Mary Hays Correspondence 

1820-1829

Eliza Fenwick's correspondence continues until near the end of this decade, at which time she was living and operating a rooming house in New York City prior to her removal to Upper Canada (what would soon become Toronto) and finally to Providence, Rhode Island, where she died in 1840. Hays's friendship with Smyth continued, as did her more important friendship with Crabb Robinson, though contact with Fenwick ends in 1828, most likely by Fenwick's own choice, for Hays and others would make efforts to find her into the mid-1830s but to no avail. Hays's life after 1820 was dominated by her family, including her sister, Elizabeth, who died in 1825, as well as Hays's numerous nieces and nephews and their large families. When not living with other women, she generally lived with her brothers, but always near her favorite nieces, Sarah Dunkin Wedd, Marianna Dunkin Bennett, Joanna Dunkin Palmer, and Elizabeth Dunkin Francis.  During her long residence in Vanbrugh Castle, Greenwich, a large residence which at that time housed a school run by a Mrs and Mrs Brown, her closest neighbors were her three favorite nieces, Sarah, Marianna, and Elizabeth, all of whom she had tutored in her home in Islington c. 1807-08. There are no letters from 1827 or 1829.

To view complete transcriptions of the letters from this decade, click on the appropriate year below: