ALS,; 1p, Boston, Nov 8, 1886

Written in pencil in Bridgeman's typical block printing as follows: "To Boston Mass Nov 8th | 1886 | Dear Mrs Baft | Miss Moalton told | me of your gift to the ... | garden I thank you for the good | deed | Laura A Bridgman" With mailing envelope. From Wikepedia: "Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (December 21, 1829 – May 24, 1889) is known as the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, fifty years before the more famous Helen Keller. Laura Bridgman was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, the third daughter of Daniel Bridgman, (truncated) a Baptist farmer, and his wife Harmony, daughter of Cushman Downer, and granddaughter of Joseph Downer, one of the five first settlers (1761) of Thetford, Vermont. Laura was a delicate infant, small and rickety, and suffered from convulsions until she was eighteen months old. Her family was struck with scarlet fever when Laura was two years old. The illness killed her two older sisters and left her deaf, blind, and without a sense of smell or taste. Though she gradually recovered her health, she remained deaf and blind. In 1837, James Barrett of Dartmouth College, saw Bridgman and mentioned her case to Dr. Reuben Mussey, the head of the medical department. Mussey sent an account to Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, who was eager to educate the young Bridgman who entered the school on October 12, 1837, two months before her eighth birthday (Inventory #: 54232)