JOSEPH TUFTS DAY BOOK. The attorney's ledger noting his daily billable services, expenses and fees from February 2nd, 1825 through May 1835. [Together with]: 15 SIGNED LOVE LETTERS to his future wife HELEN WHITTEMORE, penned but a few months before they were married. [Together with]: "A Market for an Impulse" by William Whittemore Tufts. by Tufts, Joseph (1783-1835). Harvard graduate who practiced law in Charlestown, Massachusetts - [1827].

Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1825 through 1835. [1827]., [1827].. Good. - Quarto, 9-1/2 inches high by 7-3/4 inches wide. Bound in brown suede leather. The covers are rubbed and stained with wear to the edges and corners. The head and tail of the spine are chipped and the leather is splitting along the top of the front joint. 176 pages, including 13 blank pages. Most of the pages consist of densely penned accounts of the attorney's billable services, listing the fee charged for each. In addition to individual billable services, several pages at the rear contain an "Account with the estate of Richard Boylston by Joseph Tufts admin." There are a few other such specific accounts listed, including that of the "Estate of Benjamin Rice", and others. The day book is shaken and several signatures (i.e. group of pages) are pulled. There is some minimal soiling and staining as well as some minor faint foxing. Good.

Together with 15 love letters penned by Joseph Tufts addressed to Helen Whittemore dated from April 13th, 1827 through June 22nd, 1827. Joseph Tufts and Helen were married on June 27th. With one smaller exception, each letter is penned on 9-3/4 inch high by 7-3/4 inch wide creamy white paper and each is signed in full by Joseph Tufts. The densely penned letters are from one to three pages long and each has an integral address leaf, often with the remnant of a red wax seal present at the edge of that last leaf. At one time stitched together along the left edge with corresponding stab holes, some of the letters are soiled with occasional staining and minor chipping to the edges. In a few cases, breaking the wax seal has resulted in damage to the corresponding page with only minor loss to the still legible text.

Expressed with deep sentiments, the letters are all addressed to "Miss Helen Whittemore West Cambridge". The following quotes should offer perspective as to the contents:

1. Charlestown April 13 [1827]. A one page love letter: "I left you without bringing away any visible token to remember you by. I will have something of yours nest time I see you...." "How long has my heart been desolate, and with what pure delight does your ... tender kindness come upon me like the [___] rains of heaven on a thirsty and barren field."

2. Charlestown, April 17 1827 Tuesday. Three pages: "...There has been at my office today about a dozen different people. Mr. Joseph Hunt called to take his leave being about to return to Exeter. He is a rich man, and he expects soon to die..." Tufts goes on to describe how the man only cares about his friends and their welfare instead of material things. "Houses, lands, stores and ships and books are then forgotten, and the dying think only of the friends around the bed..." He goes on to say that on his own death bed he would care only for Helen "more than all of the other earthly objects and possessions." He speaks of his desire to be with her "at all times" and regrets that that is not yet possible. "I look over the River. I see the house where I passed so many happy hours with you. Its appearance seems to have lost its charm. It then looked beautiful in the prospect. It now has to my eyes a dreary and desolate appearance." He goes on to discuss her health "avoid [food] which hurts you - cakes and confectionary things."

3. Charlestown April 19 1827. Two pages: After describing how moved he is to have received her letter, Tufts states that he agrees with her "notion of the dreadful effects of too much prosperity, and of the great value in regard to happiness of a competence, to be acquired by ones own actions..." "...no condition of life is entirely destitute of pleasure. The benevolent Author of Nature adapts his creatures to their situation so that even the slave and the prisoner have their enjoyments. There is even a sort of dark satisfaction in mourning and grief."

4. Charlestown April 23, 1827. Three pages: "I think you will soon be obliged to procure a new pillow case. Your present one will soon be stuffed with my letters. If you rest your head on them you may find them as light as feathers, but they will hardly be so soft. May the dreams they inspire be of me, and I shall think they are traitors, if they do not present me to you in your dreams in a favorable view...." He discusses the lesson he has given her in driving (presumably a carriage). He goes on to complain that Helen has not given him what he requested: "Presents you would give, but not the one I asked for. You refused me, you obstinate and perverse girl. How could you. Have I not followed your for a long time! Were not the snows piled in the field when I began, and are not the trees putting forth their fresh leaves now?"

5. Charlestown April 26, 1827. One page: A brief letter in which Tufts discusses problems with the Stage from Boston. He says he brought her a gift. Helen has clipped out the nature of the gift, probably to prevent others from seeing it.

6. Charlestown April 30 1827. Three pages: Tufts waxes philosophical about the causes of certain events and the superstitions surrounding them, particularly addressing how correlation does not imply causation. He discusses the superstitions of the Romans and states that they have been debunked. However, he doesn't understand why modern superstitions have not met the same fate." "...if a dog is heard to howl it portends death, or some dire calamity. A person may be sick and a dog may howl under the window, and the sick person may die - or may recover. The howling of a dog is not the cause of the death." After apologizing for philosophizing, he passionately expresses his love for Helen describing a moment on Malden Bridge: "The rising tide was rushing beneath the bridge ... up the Mystic. If this is any sign, the sign is this. Our mutual love is reciprocal. It is one flame. It is stationary while the tide of life is rushing on. It is bright in the midst of a dark world."

