The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to George and Susan Stafford, 20 June [1880]
Date: June 20, 1880
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04260
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: Eder Jaramillo, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Stefan Schoeberlein, and Nicole Gray
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Lake Huron
June 20
Dear friends all
I have come on some 200 miles further north & west (from Niagara) and am now very pleasantly quartered in Sarnia, Canada West, at the house of Mr and Mrs Pardee. (Mr P is one of the Queen's big officers here, & a tip-top fellow) I am writing this on Lake Huron. The weather is fine, & the country looks first rate. Susan I take every thing very easy, & so far I have felt unusually well & comfortable in health. George you would be interested in the way they farm here, it is a noble farming country but very different from Jersey new, plenty of good wood, hard soil, rather wet.—wheat, grass, barley &c mainly—not much corn & hardly any rye—good for potatoes—all later—I enclose you a letter I have written for the papers1—George, Harry & Mont, it will give you some idea of my goings about here—Susan I know you will be interested in it—(I shall send it you in a paper here, in about five days, & then I want you to give it to Debby)—Harry, how are you getting along?—Edward Carpenter's address is 45 Brunswick Square, Brighton England—The waters here Lake Huron & St Clair river are as fine as I ever saw, & alive with steamers & sail craft—Every body is kind & hospitable wherever I go—to morrow forenoon I am to visit a Chippewa Indian village out a ways—& in the evening a moonlight steamboat excursion up Lake Huron, they have prepared for us. I often think of you all. If any of you write, direct to me London, Ontario, Canada & I will get it. (3 cent stamp only required) Harry you write, dear boy—I go back to London Thursday—
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. The letter "for the papers" was "Summer Days in Canada," which Whitman sent to many newspapers for publication on June 22. See the letter from Whitman to Whitelaw Reid of June 17, 1880. [back]