I have listen'd1 to his preaching so often when a child,2 and sat with my mother at social gatherings where he was the centre, and every one so pleas'd and stirr'd by his conversation. I hear that you contemplate writing or speaking about him, and I wonder'd whether you had a picture of him. As I am the owner of two, I send you one.
Correspondent:
Eliza Seaman Leggett
(1815–1900) was a suffragist and abolitionist who later founded the
Detroit Women's Club. She married Augustus Wright Leggett (1836–1855), and
the couple's home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Leggett, who was also
the grandmother of the artist Percy Ives, corresponded sporadically with Whitman
from 1880 until his death. A number of her letters to him are reprinted in
Thomas Donaldson's Walt Whitman: The Man (New York:
Francis P. Harper, 1896), 239–48. For more information on Leggett, see
Joann P. Krieg, "Walt Whitman's Long Island Friend: Eliza Seaman Leggett," Long Island Historical Journal 9 (Spring 1997),
223–33.