{"value"=>"<p>The general correspondence includes letters from Julia Keese Colles' friends and acquaintances, 1875-1914. Some letters are personal; others concern business transactions and lecture engagements. Letters from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and from Rev. Samuel Francis Smith respond to Julia's efforts to have Smith awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. Smith's letter tells the story of how he wrote the lyrics to the patriotic hymn \"America\" and includes a handwritten and signed copy of the words. Juliet Corson, founder of the New York Cooking School and author of Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery and Household Management, wrote affectionate letters to Julia expressing her love and appreciation for her friend. Often sick, she asked Julia for a loan to buy fruit during a prolonged illness. Included are a press release on her involvement in the World's Colombian Exposition cooking exhibit and a poem she wrote to Julia entitled \"Compensation.\" Other letters are from Sarah Briggs and Henry N. Hewitt, friends from Keeseville, Rev. Theodore Cuyler, a fellow writer who was pastor of the Lafayette Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, and Sara Morris, a cousin.</p> <p>Julia's letters to friends, 1861-1895, are copies with the exception of seven original letters, 1861-1863, to a friend named Sue. In these girlhood letters, Julia wrote about her joy in her friendship with Sue, the sudden death of a childhood friend, and of her pleasant visits to Grandmother Keese in Keeseville, a small town near Lake Champlain in the Adirondacks.</p>"}