From a letter written by Harriette Melissa Mills dated 1-1-1924. (address, 557 West 124th St. NYC)
THE "OLD MANSION HOUSE"
Mrs. Mary Wright Hale
Dear Cousin Mary,
Greeting to you from New York on New Year's Day 1924. May all the good that's good for you come to you this year.
While in Burlington, Conn in August, I visited the "old Mansion House" lot on which your forbearers lived for years. Albin Mills, your Grandfather, Dotha his wife and children - the order I do not know - Emeline, Wallace, Mahlon, Marilla, (your mother), Arabelle, Sarah, Mary. The home from which your aunt Mary Perkins went as a bride to spend a long useful life in New Britain. Her children Lois and Eva are gone, the only one of that time is Clarrissa (Mrs. George Ames, 8 Elm St., Fairhaven, Mass.) and her son Billy.
The house is gone - the well filled up, the very walls of the cellar fallen in, heavy as they were. But a gigantic maple tree of great age keeps guard over this spot of memory and under the great green tree I seem to see the troop of children that use to swarm over the place. I do wonder if my father and his little brother Norman may not have been there too. The old tree sang a song to me. I send you leaves from the tree and the song it sang to me.
They are just musings, these lines. Sometime I hope to see you all.
With kindest of greetings,
Your cousin,
Harriette Melissa Mills, daughter of Leavitt Mills,
brother to Albin Mills, your Grandfather.
Harriette was divorced before 1905 from Ernest C.Smith; buried 7-23-1929 (born 10-29-1861) at Hillside Cemetery, Terryville Conn. Occupation: Founder & Dean of Mills College, NY, NY.
A picture of the "Old Mansion"