January 17, 1825

Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Cummings, Hilliard & Company

Jefferson mentions ordering books for the schools of art and modern languages and ancient and modern history. He writes concerning courses in law at the University of Virginia and the need for books, especially "Thomas' edition of Coke Littleton published not long since in London. it is the first book which will be put into the hands of our law Students, and will in fact be the elementary book of the school" and is therefore "the most essential and most immediately necessary..." He notes that they will need to order the edition from London and gives a detailed description and how much it…

GLC00782.12

March 7, 1868

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818-1882

Autograph letter signed

Title: to A. D. Worthington

Mary Todd Lincoln refuses a request to help with a biography of her husband, Abraham Lincoln, citing poor health and the many false accounts already written about him. "So many pretentious persons, who were quite strangers to my husband & our household ... all claiming such intimate knowledge of the lamented President that I have been frequently startled with their varied & inaccurate accounts." She goes on to express that, "It will be impossible for me ... to subject myself to the annoyance of public clamor." She asks that their correspondence be kept private. Letter marked private…

GLC00782.15

1866-1892

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

Header Record

Title: [Collection of 2 documents pertaining to Herman Melville.] [Decimalized .01-.02]

GLC00768

1866

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

Book signed

Title: Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.

First edition of Melville's only book of poetry. Inscribed on inital blank facing the titlepage: "Major Edward Y. Lansing from H. Melville. As a souvenir of his soldier hospitality at the cavalry camp in the Virginia woods, April 1864." Also inscriped by Lansing in pencil on page 187 above the peom "The Scout toward Aldis": "Major Edwin Y. Lansing's cavalry camp in the Virginia woods, April 1864." In April, 1864 Melville and his brother obtained a pass to visit the front to search for their cousin, Colonel Henry Gansevoort. Melville met Lansing in a scouting party he and his brother…

GLC00768.01

October 5, 1780

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Elizabeth Schuyler

Hamilton begins a dramatic love letter to his fiancée with, " I have told you, and I told you truly that I love you too much . . . I meet you in every dream. . . I am to be thus monopolized by a little nut brown maid like you and from a Statesman and soldier metamorphosed into a puny lover." He continues on to say how much he misses her, but that he must remain until Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison returns. He states that he will not be delayed past November and assures her that he is doing everything in his power to return. He descriptively explains how much he loves and misses her…

GLC00773

23 September 1789

Fenno, John, 1751-1798

Newspaper

Title: Gazette of the United States. [No. XLVII (September 23, 1789)]

Reports on the Senate proceedings and prints twelve proposed amendments to the Constitution, an early form of the Bill of Rights. Reports on a debate in the House of Representatives on judicial salaries. Contains news from Europe, including the French Revolution, with a report on France's new Constitution. Features a continuation of a printing of "The Right Constitution of a Common Wealth Examined." Also contains a continuation of Noah Webster's criticisms of Edward Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

GLC01063

1871

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892

Book signed

Title: Democratic Vistas

First edition inscribed to Matthew Brady, the Civil War photographer. In this essay, Whitman discusses the theory of democracy and its possibilities in America after the Civil War. He criticizes America for its unrestrained wealth, materialism, and corruption. With 3 bookplates tipped in or mounted to inside front cover & front end paper of William F. Gable, Thomas J. McKee, and B. George Ulizio. With two pages of notes by Whitman in pencil describing his directions for revisions of the book and an autograph letter by Horace Traubel dated 20 February 1908 relating to this copy and…

GLC00865

22 June 1864

Joy, George Mills, fl. 18301-864

Newspaper

Title: North Carolina times [Vol. 1, no. 44 (June 22, 1864)]

Union occupation newspaper. Contains a stories called "The Miser's Bequest" and "A Man Who Works Without Pay." Also comments on Ulysses S. Grant crossing a river to Covington and Harriet Beecher Stowe's "panegyric on President Lincoln." Includes Civil War articles, such as "The Success of Lincoln and Johnson a Death Blow to the Rebellion," referring to the election of 1864. Other articles comment on the movements of the Army of the Potomac, Yankee prisoners, and a mutiny, blockades, and "Southern Harmony." There is also a "Rebel Letter" and an article on the "Petersburg Capture." Prints laws…

GLC00900.02

November 20, 1861

Greeley, Horace, 1811-1872

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Henry S. Randall

Greeley writes to Randall, a biographer of Thomas Jefferson, about the relative qualities of Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. Expresses thanks for Randall's "vindication of Jefferson from the personal calumnies which had somewhat blackened his reputation." He expresses his reverence and love for Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence but wishes Randall had "let him have some venial faults" to make him appear more human. He indicates that he has greater admiration for Hamilton, who he attributes greater responsibility "In building a…

GLC00935

1866-1886

Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891

Header Record

Title: Materials relating to the writing of William T. Sherman's memoirs [Decimalized .01-.03]

These three documents all appear to have been written on pages taken from a history of Julius Caesar given to Sherman by Charles McMillan.

GLC00955

January 25, 1789

Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Bridge

Adams describes acting like a recluse, spending most of his time in study. He praises the fourth volume of Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Adams asks that if Bridge sees a mutual friend, Stacey, to ask him to return Adams' copy of a work by Henry St. John Bolingbroke. He also asks Bridge to retrieve Adams' copies of Saunderson's Algebra and four volumes of Busson's works in French.

