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Members of the Curtis and Rowe families attended the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, in Hartford, where they received an education and built lasting friendships. This collection includes correspondence among the family members that provides a fascinating glimpse into the thriving deaf-mute network of New England in the 1840s.

Eight letters in this collection are from members of the Rowe family, addressed to Nancy and George Curtis. There is a document, signed by Principal Lewis Weld, certifying that Nancy Rowe had attended the American Asylum for four years, where she "made good attainments in the knowledge of written language and other branches of a common education," and that she "now leaves the Asylum sustaining a good character for morality, industry and correct deportment" (1833 April 23). The other document is probably the confession of faith Nancy made when she joined the Baptist Church, and there is one letter from Nancy Rowe Curtis to her former Congregationalist pastor, explaining her conversion.

Although small, this correspondence provides a fascinating glimpse into the thriving deaf-mute network of New England in the 1840s. The letters, particularly the one by Nancy and those by her brothers Benjamin and Samuel, are evidence of the fine education they received at the American Asylum. The letters are also proof of the other important work of the Asylum: creating a community for people or families who would otherwise have remained isolated from other people like themselves.

The connections made between deaf-mutes lasted far beyond the years spent at the Asylum. Alumni shared news with each other, and tended to gravitate to the same places. Ebenezer Curtis lived with Nancy and his brother George for at least a couple years. Benjamin Rowe passed the word on to Nancy that her former classmate Elijah R. Davis "has two daughters who can hear & talking with us quick by fingers" (1847 January 23). Benjamin worked first as a shoemaker, and then moved to Brattleboro to work for Anthony Van Doorn, a cabinet maker who had a large shop and employed several journeymen. He was married to "the Vermont lady," -- possibly Lucy Read, a deaf-mute -- in April 1849. After the wedding, Samuel Rowe wrote, "What a blessing it is to converse with such a large number of deaf & dumb relatives!" (1849 May 16).

Samuel went to Keene, where he joined his sister Persis at the tailoring firm of Hagar & Whitcomb. There they associated with American Asylum alumns Adin T. Read, a printer, and his sister, Lucy M. Read, the possible "Vermont lady." Samuel also "fell in with" Nelson Kelley, who was working with brother Benjamin. Kelley had apparently made an "unfaithful offer to Ann," George Curtis's sister, in the past, and was setting his sights on Lucy Rowe, but Samuel considered him a "mischief fellow." On his way to Keene, Samuel had stopped in Boston, "and saw some former deafmutes, viz Homer Smith & some old ones I did not remember well" (1849 February 13).

Samuel did not stay long in Keene, "For I did not like to continue working at the poor & miserable tailoring trade, as you will think it right for me to leave off my trade, when you see that I did not get pay!" (1849 May 16). He moved on to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where he worked at the Atlantic cotton mill: "I have got the good work here -- 75 cts a day for a few months -- Perhaps $1. a day, when I become a good workman." After telling his own news, Samuel moved on to others: "I have seen several deaf-mutes -- I will tell you all about them." He gave details about over a dozen people, including a number of people who lived in Lowell, presumably working in the mills. Samuel thought Mrs. John O. David, the wife of a former Asylum teacher who "left her two children under the care of her mother and went to Lowell to work in the factory, in order to clear the debts for their new house," was "smart and prudent." He expressed concern for the "unfortunate adventurers," Messrs. Mann and Dennison, "deafmutes both," who had struck out for California gold, and were expected back in two or three years, if they could avoid being "stabbed in such a dangerous enterprise."

By the late 1840s, the Massachusetts mills seemed to be a magnet for deaf-mutes. Sarah E. Hutchins, who was somehow related to Nancy, reported, "we had a letter from the children at Lawrence a short time since they are all well enjoying themselves in body and mind they have had a revival of religion in that place. Lucy wrote that Washington was there and many more deaf-mutes one Sabbath and Samuel explained some passages of Scripture to them" (1851 December 2). Although factory mill conditions were oppressive to anybody, deafness might have been an advantage when confronted with the unceasing roar of the pickers or the weave room.

In addition to information about the American Asylum's extended family of deaf-mutes, and the continual struggle to make a better living, several of these letters mention, in passing, the religious revivals that continued to flare up in New England into the 1850s. Nancy's letter to her former pastor, Rev. Stephen Shepley, is a full explanation of why she had joined the Baptist Church, and why she had permitted herself to be Baptized "again":

I am told that I was sprinkled when I was in my infancy, before I have any evidence that I had faith, or indispensable qualification, for obedience to the Gospel. Now dear Brethren, there seems to be an inconsistency, in sprinkling an infant before its mind is formed, or it is capable of judging between right and wrong, good and evil, and afterwards receiving it into the Church as a Baptised member (1846 April 16).

Nancy repudiated the sprinkling she received as an infant, stating strongly, "I have been Bapstised in the likeness of my Precious Redeemer, but only once, to my knowledge, What my Dear and Beloved Parents felt and performed as their duty I respect them but if my parents were so happy to do their whole duty that did not do mine." Nancy simultaneously expressed her continued respect for the elders of the Congregationalist Church, and her firm belief that she had done right, when she assured them, "I love my dear Brethren, and think I am walking in the way most pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ."

This collection is made up of the papers of Arba U. Thompson and his wife Frances Warner Thompson of Farmington and Avon, Hartford County, Connecticut, as well as the correspondence of their children Herbert, William, Lewis, Leila, Charles, and Frances May Thompson. The collection also includes the correspondence of Lucelia "Leila" U. Thompson, an educator who traveled with her husband William P. Baker to India in 1853 to serve for a decade as a missionary and teacher.

