This album (101 pages) contains autographs of the acquaintances of Adelaide Harris Davis of Cambridge, Massachusetts, collected between 1859 and 1864. The front and back covers are decorated with imprinted artistic details and text reading "Album of Remembrance;" the album was printed by Leavitt & Allen of New York. Charles F. D. wrote a note on the first page celebrating many of Adelaide's virtues and recording his presentation of the album to her on February 22, 1859. Most of the acquaintances who signed the album were female, and some noted their locations or the date. Adelaide collected a majority of the signatures between 1859 and 1861 and one in 1864. Most signers were from Cambridge, Massachusetts, but contributors also came from New York, Vermont, and Iowa, as well as other towns in Massachusetts. Some included short mottos, such as Augusta M. Stevens, who inscribed a Shakespeare quotation (p. 55).
Eight signers included brief poems, most often about friendship:
- [Miel] E. Berlancourt (poem in French) (p. 19)
- Alice C. Gates (p. 23)
- Francena Danforth ("Sweet be her dreams, the fair, the young," by Barry Cornwall) (p. 47)
- Lizzie Howe ("Watch and pray! The world deceiving…," by M. A. Dodd) (p. 57)
- "Belle" (p. 61)
- Sarah A. Manoun (p. 63)
- Sarah C. Fisher (p. 67)
- Carrie L. Fisher (p. 75)
Four members of the Agassiz family signed the book:
- L. E. Agassiz (p. 79)
- E[lizabeth] C[abot Cary] Agassiz (p. 79)
- A[lexander] Agassiz (p. 83)
- Li. Agassiz (p. 93)
Several black-and-white engravings depict women at leisure and other scenes. An undated circular letter laid into the volume appeals to former students of the Agassiz day school to contribute to a gift prior to the school's having to close on June 26, 1862, because of the Civil War. A receipt, housed separately, records Eliphalet Davis's payment of $37.50 for one quarter's tuition at the Agassiz school (June 27, 1861).
Adelaide Harris Davis was born in Massachusetts on November 12, 1841, the daughter of Eliphalet Davis, a soapmaker, and his wife, Annie Bemis. Adelaide had four siblings: Thomas, William, Charles, and Eliphalet. Around 1859, she attended the day school run by Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz (1822-1907) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; among her teachers there were Agassiz's husband, Harvard professor Louis Agassiz (1807-1923), and his son from a previous marriage, Alexander Agassiz (1835-1910).
