Search for mystery woman after letter from renowned poet found in charity shop

A charity shop is hoping to trace a woman who donated books that contained a letter from 19th century American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier.

Volunteer Fiona Cameron made the discovery earlier this month while working at Gatehouse of Fleet YMCA in Dumfries and Galloway.

Hidden in a book was a letter to Whittier’s niece, which was within a newer envelope that had handwriting outside noting it was correspondence from the poet.

An envelope addressed to the niece’s husband was within a separate envelope, which had been marked as an example of Whittier’s writing.

Ms Cameron said: “I was just amazed. Whittier isn’t well known in Britain, but I certainly knew who he was.”

Whittier was born in Massachusetts in 1807 and died in 1892 at the age of 84.

He was a prominent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the US and was influenced by legendary Scottish poet Robert Burns.

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The Californian city of Whittier – home to Whittier College – is named after the writer.

Ms Cameron said: “He’s so well known in America the town is named after him.”

The mystery blonde who donated the books where the Whittier treasures were found visited the shop on 8 July.

Ms Cameron said she wasn’t a regular customer, adding: “We didn’t recognise this woman, but she brought in quite a number of antiquarian books.

“She looked round the shop while she was there, and I actually spoke to her about one of the books she’d brought in because it was quite a nice edition of an Arthur Ransome book (1922’s The Soldier and Death) – the guy who wrote Swallows and Amazons.

“I quickly looked it up on my phone and I said to her, ‘you realise people are selling this on eBay for about £40, are you sure you want to donate it?’

“And she said, ‘oh yes, I definitely want to donate all of these.’ And then she left the shop.”

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Ms Cameron said the two envelopes fell out while she was flipping through a volume of poems.

She believes the outer envelopes were written “quite a while ago” due to the “beautiful” handwriting style.

Ms Cameron said: “I opened them and looked. The letter in particular, the paper looked so fresh. I honestly thought, ‘is this genuine?'”

Ms Cameron was directed by the National Library of Scotland to contact Whittier College.

She said: “I sent them pictures and they said, ‘yeah, as far as we can see, this is absolutely genuine.'”

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Whittier’s niece Lizzie lived in Portland and was the wife of Samuel T Pickard, himself a prominent publisher and editor of a local newspaper.

Both Whittier College and Maine Historical Society are keen to find out how the letter and envelopes came to be inside a book that ended up across the Atlantic.

Ms Cameron said: “We’re trying to track down the woman who handed them in.

“We would like to say to her, ‘do you want these back, do these have a family connection, what is the connection?'”

If no one comes forward, they could be gifted to an institution to be put on display, possibly the Library of the Society of Friends – Quakers in Britain.

Ms Cameron said: “They might be really interested because Whittier was a really prominent Quaker, like so many of our manufacturers in Britain.”

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