Letters

27-1. The Grand Tour in the Aftermath of World War I.

Wonderfully observant and funny manuscript diary and scrapbook of a cruise and tour begun  Nov. 3, 1921, the voyage encompassing only the third anniversary of Armistice Day. “Bob’s  Journal - Volume I,” Miss Barbara White, of Salem, Mass. per stationer’s label, chronicling  her trip aboard the Cunard Liner RMS Albania, and onward to England, France, Switzerland,  and Italy, entries continuing to at least Jan. 1922. Daughter of a Salem judge and socialite, she  had just graduated from Smith earlier that year. 6¾ x 8¼, about 72 written pp., red and  loden green marbled boards, black fabricoid spine. Delightful variety of keepsakes neatly  mounted including: richly steel-engraved Cunard scorecard from game of cards, signed by  her; ship-printed “Programme of Entertainment” folder, dated Armistice Day, Nov. 11, stylized  artwork on cover of ship at sea; her pencil itinerary within England, on red steel-engraved  Cunard notepaper, 2 ship-to-shore telegrams via “Radio Albania” giving arrival date in  Oxford, “London General Omnibus” ticket with microscopic type, 28 European postcards  (mostly views and works of art in Florence, Milan, Perugia, and Rome), 3 original snapshots, 1  theatrical photo card, 1 restaurant bill (spaghetti, 6 Lire), 1 Florentine bakery bill, 1 hotel bill  (Rome, with five interesting Italian revenue stamps), 2 calling cards, and 4 other souvenirs.  The traveler a talented cartoonist and sketch artist, with pen and pencil drawings, variously,  of her fellow passengers, including “Captain Brown” (looking remarkably like Dick Tracy’s  older brother), “The Divorced Lady,” “The Countess,” “The Poetic Gent” (with beret slouched  over one eye), “The Italian,” “The South American,” et al. “...So far nothing but doddering old  gents in sight. A vegetarian lady whom I think is the Countess, and a divorced lady with jet  ear-rings who nabbed me and talked spiritualism, love, life, and divorce at me all the  evening...She gave me the Cosmopolitan and a lot of Christian Science stuff to read. She wants  me to be one too, but not on your eye lash, Maria...A very horsey gentleman who forgot to take  off his riding habit when he came on a boat...Perfectly flat black sea but I feel like going down  in an elevator very fast...The boat is as steady as a refined drunkard...Soon it was time for  lunch and I found a dreadful creature named Chadwick on my left. He is an old dumbbell and  he talked all the time about his travels in America, where he had been for two whole weeks. He  was much enamored by the divorced lady on the other side of me and talked across me to her,  so I had no room at all to eat, and he forgot to wipe his moustache and dropped soup on my  butter plate...and he pretty nearly scraped my nose off with his gestures. The captain evidently  thought he was a riot...I surfed a book on Bolshevism out of the book case and read all  afternoon, and had tea with the divorced lady who told me about the lack of morals of her  artistic friends. Then I remembered my gentleman friend had my bath ready so I rushed down  to take it. When I appeared in my bathrobe and not much else he showed me where the bath  room was, and followed me right in, so I thought perhaps the rules were that he should give  me my bath, but evidently not because he finally departed...The Captain is a sweet potato with  a funny English way of saying things...and a cunning twinkle in his eye...I changed my seat at  table away from the horrid little Chadwick creature to the other end and enjoy my meals very  much...The divorced lady, cunning old Mr. White, the South American squirt and I all played  budge ferociously...Betty put her foot through the ceiling and it took three men and a boy to  sit on our suit case....” In London, “...supper in a cheap little Jewish restaurant and went to see  Charlie Chaplin in ‘Shoulder Arms’ at which we laughed heartily....” A hysterical account of  turning a corner in an Italian neighborhood, and suddenly finding themselves besieged by  men. “They kept calling ‘Signorine, Belle Signorine’ in soft languishing voices...We were the  only things in sight with shirts on...Finally we saw a lighted place and went in with cries of  joy....” Much, much more, in her funny style. Neatly penned in a large, clear hand, in ink  ranging from coffee-and-cream to dark brown. Mounted at front, a small snapshot of a sharp  brunette - certainly the writer - about twenty years of age, with telegram sent to her the day before sailing: “Sorry not to see you again.  Best love and all good wishes for the trip. Time and space reel through silence until your return. Sylvia.” Notwithstanding the writer’s  narrative, the mood was momentous: While at sea, on Nov. 11 - Armistice Day - America’s Unknown Soldier was buried at Arlington;  the next day, the Washington Conference for Limitation of Armaments began – which some say paved the way for ... the next World  War. Glue on front endleaf where newspaper clipping once mounted, one or two other items removed inside (or fallen out), moderate  cover wear, else generally about very good, and a charismatic item, capturing this young woman’s bemused journey in a ravaged world.  With, two telegrams evidently from Calvin Coolidge’s files, as Vice Pres.: Typewritten retained copy, Aug. 7, 1921, 7 x 8¼, from  Coolidge in Boston, to Sec. of State Charles E. Hughes. “Miss Barbara White, daughter of Judge White of Salem, Mass., is applying for  passport. She sails Sept. 17th. She is personally well known to me and in every way entitled to passport. Can it not issue at once....”  Browned, some wrinkles, old mounting evidence, probably from Coolidge’s letter-book, affecting few words of Western Union  boilerplate on verso, else good. • Original telegram in reply from Hughes. To “Hon. Calvin Coolidge...Passport Barbara White will be  mailed Sept. 8th.” Red and purple Western Union stampings. Short tears at one fold, much handling wear, but an unlikely survivor. It  is interesting that both telegrams made their way from Coolidge’s files to the diarist’s possession. She clearly received her passport in  time to create the splendid journal described above. $225-325 (3 pcs.) 

27-2. A Doctor and the Zoo.

A.L.S. of Dr. Henry C. Chapman (1845-1909), prof. at Jefferson Medical College, Pa. College of Dental Surgery, and College of  Physicians of Phila.; scholar in medical jurisprudence. “Fri.,” Jan. 19, n.y., 4¾ x 8, 2 pp. “Dear Doctor.” “While fully appreciating the  compliment you paid me in reference to lecturing for the Zoological Society...I do not think in justice to myself, I could undertake it for  less compensation than that expected by the other gentleman....” Very fine. $50-70 

27-3. A Doctor in Utah’s Black Hawk War - and his Sewing Machine.

Two items: Rare A.L.S. of Mormon pioneer J.D.M. Crockwell, M.D., “Provo City, Utah Ter.,” Oct. 28, 1865, 2 pp., 7 x 9. To “Mr. Singer,”  of Singer Sewing Machine. “...I have a Letter A Machine that we have been running for 2 years...It is boxed in a fine ebony chest with  baguets all over it. Has our stationary box to which is attached the spool and another box that carries the needle. Now this machine I  don’t understand and cannot set the needle and there is not anyone in this place that does. Now I wish some instructions. In your  Letter Book you mention the Braider Corder...I would like to have these improvements but I don’t know how much money to send...As  you have no agent in this territory I would like to know on what terms you would make us your agent....” Gives as a reference the famed  Mormon leader and Territorial delegate William H. Hooper. From F.F.V. (First Families of Virginia) stock, Crockwell helped lay out the  town of Sioux City. Joining the Mormons, he started West, arriving in Utah in 1863, living in the home of Brigham Young’s brother.  “While in Provo he took part in the Black Hawk War of 1865-6. He became widely known throughout the state of Utah as a physician,  surgeon and lecturer [on polygamy!]...”--Utah Since Statehood... (1920); copy accompanies. Crockwell also appears in History of  Homeopathy and its Institutions in America (1905). An intense, under-studied saga in Western history, the Black Hawk War in fact  comprised some 150 battles, raids, and engagements between Mormons and sixteen tribes. Narrow strip on verso where mounted in  Singer’s letter-book, covering parts of some words on verso, lacking fragment of blank upper left corner, else V.G. • With brief A.L.S. of  Singer agent and tailor Patrick J. Hanna, Denver (Colorado Territory), 1867, 4½ x 7 irregular. Sending money for “Needles for your  Late Improved Sewing Machine...Bartlett’s...sent the wrong ones. Hoping you will send the right kind.” From Singer letter-book,  clerical marking in blue ink on face of letter, else V.G. $160-200 (2 pcs.) 

27-4. “Teaching these poor dark and benighted heathens.”

