33 letters primarily written by Margaret “Maggie” Hampton Steele to her cousin and future husband Silas Wade Hampton in 1859 and 1860. The letters discuss her courtship with Silas, her family’s move to Topeka, Kansas, her religious faith, and activities of family and friends.

The earliest letters are mostly written from Terre Haute, Indiana, where Maggie attended Terre Haute Female College along with her sister Mary. Maggie often wrote from the family home in Grandview, Illinois and later from Topeka, Kansas. There are also two letters written by Maggie’s father, John Armstrong Steele: one to Maggie after she was married and living in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1864, and one to Silas in 1860. After establishing a church in Grandview, Illinois, Rev. John Steele moved the family to Topeka in 1860, where he founded the First Presbyterian Church.

Maggie is initially apprehensive about her relationship with Silas, writing “I know that I love you to a certain degree but whether with all the intensity of my nature I known not” (Jan. 12, 1860). By May 1860, Maggie writes of her devoted love to Silas and discusses setting a date for the wedding, despite objections from her parents: “Pa and Ma both regret that it is to be at all their objection being that we are cousins and that you are subject to those nervous spells” (May 25, 1860). The collection only contains a few letters after Maggie and Silas married on Oct. 1, 1860.