Contents


Collection Overview

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Search Terms

Ten Years a-Courting, Letters of Walter Allen and Grace Weston, 1856-1868, by Alice Allen Eaton Johnson, 1985

Correspondence

Photographs, 1856-1900

Weston-Allen Family Papers, 1848-1985

Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Susan Boone.

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

2003

Collection Overview

Creator:Weston-Allen Family
Title: Weston-Allen Family Papers
Dates: 1848-1985
Dates: 1848-1868
Abstract: The vast majority of the collection is correspondence, documenting the courtship and marriage of Grace Weston Allen and Walter Allen. The collection includes letters exchanged between Grace and Walter before and after their marriage and from other family members to Allen during his service as paymaster in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. Also included are a published version of the Weston-Allen letters: Ten Years A-Courting: Letters of Walter Allen and Grace Weston, 1856-1868, as well as photographs and biographical materials.
Extent: 1 box (.5 linear ft.)
Language: English.
Identification: MS 185

Biographical Note

Walter Allen with his wife, Grace Weston Allen, and their children, circa 1892

Walter Allen was born in Boston, Massachusetts March 21, 1840, but the family soon moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he lived until his marriage. He graduated from Yale in 1863 and in the same year enlisted in the 26th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. Shortly thereafter he was mustered out to become Acting Assistant Paymaster in the U.S. Navy. After his discharge in August 1865 he decided to move west and began his newspaper career in Cairo, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio. During his years as a journalist he wrote for 8 different newspapers, mostly in New York and Boston. He died in Boston in 1907.

Grace Weston was born September 5, 1840, in New Braintree, Massachusetts. She graduated from the Oread Institute in Worcester and from the finishing school of the Misses Anabele in Philadelphia, after which she served as a governess for two years in Chicago. They were married on October 9, 1866.

This biographical sketch was excerpted in part from "Biographical Sketches, Yale Class of 1863," which was reproduced in Ten Years a-Courting. [For more information on Grace Weston, see History of the Oread Collegiate Institute (1905) by Martha E.B. Wright, bio. sketches]

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Weston-Allen Family Papers consist mainly of letters of Grace Weston and Walter Allen, 1856-1868. There are 81 letters from Grace Weston to Walter Allen, 1856-1868, plus 65 letters from Walter Allen to his family while he was in the Navy during the Civil War. Their granddaughter, Alice Allen Eaton Johnson (Smith Class 1929), compiled an edited version of the letters entitled Ten Years a-Courting, Letters of Walter Allen and Grace Weston, 1856-1868 (1985), which is included in this collection. In addition there are 3 miscellaneous letters and a few photographs.

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Search Terms

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Box

Folder

11
Ten Years a-Courting, Letters of Walter Allen and Grace Weston, 1856-1868, by Alice Allen Eaton Johnson, 1985


Correspondence

Box

Folder

12-7
Grace Weston to Walter Allen, 1856-68

8-9
Walter Allen to Grace Weston, 1864-68

10-12
Family to Walter Allen, 1863-65

13
Miscellaneous, 1848, 1862, 1865

Box

Folder

114
Photographs, 1856-1900