Intern Update: Janet Payne

Our intern, Ryan Bachman, has been spending the summer transferring our historic documents to archival folders and boxes, improving their storage and making them more accessible for research. This is the fourth in a series of blog posts he is writing about some of the interesting or surprising documents he finds in our vault.

This week, I worked on sorting the papers of Emily E. Marsh. Ms. Marsh was a lifelong resident of Cornwall who ironically lived in the building that currently houses the historical society. She was perhaps best known for her job as a librarian, which she held for over forty years. As Cornwall librarian, Ms. Marsh received hundreds of letters from genealogy enthusiasts interested in their Cornwall roots, and over the course of her life, she collected countless items associated with Cornwall families, and town history in general. One item I uncovered this week that really stands out is a book of artwork and poetry made by twenty year old Cornwall resident Janet E. Payne in 1838. The images call to mind the artwork found in the friendship album made for Cherry Stone in 1824 by Wu Lan, a student of the Foreign Mission School. It’s interesting to speculate what influences or connections there may be between these two volumes.