Your kind wife and my daughter sent me a letterEditorial Note: This letter is not extant. lately and I was delighted to hear from you Please find in this a dollarEditorial Note: $1.00 in 1879 is the equivalent of $25.67 in 2015. for Mary my dear little namesake
You will find with this letter a mortgage. I will explain it A young student trumped up a bill of $2000Editorial Note: $2,000 in 1879 is the equivalent of $51,336.22 in 2015. dollars against me I never owed him a cent, it is a long story; he never told me I owed him, and for five years we lived in friendship, he doing chores and refusing pay, if he called on me, asking me to let him copy for me etc. I in return gave him in cash value $600Editorial Note: $600 in 1879 is the equivalent of $15,400.87 in 2015. during this time, he was heard to say many times that we kept no accounts that he charged me for nothing he did etc.; he always called me "Mother" and in his charges at Court he had charged me for bringing up a hod of coal etc. etc. He sued and attached my property. The case is decided and now I want to put some real estate into your hands for safe keeping, and have you mortgage it back to me after it is sold to you
I herewith send the MortgageEditorial Note: This likely refers to the mortgage on Mary Baker Eddy’s home at 8 Broad Street in Lynn, Massachusetts. Eddy’s temporary transfer of the mortgage to her son, as explained in this letter, was apparently an attempt to safeguard the property from being taken by George W. Barry after he was granted a monetary award in the lawsuit, Barry v. Glover. Deed please send back the acknowledgement of this; do it with a Notary Public or a justice of the Peace, and at once. Also send a letter signed by yourself ordering me to collect the rent on the house, to pay taxes and keep it insured for you. Direct your letter to Dr.Editorial Note: Dorcas B. Rawson did not have a medical degree, but in the nineteenth century, persons engaged in various “healing arts” were often referred to as “Doctor.” Dorcas B. Rawson Lynn Mass. And she will forward it to me wherever I am. Some scoundrels have tried to slander your fatherEditorial Note: George Washington Glover II’s stepfather, Asa Gilbert Eddy. and me through the newspapers but they have been stopped by the Court