Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 26 April 1889

Camden1 April 26 '89

Deeply hope this will find you easy & comfortable—N[elly]'s2 card rec'd yesterday3—weather rainy wh' we wanted—temperature mild—I have a big bunch of lilacs on the table near, (from my yard)—Have been looking over some vols: Stedman's4 big "Am: Literature"—seems to be all admirably done—I was reading Paul Jones's report to Congress (or his fight with the Serapis)5—it all came back to me.

Love always— Walt Whitman

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Notes

• 1. This letter is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | 1015 O Street N W | Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden (?) | Apr 26 | 8 PM | 89; Washington, Rec'd. | Apr 27 | 6 A M | 89 | 7. [back]
• 2. Ellen M. "Nelly" O'Connor (1830–1913) was the wife of William D. O'Connor (1832–1889), one of Whitman's staunchest defenders. Before marrying William, Ellen Tarr was active in the antislavery and women's rights movements as a contributor to the Liberator and to a women's rights newspaper Una. Whitman dined with the O'Connors frequently during his Washington years. Though Whitman and William O'Connor would temporarily break off their friendship in late 1872 over Reconstruction policies with regard to emancipated African Americans, Ellen would remain friendly with Whitman. The correspondence between Whitman and Ellen is almost as voluminous as the poet's correspondence with William. Three years after William O'Connor's death, Ellen married the Providence businessman Albert Calder. For more on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors, see Dashae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas [1832–1889]" and Lott's "O'Connor (Calder), Ellen ('Nelly') M. Tarr (1830–1913)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 3. Whitman is likely referring to Ellen Connor's letter dated April 24, 1889. [back]
• 4. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote "Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862. In 1862 and 1863 he was a private secretary in the Attorney General's office until he entered the firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The next year he opened his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets of America, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster, 1889–90). For more, see Donald Yannella, "Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833–1908)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 5. Jones's report can be found in Stedman, ed., The Library of American Literature 3 (New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1889), 380–387. [back]