Title: Walt Whitman to Camden Horse Railroad Company, [?] December 1885
Date: December [?], 1885
Whitman Archive ID: med.00777
Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. Genoways derives his transcription of a facsimile of a draft of the letter that was published on the Gallery of History Auction website. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 7:79. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
If convenient would you [send] horse & wagon pass for '86—same as this returned—many thanks.1
Camden City
Office Horse RR
Correspondent:
The Camden Horse
Railroad Company, constructed in 1871 and expanded through the 1880s, was the
city's first attempt to connect inland parts of Camden with the ferryboats. The
lines were converted to electricity in 1889.
1. Whitman used the verso of this draft as a mailing label for S. R. Henderson's copy of Complete Poems & Prose (1888), sent on December 23, 1890. The label reads: "S R Henderson | p o box 838 | Los Angeles | California | f'm Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey." Henderson appears to have noted receipt of the package on December 30, as "12–30" appears in pencil in another hand. [back]