Scope and Contents Letter from Elizabeth D. Wood to Thomas L. Kane, a reply to a May 8th letter from Thomas, Elizabeth "refuses his refusal" to accept her vow to marry him, asks if she will have to go to church alone when they are married, her education “if you will take a Child-Wife, you will have to educate her for a Woman-Wife,” “as to Women’s Rights, if my husband treats me as his equal and his friend, I cannot see what more I could desire,” she is glad that he chose her “instead of Mary Humphreys,” her...

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Letter from Thomas L. Kane to Elizabeth D. Wood reply to Elizabeth's May 15-16 letter. Says he is “humiliated to be defeated” by Elizabeth (in regards to her refusing to not be engaged), pages 5-8 seem to be missing, mentions the Mormons and seeing them in 1846, was “a little state secret,” he wants to “burn all my biography before January 1852,” gives her suggestions for drawing. Dated May 19-21, 1852.

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Letter from Thomas L. Kane to William Wood, plans to go into law and be a “Bookmaker,” he doesn’t want to be “too crowded with clients to afford to be a scholar,” mentions his “gain of a judge for Utah,” his “last labor of the kind,” also mentions letters which are “to go before the public in pamphlet form” (dealing with the Grant letters in defense of polygamy), he doesn’t want Elizabeth D. Wood to see it. Dated May 21, 1852.

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Letter from Thomas L. Kane to William Wood, he doesn’t know if he can make it to New York to see them before they leave for Europe. Dated June 12, 1852.

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Letter from Walter Wood while in Plymouth to Elizabeth D. Wood congratulating her on her engagement. Also includes a letter from Elizabeth D. Wood to Thomas L. Kane written on the back page, mentions Thomas giving up his Commissionership, she read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and “sobbed over that book like a great baby.” Dated May 13, 1852.

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Letter from Elizabeth D. Wood to Thomas L. Kane, includes her upcoming trip, she has been reading “Spencer’s Fairy Queene” and “Mrs. Norton’s Child of the Islands,” she wants him to tell her what else she should read, she will make him happier than Mary Humphries or Sarah Butler would have. Dated May 23-24, 1852.

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Letter from Thomas L. Kane to William Wood, tells him to bring Dennistoun and Margaret (William’s wife and son) to Rensselaer so Dennistoun can get well. Dated May 28, 1852.

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Letter from Thomas L. Kane to Elizabeth D. Wood. Hepzibah Pyncheon from Hawthorne’s "The Scarlet Letter" reminds him of himself because she was often misunderstood. He says “We must live modestly: we will live wisely: we can live nobly,” and he hopes the world may be “a little better for our having lived.” Dated June 2, 1852.

Scope and Contents Letter from Thomas L. Kane to Elizabeth D. Wood, reply to her letter of 23-24 May, he’s not a good person to tell her what to read, “I do not know a more ill read person than myself,” he has been reading Lord Cockburn’s "Manly Life of Lord Jeffrey," before she reads theological books “first counsel with me, as one who has gone through the Inquisition,” mentions having a “lamentable experience” with theologians and metaphysicians as “they are the same evil brood . . . under another name,”...

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Letter from Elizabeth D. Wood to Thomas L. Kane, she asks if he is thirty, asks him to tell Elisha of their engagement, she wants to “like the French people, because you do,” tells him of her “habits of reading.” Dated June 3-4, 1852.