Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

This collection is comprised of 7 letters Anne Belden received from her friend Clara in 1851 and 1852. Clara wrote of her social life in New York City and detailed her travels through upper New York to Niagara Falls and into Canada.

This collection is comprised of 7 letters Anne Belden received from her friend Clara in 1851 and 1852. Clara wrote of her social life in New York City and detailed her travels through upper New York to Niagara Falls and into Canada. In her first letter, dated December 31, 1851-January 2, 1852, Clara wrote of her New Year's resolution "to commence writing more legible and, I hope, more interesting letters." Her subsequent letters, frequently compiled over the course of several days, provide details her social life in New York City, which involved group gatherings and more intimate meetings with acquaintances, as well as her trip across northern New York and into Canada. From July through August 1852, Clara traveled by railroad and steamship first to Trenton Falls, New York, and thence to Niagara Falls. Along the way, she described the scenery, her companions, and her modes of transportation; she also spent time in Canada near Lake Champlain and in Montreal, where she focused again on her natural surroundings. Clara continued to write after her return to New York City, and on November 18, 1852, described the plight of the Gallia, recently wrecked in the Bahamas, on which a friend had originally intended to travel.