letter from 1674 from his great-grandfather to his great-grandmother shortly before they married.

[LOVE LETTERS.] Simeon Smith, Autograph Letters Signed, to Eliza Van Ness Lyle, 1842. 37 letters, 105 pp., many with cross-hatched text written at 90 degrees across original text. Most very good; a few have tears or small amounts of loss; one is missing a leaf of two pages.
With Eliza Van Ness Lyle, Autograph Letter Signed, to Simeon Smith, March 25, 1842. 4 pp., 8" x 9.75". Very good.
Also with Henry W. Taylor, Autograph Letter Signed, to Unknown, December 27, 1880, Canandaigua, New York, which transcribes Edward Taylor, Letter and Acrostic, to Elisabeth Fitch, July 8, 1674. 5 pp., 7.75" x 9.75". Some staining; very good.

Excerpts
- [Simeon P. Smith to Eliza Van Ness Lyle, April 13, 1842:]
"I cannot refrain from sending you a few lines to let you know you are still as dear to my heart as ever & I want to see & embrace you with all the tenderness I am capable of manufacturing."

- [Eliza Van Ness Lyle to Simeon P. Smith, March 25, 1842:]
"the house of my childhood and very many happy hours and here it is dearest Simeon that I first saw you, little dreaming that pleasant evening in June when you call'd here that I would be your chosen friend, and that I should claim you as my dearest and best on earth and your letters of affection and love afford me greater happiness than if you placed thousands at my disposal. I do not believe wealth brings happiness but secure in the affection of those we love with a divine blessing must impart joy and peace."

- [Edward Taylor to Elizabeth Fitch, July 8, 1674:]
"My Dove, I send you not my heart, for that I hope is sent to Heaven long since, and (unless it hath awfully deceived me,) it hath not taken up its lodging, in any ones bosom, on this side ye royal city of ye great king. But yet ye most of it that is allowed to be layed out upon any creature, doth solely and singly fall to yr share."

Simeon Parsons Smith (1809-1848) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Rev. David Smith (1767-1862) and Catherine Chauncey Goodrich Smith (1775-1845). He married Hetty Hosford (1808-1840) in 1833, and they had at least one child. He married Eliza Van Ness Lyle in 1842, and they had three children before his death.

Eliza Van Ness Lyle Smith (1811-1896) was born in New York. In 1842, she married Simeon Parsons Smith, and they had three children, including Gertrude Van Ness Smith Fowler (1846-1933), the wife of William Worthington Fowler, grandson of Noah Webster.

Henry Wyllys Taylor (1796-1888) was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale College in 1816. He studied law in New York and was admitted to the bar in 1819. He opened a law office in Canandaigua, New York. He served in the New York State Assembly from 1836 to 1839. In 1840, he moved to Michigan, where he served in the Michigan Senate in 1846. He returned to Canandaigua in 1848 and resumed the practice of law. In 1850, Governor Hamilton Fish appointed him a justice of the Supreme Court of New York. In 1832, he married Martha C. Masters (1808-1884), but they had no children. Edward Taylor (1642-1729) was his great-grandfather.

Edward Taylor (1642-1729) was born in Leicestershire, England, and began training for the ministry in England. Because of persecution of non-conformists, he migrated to Massachusetts in 1668, where he entered Harvard College, graduating in 1671. He became a minister in Westfield, Massachusetts, where he remained for the rest of his life, performing the duties of a minister and also a physician. He married Elizabeth Fitch (1651-1689) in 1674, and they had eight children. In 1692, he married Ruth Wyllys (1660-1730) of Hartford, Connecticut, and they had six children.

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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