Title: Walt Whitman to Thomas Donaldson, 13 October 1885
Date: October 13, 1885
Whitman Archive ID: med.00717
Source: The current location of this manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:406. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
328 Mickle Street,
Camden, N.J.,
October 13, 1885.
Thank the Columbus Buggy Co., and their workmen, for the beautiful looking and practically perfect buggy furnished me. I get out in it every day—my only exercise—and I find it the easiest riding vehicle I ever sat in. Thank them for a most opportune kindness and generosity to me.
Walt Whitman.
Correspondent:
Thomas Donaldson
(1843–1898) was a lawyer from Philadelphia and a friend of Whitman. He
introduced Whitman to Bram Stoker and later accompanied Stoker when he visited
the poet; he also organized a fund-raising drive to buy Whitman a horse and
carriage. He authored a biography of Whitman titled Walt
Whitman, the Man (1896). For more information about Donaldson, see
Steven Schroeder, "Donaldson, Thomas (1843–1898)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).