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1850s BENNETT FAMILY ARCHIVE
12 COVERS INCLUDING TWO 4-PAGE LETTERS BETWEEN LEOMINSTER MA AND PHILADELPHIA
These covers have been preserved for generations in an private family stamp and postal-history collection.
The principal recipipient is Cellie/Celestine Bennett, whose mail follows her between Massachusetts and Philadelphia. Other Bennett family members and associates appear throughout the correspondence, including Hanna [Anna], Alfred, Eugene and others.
The group includes a variety of attractive mid-19th-century postal usages, including 3¢ and one 12¢ Washington stamps,imperforate and perforated issues, embossed envelopes, colored cancellations, manuscript markings, and stampless postal history. Several covers retain their original embossed or wafer seals.
Highlight: a pair of 1851 four-page Bennett family letters
The centerpiece of the group is an especially interesting August 29, 1851 stampless self-cover containing a lengthy four-page family letter sent from Sarah Bennet inn Leominster, Massachusetts to Alfred Bennett in Philadelphia. The highly legible letter provides an unusually good glimpse of everyday life in mid-nineteenth century Massachusetts. Subjects include family news and the death of a child, relatives and acquaintances, travel and an excursion to Newport, RI, employment, religion, politics and local economic conditions.
The writer discusses the slump inLeominster's comb-making industry, reporting:"Combmaking is very dull"and noting that several shops had closed or were doing very little business.
This is a fascinating firsthand reference because Leominster was already an important American center of comb manufacture. The specialized skills and manufacturing infrastructure developed for making combs from horn and other materials later helped Leominster become a major center of celluloid and plastics manufacturing, eventually earning the community its reputation as "Plastic City."
A second letter from Anna to her sister Cellie has also been preserved in its original 1851 envelope.
Condition: These are original 19th-century covers and correspondence showing normal age toning, folds, opening wear, stains and other evidence of postal use and storage. Please examine all photographs carefully; they form an important part of the description.
The entire 12-piece Bennett correspondence is being offered together and will not be broken up.
An appealing group for collectors of:
Massachusetts postal history • Leominster history • 19th-century family correspondence • U.S. stampless covers • 3¢ Washington issues • Philadelphia postal history • Genealogy • American social history • Early industrial history • Comb making and plastics history