7. Charlestown May 4 1827 Friday. One page: He begins a warm love letter and then claims to have been interrupted, "... you do not wish to hear law cases, about mortgages, rents, accounts and statutes." He concludes: "But far more happy shall I be soon, when we can be doing and receiving some act of kindness for each other every day and all day."

8. Charlestown May 7 1827. Three pages: Tufts is in a philosophical frame of mind as he writes concerning the different moods of his letters: "There are many causes whey we cannot write equally at all times. Occupation in business, the state of health at the moment, weariness from labor, or study, attention to the minute details of life...." His thoughts take a dark turn: "A thoughtless man may think he can be intemperate in the night in his chamber, but the poison affects his health and even the children in the streets can see by his appearance that he has been doing what he thought was concealed from all eyes. It is so of other wrong acts. They may be concealed, but their consequences cannot."

9. Charlestown May 10 1827. Two-and-a-half pages: Tufts writes of the illness of a land surveyor being of a benefit to him. He had planned to meet with the fellow but instead was able to visit Helen. He goes on to encourage her to write more letters and not to be concerned with her writing abilities.

10. Charlestown May 14, 1827. Three pages: Tufts writes the day after having visited Helen. "I had a safe and pleasant ride home, tho, perhaps the gay horse was rather more wild than he would have been under the government of his late skillful driver." He continues for the next page-and-a-half to recount his conversation with several gentlemen at a hotel. "J. Gorham: whom do you consider to be the first lawyers in Boston - J.T.: W. Prescott, B. Gorham, Lem'l Shaw - Mr. Parker: Orne is a good lawyer, and Webster - J.T.: Webster is forgetting his law; a man will forget more in one year than he will learn in two." The conversation turns to schooling. Asked where his cousin is, Gorham replies: "He is dead - he was a wild fellow. J.T.: Yes, I went to school with him at Woodbridge's and he often ran away from Medford to Boston - J. Gorham: His masters used to whip him. I have been whipped with a cow skin till the blood ran down my back - Mr. Green: What is the best course to take, Mr Tufts, with a wild boy - J.T.: Not to whip him surely, his spirit will then revolt against the instructor." Tufts explains to Helen that he is recounting the conversation to give her a "specimen" of a gentleman's world when ladies are not present.

11. Charlestown May 17 1827. Three pages: "...the door was open, my silk handkerchief round my neck, my hat on, the fire taken care of, the chair set back, the front room door shut and good night on the tip of my tongue, when the appalling and tremendous sounds were heard, 'There's your tobacco box!' The cry of fire would have been nothing to it. O, Tobacco! Thou treacherous need!" Tufts goes on for nearly 2 pages recounting tales of the negative effects of tobacco use. "Why did I forget the fate of poor Sir Walter Raleigh ... who being found smoking by his servant, when tobacco first came into use, was supposed to be on fire, and the affrighted servant dashed a whole pail full of water upon him to extinguish the flames, the smoke rolling in vast volumes from the mouth of his master." He goes on to speak of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, about whom he is reading, and particularly Thomas Stone of Maryland. He quotes a letter Stone wrote giving advice to his son just days before his death. "My dear Helen is not this excellent advice? I do not know that I ever read any thing superior to it."

12. Charlestown May 23, 1827. Two pages: It is Helen's birthday and Tufts awoke at 4 AM to prepare for a journey to see her. But a storm prevented this. He makes plans to see her on another day. He then describes a situation that is pure fancy. "I have a confession to make. You were not in your room most of Sunday evening, and, unsteady mortal that I am, I consoled myself with the company of a very beautiful young lady whom I found in Gershom's parlour.... I have examined the law, and am in hopes to marry you both, and I hope you two will not quarrel with one another."

13. Charlestown May 24, 1827. One page: A brief letter written on a smaller sheet of note paper saying he is "discouraged from coming for you this morning by the fog in the air."

14. Charlestown June 4, 1827. Two pages: Tufts has found a boarding place near his office for the both of them once they are married. "I am tickled to death with the success I have had. What an expression! I hope you will not punish me for using it."

15. Charlestown June 20, 1827. A brief note on a scrap of paper. "I shall have the carpet done by tomorrow morning." The note is attached to the top of the last letter.

16. Charlestown June 22, 1827. (A fragment of a letter). Tufts writes of the furnishings in their new home. The bottom half of the letter has been torn away.

A fascinating insight into the courtship of two people and the times in which they lived.

The American attorney Joseph Tufts (1783-1835) graduated from Harvard in 1807 and practiced law in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a district of Boston. Tufts married Helen Whittemore on June 27, 1827. The couple gave birth to 3 children. Tufts died as a result of diabetes in 1835. Joseph Tufts' widow, Helen (born in 1809) became profoundly inspired by the Transcendentalists. She took up a clerical post with her son, William Whittemore Tufts, at the publishers Little, Brown and Co.

Included is a copy of the first edition of her son's book, the novel "A Market for an Impulse" (Boston: Arena Publishing, 1895). Her son William Tufts entered Princeton in 1857 becoming editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine. From there he spent a period of time as sub-master at Newark Academy where he challenged the treatment of boys there forcing the resignation of the Principal. In 1870 , at the age of 39, he graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and married Isabel Terrill.