Joseph C. Baldwin to Walt Whitman, 11 September 1877

About This Item

Title: Joseph C. Baldwin to Walt Whitman, 11 September 1877
Date: September 11, 1877
Creator(s): Joseph C. Baldwin
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04069
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados, ed. Charley Shively (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987), 134. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones Nima Najafi Kianfar Eder Jaramillo Nicole Gray
Cite this page: Baldwin, Joseph C.. "Joseph C. Baldwin to Walt Whitman, 11 September 1877." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 25 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.04069.xml (TEI)

Elliottstown, Illinois, September 11, 1877 Dear Walt

I am well now But I Have just got out of a bed of sickness.1 I Have Had the Intermiten fever and pretty Bad.

Walt a friend in need is a friend indeed. I will ask you wanst more to Help me a little if you could lend me ten Dollars for a short time say six weeks or two months until I can sell som corn. I will Have about 2000 Buishels But it wont be ripe for six weeks or two months and then I will send it Back to you with may thanks after I get things fixt up then I think I will pay you a visit and we will enjoy ourslves as of old

write just as soon as you get this,

yours truly, Joseph C. Baldwin

Notes

1. Joseph C. Baldwin was a young sharecropper living in Elliottstown, Illinois, who Whitman likely met in Camden in 1873. Baldwin is discussed in Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados, ed. Charley Shively (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987), 122–135. [back]