William Ingram to Walt Whitman, 24 December 1890
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William S. Ingram,
DEALER IN
TEA, COFFEE, SUGAR AND SPICES.
31 N. SECOND STREET.
(Opposite Christ Church.)
Phila., Pa.,
12 mo 24 1890
Walt Whitman.
Dear Friend:
I send you over to-day Tea, Coffee Spices and a bottle of wine as a Christmas Present.
Hoping you will have a pleasant one and many of them
I remain your friend, Wm Ingram per W S.I.
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Correspondent:
William Ingram, a Quaker, kept a tea
store—William Ingram and Son Tea Dealers—in Philadelphia. Of Ingram,
Whitman observed to Horace Traubel: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine
stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to
alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of
prisoners in jails, who are his protégés" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, May 20, 1888). Ingram and his wife visited the physician
Richard Maurice Bucke and his family in Canada in 1890.