Copying Book: Secretary's Letters, 1860 (page 169)

Daniel Parkman, as the parties
named in the will. --

From the foregoing, you therefore per-
ceive that your deed gives no title
to the lot. I send you a transfer,
which, as I understand the facts, when
executed, will straighten the matter.

I have been at so much trouble in
the matter because I could not inform
you without investigating the facts, and I
knew you would wish the purchaser to have a
valid title. I have said nothing to Gardner
about it, and, I presume he knows nothing about,
and he needs to know nothing. We can substi-
tute the new deed for the one which you gave him.
To save expense of stamp, I have transferred the
stamp from the old to the new deed. -- Please get
it executed (your wife's acknowledgement will do, and save
expense of coin -- in Baltimore) and destroy the old deed,
which I send you. -- As a partial compensation for
my trouble in the matter, you may, if you please, send
me $3.00, as I have been to the Probate office, ransacked
the records, copied one will & show [minutes?] of another, drawn
transfer, advised you & so.

I sent for Gardner & made him execute
a new deed, and that is all we need of him, but it was
as I said, before I ascertained about the title.

Yours truly

A. J. Coolidge,
Sec.y

After the return of the transfer we can cut off the first, & annex that to the original deed.

Aug. 16 [186]4

Josiah O. Stearns Esq
Elizabeth City, N.J.

Dear Sir,

Three or four weeks
since, I sent you some blank orders for
interments of Obed & Mary A. Stearns & for their
removal to your lot, which, although I enclosed with
a note from our Sup^t to you, I requested should
be returned me at this office and not to Mt Auburn,
as it is my duty to make the record of interments.
I also requested you to fill the blanks in the order
for the interment of Mary A. Stearns -- viz. of late residence--
and date of death. She is reported to us as having
died at Corning, N.Y. ^^{aged 31 years}. Please reply to me. -- What
was her residence at the time of her death, and what was
the date of her death? If you had noticed my re--
quest particularly, and not returned my papers to the Cemetery,
you would have been saved the trouble of my writing
you again. If you can ^^not give these answers, please
obtain them for me, or direct me to one who can.

Yours respectfully

A.J. Coolidge

169