Oh, I do love a good mystery!  If you check out our SMALL COLLECTIONS link on the right and click on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow you will see that we have two letters by the venerable poet.  One of the letters is actually a very brief note sent to Duxbury resident, Lyman Drew, in 1879.  In it, Longfellow refers to a gift he has just received from Drew that was once in “the hand of the brave, old Puritan Captain.”

Could Lyman Drew have sent a relic from Myles Standish to Longfellow in honor of his poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish?”  Or was it an artifact that had once belonged to Longfellow’s Duxbury ancestor, Peleg Wadsworth?

This may take a bit of sluething on my part but I am hoping to come up with an answer soon…stay tuned…