I received a letter from you some time since2 but have been obliged to delay answering it on a/c of an accident which happened to me about that time. I got the thumb of my right hand in to some Cog Wheels and smashed it pretty fine so that I have not been able to do anything since nor am I likely to be able for a month yet.3
At what time do you expect to visit New York this Summer if at all.
My thumb is very Painful so that I can not write much at present but will do so as soon as it gets well. My family are all well.4
Write soon
Yours with Love B. H. Wilson. loc_vm.01448_large.jpg loc_vm.01441_large.jpg B H Wilson loc_vm.01442_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Benton H. Wilson (1843–1914?)
was the son of Henry Wilson (1805–1870)—a harness and trunk maker—and
Ann S. Williams Wilson (1809–1887). Benton Wilson was a U. S. Civil War soldier recovering in Armory Square Hospital
in Washington, D.C., when he met Whitman. Later, Wilson was employed selling melodeons and sewing machines. He also
sold life insurance and may have worked as a pawnbroker. He married
Nellie Gage Morrell Wilson (ca. 1841–1892). Nellie had two children, Lewis
and Eva Morrell, from a previous marriage, and she and Benton were the parents of five children.
Wilson named his first child "Walter Whitman Wilson," after the poet; their other
children were Austin, Irene, Georgie, and Kathleen Wilson. Benton Wilson's
correspondence with Whitman spanned a decade, lasting from 1865 to 1875.