Category Archives: Staff Topics

Blog posts that are staff favorites, chosen topics, or updates abut what goes on behind-the-scenes.

“Exhilarating, Exciting” – Richard S. Chisolm’s Account of the 1925 Solar Eclipse

Sweeping across the continent from Mexico through Canada on Monday, April 8, 2024 the “Great North American Eclipse” has captured the nation’s attention. NASA estimates that over 31 million people live in the path of totality and far more will travel to join them. Laying outside the path of totality for this eclipse, the people of Litchfield were plunged into mid-morning darkness on January 24, 1925.

The path of 1925 total solar eclipse (Butler Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute

Typed by part-time Litchfield resident Richard S. Chisholm, the account below details his anticipation of the event and the challenges amateur astronomers faced that snowy, cloudy January:

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Miss Jones Letter

1847 Litchfield CT stampless folded letter red CDS and 5 rate [H.3508] - Picture 1 of 3

Letter, Julia Henrietta Jones to Laura Boardman Lane, March 31, 1847

As noted before, we have alerts set up for eBay and various auction sites to notify staff when Litchfield-related items and collections appear. A few weeks ago, I added this item to my watchlist on eBay. Individual letters are often bought and sold by stamp collectors who care little about the contents as was the case with this. Although I had requested an image of the contents, the seller did not comply. Instead, I received an offer to buy the letter for $8.49. Noting that it had a return option, I decided to take a chance- the name Laura Lane was familiar from my work on the Boardman papers, and the 1841 made me wonder whether the author was a former Litchfield Female Academy Student.

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Detective Work in the Archives

Group photo of Sons of Veterans of the United States of America C. O. Belden Camp #31 Litchfield, about 1881


Project Archivist Leith Johnson is working on creating and enhancing descriptive records for the Litchfield Historical Society Photograph Collection funded by a Connecticut Humanities SHARP grant. He contributed the piece below about this photograph, which had no identifying information written on it or with it, and required some investigation.

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Halley’s Comet Time Capsule

Do you remember that thirty five years ago the second graders at Litchfield Center School buried a time capsule on the Litchfield Green? Maybe you were not born yet. As a once in every seventy-five years event, Halley’s Comet is typically a pretty big deal. Mark Twain even said he came in with Halley’s Comet and would go out with it- he predicted correctly.

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A Book Review by the Chief Justice

The Litchfield Historical Society is thrilled to announce the acquisition of a previously unpublished letter from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall to Judge James Gould, instructor at the Litchfield Law School, in which Marshall provides feedback on Gould’s book about pleadings.

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Engraving of James Gould
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