It a long time cince I heard from you and thinking you would like to hear from me thought I wright you a line or two to see how you are geting along I am as well as can be I should like to hear from you very much I have got a good place and are doing well I like it very much I wilull send you a card 480 Bway I supose you will loc.01869.008_large.jpg come on here soon to spend one or two months and then I shall see you It is very warm here yesterday we had a very hard thunder storm and it done a great deal of dammage along the North River & distroye Houses and trees and fruit things is very quite here except a murder now and then so now I will close with my love
good by from you affecinate Son and Friend John M RogersTo my Dear Father
write Soon
loc.01869.011_large.jpg John Rogers ans. June 2 '71. loc.01869.012_large.jpgCorrespondent:
John (Jack) M. Rogers was a
Brooklyn driver with whom Whitman had a loving relationship. Whitman
first met him in Brooklyn on September 21, 1870. For more on Rogers and his
relationship with the poet, see Charley Shively, ed., Calamus
Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working-Class Camerados (San Francisco: Gay
Sunshine Press, 1987), 122–135.