The letter called out some reminiscences from Mr. Robinson Cook, of Bolster's Mills, in Maine, who had also known Hawthorne as a boy; some poetry on the Tarbox tragedy was also found, and printed, which afterward proved to have been written by another person; and one or two other letters were published, not especially relevant to Hawthorne, but concerning the Tarbox affair. After this, "W. S." wrote again from Alexandria (November 23, 1870), revealing the fact that he had come into possession, several years before, of the manuscript book from which he afterward sent extracts. The book, he explained, was found by a man named Small, who had assisted in moving a lot of furniture, among it a "large mahogany bookcase" full of old books, from the old Manning House. This was several years before the civil war, and "W. S." met Small in the army, in Virginia. He reported that the book--"originally a bound blank one not ruled," and "gnawed by mice or eaten by moths on the edges"--contained about two hundred and fifty pages, and was written throughout, "the first part in a boyish hand though legibly, and showing in its progress a marked improvement in penmanship." The passages reprinted in the present volume were sent by him, over the signature "W. Sims," to the "Transcript," and published at different dates (February 11, 1871; April 22, 1871). Their appearance called out various communications, all tending to establish their genuineness; but, beyond the identification of localities and persons, and the approximate establishing of dates, no decisive proof was forthcoming. Sims himself, however, was recalled by former residents near Raymond; and there seemed at least much inferential proof in favor of the notes. A long silence ensued upon the printing of the second portion; and at the end of 1871 it was made known that Sims had died at Pensacola, Florida. The third and last supposed extract from Hawthorne's note-book was sent from Virginia again, in 1873 (published June 21 of that year), by a person professing to have charge of Sims's papers. This person was written to by the editors of the "Transcript," but no reply has ever been received. A relative of Hawthorne in Salem also wrote to the Pensacola journal in which Sims's death was announced, making inquiry as to its knowledge of him and as to the source of the mortuary notice. No reply was ever received from this quarter, either. Sims, it is said, had been in the secret service under Colonel Baker, of dreaded fame in war-days; and it may be that, having enemies, he feared the notoriety to which his contributions to journalism might expose him, and decided to die,--at least so far as printer's ink could kill him. All these circumstances are unfortunate, because they make the solution of doubts concerning the early notes quite impossible, for the present.