A little bit of matchmaking

Engraved portrait of Isabella Beecher Hooker, Charlotte Cowles’ friend.

I took a brief “field trip” to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center on Monday to look at their collection of John and Isabella Hooker correspondence, focusing on those that mentioned or were written by Charlotte Cowles Hull and her husband Joseph. Of course, anything related to Charlotte is fun in my book.

Three of the letters contained what I consider new and interesting information. On November 28, 1840, Isabella, who was in Boston, wrote to John that she had been speaking with her cousin Henry and that he was thinking of being a missionary. Of course, every missionary needed a wife. Isabella asks John, what about Charlotte Cowles? Isabella claims that Charlotte has “determined not to marry at all,” but Isabella asks how irrevocable is her decision given that she could be a missionary’s wife (that would certainly make me want to get married!)? Needless to say, Charlotte did not marry Henry.