Serendipity Week #3 A letter between two teenagers 1848

This past week, several interesting emails and comments have led me to make several interesting genealogical breakthroughs in my research.   Today I am focusing on the third story- # 1.) about a painting, 2.) a Civil War Veteran, and 3.) a letter between a teenage girl and boy in the 1840s.

Hawaii State Archives, Queen Lili'uokalani Collections,
M-93, Box 11, Folder 103
Letter from "Charlotte" to John Owen Dominis, undated

As you might know, I photographed hundreds of letters at the Hawaii State Archives last summer, and I’m using them to build up an extended family tree of the Jones sisters of Boston, Massachusetts.  One of those sisters was my 4x Great Grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger (1799 – 1828), and another was Mary Lambert (Jones) Dominis (1803 – 1889), who lived in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Mary Dominis lost her husband, Captain John Dominis, at sea in 1846 while he was on a voyage to China to buy her some furnishings for a new house in Honolulu.  This large mansion became a boarding house to help make ends meet for the new widow.  In the year 1848 two of the boarders were the teenaged sisters Estelle Charlotte and Frances Evaline Mott, who were returning from boarding school in New York to meet their parents (Mr. Mott was a diplomat to Mexico on the West Coast).    At this time, Mary’s son, John Owen Dominis (1832 – 1891) was sixteen years old.

If you read the links below, where Leah Allen transcribed Essie Mott’s memoirs in a series of blog posts, you can see that the Mott girls had fun at the Dominis home.  They spent a lot of time socializing with John Dominis and several of the young princes of the Kingdom of Hawaii.  They rode horses, attended parties and dances, and explored the social life among the New England families who were living in Hawaii at this time period.  There was quite a bit of socializing and flirting between fourteen year old Essie and young John Dominis, too.   Upon the return of the Mott family to San Francisco, Mr. Mott sent a letter of disapproval to John, asking him to stop writing to his daughter.

I found Mr. Mott’s letter amongst the other letters I photographed at the Hawaii Archives.  Recently, still working my way through these letters, I found a simple note to John O. Dominis signed by “Charlotte” written in schoolgirl pencil on lined yellow paper.  The note is in reply to a request to go out riding.  I suspected that this was Essie (Estelle Charlotte Mott), who went by the name Charlotte. 

I wrote several emails to Leah Allen, who is a descendant of the Motts, and has several writing samples of Essie/Charlotte’s.  Unfortunately, the memoir she transcribed was typed and not hand written.  Although the letter is undated, and only signed “Charlotte” we both think that is was from Essie to John O. Dominis.  Of course, one was written when Essie was a girl, and the other later in life, so there is a slight difference in penmanship.  Thank goodness that Leah and I met through blogging, and we've made connections like this for sharing documents.  What do you think about the handwriting samples?

Dear John,

I shall be most happy

to accept your kind

invitation to ride this afternoon,

And if you will send "Tramper"

around I shall be ready to

accompany you any time after

half past four o'clock,

Yours in haste,

Charlotte

Click on this link to read the letter from Mr. Isaac Thomas Mott to young John Dominis, asking him to cease corresponding with his daughter: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/08/amanuensis-monday-letter-to-john-owen.html

 Leah Allen’s blog post with the first part of Essie Mott’s memoir about her time in Honolulu. 

Part 1 http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/04/transcription-mott-memoir-part-10.html

Part 2 http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/04/transcription-mott-memoir-part-11.html

Part 3 http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/04/transcription-mott-memoir-part-12.html

Part 4  http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/04/transcription-mott-memoir-part-12.html

Part 5 http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/05/transcription-mott-memoir-part-14.html

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Internet Searches v. A Real Library

Now, I’ve read Martin Hollick’s reasons for his not liking Google Book Search at his blog Slovak Yankee. His examples are reasonable and I understand his frustrations, especially since I worked in a library for four years. However, sometimes, to me, there is nothing as valuable as Google Book Search, but with a caveat. For example, just a few days ago I was transcribing a letter from the Hawaii State Archives written by Henry Wilson to John Owen Dominis in Honolulu in 1848. I know a lot about John Dominis, but who is Henry Wilson? My only clues were that the letter was written aboard the ship “Preble” en route to Canton, China. Even the curator of Washington Place, the Dominis home in Honolulu, couldn’t tell me much about Henry Wilson.


I first Googled “Henry Wilson” and, of course, there were a zillion hits. So I entered “Henry Wilson” “Preble” “China” and relevant hits began to appear. When I changed from a Google Web search to a Google Book Search, Bingo! There were several books from the US Navy, the US Government, etc. all with information about Henry Wilson, the purser on board the USS Preble, as part of a Naval expedition to China and the Far East in 1848. I found depositions, crew lists, biographies, and other information about Henry Wilson in two minutes. If I had been at my local library, or even at the Library of Congress, I wouldn’t have known where to start looking. Now, armed with these clues from the internet, I can approach a traditional library or archive for more information. That is the caveat. Google Book Search got me started, now I can continue with some real research at a real repository.

Remember, there are lots of schmucks out there doing research at 10:30 at night in their PJs, who aren’t near any good libraries. That’s me. Right now. In my pink jammies, fuzzy slippers and glass of wine. 10:30 at night and I wanted to wrap up this letter transcription project before midnight. Now I have a USS Preble crew list and I can name that person whose name looked like McG---- in Wilson’s 1848 handwriting, or that port that looked like W--- Island because of two minutes time at Google Book Search.

