Camden1
August 15—3 p m2
Dear Harry
I wrote Bart Bonsall a note yesterday about getting you a situation, & stopt there ab't noon to see him to-day—but they told me he was away & would not be back to-day—There is no news to write—all goes on pretty much the same with me—Harry, I send you a couple of to-day's papers—Things rather dull with me—I am only middling well—(have probably banged around too much the last three months & too much excitement)—
WW
I will be down Saturday in the 4½ p m train3—
Notes
- 1. The envelope for this letter
bears the address: Harry L Stafford | Kirkwood | Camden County | New Jersey. It
is postmarked: Camden | Aug | 15 | N.J. [back]
- 2. On August 14, Whitman
applied for a situation for Harry Stafford to Bartram Bonsall, coeditor of the
Camden Daily Post with his father, Henry Lummis
Bonsall. Henry established the Camden New Republic after
the Civil War and later founded the Post, which he sold
to his son in 1883; see George R. Prowell, The History of
Camden County (Philadelphia: L.J. Richards & Co., 1886),
325–326. Harry began to work at Haddonfield, N.J., about August 20, either
for a newspaper or in a printing plant (see the letter from Whitman to Edward
Carpenter of September 1, 1878). Probably Whitman
was seeking a position for Harry when he wrote on October 9 to William Taylor,
the editor of the Woodstown (N.J.) Constitution
(Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of
Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). On
November 13 Whitman noted that Harry was at "Atco," but after his visit on
December 31, the poet wrote in his Commonplace Book: "has left Atco." [back]
- 3. Whitman was at Kirkwood
from August 17, Saturday, to August 20 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). [back]