The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Edward P. Cattell to Walt Whitman, [26] November 1877
Date: November 26, 1877
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01252
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
Contributors to digital file: Vince Moran, Eder Jaramillo, Alicia Bones, Nicole Gray, and Stefan Schöberlein
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November th
dear Walt
i am well and i hope you are the Same old man.1 Would love to see you once moor for it seems an age Since i last met With you down at the pond and a lovely time we had of it to old man. i would like to Com up Som Saterday afternoon and Stay all night With you and Com home on the Sunday morning train. i love you Walt and Know that my love is returned so i will Close
from your friend
Edward P. Cattell
My Love to you Walt, i think of you in my prayers old man Every night and Morning
Notes:
1. In May 1876, Whitman met Edward Cattell, a young farm hand and a friend of the Staffords. The poet took an interest in the Cattell family: "about 25 or 6—folks mother, father &c. live at Gloucester—his grand, or great grandfather, Jonas Cattell, a great runner, & Revolutionary soldier, spy." Whitman referred to Jonas in the Philadelphia Times on January 26, 1879. Whitman took special interest, however, in Edward, as charged entries from one of his diaries make clear: "the hour (night, June 19, '76, Ed & I.) at the front gate by the road." Two days later he noted "the swim of the boys, Ed. [Stafford?], Ed. C. & Harry" (Diary Notes in Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). In 1877 Whitman cited "Sept meetings Ed C by the pond at Kirkwood moonlight nights" (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), and in Diary Notes on October 29, "Ed. Cattell with me." [back]