1889-1892 Marsh and Felch Letters

Synopsis of Letters (1889-1892)

The last years of correspondence between Felch and Marsh were less frequent as time moves on from 1889 to 1892. In 1891, there were only a total of six letters between them, and according to what remains of the letters, Felch was the only one who wrote in 1892 (12/31). Sarah eventually arrived in New Haven, Connecticut to see Marsh before heading home (1/10/1889); Felch, too, finally visited Marsh in New Haven at Marsh's request (2/18/1891). Felch turned the trip into a return to Vermont to see his first daughter (name unknown), as well as seeing other family members scattered across the northeast from Providence to Montreal (6/9/1891).

There was, however, a gap in correspondence when Felch did not write. Almost weekly Felch wrote to Marsh for six years, and then didn't write at all for a little more than two years until Marsh wrote inquiring about the absence in correspondence (2/4/1891 - no letter for this date). In a very touching letter, Felch explained that in the midst of being very ill in the winter of 1888 to 1889, he and his wife made plans to be away from home for a short time in Denver (to make a claim for a veteran's pension for Felch), and while gone, all of the packaged fossils were destroyed. A man by the name of George Bronson vandalized the quarry. He was a roaming man, and while working for an oil drilling company in the area, got into mixed words with Felch's son, Ned. He destroyed the fossils in the quarry out of revenge (2/10/1891). Felch did not have the heart to tell Marsh what had happened.

Felch never gave up his passion for fossils. In his last letter to Marsh, he wrote about possible fossil areas. It is also in this letter that he mentioned having been to Yale and seeing the fossils he dug up on display (12/31/1892). Marsh died in 1899. Overall, more than 270 crates of fossils in plaster jackets or blocks of sandstone were sent from the Felch Quarry to Marsh at the Peabody Museum (Carpenter and Evanoff, 1994).