james weatherups great find
The second possibility is that the Mrs. Armstrong copy was still in her possession at the time of her death. Bartlett’s second letter above omits mention of the copy. Unfortunately between his first and second Bartlett letters (of November 1880 and August 1882 respec- tively) Mrs. Armstrong died in March 1882. Samuel Armstrong, a few years before his death in 1850, wrote an autobiography which Uriel Crocker, friend and partner of Samuel, was at an unrecorded date shown the manuscript by his widow. When Abigail herself died Crocker searched for the autobiography but the manuscript could not be found. The Armstrong’s had no children and after her death relatives took her business manager Warren Blodgett to court to recover $500,000 he had extorted from Mrs. Armstrong since 1877. The jury found Mrs. Armstrong had been of unsound mind between 1877 and her death, and Mr. Blodgett guilty. What happened to her husband’s library (including his autobiography and potentially a Bay Psalm Book ) is unknown – it is even possible that Mr. Blodgett (who had total control of Abigail’s household) sold o V books from the library before her death. In conclusion it seems unlikely but certainly not impossible that Mrs. Armstrong had, at some time after her husband’s death, possession of an unrecorded Old South Church copy of the Bay Psalm Book .
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