Papers of Hannah (Robinson) Codman (1768-1819)

Description

The correspondence in this series supplements that of Hannah’s husband, Stephen Codman, as it mostly relates to their daughter, Hannah (1796-1818). Where Stephen Codman's letters are from their daughter Hannah in New York, the letters to her mother were written while she was staying in Portland. As early as 1805 and 1806, Hannah Robinson Codman wrote to her daughter praising her improved conduct but expressing hope that she "will not be so impudent again in returning in the rain from dancing school." Writing from New York in 1813, the daughter wrote enthusiastically about her schooling with Mrs. Brenton, and she told of the students having organized an association to work for the poor, called the "Union Society." By 1815, she had returned to school in Portland. In her letters home she described many ill people around her. In June of 1818, the woman with whom she had resided in Portland, Penelope Martin, wrote to Hannah Robinson Codman to express her sympathy at Hannah's death. An additional letter in the series is from an unidentified sister of Hannah Robinson Codman.