NORWICH, CONNECTICUT, 1760-1780

As indicated by the inscription on the backboards, this desk was owned or used by a Miss Lane who lived at 42 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. This young woman was most likely Louisa Greenough Lane (b. 1860), who married William Bayard Van Rensselaer (1856-1909) or her sister Catherine (or Katherine) W. Lane (c.1862-1892), daughters of George M. Lane (1823-1897). A revered professor of Latin at Harvard University, George M. Lane lived in Cambridge and is specifically listed at the above address for the years 1887-1890 in the Cambridge Directories. See Cambridge, Massachusetts Directories, available at ancestry.com; Orrando Perry Dexter, Dexter Genealogy (New York, 1904), p. 140; Cuyler Reynolds, comp., Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York, vol. 1 (New York, 1914), p. 16.