Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts & Archives
Collection #
SC 2325
User information
Biographical sketch
Scope and Content note
Cataloguing information
Processed by
Charles Latham
22 November 1991
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 19 items
COLLECTION DATES: 1866-1886
PROVENANCE: Albert Curtner Erickson, Los Altos CA, November 1978
RESTRICTIONS: None
COPYRIGHT: Held by Indiana Historical Society
ACCESSION NUMBER: 78.1107
William (d. 1876) and Rebecca Cronk (1809- after 1886) lived in Rockfield, Rock Creek Township, Carroll County, Indiana. The Cronks were good friends of Henry Curtner (1830-1916) and his first wife Lydia Kendall (1831-1877), who were married in Carroll County in 1859, and who sometime before 1866 moved to Warm Springs, California.
When Lydia Curtner died in 1877, Henry married Mary A. Meyers (1851-1883); after her death he married Lucy Latham. (1839-1926). For twenty years after 1866, Rebecca Cronk wrote to the Curtners, telling the local and family news. After her husband's death in 1876, Rebecca let her son Henry run their farm.
This collection consists of nineteen letters written between 1866 and 1886. They are arranged chronologically. All but one of the letters (dated 1869) are written by Rebecca Cronk to Henry Curtner and his wives. Until her husband's death, she signed the letters in her husband's name as well.
Written on the average of once a year, and filled with detail, the letters give a good deal of family and local news. Included is some of the more colorful news from the local courts, as well as details of an abortion and of a thirteen-year-old's suicide by hanging. There are political views, especially in the 1870s, and lots of news, mostly bad, about farm prices and family health.
MAIN ENTRY: Cronk, Rebecca, b. 1809
SUBJECT ENTRIES: Cutner, Henry, 1830-1916
Farm life--Indiana--Carroll County
Farmers' wives--Indiana--Carroll County
Agricultural prices--Indiana--Carroll County
Public opinion--Indiana--Carroll County
Teenagers--Indiana--Carroll County--Death
Suicide--Indiana--Carroll County
Abortion--Indiana--Carroll County
Rockfield (Ind.)
Carroll County (Ind.)
END