After Abby Smith and her sister Laurilla arrived back in Glastenbury, Connecticut, Abby and Mary Ann exchanged letters.
In one of her letters Mary Ann might have mentioned to Abby that finally, in 1856, there was a bridge across the Delaware River. The bridge replaced the crude rope-guided ferry which Abby and Laurilla had to ride to cross the Delaware River, after they had arrived at the Erie Railroad Depot at Shohola, Pennsylvania.
The suspension bridge designed by John Roebling (of N.Y.C. Brooklyn Bridge fame) was poorly built, at a cost of $9,000.
—John W. Johnston, Reminiscences, 321, 349.
Abby Smith wrote to Mary Ann in November 1854 and again in January 29, 1855. Many events happened in Glastenbury and the Town of Highland before Abby’s next known letter to Mary Ann, in 1866.
—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 177–179.
