Louise Paine Moore - Angelfish

When I initially paid a visit to Heather Morgan at the Mark Twain Library in Redding, Connecticut I expected to be viewing the library's collection of photographs. [I had started a calendar project in the Summer of 2007 having purchased the printing rights to 10 photos from the Mark Twain Museum in Hartford, Connecticut and I was looking for 2 more to complete the project.] What happened next changed everything! Heather opened up a small closet nearly filled to the ceiling with a mixture of filing cabinets and archive boxes. At first I thought the room might be misc. storage but as Heather pulled out box after box I realized they were all labeled with something relating to Twain. We spent the next 3 hours sorting through about a 1/4 of the material and as we did I began to realize this was a much bigger project than just a calendar or even a booklet could hold.

One item that stood out was a framed letter/picture collage in memory of Louise Paine Moore, Albert Bigelow Paine's daughter. It was given to the library in 1968 by her daughter Dodie Thomas. I took some digital photos of it for Heather but I'm sure it will be of interest to others tracking the progress of this project.









One of the last items we viewed was the Stormfield Guestbook, it really didn't sink in until I was halfway home, but when it did I nearly had to pull over. I had access to the names and signatures of every person who visited that house from 1908 to 1910! and soon the World will too. As mentioned in the initial post, I'm heading down to Redding tomorrow so expect a photo of the guestbook over the weekend.
Brent Colley
HistoryofRedding.com