i received your letter to day thursday with the money all right i thought it was a goner as i dident get it yesterday i couldent hardley give it up yesterday as you wrote in your fridays letter i would get your letter on wensday but it come to day very welcome
mr Burrous
has not been to see me i
was exspecting him every day after you
wrote2
but he dident come) i have not heard
from jeff3
nor matty4
since i wrote last to
you)5
edd6
said the letter man asked
him to day why his mother dident get
any more letters i used to get so many
matty used to write quite often and
Jeffy once in a while but they have all
seemed to fall off)
but the good old
standby if he should fail me i should
have nothing to look for but i gess there
is no danger is there walter dear as long
as you have your old mamma i
often think how loth many is to have children
and what would become of me if i had none
duk.00545.002.jpg
Janey mc clure7 that is nanc s brothers
wife8 was here the other day she came
to see if cornell9 had been to see me
about the children she sends them the
most saucy letters they think if they should
doo any think
she would not be any too
good to kill her brother Edd thats the
one in the new court house)10
i have come
to the conclusion there is but one way
to doo and that is to send them to the
nursery to flatbush11
there is no institution
in the city that they would be taken as
they are janey thinks that is the only
place that she couldent get them out
i cant begin to tell and i dont want too
half the worse that wreched woman
does i dont know walter how you
feel about their being taken there
but i know that i should feel much
better than to have them sent out begging
it would be no disgrace as there
is many there that is of good parentage
there they would be clothed and fed
if they ever can be cleaned janey says the are
so dirty that you would not know they
were ever clean12
i14 am about the same as usual feel quite smart at times
they are digging the cellar at georges lot he had it survayed yesterday15
According to Clara Barrus, John Burroughs (1837–1921) visited Louisa Van Velsor Whitman in Brooklyn in late June (Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller [New York: New York University Press, 1961–77], 2:37, n. 10). However, Walt Whitman also wrote on July 10–13, 1868 that John Burroughs "may call upon you on his way home." If Walt Whitman informed his mother in a June letter that Burroughs might visit, that letter is not extant, but more than one visit by Burroughs, who traveled regularly, is also reasonable.
Burroughs met Walt Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864, and Whitman in 1864 commenced what was to become a lifelong correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs wrote several books involving or devoted to Whitman's work: Birds and Poets (1877), Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting the Universe (1924). Ursula North (1836–1917) married John Burroughs in 1857 and also became a friend to Walt Whitman. For more on Whitman's relationship with the Burroughs family, see "Burroughs, John (1837–1921) and Ursula (1836–1917)."
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The cellar was probably for the house in the lot on 1149 Atlantic Avenue. Louisa Van Velsor Whitman followed up on George Washington Whitman's difficulty in locating a surveyor and with his progress on the cellar in her July 1, 1868 letter to Walt Whitman. George purchased the property outright from his partner—a man named Smith—and Louisa and son Edward moved there in late September (see her August 26, 1868 letter to Walt and Walt's September 25, 1868 letter to Peter Doyle).
George Washington Whitman (1829–1901) was the sixth child of Louisa Van Velsor Whitman and Walter Whitman, Sr., and ten years Walt Whitman's junior. George enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 and remained on active duty until the end of the Civil War. He was wounded in the First Battle of Fredericksburg (December 1862) and was taken prisoner during the Battle of Poplar Grove (September 1864). After the war, George returned to Brooklyn and began building houses on speculation, with a partner named Smith and later a mason named French. George eventually took up a position as inspector of pipes in Brooklyn and Camden. For more information on George, see "Whitman, George Washington."
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