Mary C. Reynolds

Mary C. Reynolds was the sister of my great-grandfather, but I’ve never known much about her. She was born in 1860, married George Matson in 1884 and died in 1887. Her father, David M. Reynolds, had died in 1867 and her mother moved the family from the Peach Bottom area of Lancaster County to Kennett Square in Chester County sometime soon after, as they are found in Kennett Square in the 1870 census. Mary and her husband, George Matson, are buried at Longwood Friends cemetery in Chester County. For a long time, I had been looking in the wrong place for Mary as the record from the old family bible was mistaken for a W rather than an M. Not having the original bible, my record was merely a typed copy from the original, probably done by my grandmother at some point.

One thing I do know about Mary, though, is that she had a small autograph book as a teenager and collected autographs from a number of her acquaintances during her teen years. The autograph album was handed down to me by my mother and will probably eventually end up in the Chester County Historical Society’s collection.

The book is very small, only about 2 inches by abut 4 inches and about a quarter inch thick. With a green cover and gold lettering, its pages are deeply colored with age and most of the writing has faded quite a bit.

Autograph Book of Mary C. Reynolds

The entries within have been transcribed and are now available on my Chester County Genealogy site, providing a clue to some of her friends and acquaintances of the time. Quaker researchers will recognize many of the surnames within the file, such as Brosius, Wickersham and Hoopes. While many of the posts are just names, most contain the date of signing and many include locations, making the little book a nice little reference for some folks in the area in mid 1870′s