Billy Thompson, of Gloucester,1 has just been here to invite me down to baked shad dinner at his place, Tuesday next, abt 2.2—Wishes me to invite you in his name & my own—You come here say ½ past 12 & we will drive down in my rig—Be back by dark or before. . . .
Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel, was Horace Traubel's
brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).