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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Gibson, Randall Lee, 1832-1892 to his father Tobias Gibson

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04501.003 Author/Creator: Gibson, Randall Lee, 1832-1892 Place Written: Lackland Lafourche, LA Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 16 September 1858 Pagination: 4 p. ; 20.5 x 16.5 cm. Order a Copy

Discussing the impact of the weather on crops at Live Oaks and Greenwood plantations, an order for "gas fixtures," and the incidence of fever in the vicinities. Tobias Gibson's family owned three plantations in Louisiana.

In part: "The health of the neighborhood is not at all good - the type of Fever, however, is mild & yields readily to treatment. Nearly everybody has been sick...The sooner you come the better - but you will observe that the Yellow Fever only assumes a more malignant type & may yet spread. It was after this that it was fatal in Thibodeaux."

Gibson, Randall Lee, 1832-1892

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