Author:
Mary Frances Stevens [née Smith; later Butterworth] (d.1890), wife of Hon. Samuel Stevens (c.1798-1854) of Albany, New York [Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Whig politician; President Martin Van Buren]
Publication details:
All seven letters from Albany, New York; those to her mother dated 27 August 1842, 2, 19 and 24 September 1844 and 24 September 1848; those to her father dated 24 January 1846 and 22 October 1848.
Mary Frances Stevens was the daughter of Silas O. Smith of Rochester, and the mother of the novelist Augusta de Grasse Stevens (1852-1894) and of Marie de Grasse, Lady Evans (d.1920), wife of the English Liberal politician Sir Francis Henry Evans (1840-1907). After her husband's death in 1854 she married John Fowler Butterworth. The seven letters in this collection are closely and neatly written; those to her father in brown ink and those to her mother in blue. All seven in good condition, on lightly-aged paper.
