Over the past few days, Natalie and I have been sorting Benjamin Jr's correspondence. It was housed in 30 boxes, but now, sorted by letter of the correspondent's last name, it looks like this:


In the background, taped on the wall, is the Chew Family tree that I put together in the beginning of the project to try to clarify relationships between people.


The Chews were prolific correspondents. These tables are filled with letters from Benjamin Chew's family members. If we are lucky, we might be able to tell the difference between Maria and Catherine Chew's handwriting, as they often don't sign their letters.

Eventually (we hope very soon), these stacks will be sorted by correspondent's name and date, and placed in neat folders to be included in our finding aid.