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Finding Aid

Mary Van Nostrand-Titus Letters, 1803-1818

MSS-037

Size: 1 item
Provenance: Unkown

Access: Open

Collection Summary: Letters from Mary Van Nostrand to her husband Walter Titus.

Subject(s): Women; Social Life and Customs

Processing Note: Donor information unknown for this collection.

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

Completed by: Lauren White, February 2016

Historical/Biographical Sketch

Mary Van Nostrand (1782-1818) was an upper middleclass woman living in New York in the early 19th century. Her parents, John Van Nostrand and Helena Lefferts, were from prominent families in Brooklyn and Long Island with roots dating back to the 17th century Dutch settlements. Mary Van Nostrand married Walter Titus in 1801, and the couple had eleven children.

(Note: biographical information from collection of Mary Van Nostrand Papers at the New York Public Library and The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 33)

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of a single bound volume of letters, dated 1803-1818 and arranged chronologically. Mary Van Nostrand writes to her husband, Walter Titus, while he is away from home. Topics covered in the letters include their children and other family members, health, travel, and other daily concerns of middle class American women at the time.

The letters were handed down from Mary Van Nostrand to her granddaughter, Sophie Laura Hall Peckham, and then given by Peckham to her daughter Louise.