Hatch-Hutchinson papers, 1862-1865
37 items
The collection consists of 37 letters written to Leroy Hutchinson by his family and friends in Liberty Hill and Hartford, Connecticut.
Nineteen of the letters were written to Leroy by his mother, Lydia B. Hatch. In her letters to her son, Lydia is concerned with the state of his clothes and his morals, urging him to resist the temptations of alcohol and bad company while working at the Eastern Hotel. She teases him about getting body lice from the “fast girls” (December 24, 1865). In the same letter, Lydia reveals a glimpse of her own domestic life: “Your father is in the closet eating hominy & milk, & I can’t write much more for I am so hungry, I want some too -- he has acted like sin all day, has kicked me every time I came near him…”
The Hatch-Hutchinson papers contain a single unlabeled photograph of a woman, cropped into an oval shape, enclosed in a December 23, 1862 letter by Leroy's grandmother.