This collection is made up of the papers of Arba U. Thompson and his wife Frances Warner Thompson of Farmington and Avon, Hartford, Connecticut, as well as the correspondence of their children Herbert, William, Lewis, Leila, Charles, and Frances May Thompson. The papers include 2,713 letters, plus one linear foot of diaries, legal and financial documents, school papers, a commonplace book, a notebook, poems and writings, photographs, ephemeral materials, and printed items.

The Thompson Family Papers correspondence includes a wide range of writers and recipients. A temporary, rudimentary selection of them is as follows:

• The earliest portion of the collection is largely comprised of the incoming correspondence of Frances "Frankie" Warner / Frances Warner Thompson, 1850-1851, and the often lengthy, journal-like letters of Lucelia "Leila" U. Thompson who traveled with her husband William P. Baker to India in 1853, where she served as a missionary and teacher until her death in 1864. Lucelia's letters begin with correspondence from Dwight Place Seminary, New Haven, in 1850. By 1852, she served as a teacher at Germantown in a school of Mary Fales, then in 1853 determined to travel as a missionary abroad. From 1853 to 1864, she wrote lengthy, at times journal-like letters from different locations in India, including "Ahmednuggur," "Khokar," Bhingar, "Shingvay" (illustrated letter from Bombay, January 1, 1855). Her recipients included Emmie Gallup (in Essex, Conn.), Lottie R. Andrew, and Emily Hubbard.
• After Lucelia's death, her husband William P. Barker wrote letters to their parents, daughter Mary, and niece Leila Anna. Barker wrote from Minneapolis and Cottage Grove in the 1860s and 1870s, and from Carbon, Wyoming Territory, in the early 1880s.
• Early 1850s courtship correspondence of Arba Thompson and Frances Warner.
• Early 1850s letters from Mary E. Hubbell of Ipswich, Massachusetts; Avon, Connecticut; Baltimore, Maryland; and North Stonington, Connecticut, to Abigail "Nabby" Thompson.
• Correspondence of Frances Thompson's brother "Baxter" at Yale College, beginning in 1854.
• Letters by Flora Thompson in Avon, Connecticut, to her siblings beginning in the 1850s, then from Carthage, Ohio, by the 1870s.
• Letters of Abel M. Thompson of Rockville mid-1850s
• Correspondence of Pliny F. Warner of Aledo, Illinois, a job printer and publisher of the weekly Aledo Banner, editor of the Mason County Republican out of Havana, Illinois, and then the Havana Republican.
• Letters by Frances Warner's father Milo Warner of Strykersville, New York, 1850s-1860s.
• Letters by Frances Warner's sister Cordelia Morrill of Brooklyn, Strykersville, "Shadow Nook," and Java Village, New York, 1860s-1890s.
• Post-Civil War correspondence to Frances, Abigail "Nabby", and Herbert Wilson Thompson.
• Letters to Frances and Arba from cousin Dr. C. D. Woodruff of Lima, New York.
• Letters of E. G. Warner in Amherst, Massachusetts, to cousin Leila Thompson, 1880s.
• Letters from Charles and Anna Thompson to Frances Thompson from Bridgeport, Connecticut, late 1880s. Charles K. Thompson worked for the American Gramophone Company at Bridgeport.
• Letters of H. W. Thompson, working at C. H. Smith & Co., loan brokers and western real estate out of Hartford, Connecticut, late 1880s.
• Correspondence of Edith A. Warner of Brooklyn, New York, while teaching at Granville Female College, Granville, Ohio, in the 1880s.
• By 1890, the volume of letters to Frances May Thompson, known as May, from siblings and cousins increased dramatically. In the early 1890s, May took a job as a teacher at a schoolhouse in Washington, Connecticut. While there, she received letters from Helen M. Webster (1860-1905), a supervisor at the American Asylum at Hartford, Connecticut; later, Helen married to a man named George Reed and wrote from Hill City, South Dakota, in 1896 and 1897. By the late 1890s, May received letters from her husband, who worked at Harvey & Lewis, opticians and photographic supplies. He also used New York Life Insurance Company stationery.
• Correspondence between siblings Lewis and Leila Thompson, 1900s.
• Incoming letters to Leila Thompson from Alice P. Warner of Beloit, Wisconsin, early 1900s.
• Letters between Leila and Alice H. "Claire" Alderman in Clarkston, Georgia; St. Petersburg, Florida; and elsewhere, 1900s-1910s.
• Later letters between Beatrice A. Hoskins and her mother Frances Hoskins.

The collection includes two small, unsigned diaries, dated 1848 and 1923. Legal and financial documents include 57 accounts, tax receipts, land indentures, loan receipts, four account books (1824-1927), and other papers, largely from Avon and Farmington, Connecticut. One account book, kept by Guy Thomson in 1824, includes accounts for sawing, mending a halter, plowing, mowing, planting, picking apples, making cider, shoeing horses, mending fences, and other labor, plus monies taken in from a boarder.

School papers include 10 rewards of merit, report cards, school programs, a student's notebook, and a teacher's notebook, all dating from 1851-1925. A commonplace book by Leila U. Thompson dates from the 1840s and includes poetry and excerpts, including a multi-page poem, "The Missionary's Call." A notebook, marked "O.V. Brainerd" contains page after page of scribbles.

Poems and other writings include 42 loose leaf copies of poems on subjects such as temperance, resignation, death and bereavement, friendship, sentimental and religious topics, Christmas, and other subjects. Seventeen photographs include a CDV of Fannie Warner as a young girl, and a selection of snapshots, apparently of members of the Hoskins family.

The Thompson Family Papers include a variety of ephemera and printed items, including 12 visiting cards; 33 invitations and announcements; 46 birthday, valentine, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and other holiday cards; genealogical notes; newspaper clippings, pamphlets, programs, and other items.