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Friend Julia

10/1/2018

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I present here a letter from Eben N. Higley, formerly of the 27th Maine, and now in the US Navy, stationed in Portsmouth Harbor during September of 1864. He writes the following to his "friend" Julia:
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                     Sept 23rd 1864
On board U S Ship Colorado,                            Portsmouth N.H.
Friend Julia
                        Permit me to
call you by the name of friend
as it is a long time since
you refused to let me call
you by a name which was
far dearer. But I will not
say any thing about what
has been. As I am in the 
Navy for one year I thought
I would like to open
correspondence with some
one and for that purpose
have written to you. I will
not write any more this time
but will wait an answer
from you to know weather
my request is granted or
not. My health is good and 
Picture
Picture
I have a very good position
being in the Engineers dept.
Please write me who Anna
West married and his trade
and so I will close with
many well wishes. Yours truely
Eben N. Higley
(Direct your letters)

Eben N. Higley
U.S.Ship Colorado
​Portsmouth N.H.

Below is a clipping from the 1860 South Berwick, Maine census (pg 23), showing Ebenezer (Eben) Higley in the household of Walter Abbott. At the time, he was a 17-year old cordwainer. Also here is mill operative "Annie West", age 18, who is probably the person Eben was asking about in his letter to Julia. As the letter mentions she had been married, she may be the Annie W. West who married Nahum G Tripp on 15 May 1864 in Kennebunkport [they were divorced in 1866]
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In this same census year for So. Berwick, there is a Julia Bennett, age 14, living in hh of Robert Fernald with several mill operatives. This household, numbered 155/175, is only four homes away from the above record, so it seems probable these two women are the ones in Eben's letter. Julia may have been the one who married George Bragdon in North Berwick in 1871, both of them from Wells [Annie W (West) Tripp, at the time of her divorce, was also in town] . 
Eben (or Ebenezer) Higley had served in the Navy as a landsman in 1861, enlisting on 1 June for one year, and served until 9 July 1862. After his time in the 27th Maine, he reenlisted into the Navy, serving from 30 Aug 1864 to 6 July 1865. He was listed as a coal heaver. After the war, he became a machinist and an inventor, and lived in Somersworth, NH, where he died in 1920. He had a wife and three daughters (1 died young).
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