Letter of Margaret Hall, writing from a pioneer mission to the Seneca Indians. “Allegany Mission,” Bucktooth, N.Y., Feb. 20, 1839, 7½  x 12½, 1½ pp., integral address-leaf. To cousin Artimas Stephens, Java, Genesee Co., N.Y. “...I am absent from home about 50 miles  and have been for three months teaching among the Indians...I am laboring among the Indians. My School is about four miles distant  from which my brother William lives. I board myself in the School-house, but lodge in a house with Indians which is nearby. I am not  entirely alone because I have a white girl living with me, which is a great comfort. My School averages 25 pupils, between 40 and 50  different ones. Nothing short of a desire to labor in the vineyard of G-d inclines me to be here in this exceedingly dark place. But I can  assure you that I take very much pleasure in teaching these poor dark and benighted heathens...I must not close however without  asking you one very important question. Have you an evidence that you are the children of G-d? If not, do be entreated by a cousin and  who love(s) your immortal soul to seek to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven now, before it be forever too (late)....” Internal hole where  opened at red wax seal, some foxing, else about very good. A defunct town, Bucktooth was in Cattaraugus County. Such letters from  Indian missions, especially in the Northeast, are extremely scarce. $140-170 

27-5. The First Supreme Court Justice with a Law Degree!

A.N.S. of U.S. Supreme Court Justice B(enjamin) R. Curtis, the first such to have a formal legal degree, and the only Justice to resign  from the Court on a matter of principle, this over the Dred Scott case. N.p., June 23, (18)62, on folded lettersheet 4½ x 7¼, 1 p. To  lawyer E.W. Stoughton, N.Y., who would later serve as Rutherford B. Hayes’ lawyer to clinch the contested Presidential election of  1876. The note’s brevity belying its legal importance, Curtis pens, “Judge Clifford has this morning refused to take up Sickles’ case, so  we are relieved from all present care of it.” In 1859, Congressman - and future Union Gen. - Daniel Sickles shot and killed Philip Barton  Key, son of Francis Scott Key, to avenge Key’s affair with Mrs. Sickles. In a sensational, much-discussed case, he was acquitted in the  first use of a temporary insanity plea in American legal history. Studying as a young man under Joseph Story, Curtis was regarded by  some as the preeminent leader of the New England bar. Sponsored for the Supreme Court by Daniel Webster, Curtis was appointed by  Pres. Fillmore in 1851. In Dred Scott, “he disagreed with virtually every holding of the Court, and argued against the majority’s denial of  the slave Scott’s bid for emancipation...Curtis resigned in 1857 from the Court because of the bitter feelings engendered by the case...In  1868, he acted as chief counsel for Pres. Andrew Johnson during the impeachment trial. He himself read the answer to the articles of  impeachment, and it was ‘largely his work.’ His opening statement lasted two days...”--wikipedia. In 1874, his lawyerly income was  $650,000 - exactly 100 times the salary of a Supreme Court Justice during his tenure. Original folds, some offset from Curtis’ blotter,  else penned in dark chocolate on ivory, fine, and suitable for display. $275-375 

27-6. “Free from all prejudice....”

A.L.S. of Union Lt. Col. J. Talbot Pitman, 11th Regt., R.I. Vol., Camp Metcalf, Va., Apr. 3, 1863, 7¾ x 10, 1½ pp. To Maj. Gen. S.P.  Heintzelman, “Commanding 22nd Army Corps, Washington.” Writing of himself in the third person, “...On the 1st of Apr. he made a  request to Brig. Gen. Slough, Mil. Gov. of Alexandria, that Capt. C.H. Parkhurst, 11th Regt. R.I.V., should be relieved from sitting as a  member of Court Martial appointed to try charges preferred against Henry S. Oliver, 1st Lt. & Q.M...It (is) as important in military as in  civil trials, that members of Courts Martial, like members of a jury, should enter upon the hearing free from all prejudice...That the  oath of a member of a Court Martial is no greater guaranty that justice will be done than the oath of a juror...A particular member of  the Court is not an impartial Judge...Such member should be relieved....” In an unusual timeline, Pitman left the Army three months  after penning this letter, to matriculate in West Point. Graduating in 1867, he rejoined, reaching the rank of Brig. Gen. in 1906.  Pleasing uniform cream toning, two minute tears at blank top edge, else fine. $70-100 

27-7. “As I told you I am married....”

