Dear Brother

This is part of a letter from "The White Box". The White Box is a box I got from my grandfather that is kind of like a really old suitcase with... some really cool stuff. The letter is intact, by the way.
The letter was folded into it's own envelope.
I took The White Box to work to show some co workers some of the cool things and an eagle eyed co-worker noticed something... and I plan to try and photograph it.
This ship letter was written in 1843 from James Holmes to his brother. You also may notice the 1841 date. Was that how long it took for mail in those days? (The light in this room is too poor to be able to make out the address, and there's a lot of dirt on the surface that was the face of the envelope) My co-worker said it looked like it was embosed with something. Seemed odd, I couldn't see anything. But turns out... he was right. There's a watermark I can only see when I hold the letter to the light. The image, as far as I can tell, is an oval with a crown atop it, inside the oval is a seated woman with a spear and beside her is a shield with a cross. The quality of the paper is very nice. I can only imaging what it was like new.
When you read a letter like this, and there are photos of the Holmes brothers in the box, it's almost as though they are right there with you. It makes you wonder what this world would be like to them if you could bring them back for a day. Plus, with so much being digitized... what would we leave behind that a century and a half later people would have left of us?