GLC00958.03

August 10, 1791

Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Bridge

Adams denies that his father had any part in writing the Publicola letters, which attacked Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" as too radical. Adams does acknowledge that he is the author, claiming that idleness motivated his effort to "dabble in political speculation." The letter reveals Adams' knowledge of his father's abuse by enemies. Adams also expresses mixed feelings about participating in politics. Information about Adams' law practice and news about the lives of various mutual friends also appears.

GLC00958.07

March 13, 1837

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Samuel Joseph May

Greenleaf invites May to the quarterly meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Lynn, Massachusetts. He indicates that "Stanton, Garrison, Loring, Sewall, everybody wishes thee to be with us on the occasion." Mentions a Missouri statement from years ago against admitting Missouri as a slave state.

GLC00979

November 1891

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 1841-1935

Book signed

Title: Speeches By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior.

Inscribed to philanthropist Charles Fairchild and signed with initials "O. W. H." With autograph explanatory notes on Civil War persons mentioned in his speeches, including W. Putnam, W.F. Cabot, James Lowell, General Charles Lowell, Paul Revere (grandson of the Revolutionary figure), E.H.H. Revere, N. Hayward, Rather, H. Abbott, Charles R. Lowell, and W.F. Bartlett. Published by Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. In original brown paper boards.

GLC01001

1844

Book

Title: The Negro forget-me-not songster, the only work published, containing all the Negro songs, that have ever appeared.

Signed on free front endpaper by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "H. W. Longfellow." Original cloth spine laid onto modern leather. Title on spine: "Nigga forget-me-not songster." Published by Turner & Fisher. Songs written in "dialect," and some are accompanied by black and white illustrations.

GLC00796

June 23, 1828

Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Levi Woodbury

The letter is introducing Henry Lee to the recipient, and requesting that Woodbury offer any possible assistance on his research of a recent war.

GLC00801

January 16, 1840

Fillmore, Millard, 1800-1874

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Solomon Haven

Fillmore writes as a U.S. Representative to Haven, serving as lawyer in Buffalo, New York. He complains of the cold, writing "People here know nothing of comfort in cold weather. Their houses are all built for a southern summer, but by some mistake we have now got a northern winter." Remarks that Mitchell (possibly Representative Charles F. Mitchell, also from New York) made an exposé the previous day in the House of Representatives, and that it will be published in the following day's Intelligencer. He remarks "The day has been wholly spent in discussing abolition- All the insolent…

GLC01088

30 June 1895

Sarony, Napoleon, 1821-1896

Photograph signed

Title: [Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe]

One portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe taken by Sarony dated June 30, 1895. Inscribed to Frank Leonard. Signed twice, recto and verso after an excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin.

GLC01091

1751

Oliver, Daniel, fl. 1751

Manuscript

Title: Poem, "To a young Friend"

GLC01450.313

July 3, 1751

Bertram, Charles, 1723-1765

Autograph letter signed

Title: to unknown

Bertram, later discovered to be a literary imposter, writes to an unknown recipient (possibly to William Stukeley). Reports that when he receives the recipient's reply, he will deliver "Richard," a historical manuscript which he claimed to have found, to the press. Contains various questions related to British history and geography. Discusses the possibilities of the origin of "Richard's" author. Offers condolence regarding the death of the Prince of Wales. On page one, includes a watercolor of a prehistoric Celtic dolmen; Bertram states that he saw this kistvaen on the road toward Holt,…

GLC01450.449

1779

Morris, Gouverneur, 1752-1816

Book

Title: Observations on the American Revolution

Morris' notes on the conduct of Biritish and American forces, and on the revolution. Published by Styner & Cist.

GLC01450.805.01

February 24, 1779

Manuscript document

Title: [Payments made by Congress]

Short list of debits and credits of the Continental Congress from 31 October 1778 to 24 February 1779, relating to the printing of "Observations on the American Revolution," written by Gouverneur Morris. Two debits are to the printers Styner & Cist. The first payment of 680 pounds on 31 October 1778 was for the printing of 1300 copies of the book. The second payment of 450 pounds on 24 February 1779 was an advance for wages and bookbinders work. Credit on 16 November 1778, says 210 pound balance from a former account was delivered to William Drayton. The credit on 31 December 1778…

GLC01450.805.02

1758-1793

Header Record

Title: Collection of items pertaining to Doctor John Lorimer [Decimalized .01-.07]

Contains appointments related to Lorimer's service as a surgeon, letters written to and from Lorimer, certificates regarding Lorimer's participation in the Icelandic Literary Society and the Aberdonian Medical Society, documents related to the Lorimer family coat of arms, a miniature portrait of Lorimer, and a tin case.

GLC01450.807

1791-1793

Header Record

Title: Certificates admitting Dr. John Lorimer to the Icelandic Literary Society and the Abredonian Medical Society [Decimalized .01-.03]

GLC01450.807.05

14 June 1788

Moore, Thomas Lambert, 1758-1799

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Lucy Knox

Updates Lucy on the progress of her son, Henry. Writes, "Master Henry's advances in the Latin are such as I hope will please you sufficiently... His mind appears strong, and his judgment solid- his ideas are lively and his memory sufficiently retentive." Sends regards to the Knox family, and notes that the clothes she sent Henry have been safely delivered.

GLC02437.03893