NOTE

This collection was generated by Bessie Punchard Goldsmith, 1882-1974, town historian of this century. In the tradition of Charlotte Helen Abbott and Sarah Loring Bailey, she wrote a local history column for the Andover Townsmen. Some of her sketches were printed in Fair and Warmer, the publication of the a coal merchant. Articles from both sources were reprinted in a book The Townswoman’s Andover (1964). 

She was the daughter of William Gleason Goldsmith and Joan Bailey Holt. On her father’s side she descended from Richard Goldsmith who arrived in America in 1634 and on her mother’s from Nicholas Holt who settled in Andover in 1635. Her father was for many years principal of the Punchard Free School.

Her collection, which has almost no personal material, has been divided into six parts. First are fourteen lectures and articles on Andover history. Next are copies of Fair and Warmer, published between 1926 and 1929. Third are scrapbooks of clippings on Andover people and events. Fourth are letters from her informants on historical matters. The most important of these was John Houghton Flint,         , who through his mother Hannah Abbott Harding Flint, was a descendant of Jonathan (3) Abbott. Flint wrote her from his retirement in Raleigh, North Carolina when he was in his eighties and nineties. He was fill of stories of Andover in his youth: of “Slicky” Barnard, “Dandelion” Smith, the Beard boys who were murdered by their mother in 1879, and eccentric members of his own family. He seems to have total recall of Andover buildings as well as families. Hs mother and sister also wrote, about Abbott’s and their houses. The fifth section is a of personal documents: a program from her graduation from the Boston Young Women’s Christian Association, School of Domestic Science and Christian Work; her personal accounts from 1903 to 1919; two letters on her literary work and some World War II official documents. She taught domestic science in town from at least 1902 to 1907 and her papers here should be supplemented by Ms S 560, Andover Cooking School/Andover Sewing School. There are also a few documents of her father William Gleason Goldsmith: bills from the death of a child, bills from teaching, subscription certificate for Memorial Hall Library and his appointments as postmaster in 1886 and 1893. There are also some school and World War Ii items for Clarence Goldsmith and Leonard Saunders.

Processed by Mary F. Morgan, December 1982.