Elizabeth Lucy Chapin, secondary school teacher, was born on August 27, 1838 in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Her father, Titus Chapin, was a farmer and her mother died when she was young. Lucy, as she was called, entered Mouth Holyoke Female Seminary in 1854, and graduated in 1857. An older sister, Roxanna Emily Chapin, was a graduating member of the class of 1854. Lucy taught at the Lucy Cobb Institute, a women's secondary school in Athens Georgia when it opened in 1859 until 1861. From 1861 to 1862 she was employed by her sister's husband, William Louis Crawford Gerdine, as governess to his nine children, her sister's step-children, on their cotton plantation in West Point, Mississippi. Lucy died there in mid or late October, 1862, after unsuccessfully trying to return to Massachusetts during a long illness. Lucy and Roxanna traveled as far as Richmond, Virginia where they were turned back. They were detained at Corinth, Mississippi, about 100 miles north of West Point, during the October 3-4 Battle of Corinth. Lucy died the day after arriving back in West Point, at the age of twenty-four. Her body was later reburied in Chicopee, MA.
The Elizabeth Lucy Chapin Papers span the years 1842, and 1859-1861, and consist of correspondence, a photograph, a photocopy of a poem, and a small book. The correspondence series, arranged chronologically, consists of twelve letters written by Lucy while in Georgia and Mississippi, to a sister, Emily ("Em") in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Topics discussed in the letters include being a Northerner in the Deep South on the eve of the Civil War; aspects of a young school teacher's life; expressions of home-sickness; commentary on the pleasant Southern weather; and the unmarriageablity of the local young men. Several of the letters discuss her sister, Roxanna Emily Chapin Gerdine, class of 1854. All of the letters are available digitally online. The undated photograph is a faded oval daguerreotype portrait of Lucy. Her birth and death dates are inscribed on the back, "b. August 27, 1838 Chicopee, Mass d. March 21, 1862 West Point, MS" [a source in Archives and Special Collections indicates her death was actually in October, 1962]. The photocopied poem was written by the head of the Lucy Cobb Institute, Thomas R.R. Cobb, to Lucy on January 1, 1859 in celebration of her arrival at the school. Rounding out the collection is an illustrated copy of
Correspondence from this collection is available online in a digital format.
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Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Elizabeth Lucy Chapin Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA.
Donated by Patricia Emily Moon Bramich, 2007.
Papers were orignally held by Emily Chapin Parsons Gill, grand niece of Roxana Chapin Gerdine, and were donated to Mount Holyoke College by her daughter Carolyn E. Gill Moon, and her grandchildren including Patricia Emily Moon Bramich.
The correspondence in this collection is available online in a digital format
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