Wilhelmina Foster is writing to her sister Harriet Castor of Philadelphia who had married barely seven months ago.
Carlisle, September 25, 1820
Dear Sister
It is the second time I have written to you. I have not had an answer yet. I would not write at this time but the man is waiting for a few lines as he is going to take the boxes and trunk down. I hope you will be pleased with what I have sent. I picked the very best beds there was. I sent everything I heard you say you wanted. I heard you say you wanted the quilts are doing [sic] and as soon as there is an opportunity I will send them on. Betsy Kernan is going down very shortly and she expects to go out to see you. Perhaps I may send them on by her. I will send by her for a comb like [?]. You will get a large one. Holmes Patison1 is getting quite well. Betsy is as you left her. Sometimes sick she keeps the old trait of vomiting up yet.
We are all well. Give my love to our sisters whom I much love, but you might as well be all dead for anything I hear from you. Give compliments to Mrs. Candie and Mr. Candie. Our family has their love to you all. Write as soon as you have received the things that I may know if they came safe.
H. Castor Wilhelmina Foster
Wilhelmina Foster (1797-1871) was the daughter of Carlisle tavernkeeper Thomas Foster and his wife Rebecca. Wilhelmina married George Lee of Dickinson Township, Cumberland County, PA on October 17, 1822. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Harriet Castor No. 99 South 5th Street, Philadelphia. Harriet Foster (1795-1835) married Jessie Y. Castor, Esq. of Philadelphia on February 3, 1820, whom she likely met when he attended Dickinson College.
Thomas Foster kept a tavern on North Hanover Street in Carlisle. According to French `emegre` Count de Colbert Maulevrier who visited Carlisle in the 1790s that although there were other inns in Carlisle, Foster’s was the fashionable one.2 Thomas Foster had a set of silver tea ware made by Carlisle silversmith George Hendel c. 1803. It consists of a coffee pot, two tea pots, a creamer and a sugar urn as well as spoons. They were engraved “TRF” for Thomas (1752-1829) and Rebecca Foster (1756-1812).
Thomas and Rebecca Foster Silver Set.
The silver was bequeathed to Thomas and Rebecca’s son Crawford Foster. This is how the Castor’s played a part in the survival of the tea set. Crawford Foster (1787-1853) and his wife Elizabeth Pattison (died 1821) bequeathed the set to their son Alfred Holmes Foster (1819-1884). Alfred, who lived in Philadelphia, married his first cousin Josephine C. Castor who was the daughter of Jesse Y. Castor and Harriet Foster. They passed the silver to their daughter Jesse Crawford Foster (1861-1907). She married William Howard Furness, a descendant of Boston silversmith Nathaniel Hurd. The silver then went to Jesse’s brother Thomas Castor Foster in 1907. The pieces were likely divided between family members and were sold at various auctions in the 1980s and in 2008. The set was reassembled and is now in the collection of the Cumberland County Historical Society and is back in the town where it was made more than 200 years ago.
Three spoons engraved TRF are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston which is where this author happened upon them in the 1990s. The files of the museum contain information about who donated the spoons, (the Furness family), and that is how the provenance was established.3
John Zug, a new lawyer, writes to his intended bride Margaret about the perils to his mind, body, and soul of being a lawyer. He is determined to follow a new regimen to improve his health.
1 Holmes Pattison of Carlisle was a member of the Belles Lettres Society of Dickinson College in 1814.
2 A French exile, the Count traveled through America in the 1790s and wrote about it.
3 For more information about the Foster’s, the Castor’s and the provenance see Merri Lou Scribner Schaumann, “George Hendel of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Silversmith,” Privately printed, 2011.