From Chas. F. Smith to Allie, May 25, 1905

From Chas. F. Smith to Allie, May 25, 1905

Smith, Chas F.

Allie

Boston, MA

From Chas to Allie

Chas F. Smith

Jerome Peirce Collection, National Park Service

HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

1905-05-25

NPS, Civil War Study Group, Paul and Louise Marahrens (Transcribers)

For educational purposes with no commercial use. Courtesy of National Park Service, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, FRSP 16095-16102 (FRSP-00904).

English

Text

Letter #255

Boston, MA

Boston, May 25, 1905
Dear Mrs. Peirce
I received your welcome letter a week ago and intended to reply at once but had no note paper on hand and have not now and rather than delay longer, I have concluded to write on one of our plain letterheads.
I am sorry it was not convenient for you and Lucy to make us a visit during the winter. We are just getting away for the summer - going to Clifton about 18 miles from Boston on the road to Marblehead. We shall be pleased to see you and Lucy down there. Come some Saturday and stay over Sunday.
I suppose the sudden death of Maj. Ranlett has changed your plans and you are back at Billerica. Albert Smith went to his summer home at Cohasset (I suppose you have been there.) the latter part of April or shortly after Mr. Torry’s death. I hear that Mrs. Torry has gone to Europe. My wife has just got back from Cleveland where she was gone a month visiting our daughter Belle who was married last winter and is living in Cleveland, Ohio.
We have now but two daughters at home, Marianna and Alice. I wish you could see them all and refresh your memory of them.
I remember well the bloody battles of May 1864 at Spotsylvania and the sad tidings of the slain. You have had a pretty hard experience, probably more hard than your friends here realize but it must have been a great comfort to have so faithful and dutiful a daughter.
As the years go by great changes take place. Almost all the friends of my youth and early manhood are in the graveyard and I begin to feel the touch of Old Time myself. But I have much to be thankful for that myself and family have been so well and fairly prosperous.
I hope you will be able to give us a call at Clifton this summer but, if not, if we all live till Fall, remember that you and Lucy will be cordially welcomed at No. 1718 Beacon St., Brookline.
Yours Very Truly
Chas F. Smith

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES (Josef Rokus)

NOTE 1: This letter was written on printed business stationery with the following letterhead:

Commonwealth Trust Company
Capital $1,000,000.
Surplus $500,000.
D.J. Lord, President.
C.F. Smith, Treas.
F.E. Seaver, Asst. Treas.
Boston

NOTE 2: A previous letter in this collection from C. F. Smith, dated December 29, 1904, and also addressed to Mrs. Peirce was also written on business stationery of the Commonwealth Trust Co., Boston. On the letterhead, C. F. Smith is also listed as the treasurer of that company. The closing reads, “Yours very truly, Chas. F. Smith”
The last letter in this collection is also from Chas. F. Smith to Allie. It is dated Feb. 6, 1908, and it was written from Brookline, Massachusetts.
Charles F. Smith was a long-time family friend who knew Jerome Peirce before Jerome enlisted on August 4, 1862. Smith also sent a letter pertaining to the time Jerome and he were friends as youngsters that was read at the funeral service in Orange, Massachusetts, in June 1864.

NOTE 3: The “Maj. Ranlett” referred to in his letters was Seth Alonzo Ranlett. Ranlett enlisted in Co. B of the 36th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment as a Private on July 24, 1862, at age 22, and he was from Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was promoted to First Sergeant on August 27, 1862, and was commissioned as a First Lieutenant on December 1, 1862. On December 17, 1862, he was appointed Adjutant of the Regiment. He was mustered out “on account of physical disability from disease incurred in the service” on February 20, 1864.
Ranlett was born on March 18, 1840, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and he died May 21, 1905, in Newton, Massachusetts. Ranlett’s wife was Ellen Peirce Ranlett, with a date of birth of March 22, 1842, and a date of death of January 12, 1914. They were married on January 21, 1864. Ellen Peirce was one of the children of Foster Peirce and his wife Catherine Abby Beaman. Also, Foster Peirce was a brother of Jerome. Therefore, the Ellen that Jerome mentions in his letters was one of Jerome’s nieces, and starting on January 21, 1864, Alonzo was the husband of one of his nieces.