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24 Clearway Street Boston, Mass.

October 1, 1945

Hrs. F. W. Jacobs Maine State Library Augusta, Maine

Dear Mrs.Jacobs:

The day your letter arrived I was preparing to go out of town and so was not able to answer it immediately.

The copy of the letter written to you by my uncle, Marsden Hartley, and dated Nov. 14, 1941 is very helpful to me and I am delighted to have it, as well as the others. It verifies my claims that he intended to present some of his paintings to some Maine institutions. He had told me or this the last time I talked with him in Ohio, but to have something in his own handwriting serves as authentic evidence.

I have been putting forth every effort to establish the facts about his wishes in regard to his estate and have succeeded in securing the signatures of seven of the heirs agreeing to carry out his plan. They have also agreed to turn over his collection of art objects and personal things to an institution to be kept as a memorial collection if these things should be acceptable. This part of the problem has still to be worked out. But I am very grateful to have been able to save them from being sold or scattered promiscuously. They are safe in the warehouse in New York. Since he has written of many of his little posessions in his manuscripts, I feel that they are doubly valuable for historical record.

Professor Green of Colby College agreed with me on this point and we had some interesting conversation about the matter when he called on me here in Boston at the time he came to see the manuscripts which I have here. (I now own the entire collection of manuscripts) There are thousands of pages of them and are in both prose and poetical form.

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