Artefacts of Excavation

Records in London indicate that the "Public Library Brattleboro, Vermont via Miss Mary R. Cabot, Hon. Secretary" received material from the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1912. Mary Cabot is known to have traveled to Egypt with her nephew, Frederick Holbrook III, in 1914.

Jerry Carbone, Library Director of the Library confirmed in August 2012 that "according to the Trustees’ minutes of January 1913, the donation was reported in an annual report for 1912,.When the new library was built in 1967 an inventory was generated of items to keep or sale. I do not find the artifacts listed in this inventory, so they probably were sold or donated before the transfer of items to the new building."

Further enquiries with the Brattleboro Historical Society​ revealed that at least one set of beads from Abydos was in their collection. According to Elizabeth McCollum "Tucked away in a box of lace and tortoiseshell combs was a smaller archival box that contained some lovely carnelian beads strung together with gold spacers.  The card that accompanied it said "The Carnelian chain was taken from a Mastaba tomb in Abydos by workmen of the Egyptian[sic] Exploration Fund. XII Dynasty. From that record, and a letter (circa 1932) that was attached to it, I found out that it had been given to us by Miss Rhona Williams of Palo Alto, CA, in 1986.  It had originally been given to her mother, Dora Williams (nee Moody), by someone, referred to only as "Aunt Molly" in the letter which was written to Dora by Grace Ware Haskell.  Upon reading that, and doing a little research online, I found one of Grace's descendants had a genealogical blog, in which he identified "Aunt Molly" as Mary Rogers Cabot, his great grand-aunt.  MR Cabot died in 1932, and though the letter is not dated, it asks the recipient about how the Depression is affecting them in California, and refers to going through "Aunt Molly's" things to find the above-quoted note, which Mrs. Haskell also quotes in the letter."

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