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Senate W
Jan 4 67
Dear Sir:
Mr Hyde1 of Burlington Vt, has sent by me a small package2 for you. It is at my room 419 N.Y. av..3 Please call for
it.
Yours
truly
Geo. F. Edmunds
Mr W Whitman
Atty Gener Office
Correspondent:
George Franklin Edmunds (1828–1919) was a
lawyer and, later, a Republican senator from Vermont, serving from 1866 to 1891.
Edmunds was a participant in the 1868 attempt to impeach President Andrew
Johnson. He co-sponsored the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 that restricted
practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including
polygamy. Edmunds also authored the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), limiting
monopolies.
Notes
- 1. Charles Louis Heyde (ca.
1820–1892), a French-born landscape painter, married Hannah Louisa Whitman
(1823–1908), Walt Whitman's sister, and they lived in Burlington, Vermont.
Charles Heyde was infamous among the Whitmans for his offensive letters and poor
treatment of Hannah. For more information about Heyde, see Steven Schroeder,
"Heyde, Charles Louis (1822–1892)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. Whitman mentions this package in his
January 8, 1867, letter to his mother, Louisa
Van Velsor Whitman. The package contained a stereoscope with images of
Vermont. [back]
- 3. The
Congressional Directory of 1867 lists George F. Edmunds' Washington
residence as "419 N.Y. ave,. bet. Thirteenth and Fourteenth," what is today the
1400 block of New York Ave., NW. The 1867 edition of Boyd's
Directory of Washington & Georgetown lists this same address as a
part of Columbian College's National Medical College. [back]