Extremely clean cover with unlisted packetbot postmark. Contains short business note to Boston businessman W. D. Sohier confirming a credit balance. Sent via the steamer Australasian.

From historic notes: The Cunard steamer Australasian, probably the largest screw-steamer afloat, unless the Great Eastern be considered as belonging to this class, arrived at this port on Wednesday from Liverpool, with a heavy cargo of valuable merchandise. She was built in 1857, at Glasgow, by Messrs. J. G. THOMSON, for the Australian matl contract service. After a most successful rial trip to Alexandria, she made the voyage to Australia, carrying the mail down the Red Sea. Having unfortunately lost the mail contract, through inability to fulfill its terms, the Company for which she was originally constructed went into liquidation, and the steamer returned to England under canvas, making the trip in ninety days, during twenty of which she was becalmed. Soon afterwards she was purchased at private sale by the Cunard Company, and placed in their line of screw steamers between Liverpool and New-York. She is of great strength, and is fitted with every modern improvement, having accommodations for 211 first-class passengers, and cargo and store space for 1,050 tons, besides room in her bunkers for 1,500 tons of coal. Her cabins and saloons are fitted up in the most elegant and substantial manner, with particular reference to ventilation, as the vessel was intended for navigation in the tropics. For officers and crew, which number 113, there is ample provision as regards rooms. The length of keel and fore-rake of the Australasian is 320 feet, being 331 feet over all; breadth 42 feet 1 inch, depth to spar deck 31 feet 6 inches. Tonnage -- gross register 1,760, or 2,010 tons of builder's measurement. The engines are direct-acting, of 700 (nominal) horse-power, with inverted cylinders of 90 inches diameter, and 3 1/2 feet stroke, fitted with THOMSON's patent expansion valves. She has two tubular boilers, brass tubes, also a supplementary boiler for ship's use. There are two air-pumps to each engine, with condensers attached. The screw is 19 feet in diameter, with 34 feet pitch. Her speed en the Admiralty trip was 14 knots.

William Sohier

Born on March 24, 1822, William Sohier was the third son of William Davies and Elizabeth Amory (Dexter) Sohier. After graduating from Harvard in 1840, he began practicing law with Fessenden Law Firm and later worked in the office of his older brother Edward Davies Sohier. He married Susan Cabot Lowell on October 13, 1846, a sister of Judge John Lowell. They had two children: William Davies Sohier and Elizabeth Putnam Sohier. His work as a lawyer was similar to that of his father, dealing with the day-to-day financial and legal affairs of his clients, from mortgage deeds to estate inventories and sales. William Sohier had retired some time prior to his death on February 23, 1894 at the age of seventy-two.