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Mary Jane Collins was born on February 16, 1840 in Somers, Connecticut to Noah Chapin Collins and Elvira Billings Collins. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary from 1856-1858, but suspended her studies when she contracted typhoid fever in the summer of 1857. She developed "lung fever" (probably tuberculosis) in January 1859 and died on September 18, 1859 at the age of nineteen in Somers, Connecticut.
The Mary Jane Collins Papers consist of correspondence, a notebook, a memorial sermon, a photograph, and a portrait. Most of this material relates to her years as a student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 1856-1858. In four letters to her parents, 1857-1858, she describes her clothing, expenses, and study of music, which included piano lessons. She also describes her poor health, including throat ailments, neuralgia, and problems with her teeth, and asks for food from home. The notebook dates from 1857-1858 and includes original poetry by Mount Holyoke Female Seminary students that were part of writings at the school known as "Seminary Literature." The notebook includes poetry about a child of Paul A. Chadbourne, a popular visiting lecturer at Mount Holyoke. The memorial sermon by the Reverend George Oviatt, delivered on September 18, 1859 and published in 1860, describes Collin's childhood, her personality, her religious faith, her studies at Mount Holyoke, and her declining health and death. The collection also includes a photograph of Collins and a framed oil on paperboard color portrait of her (29 x 39 inches) by an unidentified artist.
This collection is organized into four series:
There are four letters of Mary Collins in this collection, dating from December 12, 1857 to November 13, 1858, one addressed to her father and dated Saturday morning, and another without any date.
Although Mary reported to her father in December 1857 that she was very healthy despite a lot of scarlet fever in town, she did have throat problems and her later letters told of serious troubles with her teeth (the dentist said they were badly decay ed), and she suffered from neuralgia, chiefly in her side and neck, which was treated with mustard plasters and laudanum.
The letters tell little about Seminary life, although she does write of her study of music. In December 1857 she reported that a series of piano practice ran for six weeks, one-half hour, $.50 an "enormous price to pay". Most of the letters concern her wardrobe which was sparse and she feared her father,might not be willing to pay for things she needed. Music bills, doctor's bills, oil - all taxed her meager resources. On her eighteenth birthday (February 16, 1858) she wrote her mother for chicken and mince pies, cream pies and cake, and loaf sugar and coffee, if they could be spared. She never had a box from home (usually filled with food) although almost all the girls had received them.
These are very personal and touching letters from a young woman who died very young - less than a year after leaving the Seminary.
CR Ludwig
October 2001
Unrestricted.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Mary Jane Collins Papers, Mount Holyoke College, Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley, MA.