On Wednesday I posted a story on how I used the internet to find out more about Peter Hoogerzeil, my 2x great grandfather http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-so-wordless-wednesday-peter.html   In this case, since Peter was an inventor, I used the internet to investigate his patents. The caveat is that not all the information was online, but it was a good place to start. Using the internet indexes was much simpler than using the book indexes at the Boston Public Library. However, in the end, I needed the Boston Public Library to actually look at many of his patent records. You would, too, for patents before 1976.

Without the internet, some of my biggest breakthroughs would never have happened. A series of stories I did in April on Romanus Emerson all came about because of a story I found in an internet newspaper database. http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/madness-monday-odd-romanus-emerson-part.html   I never thought of looking for Romanus there because I thought he was just an average New England yeoman, with no life events worth looking for in the newspapers. After finding the initial clue on line, or course I hit the library and archives for more information. I’ve written about ten blog posts on Romanus Emerson, and I have enough other interesting information now to fill a book on just this one man.

Because of the internet, bulletin boards, Google Book Search and other online databases I’ve had contact with cousins and complete strangers. In the story http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/02/missionary-to-new-zealand.html Missionary to New Zealand, a complete stranger in Australia told me what happened to my 2x great grandfather’s brother during a gold rush (it wasn’t mission work!). In the story http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/08/mystery-of-jonathan-batchelder.html The Mystery of Jonathan Batchelder, a complete stranger read my bulletin board posting and mailed me an ancestors account book dated 1847, which gave me clues to his death in an insane asylum. Stranger yet, in my post http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/10/jabez-treadwells-will.html another complete stranger mailed me the 1781 will of Jabez Treadwell. An original folded up into an manila envelope! There are a dozen more stories like this in my notes, and I’m working on putting them on my blog as fast as I can.

Regular readers of my blog will now that I have an ongoing research project on the connection between the Jones sisters of Boston and the Kingdom of Hawaii. In my very first blog post on 27 July 2009, “Hawaii- The Boston Connection to a Royal Lineage” http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/07/hawaii-boston-connection-to-royal.html I explain how for years I had been writing to the archives and curators in Honolulu for information on the Joneses. Finally a new curator at Washington Place saw my post on line and mailed me copies of several letters, and I broke through my brick wall. This has been an ongoing project that not only led to many blog posts and a research trip to Hawaii, but also to a collaboration with Leah Allen “The Internet Genealogist” and her connection with the Mott sisters who also boarded at Washington Place. You can check out those blog posts by hitting “Hawaii” or “Dominis” in the labels listed in the right hand column of my blog. There are too many to list here.

Of course, us regular schmucks sitting at home doing internet genealogy research in our PJs can’t be complacent. In every example I gave above, my clues from the internet were followed up with real old-fashioned research at libraries and archives. However, which library? Which archive? What federal, state or local agency? Those answers came from the internet.

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Amanuensis Monday- A letter to John Owen Dominis, 1849

Amanuensis Monday- A letter to John Owen Dominis, 1849

On Leah Allen’s blog, “The Internet Genealogist”, she has been transcribing Essie Mott’s memoirs of her days in boarding school and the subsequent trip to Honolulu and Mazatlan, Mexico during 1848 and 1849. On my blog on 11 April and 16 April 2010 we collaborated with posts here on my blog “Nutfield Genealogy” and “The Internet Genealogist” when Essie’s journal entries coincided with her stay at Washington Place, the Dominis family home in Honolulu.

Two weeks ago, during my research trip to Honolulu, I found, read and copied many letters found amongst John Owen Dominis’s papers. In this correspondence were several letters that mentioned his relationship with the teenaged Essie Mott. I’ll be transcribing them and posting them here, along with simultaneous blog posts by Leah on her blog with further transcriptions of Essie’s memoirs.

This first letter is transcribed below. It was dated 15 March 1849 to John from Essie’s father, Isaac Thomas Mott. He was writing from Mexico, where he served in a diplomatic role. John was in San Francisco, probably performing business related to his belated father’s pursuits in shipping.

According to Essie’s memoirs, there was a little romance between the two young people. According to this letter, the little romance had progressed to the point where John was writing letters to Essie and her sister, much to Mr. Mott’s chagrin. The letter is politely worded, but in no uncertain terms does he approve! I sent this letter to Leah and her aunt first before publishing this post, and they both thought that the young people involved must have been mortified at such a reprimand. How times have changed! Now with Facebook, email , cell phones and texting, young people can be up to all sorts of mischief behind their parents’ backs!

Certainly, after this letter, the romance ended. Perhaps it was over anyways due to distance, and by 1862 John had married Lili’uokalani. According to Leah's blog post today http://shbwgen.blogspot.com/2010/08/amanuensis-monday-essies-step-daughter.html Essie was later married to Eugene Lies.

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Mazatlan, March 15, 1849
Mr. J. O. Dominis
San Francisco

Dear Sir,

Two letters with your name attached have
come under my notice, addressed to one of my
daughters- I return these to you herewith.
I disapprove of familiar correspondence
between young persons of opposite sexes, unless
very nearly related- As you have no claim of this
nature on any member of my family, I must
request, and you will in the future, excuse yourself the
time and trouble of writing to my daughters, as
I shall consider it my duty to return your letters unopened (unread?).
I had formed a rather favorable opinion
of your conduct and character from reports of
others, and was therefore much surprised
and to find your letters filled with improprieties
and with one instance, at least, an impertinence
which no modest young lady could read
without the blush of indignation washing
her cheek, and which her parents must
consider disrespectful to themselves
and an insult to their daughters.

I am
Your most ob. Servant
I. T. Mott


Source: Hawaii State Archives, Queen Liliuokalani Collection, M-93 Box 11, Folder No. 105, Letter from I. T. Mott to John Owen Dominis, 15 March 1849

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo