The Property of
The Estate of PAUL KILBORN
LINCOLN, MARY, First Lady. Autograph letter signed ("M. Lincoln") to Mrs. H[annah] R[athbun] Shearer, Springfield, [Illinois], 10 July [1859]. 2 pages, 8vo, 180 x 112 mm. (7 1 16 x 4 1/8 in.), evenly browned, clean fold separations patched, with original envelope, addressed in Mary's hand to: "Mrs. H.S. Shearer Wellsboro Tioga Co. Penn. Care of Dr. Shearer," with black circular "Springfield 13 June 1859" postmark and original stamp; matted together and glazed in a giltwood frame.
Details
LINCOLN, MARY, First Lady. Autograph letter signed ("M. Lincoln") to Mrs. H[annah] R[athbun] Shearer, Springfield, [Illinois], 10 July [1859]. 2 pages, 8vo, 180 x 112 mm. (7 1 16 x 4 1/8 in.), evenly browned, clean fold separations patched, with original envelope, addressed in Mary's hand to: "Mrs. H.S. Shearer Wellsboro Tioga Co. Penn. Care of Dr. Shearer," with black circular "Springfield 13 June 1859" postmark and original stamp; matted together and glazed in a giltwood frame.
A chatty and somewhat wistful letter to one of Mary's closest friends who had moved away from Springfield. "For some days past, particularly since the fourth, I have anticipated writing you a letter and give [giving] you an account of some of us...We had a children's and grown people's picnic on that day, out at Col. McClernand's farm, for the first time, since you left, had the pleasure of meeting your good sister. You can perhaps imagine how much you were missed & how frequently your name was mentioned, on that day. Pray how are you passing the time?
"Mrs. McClernand's health, has improved a good deal, she had some idea of going to some springs in Virginia, I am almost disposed to think, she will not go. You speak of visiting New York in September, you will doubtless have a pleasant time. I should like to fly away, and be at rest, this summer, yet I remember that I have taken mine ease so extensively. I miss our cosy meetings of the olden time & when I think they will never return, then I am sad indeed. We have at least the opportunity of frequent interchange of letters, I hope you will frequently remember me, in that way. Remember me kindly to the Dr. & boys. Hoping to hear from you...."
As Mary's biographer's note: "In 1859 Mary Lincoln began a correspondence with a friend and former neighbor, Mrs. John Henry Shearer. Hannah Shearer was the sister of a local Baptist clergyman, Noyes W. Minor, also a freidn of the Lincolns. She had moved to Springfield from Brooklyn, New York, with her two sons after the death of her husband, Edward Rathbun, and in 1858 had married Shearer, a physician. For nearly a year the couple lived directly across Eighth Street from the Lincolns, until a tubercular condition obliged the doctor to move with his family to the mountain town of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. The letters Mary Lincoln wrote Hannah Shearer...give vivid glimpses of her activities during the bust period where Lincoln was turning the senatorial defeat into the larger victory... (Justin G. Turner and Linda Leavitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, 1987, p.54). Col. John A. McClernand (1812-1900), like Lincoln a veteran of the Black Hawk War, was a prominent Springfield resident and Democratic Congressman. During the slavery debates, he favored Douglas's concept of "popular sovereignty." During the Civil War he rose to the rank Major General and served (reluctantly) under Grant at Shiloh and Vicksburg, but was removed from command by Grant in June 1863. Mary Lincoln's letter is not in Turner and Turner's edition (it predates all the letters to Hannah Shearer printed there) and is apparently unpublished.
A chatty and somewhat wistful letter to one of Mary's closest friends who had moved away from Springfield. "For some days past, particularly since the fourth, I have anticipated writing you a letter and give [giving] you an account of some of us...We had a children's and grown people's picnic on that day, out at Col. McClernand's farm, for the first time, since you left, had the pleasure of meeting your good sister. You can perhaps imagine how much you were missed & how frequently your name was mentioned, on that day. Pray how are you passing the time?
"Mrs. McClernand's health, has improved a good deal, she had some idea of going to some springs in Virginia, I am almost disposed to think, she will not go. You speak of visiting New York in September, you will doubtless have a pleasant time. I should like to fly away, and be at rest, this summer, yet I remember that I have taken mine ease so extensively. I miss our cosy meetings of the olden time & when I think they will never return, then I am sad indeed. We have at least the opportunity of frequent interchange of letters, I hope you will frequently remember me, in that way. Remember me kindly to the Dr. & boys. Hoping to hear from you...."
As Mary's biographer's note: "In 1859 Mary Lincoln began a correspondence with a friend and former neighbor, Mrs. John Henry Shearer. Hannah Shearer was the sister of a local Baptist clergyman, Noyes W. Minor, also a freidn of the Lincolns. She had moved to Springfield from Brooklyn, New York, with her two sons after the death of her husband, Edward Rathbun, and in 1858 had married Shearer, a physician. For nearly a year the couple lived directly across Eighth Street from the Lincolns, until a tubercular condition obliged the doctor to move with his family to the mountain town of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. The letters Mary Lincoln wrote Hannah Shearer...give vivid glimpses of her activities during the bust period where Lincoln was turning the senatorial defeat into the larger victory... (Justin G. Turner and Linda Leavitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, 1987, p.54). Col. John A. McClernand (1812-1900), like Lincoln a veteran of the Black Hawk War, was a prominent Springfield resident and Democratic Congressman. During the slavery debates, he favored Douglas's concept of "popular sovereignty." During the Civil War he rose to the rank Major General and served (reluctantly) under Grant at Shiloh and Vicksburg, but was removed from command by Grant in June 1863. Mary Lincoln's letter is not in Turner and Turner's edition (it predates all the letters to Hannah Shearer printed there) and is apparently unpublished.