A 1794 letter from Elizabeth Porter Phelps addressed to her daughters

A 1794 letter from Elizabeth Porter Phelps addressed to her daughters

Thankful Richmond was taken in by Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Charles Phelps when she was an infant. She was born to Zebulon Richmond, and her mother (whose name remains unknown) died shortly after giving birth. A few weeks before her arrival, on December 8, 1776, Elizabeth’s newborn son, Charles Phelps, passed away. On December 29, 1776, Elizabeth wrote about the arrival of this infant: “Satter, one Richmond brought his child here about a fortnight old— the mother had twins and Left ‘em when about one week old— she died.” Thankful was baptized by the Phelpses on July 26, 1778, and raised as a daughter of Charles and Elizabeth and sister of Porter and Betsey. She was educated alongside Betsey and taught reading and writing by Elizabeth Pitkin Porter.

Because adoption was not formally established in Massachusetts until 1851, Thankful was never legally acknowledged as the Phelpses child. However, throughout letters and diaries, Elizabeth consistently refers to Thankful as her child and as the granddaughter of her mother, Elizabeth Piktin Porter. In turn, Thankful calls the Phelps her parents.

In 1796, Thankful married Enos Hitchcock. After their marriage, they lived with her parents, Charles and Elizabeth, at Forty Acres for a year and a half until Enos was financially secure enough for the couple to have their own home. In 1798, Thankful, Enos, and their newborn son, Charles Phelps Hitchcock, moved to Brimfield, Massachusetts. Thankful later gave birth to two daughters. Martha was born in February of 1800 and died in August of 1801 at eighteen months old. In January of 1802, Thankful gave birth to another daughter, whom she also named Martha. 

Based on letters between Betsey and Elizabeth, Thankful had a strained marriage, seemingly due to Enos’ alcoholism and financial instability. Enos Hitchcock died in 1811 and Thankful moved back to Forty Acres, her childhood home. In 1816, she moved into Porter’s newly-built home across the street from Forty Acres, known as Phelps Farm. In 1814, Charles Phelps died without a formal will, which meant that his estate would have been divided between only Betsey and Porter, his two biological children. But Charles declared on his deathbed that he wanted to leave two five-acre plots to Thankful and her son.