Frances Bland Coalter is the daughter of St. George Tucker Coalter and grandchild of John Coalter. Her correspondence gives a picture of mid-nineteenth century life and includes a near scandal in her attachment to her married schoolmaster, the Rev. Moses D. Hoge. The contents of this box end with the marriage of Frances Bland Coalter and Henry Peronneau Brown. Letters of Brown and his wife resume in Box 21. Largely papers collected by Frances Bland Coalter between February 1853, when she is preparing to leave school, and December 1858, when she married Henry Peronneau Brown. Through this marriage the Tucker-Coalter line was connected with the Brown line; thus, the papers of the two families were brought together into one. The collection gives an interesting picture of the life and interests of a young lady of moderate circumstances in the mid-l9th century. Of special interest are the letters concerning the Rev. Moses D. Hoge, whose school in Richmond Fanny Coalter had attended. Shortly after she left school, the Rev. Mr. Hoge carried on a very romantic correspondence with Fanny, although he was a married man with several children. The correspondence became more ardent in the early months of 1854 and, when Mrs. Hoge wrote that her husband had gone to Baltimore to stay with his brother who was ill, Fanny followed him there. According to the gossip of Mattie and Lizzie Morton, she went there to "entrap him." In October it was suggested that the brother, William Hoge, was the one in whom she was interested. The Rev. Mr. Hoge later sought to calm the fervours of his correspondent, as shown by his letters of 28 January 1855, 19 June 1856, and 19 March 1857. Fanny B. Coalter did not lack for other suitors, however, for she preserved a letter of 17 July 1854, a proposal of marriage from Alfred B. Tucker. A year later there are reports of her interest in the Brown brothers, John Thompson and Peronneau, of Petersburg, both of whom were courting her. She finally settled on the latter; some acceptances to the marriage invitation are included in this box. Letters of Frances Bland Coalter and her husband Henry Peronneau Brown continue in Box 21. The intervening boxes contain manuscripts of the Brown family, especially Capt. Henry Brown, grandfather of Henry Peronneau Brown (Boxes 7-13); the Hon. John Thompson Brown, father of Henry Peronneau Brown (Boxes 14-19); and Col. John Thompson Brown II, brother of Henry Peronneau Brown (Box 20).