loc.01194.002_large.jpg
Office of
WAKEFIELD EARTH CLOSET CO.,
34 Dey Street,
New York,
Sept 23d
18761
I would like to know how much of our indebtedness to you Dec. 1st '74 has
since been paid by C. P. Somerby2 who
assumed the whole indebtedness. An early reply will oblige
Asa K. Butts
Correspondent:
Asa K. Butts was a New York
bookseller who went bankrupt in 1874. In the mid-1870s, Butts tried to help
Whitman procure legal counsel during Whitman's difficulties with book agents who
allegedly embezzled from him.
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Mr Walt Whitman, | Camden, | N.J. It is postmarked: NEW-YORK | SEP 23
| 130 PM. [back]
- 2. Charles P. Somerby was one of the book dealers whom
Walt Whitman termed "embezzlers." In 1875, Somerby assumed the liabilities of
Butts & Co.; see Whitman's February 4, 1874,
letter to Asa K. Butts & Company. This proved to be a matter of
embarrassment to Somerby, who, in reply to a lost letter on March 16, 1875, was
unable "to remit the amount you name at present." On May
5, 1875, he wrote: "It is very mortifying to me not to be in a
position to send you even a small portion of the balance your due." On October 4, 1875, Somerby sent $10—his
only cash payment: "Have made every exertion to raise the $200 you require,
and find it utterly impossible to get it. . . . We had hoped that you would
accept our offer to get out your new book, and thus more than discharge our
indebtedness to you." On April 19, 1876, Somerby
reported that "I have been losing, instead of gaining." On May 6, 1876, he sent Whitman a statement
pertaining to some volumes; on May 12, 1876, he
included a complete financial statement: in eighteen months he had made only one
cash payment, and owed Walt Whitman $215.17. The firm was still unable to
make a payment on September 28, 1876. In August
1877, Whitman received a notice of bankruptcy dated August 8, 1877,
from, in his
own words, "assignee [Josiah Fletcher, an attorney] of the rascal Chas P.
Somerby." These manuscripts are in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [back]