Letter from a married man – propositioning a woman for an affair. From W.H. Vanlin, on stationery of Hotel Wawonda, Liberty,  Sullivan County, N.Y., June 14, 1898, 5¾ x 9¼, 2 full pp. To Miss Wilson at a P.O. Box in N.Y.C. “Glad to hear from you and to learn  that my frank letter was received with favor. You say you are looking for a true friend and if I am willing to be one, you will be happy to  meet me. Well, my Girl, this I will tell you. I am a Gentleman and have a kind Heart and would use any Lady that made a friend of me  as a Gentleman should use a Lady. As I told you I am married and of course if an intimacy should occur between us I of course aught to  be well assured that you would be true as far as divulging anything and that you would not in any way give me away. I am stopping at  present at the Hotel. It is a charming place in the mountains. If you could leave the City for a short time, why can you not write the  Prop(rieto)r of Hotel and see if you can get a room...Can you do Typewriting? If so, you might write him asking a situation if you cared  for it. In this way we could meet each other. Of course as I before said, everything would need to be on the quiet, and you would have to  guard yourself well. Can you do it and could I trust you?...Of course we are strangers are present...I trust I should be more than pleased  with you and that you would prove yourself to be a refined discreet Lady...In next Letter tell me your age and style, whether stout or  not....” Some browning at upper left portion, else fine. • Envelope, hotel cornercard in stylish type, fine 2¢ red postage stamp. Minor  postal wear at corners, else fine. Letters with such content are understandably almost never encountered. $120-150 (2 pcs.) 

27-8. Water Problems in Montana.

T.L.S. of W.D. Dodds, Pres., Fred Burr & Granite Ditch Co., Granite, Montana, Nov. 25, 1890, 8¼ x 11, 2 pp. Highly stylized  typography; early all-caps typewriter in purple. To Silver Bow Water Co., Butte. “We have been under considerable expense in various  ways for construction, and have hardly arrived at a point yet where there is much net income. We were not aware of this tax and agree  with you that such a tax is unreasonable and unjust. Water companies are a public necessity...In our particular case the water supply  for all purposes in Granite came from a drift in one of the upper levels in the Granite Mountain mine for a number of years. On account  of the mine being opened up...the spring became nearly dried up. There was no other water available for domestic purposes and if our  company had not been organized, we do not know where the town would have gotten water. As it is, there is an abundance of strictly  pure water for all purposes...When anything which is as much of a public necessity as this enterprise, is placed in the same category  with saloon business and gambling &c. (which aside from not being a public necessity, are of themselves a tax and drain upon the  public) it shows very poor policy...Your idea of getting the matter fixed through State Legislature is the best method....” On “Oriole  Linen,” bird in watermark. Light wear, else fine. $60-80 

27-9. Firearms Letterheads.

Five ammunition-related letters: Union Metallic Cartridge Co., Bridgeport, Conn., 1902. Rich brown masthead. Discussing their new  style shells. “For our own protection, and the safety of riflemen, we do not recommend the re-loading or hand loading of High Power  cartridges...The soft point bullet having great impact and mashing power, while the full mantled bullet will be found accurate at long  range shooting.” • From Sales Dept., Winchester Repeating Arms Co., New Haven, 1918. Large oval bird’s-eye view of factory buildings  reaching into horizon. Red logo. “The 7.65 mm Luger cartridges, as loaded by us, develop a chamber pressure of 21,000 to 23,000 lbs.,  and the pressure that you suggest, 33,320 lbs., we would consider too high for safety in the ordinary 7.65 mm Luger pistol....” •  Hercules Powder Co., “Manufacturers of Explosives,” Wilmington, 1919. From Manager, Sporting Powder Div. Masthead listing  products, including “Dynamite...Blasting Powder, Black Sporting Powders, Smokeless Rifle Powders....” Recent competition wins at  bottom in red. To owner of the 7.65 Luger, giving velocity results using his weapon: “Our Ballistic Engineer advises that owing to  receiving a limited supply of ammunition, it was necessary to break down the cartridges to obtain components for reloading with our  powder...Will express your gun to you at once....” • Western Cartridge Co., E. Alton, Ill., 1931. Red logo. Lengthy letter: “...The average  chamber pressure of the .22 Long Rifle Super-X is 22,000 lbs...The Super-X cartridges should retail for about 5¢ more per box of fifty  than the regular cartridge...Some dealers, however...charge the same for Solid Ball and Hollow Point bullets on Rim Fire sizes....” •  Western Cartridge, to same customer. “...Due to the fact that the Colt Automatic Pistol was designed for a cartridge developing much  less recoil than the Super-X, cartridges are recommended in any standard make of arm except the automatic ...When used in automatic  rifles you should be sure that the recoil spring is in good condition....” Original postal folds, some handling, else very good. $80-120 (5  pcs.)

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