Letters from Agnes Fitzgibbon to Henry James Morgan, 1861

Agnes Dunbar Moodie Fitzgibbon (1833-1913) was the daughter of John and Susanna Moodie. She married Charles Thomas Fitzgibbon (son of Colonel James Fitzgibbon), a barrister, around 1850. His death in 1865 required her to find a way to support her family. She decided to compile a volume of flower illustrations, having learned how to paint from her mother. Catherine Parr Traill, her aunt, provided text for the book. In 1868, Agnes published Canadian Wild Flowers, one of the first serious botanical books published in Canada. While in Ottawa to sell subscriptions for her book, she met her second husband, Colonel Brown Chamberlin, whom she married in 1870. He was later appointed the Queen’s Printer. Henry James Morgan (1842-1913) was a Canadian civil servant, lawyer, and author. He is best known for his brief biographies of well-known Canadians, including Sketches of celebrated Canadians (1862) and The Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1898).Two letters to Henry James Morgan from Agnes Fitzgibbon, dated at Toronto, 1861. The first letter is dated August 20, 1861 and marked “private”. The letter mostly discusses a box of books written by Ferdinand Brock Tupper on Isaac Brock, and her family’s efforts to dispose of the books. The possibility of writing a biography of Colonel [James] Fitzgibbon is also mentioned. The second letter is dated September 1861 and mostly discusses the writings of her mother, Susanna Moodie, and aunt, Catharine Parr Traill