1834: Rev. Lyman Maynard to Capt. Benjamin Beal Howard

Capt. Benjamin Beal Howard

This letter was written by Rev. Lyman Maynard, a Unitarian Minister who served various pulpits in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was married in 1824 to Elizabeth Wood Macomber (b. 1803).

Rev. Maynard wrote the letter to Capt. Benjamin Beal Howard (1788-1867) of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He was married to Susan Mitchell (1799-1850), his second wife at the time of this letter in 1834. His parents were Edward and Abigail Howard. He moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1837 where he was a merchant and made most of his money in the whaling industry. He owned several ships, including the Inez, the Parachute, and the Henry Kneeland.

Stampless Cover

Letter

TRANSCRIPTION

Capt. Benjamin B. Howard, West Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Winchester [New Hampshire]
April 5, 1834

Dear Sir,

Yours of the 2d Instant was received this morning. I am rejoiced that your Society intends to do something for the support of the gospel. I will inform you that I am not positively engaged for the year to come. If your Society can give me sufficient encouragement so that it would be anything of an object for me to come among you, I shall hold myself in readiness to come almost any time. You inform me that you are circulating a subscription. Now, I think if those who feel the most interested will subscribe liberal, and use their influence with others, that there will be no difficulty in obtaining enough to support preaching all the time.

As to exchanges, I shall be perfectly willing to exchange with all denominations who will exchange with me of good moral character, within a reasonable distance. I hope you will write me again as so[on] as there is anything of importance to communicate.

Yours very respectfully, — Lyman Maynard