Octavo. Brown ink on creamy paper with ornate printed letterhead “American Engraving Co. of Boston, Mass.” featuring an advertisement: “Designers & Engravers, Fine Half-Tone and Line Plates. Catalogue, Magazine, Book and Newspaper Illustrations.” 2 pp. With the original matching envelope, addressed “Mr. Nazaret Tcheordukian, c/o Mr. Marcarian: Frezno, California”. Text in Western Armenian. Fold marks, light edge wear and toning, otherwise a very good letter.

An interesting early piece of correspondence between pioneer Armenian immigrants in Massachusetts and California during a formative era for the Armenian-American community. The letter opens with "Dear Nazaret Cheordukian" and goes on to thank him for his previous letter, share greetings from friends, ask for more news, and closes with "Your friend, Simon Karapetian”.

Simon S. Garabedian (Karapetian; 1873–1931) immigrated to Massachusetts from the Ottoman Empire in 1896. Until at least 1916 he worked as a photo engraver at the American Engraving Company in Boston, which explains the use of its letterhead. Notably, the company’s manager, A.J. Kemalyan, mentioned on the letterhead, was also an Armenian immigrant from the Ottoman Empire. 

The recipient, Nazereth Chordigian (Chordikian; 1855-after 1920), immigrated from the Ottoman Empire in the same 1896 as Garabedian. Around 1899 he settled in Fresno, California, and worked as shoemaker and later as rancher. The "c/o Mr. Marcarian" notation on the envelope almost certainly refers to a member of the well-known Markarian family, one of Fresno's earliest and most prominent Armenian fig-growing settlers, widely credited with establishing the city’s Armenian agricultural prominence. Henry Markarian (1872–1918), president of the California Fig Growers' Association, was referred to as the “Fig King” of the country, and at one time the family was the largest fig grower in the United States and possibly in the world (see more at Figs | Friends of the Fresno Fair - Armenian Exhibit).

Fresno, California, was one of the largest and most important early Armenian-American communities. The first Armenian settlers moved there in the early 1880s from the East Coast when the local population was not more than a thousand people. Later they were accompanied by the settlers from the Armenian territories of the Ottoman Empire. Most of the first Armenians who settled in Fresno lived and worked downtown in what is now referred to as Old Armenian Town. By 1894 the Armenian population in Fresno was 360, a number which grew rapidly with the onset of the Hamidian Massacres in 1895-96. The massacres and persecution of the Armenians by the Turks fueled the growth until it reached about 10,000 even before the start of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. During and after the genocide even more Armenians came until the restrictions on immigration in 1921 and 1924 brought this to a virtual end. Los Angeles also became a focus of Armenian immigration, and some Armenians from Fresno moved there as well. The number of Armenians in Los Angeles surpassed those in Fresno in 1930 — partly because of the agricultural depression in the valley during the 1920s.

Overall the letter reflects the development of the Armenian-American community and the personal connections linking Armenian families in Boston and Fresno and stands as a rare example of early Armenian diasporic correspondence in the United States.