The collection consists of 26 letters from the period 1850 to 1882 of the Boardman and Miles families of Morrisville, Vermont. The collection also includes six folders of legal papers from the year 1837. The letters in the collection were exchanged between family members and friends and concern every day matters for the most part. There is one letter written to Augusta Boardman, dated 1858, from a female friend who appears to be living in Virginia. In it, she talks of household tasks, clothing and the food available to her in the south in August. The rest of the letters relate to the Miles family (though there is news of Augusta in some of them). Among the letters to Sarah Miles, her brother Frank describes, and includes a sketch of, a fashionable 1863 Boston gown. In an unusual August 3, 1858 letter to Ellen Miles, a friend describes how a recent "freshet" surrounded her Waitsfield farm and the extensive flood damage to the area. There is also an 1858 letter addressed to "Miss" Miles from Abby Maria Hemenway with a description of her Vermont Gazetteer project. George Miles writes to his brother Frank in August 1863 from Canada about the draft: although there are a great many "schedaddlers and deserters" from the draft, he says he is considering enlisting. In an 1872 letter to his brother John, his mother and Ellen, George tells his family not to give Frank any more money-he is a drunkard and a disgrace. Many of the letters contain references to the Civil War. The legal papers in the collection are writs signed by John Miles, Justice of the Peace, in Morristown, Lamoille County, Vermont, in the year 1837. The relationship of John Miles to the Boardman family is unexplained.
