To
Pamela A. Moffett perFanny C. Hesse 19 January 1877 • Hartford, Conn.(MS: CU-MARK,
UCCL02801)
Hartford Jany 19th 1877
My Dear Sister.
I have found the right school for Sammy. It is in Concord N. H. the best preparatory
school for boys
in this country. The Rev H. A. Coit is the Master, & Mr H. Evan Cotton who was himself
prepared there for
College, has given me thisⒶemendation information concerning it. If you think favorably of it, you had better write
soon to Mr Coit, St Paul’s School Concord N. H., as it is somewhat difficult to get
an entrance there.1explanatory note
We are all about as usual—the children have been remarkably well all winter. Livy would like
to have you say to Annie that she found a difficulty in packing the music book so
that it would go safely &
now that Sammy will so soon be here,2explanatory note she will wait & send it by him. With love to all.
1 Episcopal clergyman Henry August Coit (1830–95) became the first rector of St. Paul's
School in Concord, New Hampshire, at its founding in 1856, a position he held until
his death. Clemens's informant, Henry Evan Cotton (1850–1914), graduated from Trinity
College in Hartford in 1874. In 1877 he was still living in Hartford while studying
at Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut. Clemens's present effort to
find a preparatory school for Samuel E. Moffett, now sixteen, follows the unsuccessful
attempts, in 1874 and 1875, to have him appointed to the Naval Academy. Moffett did
not attend St. Paul's School, but would study at the University of California and
Columbia University (22 Dec 1875 to PAM, L6, 603 nn. 3–4; “Henry Evan Cotton [’77],” Berkeley Divinity School Bulletin 21 [Feb 1915]: 20; AutoMT3, 264–66, 583–84).
2 Moffett arrived in Hartford on 3 February to stay for “two or three weeks” (OLC to
Olivia Lewis Langdon, 2 and 4 Feb 1877, CtHMTH).
MS, CU-MARK.
MicroML, reel 4.
See Moffett Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter.