If I have been tardy in seeming rembrance of you & your deserts it is because during the past decade of years I have been myself among the breakers; and clouds, tempests, & darkness have been about me; but now I once more see the sun.
I beg your acceptance of the enclosed1 & though but trifling, it will nevertheless show what my feelings are & what more I would like to do.
You remember Wells2—of Fowler & Wells Phrenologists.3 Through him & other of your friends, in Bolton,4 (though never having had the pleasure to meet you, personally) I have always felt that I knew you. Your good deeds to our country were during the war & under circumstances more trying and perilous than mine; which were before; & because of which, war came; for had Kansas been made a Slave State, there would never have been war: the Country would have become all Slave!—I was in the struggle to prevent Kansas being made a Slave State & my name must have been known to you in those days & familiar.
I am, dear friend Very Sincerely Yours, Thaddeus Hyatt loc.02340.002_large.jpg see notes Nov. 11 1891Correspondent:
Thaddeus Hyatt
(1816–1901) was an abolitionist and industrialist. Born in New Jersey,
Hyatt moved to Kansas in the 1850s with a plan to develop local industry, where
he befriended abolitionist John Brown. Following Brown's execution in 1859,
Hyatt raised funds to support Brown's widow and children and was brought to
Washington, D.C., to testify before the U.S. Senate committee investigating the
events at Harper's Ferry. After refusing to testify, he was jailed at Capitol
Prison for three months. Upon release, he briefly served as American consul at
La Rochelle, France, before building a home in London using his own patented
concrete. There, he developed the translucent paving tiles that made him a small
fortune. During the last years of his life, Hyatt divided his time between
Brooklyn and the British Isles and died in 1901 while vacationing with his
family on the Isle of Wight. He is the author of several books, including The Prayer of Thaddeus Hyatt to James Buchanan, President of
the United States, in Behalf of Kansas (Washington: Henry Polkinhorn,
1860) and Love's Seasons, or Tides of the Heart (New
York: Fowler and Wells, 1892). For more information, see Steven Lubet, John Brown's Spy: The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession
of John E. Cook (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).