Category Archives: Staff Topics

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

Finding Evidence of Underrepresented People in the Archives

It’s long been a challenge for those researching ancestors who may have been illiterate, poor, or marginalized to learn about their heritage. Institutions like the Litchfield Historical Society were founded and began collecting during the Colonial Revival, a time when there was tension over immigration and clashes between races, classes, and nationalities. Our founders were the descendants of wealthy white immigrants from Western Europe who wished to preserve their history by saving their ancestor’s decorative arts, artifacts, and papers, predominantly those of men.

While we continue working to make our collections more representative and inclusive of all the people who made Litchfield home, a lot of the town’s early history of women, minorities, and the natives displaced by the settlers was lost, or perhaps never documented at all.

Continue reading

Sylvia Stocker: The Enslaved Woman who Started a Town Library

Contributed by Dan Keefe with Bob Goodhouse

Twenty-six slaves are listed in Litchfield’s 1790 census including Sylvia Stocker, one of two people enslaved by Isaac Baldwin, Sr. Like all other slaves, she is recorded by number, not by name. In 1805, when Sylvia was 33, Baldwin’s heirs petitioned the Town Selectmen for her freedom and received their approval. Sylvia lived to be 64, and her will is recorded in Litchfield’s town records. Remarkably, she left her small library to the Town Selectmen for use by the poor.   

Continue reading

My Very Dear Maria

This lengthy missive was penned by Tapping Reeve in March of 1807 following the rumors of a broken engagement of Maria Jones Tallmadge and Virgil Maxcy, who studied law in Litchfield following his graduation from Brown College in 1805. She was 15, he was 20.

Maria Tallmadge was the daughter of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge and Mary Floyd Tallmadge. She was born in Litchfield in 1790 and attended the Litchfield Female Academy from 1802-1802. According to Emily Noyes Vanderpoel’s Chronicles of a Pioneer School, Tallmadge “took a prominent part in the school theatricals.” Virgil Maxcy was from Attleboro, MA. He was born May 5, 1785 to Levi and Ruth Newell Maxcy. Following his graduation from Brown College, Maxcy studied law in Litchfield, where the two likely met.

Continue reading

Broken Vial

This letter, written April 20, 1779, is one of my favorite pieces of correspondence from the Benjamin Tallmadge Collection. It clearly conveys the danger of the enterprise undertaken by the members of the Culper Ring and their acute awareness of the extraordinary risks they were taking. Tallmadge writes to Washington enclosing intelligence gathered by his agents about British activities in Rhode Island. The letter expresses the difficulties present in getting information to Headquarters expediently, writing, “I have urged by Letter & Verbally the plan of forwarding Letters by some shorter Route to Hd Qrs. – C – wishes, as much as your Excellency to hit on some more speedy mode of Conveyance, but after all his Enquiry finds such a step very dangerous & difficult.”

Continue reading

Using the Code

Letter in Cipher, Benjamin Tallmadge to George Washington, July 28, 1779, Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library, Litchfield Historical Society

One of the spycraft methods employed by Benjamin Tallmadge and the Culper Ring was the use of a code. Tallmadge developed a code dictionary and shared it with General Washington. Although this dictionary is not part of our collection, we are fortunate to be able to access Washington’s copy, now preserved by the Library of Congress. A transcribed version is available on the Mount Vernon website.

Continue reading