I thought you guys might like to read a transcription of the 1909 letter that is with the bible:
The Old Bolles Bible
When father was searching through Connecticut for Bolles relatives and records to add to the family genealogy which occupied all his leisure for many years, he was told that a farmer of the name owned a very ancient Bible, which he would show, but never part from.
Going to the house, he was told by the wife that her husband was at work in the swamp. He soon found him, knee-deep in cold Mud and water.
Sitting on the wall, Father made friendly talk for awhile, & then said- “Aren’t you likely to have rheumatism after this work?”
“Likely?” growled the man, “I’m a martyr to it now.”
“Why not have long rubber boots?”
“Because five dollar bills don’t grow on bushes ‘round here.”
“I can tell you of one if you’ll give me your old English Bible, and I promise you it shall always be Kept in the Bolles family and you shall have a copy of the Genealogy I am writing.”
So the Bible changed owners. The Genealogy was published in 1865. Father told me he, at first, Kept account of what he spent in postage, but the figures accounted so alarmingly that he ceased to record them. His correspondence with Mrs. Richard Paddock (nee Bolles) of Princeton Illinois, led to our acquaintance with her for George when he came to Harvard Law School.
In 1862 he married my sister Cassie.
Lucy D. Bolles
April 1909
As none of Father’s sons left sons, Judith and I wish the Bible to go to the daughters of our Brother Frank, as at least born Bolles.
