Letter from HIRAM POWERS to GEORGE POWERS MARSH, dated August 2, 1863.
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Hon George P Marsh.
My Dear Friend
You will feel for us I know, in our present afflication--and of Course I include dear Mrs Marsh and "Cary" Our Dear child Florence is now in her grave! She died calmly and without a Struggle--a few minutes past midnight--on the 31 July --
For nearly 8 months her gradual decline had been going on We took her to Leghorn for a change of air, but the disease, (Rheumatic Fever,) continued, and never left her until too weak for recovery, for an abscess--deep seated in the thigh, had formed, but never came to the surface Her sufferings were tremendous --
I will not touch your hearts, by a recital of what She Said--and how She bore her
pains to the last. It was all truly Angelic! She had a wonderful mind--and was a
'born Poet,' in her way --
Our two other Children, James--and Fannie--have been placed beside her in the same grave We had
them embalmed--after a method sufficient to preserve the bodies, and have kept them
till now--under the belief, that we Should go home with them And it may be that we
Shall return to American, but not soon --
I received dear Mrs Marsh's letter, and have not forgotten her request for a photograph of her bust But so great was my anxiety at the time, that I really could not bring myself to write to her, and how we have felt ever since you may well suppose --
Pray tell her, that a photography from a plastic model would be -- I shall soon begin the bust in Marble -- With our United affectionate regards, I am ever your Friend,
Hiram Powers.
References in this letter:
Florence Powers, Hiram and Elizabeth Powers' sixth child, was born in Florence in 1846 and died there in 1863.
James Gibson Powers, Hiram and Elizabeth Powers' first child, was born in Cincinnati in 1833 and died in Florence, apparently of a brain tumor, in 1838.
Powers, as a gesture of friendship to Caroline Crane Marsh (1816-1901) and her husband, George Perkins Marsh, American ambassador to Italy, had her sit for a bust in June 1862. The marble replica made from the plaster cast, presented to the Marshes in late 1864 or early 1865, is now in the Fleming Museum of the University of Vermont.