Overview
Correspondence of Grafton, Massachusetts native, Mary Taylor Crosby with friends, her brother, and her future husband, Aaron Crosby. The Crosby's were missionaries to the Oneida mission.
Dates
- Creation: 1766-1804
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
This collection is not housed at the Houghton Library but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.5 linear feet (1 box)Correspondence of Mary Taylor Crosby, with her brother Hezekiah Taylor, courting letters with her soon-to-be-husband Aaron Crosby, and between Mary and various friends. Some letters exchanged while Aaron Crosby and Hezekiah Taylor were students at Harvard College. Also includes autograph manuscript notes concerning the collection, written by the donor, Fred W. Dickinson.
Biographical / Historical
Miss Mary Taylor Crosby was born in Grafton, Massachusetts on 1745 November 1, the daughter of Hezekiah Taylor and Abigail Hunt Taylor. She was also addressed in these letters, prior to marriage, as Dolly Taylor or Polly Taylor. She married Aaron Crosby on 1774 August 22 in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, and joined her husband in his missionary work at the Oneida mission. They had a daughter Mary (born 1776) and a son Eli (born 1778).
Aaron Crosby (1744-1824) was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts on 1745 December 31. He was the son of Samuel Crosby (died 1748 January 23 in Shrewsbury) and Dorothy Brown Crosby. His father died when he was four and his mother remarried Jonathan Ward of Upton. He was a Harvard College A.B. 1770, A.M. 1773, a school master at Brookfield in 1771, and a missionary with the Oneida mission on the Susquehannah River, set out on 1771 August 21. While at Harvard College, he had roomed with Mary's brother, Hezekiah Taylor. He died in 1824.
Mary's brother, Hezekiah Taylor, was born 1748 November 16 and he was a Harvard A.B. 1770, A.M. 1797. For several years after graduation he kept school in Westborough and Shrewsbury. On 1774 March 31 he married Sarah Frost (died 1840). He became the first minister of the First Congregational Church of Newfane, Vermont and died 1814 August 23.
Sources: Sibley's Harvard Graduates. Volume XVII, 1768-1771. Massachusetts Historical Society: Boston, 1975; and notes from donor of collection (see item 14) below.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by correspondent.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
No accession number. Gift of Fred W. Dickinson, as estate administrator, Box 1339, Boston, Massachusetts; received: 1915 February 15.
General note
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. See access restrictions below for additional information.
Processing Information
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
- Title
- Crosby, Mary Taylor, 1745-. Mary Taylor Crosby correspondence, 1766-1804: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou01970
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu