Twelve handwritten objects from a New England estate
March 14, 2020
This is a catalog of twelve handwritten objects found in the upper bedroom drawer of an oak chest left behind by the previous owner of a small house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The drawer was opened in April 2013. The catalog was compiled informally over the following six years and is not intended for institutional use. All items are still in private storage. Inquiries can be addressed through the contact form.
Correspondence
1. Letters from a sister in Halifax (1962-1989)
A sequence of forty-seven letters in standard envelopes, postmarked Halifax, Nova Scotia. The earliest is dated August 1962, the latest July 1989. The handwriting is legible throughout. The letters refer to a husband (Edward), a daughter (Margaret), and a small dog (Pip). The correspondence ends abruptly. No explanatory final letter is present in the drawer.
- Quantity: 47 envelopes
- Date range: 1962-1989
- Condition: very good, mild yellowing
- Notable: a 1971 letter contains a pressed maple leaf
2. Three letters signed only "M." (1967-1968)
Three letters in a different handwriting, all addressed to a man identified only as "the captain". The author signs as M. The contents suggest a personal relationship and reference a child whose health is a source of distress. No surname appears anywhere in the three letters. The envelopes are missing.
- Quantity: 3 letters, no envelopes
- Date range: April 1967 - February 1968
- Condition: fragile, requires careful handling
- Notable: contains the only mention of "the captain" in the entire drawer
Lists, notes, marginalia
3. Shopping list, undated, probably 1974
A single sheet of lined notebook paper. Items in pencil, in the same hand as the resident's later notes. The phrase "cheese for Ellen" is underlined three times in red ink. The reason is not given anywhere else in the drawer.
milk / butter / oranges (3) / cheese for Ellen / soap / postcards / aspirin
— shopping list, c. 1974
4. Recipe for mushroom soup, with annotation
A handwritten recipe on the back of a printed dance program from 1971 (Portsmouth Civic Ballet). The recipe is in standard form: ingredients, method, serving suggestion. Across the top of the page, in firm block capitals: NEVER AGAIN. No further explanation is given. The handwriting on the recipe and the annotation appears to be the same.
5. Address book pages (loose)
Eight loose pages from a pocket address book. The cover and binding are missing. Names are arranged alphabetically (B through K only). Several entries have been struck through and replaced with new addresses, sometimes more than once. Three names have been struck through with no replacement, suggesting the contact was lost rather than moved.
Documents and ephemera
6. Train ticket stubs (Portsmouth - Boston)
Twenty-three Boston and Maine Railroad ticket stubs, dated 1958 through 1965. Round-trip. Always bought on a Friday, always returning on a Sunday. Reason for travel unknown. The Boston and Maine line to Portsmouth ceased passenger service in 1965, which matches the abrupt end of the sequence.
- Quantity: 23 stubs
- Date range: March 1958 - June 1965
- Condition: paper brittle, ink faded but readable
7. Prescription, drug discontinued
A 1973 prescription for a barbiturate that was withdrawn from the U.S. market in 1986. The prescribing doctor's name is legible. The pharmacy stamp on the back indicates a small Portsmouth pharmacy that closed in 1991. I have not attempted to determine for whom the prescription was written.
8. Catalog, auction in Caen, France (1937)
A printed auction catalog, in French, for a sale held in Caen, Normandy, in November 1937. The catalog is annotated by hand throughout with prices achieved at the sale. The annotator is not the same person as the resident of the Portsmouth house. The catalog appears to have arrived in the drawer through a separate inheritance, perhaps from a relative who attended the sale.
Object
9. Pewter fox, miniature
A small pewter figurine of a fox, approximately the size of a thimble. The patina is uneven, with one side showing more polish than the other (suggesting it was kept facing one direction in the drawer for most of its life). No maker's mark. No provenance documentation. The figurine has the slightly silvered look that early-twentieth-century pewter takes on with age, which is the reason this site is named what it is.
Photographs
10. Dog photograph (Barnaby, 1961)
A black and white photograph of a small terrier, standing on a porch. "Barnaby, October 1961" written on the back in pencil. No other photographs of the dog are in the drawer. Whether Barnaby was the resident's dog or a relative's dog is not determined.
11. Wedding photograph (unidentified)
A small wedding photograph, probably from the 1940s based on the dress style. The bride and groom are not identified. The photograph is not in any frame or album. It was loose in the drawer, between two pages of the address book.
Document
12. Partial diagnostic report, 1987
Three pages of what appears to be the beginning of a structural diagnostic report on a slate roof. The report is dated September 1987 and signed in pencil by a man named Robert Cashman. The report breaks off mid-sentence on page 3. Whether the remaining pages were lost or never written is unclear. The report describes the slate as showing "significant lateral creep" and recommends further inspection. The Portsmouth historical society has no record of a contractor by that name in 1987.
It is the kind of careful technical document that someone clearly took a lot of trouble to produce, and that nobody seems to have ever followed up on. The fact that this document survives in this drawer, alongside the prescription and the dance-program recipe and the unidentified wedding photo, is the kind of accident of preservation that I find myself collecting. For readers interested in how this sort of professional documentation works, the U.S. National Archives offers some guidance on tracing property records, though nothing as tidy as what I imagine a well-kept European registry might look like.
Notes on the catalog
This is the kind of place where something quiet still has a little bit of weight, to borrow a phrase from a French essay I read once and have not been able to forget. The Library of Congress would not accept any of these objects if I offered them, and I am not asking. I am only making the existence of the objects slightly more public than it would otherwise be. If you have arrived here through some chain of links, and you find any of this useful or evocative, you are welcome to write to me. I do not promise to answer quickly.
