Six letters pertaining to the Coburn family, including three letters by Stephen Coburn to his sisters, two of which were written while he was a teacher on a plantation in Tarboro, North Carolina in 1840.

“Tarboro April 6, 1840

      Dear Sister Elvira,

       … I was very anxious to learn the result of the series of meetings which you were about to hold and what was the religious state of the Church and community. … But though there should be no more apparent fruit of the revival we ought not to think that God revives his people in ruin. We should believe that he makes the grace and zeal of his people the great instrument of converting the world and he knows whether it is best that the fruits of these should be slow and gradual or more sudden and apparent. Above all we ought to be thankful that thee exists in the church a spirit of Union and Christian love without which it cannot prosper and which itself is one of the greatest tokens of divine favour. We ought to be rejoiced to hear of the revival of Gods work in any place; but it is natural and perhaps right that we should be more interested in regard to our own church and the people to whom we are connected by all the ties of kindred and friendship.

          I often think of the little attachment I have shown to the Church since I was connected with it and the little profit I have been to the cause of Christ which if it appears as it does to my blind and stupid heart I know how it must appear to God who requires perfect obedience and who sees all things as they are…

          There is a schism in the Baptist Church in this place which it is said extends over a considerable part of the state. The parties are now organized into different churches and are distinguished by the name of Missionary and non missionary Baptists. The non missionary Baptists are opposed to Foreign mission and it is said also to raising money for the support of preaching or for any such purpose. The division seems to have been occasioned a few years ago by the injudicious course of a strange minister who caused a portion of the dissatisfied to come off from his church and to form one by themselves. However I am not sufficiently acquainted with the circumstances to judge accurately. We have very good preaching here though generally from men of little education except the Episcopalian ministers.

         Mrs Macnair is an Episcopalian. She appears to be a very pious woman and is one of the most pleasant agreeable women in the world. The family are all vert agreeable and my task is very pleasant. …”

Stephen Coburn was a US Congressman, born in Skowhegan, Maine, he was the brother of Maine Governor Abner Coburn. He graduated from Waterville College, in 1839, taught at a plantation school in Tarboro, North Carolina, 1839-1840, and was principal of the Bloomfield Academy Maine, 1840-1844. He then studied law at Harvard Law School, was admitted to the bar in 1845, and commenced practicing law in Skowhegan, Maine and was a member of the Maine State Board of Education, 1849-50. In 1859, he was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy of Israel Washburn, Jr., serving until 1861. Not a candidate for re-election, he resumed the practice of law and was postmaster of Skowhegan, (1868-1877). He died in 1881.