loc_zs.00121.jpg
Camden1
early PM Oct: 25 '90
Fine & sunny to-day rather cool—have signed & sent the contract with
Rheinhalter Bros: 18 Broad st: Phila: architects &c: for my burial house in
Harleigh Cemetery2—Ralph
Moore3 to have control
& charge under my name & be my representative4—no mail
today—dull & heavy, the grip on me—ate a fair
breakfast—fair night Tom Harned5 made a warm big
political speech last night, good (independent—mugwump6)
Hope you are having good times
Walt Whitman
loc_zs.00120.jpg
Correspondent:
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Dr Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. |
OCT 25 | 430 PM | 90; London | AM | OC 27 | 9O | Canada. [back]
- 2. Whitman was buried in
Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, on March 30, 1892, in an elaborate
granite tomb that he designed. Reinhalter and Company of Philadelphia built the
tomb, at a cost of $4,000. Whitman covered a portion of these costs with
money that his Boston friends had raised so that the poet could purchase a
summer cottage; the remaining balance was paid by Whitman's literary executor,
Thomas Harned. For more information on the cemetery and Whitman's tomb, see See
Geoffrey M. Still, "Harleigh Cemetery," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. Ralph Moore was the
superintendent of Harleigh Cemetery, where Whitman had had his marble tomb
built. [back]
- 4. J. E. Reinhalter, of P.
Reinhalter & Company, on October 11 urged
Whitman to "be kind enough and look over the paper wich I left with you [&]
see if all correct, as we are govern[ing] ourselfs according." He also said that
his "brother has gone to the Quarry in Massachusetts and will stay there untill
all the stones connected with your work are split out." See also Whitman's November 12–14, 1891 letter to Bucke. [back]
- 5. Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), 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). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972). [back]
- 6. A Mugwump was a political
activist who shifted from the Republican party to the Democratic party in the
1880s; for the rest of the century it was a common term for anyone who left one
political party for another. [back]