Very rare Piscatoquoagville manuscript postmark on this 1839 letter from Sarah Hibbard to her sister Deborah in Gilford New Hampshire.  Four page missive discusses her sister’s schooling and future.  It reads in part: “I understand that you have enjoyed the privilege of attending school and spending a season in the cultivation of your mind and mingling in refined and intelligent society. Your privileges have been great and I trust well improved. How did you enjoy yourself at Thetford? I suppose you found some friends who remembered you as having been there before, and among the scholars, you probably formed some new acquaintances.”  Concerning confiding in friends, she warns: “should we venture to confide in the masses we should find tour grief and sorrow that our confidences have been misplaced and that we are betrayed without the means left us of redress…we should beware of showing ourselves to the world.”  Regarding potential relationships with men she advises: “do not for a moment think of entering into an alliance for life, with one beneath you, for you cannot by so doing raise the individual to your standard but you must sink to his level…”

The letter is long and interesting including Sarah’s admission that she is still trying to find her calling in life and is considering moving West of finding work in “labour.”  She calls upon Providence to guide her and asks Deborah to pray for her.