Title: H. N. Whitman to Walt Whitman, 20 November 1883
Date: November 20, 1883
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04620
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "(ans'd Nov 27 '83," is in the hand of Walt Whitman.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Meyer, Stefan Schoeberlein, Kirsten Clawson, and Nicole Gray
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[Cambridge?],
Nov 20th 1883.
Dear Sir:
your copy of Poems is at hand in good condition, with your Note of the 15th Inst.
In complyance I enclose and mail to your addres a Post order for three dollars.
Now Sir; as I have purchased a copy of your Poems, will you please inform me by return mail how far you can trace back your genealogy. I have a pamphlet which goes back eight generations to the first Whitman that came from England to America.
Mr [Farnam?] of New Haven is now getting up a more general and complete [one?]
I had an Uncle John (a [illegible]) who lived in New York. (Levi and Elinor) who lived in Massachusetts, and Josiah, who died in Michigan over 90 years old, leaving several sons.
When I hear of one bearing the name it is always gratifying to me to know which branch they descended from.
Yours truly
H. N. Whitman