Nancy Shippen: Her Journal Book Book

, , a t , f. f NANCY HER JOURNAL BOOK ROMANCE OF A YOUNG LADY OF FASHION OF COLONIAL THILADELTHIA WITH LETTERS O HE ANV COMPILED AND EDITED BY ETHEL ARMES ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS FAG-SIMILES AND PRINTS Philadelphia J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY London 935 NANCY SHIPPBN FROM TIIK ORIGINAL MINIATURK ATTRIIUI KI ix BENJAMIN TRcrrr Courtesy t Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd P. Shippea RIGHT, 1935, BY ETHEL ARMES AND tLOYD P. SHIPPEN MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FIRST EDITION TO CATHY AND DICK PREFACE My discovery of the letters and journals which make up the major contents of this book was an accident In doing research for the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, Inc., my ob ject was to secure records and information that might be of service in the restoration and furnishing of Stratford Hall, the national shrine in Westmoreland County, Virginia, commemo rating the patriot Lees. Through Miss Elise Packard, Chair man of Lee Records Committee of the Foundation, I learned that Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd P. Shippen of Washington, D. C, had in the storeroom of their home several chests containing original letters, diaries and other documents which had never been examined in their entirety by any person now living. This in itself was a challenge to the student of Americana. For the records of the Shippens, like those of the Livingstons and the Lees, extend far back into the seventeenth century. These three families were foremost among those taking early root in the Province of Pennsylvania, the Province of New York and the Colony of Virginia, and their records are interwoven with every stage of the beginnings and early progress of the United States of America. Accordingly I welcomed the opportunity to see and to study the Shippen collection. The major portion of the documents relating to the eighteenth century had been classified by Dr. and Mrs. Shippen, placed in letter books in chronological order and deposited in the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress. The investigation of the collection in both places was begun in October, 1933, with the certainty of finding valu-5 PREFACE able material for Stratford. When the selection, classification and identification of the documents in the Shippens storeroom was made, letters and documents of the early nineteenth cen tury found there clarified many previously half-told events in the lives of the families concerned. The collection as a whole proved to be far broader in scope than was at first surmised. Finding intact such a series of let ters practically covering the lives of each member of an entire family births, education, marriages, separations, deaths, was in itself an amazing circumstance. When considered against the late eighteenth century background of their lives, the historic events of which they were part, before, during and after the American Revolution, this collection contains a priceless record of the inner life, thought and psychology of the times. Noth ing else like it has come to light. In this volume, wherever possible, the full text of the orig inal letters has been reproduced in chronological order and in its original form with the exception of slight changes in punc tuation or capitalization. The letters, notes and fragments written by the Comte de Mosloy appear precisely as in the originals. Only limitations of space prevent inclusion of the whole sheaf of them. Because almost all of his letters are with out dates I have placed them where they seemed logically to belong. At length the collection was ready for typed transcription. Both volumes of the Journal Book and the love letters of the French Diplomat and the other letters were transcribed di rectly from the original documents by Maud Kay Sites, as sistant research worker attached to the Library of Congress. To her I wish to express appreciation for this important serv ice...Read More