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Deerfield Academy student letter to Betsey Kimberley

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Local scholars, as well as those from a distance of as far as 100 miles, attended Deerfield Academy after it opened January 1, 1799. Henry Hitchcock (1783-1861) of Deerfield, Massachusetts, met Betsey Kimberley (1790-1879) of West Haven, Connecticut, while they were students at the Academy. They established a friendship which was nurtured by correspondence in which Hitchcock says if she would come back to Deerfield he "would be pleased to wait upon" her. By this he meant that he would "court" her. She apparently was interested, also, for they were married three years later on October 29, 1810.

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