Letters and writings of two William Barlows, possibly father and son.

Collection includes two letters of the Reverend William Barlow relating to his wooing of Sally Canfield, a religious poem dedicated to his parishioner Mary Matilda Richards (who later married the younger William Barlow), and a notebook of a sermon apparently delivered several times over a twenty-year period. Also, the draft of an address to be delivered to the American Institute on the subject of the appropriate disposition of the funds given to establish the Smithsonian Institution. Also, eleven letters from William Barlow the younger, to his wife, Matilda Richards Barlow, 1842-1851. Barlow, unemployed at the time of the bulk of the correspondence, apparently had tuberculosis. The content of the letters is mostly about his poor health and his feelings about his uncertain future. Also, an undated cabinet photograph of two unidentified women.