Title: Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 31 May 1889
Date: May 31, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: med.00300
Source: Location of original letter manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from Thomas Jefferson Whitman, Dear Brother Walt: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman, ed. Dennis Berthold and Kenneth M. Price (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984), 188. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, Kathryn Kruger, and April Lambert
St. Louis,
May 31, 18891
To Walt Whitman—
Congratulations on reaching the seventy notch. Hope you will complete another score.
1. Jeff sent Whitman this telegram on the occasion of the poet's seventieth birthday. Berthold and Price reprinted it from Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman: May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams, ed. Horace L. Traubel (Philadelphia: David McKay), 71. The telegram is the last known message between the brothers. [back]