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Correspondence of Rhoda Waterbury and
G. W. Clinton |
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Correspondence of Rhoda Waterbury and G. W. Clinton 1865 - 1867 Edited
by P. M. P.O. Box 299, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, 63166‑0299;
and Research Associate, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York, 14204.
Email: mailto:patricia.eckel@mobot.org February 1866 Vol.
2. No. 186 [D 37]
Warsaw, Feb. 13th, 1866 My
Dear Kind Mentor, I
ought to have written you before to thank you for the good kind letter that seemed
so grateful to sister and myself in our sad hours.
We know our little darling is safe, but oh it is so lonely though the
“angel presence” is at times a comfort and we must learn to live
without her and cheerfully go on until we meet. I feared you had already gone
to Albany so did not write, but Mr. Peck says they are still looking for you
there. He wrote in regard to a specimen of Fissidens
minutulus of which I sent you a specimen some time
in Aug., I think, after further examination he finds there was a mistake and
what I sent you under that name is in reality F. exiguus
and he further adds “you are the only one known to me who has found it
in the State” I remember at the time you remarked you had found F. minutulus but mine was more minute if possible than
yours. I am so disappointed about your visit to my home. You do not know what
castles I had built and how happy I was in anticipation. It is true I am near
you here but I fear it is rather out of your route and I have already taxed
your kindness so much I dare not ask you to devote your time to me so much
then too the beauties of my home was what I wanted you to see. You can never
really know why I am such a compound of inconsistencies until you see my
home, and do tell me now that you will keep your former promise and “if
the good God” spares you come and see me in summer. I was so happy last
summer how glad I am that my little pet was with me for two months and used
to go with me to gather flowers when I did not go too far, her name and voice
and face will always be associated with some of my little beauties in the
Herbarium. I don’t know but we are ungrateful to mourn when the kind
Father lent us such a sunbeam for ten years, and such a happy life as she
had. I will try to remember this and not repine for you say she still loves
*us, and I don’t know but you will think I am a spiritualist but I
think she is very near me. I
don’t know why you do not lose patience with me when I am so selfish
and tell you all my troubles, but I know you possess a great deal of quiet
happiness for you are such a blessing to so many and I know you have devoted
so much time the past year to me because you saw how much I enjoyed it, you
are very dear to me through your letters, ah how selfish I am, but I cannot
help it. I
must remain for a time with my sister as I am at liberty and she needs me, so
it must be duty, I have been with her in every great trial during her married
life and this is the second little darling she has sleeping in Mt. Hope. Well
my life is calm compared with hers as they say we single sisters know neither
the heights of joy nor the depths of sorrow that fall to the lot of others. I
can truly say I thank God that it is so. I know I have been very happy, and I
have some precious treasures in Heaven that seemed at first to be lost. You
see my old habit begins to show itself, I think loud when I write to my dear
friends I know you will excuse it. Please
write me again soon if you are not to busy As ever your disciple
Rhoda Waterbury Hon.
G. W. Clinton Recd. Feb. 17. ansd. March 16. There is a specimen in the Clinton Herbarium
(BUF): Fissidens exiguus Sullivant, USA New York Schoharie Co., Schoharie. Clinton’s collecting journal does not
indicate his movements or activities for 1866 before April of that year.
Letters from his correspondents, such as John Paine, Jr., are more
instructive. Mount Hope Cemetery is “located in
Brighton [Monroe County], near the s. line of the city. It embraces a lot of
70 acres located upon Mount Hope, the highest point of land in the vicinity,
and one completely overlooking the city. It is laid out in excellent taste,
and is one of the finest rural cemeteries in the country.” (French,
1860 p. 404). “Spiritism or
spiritualism, belief that the human personality continues to exist after
death and can communicate with the living through the agency of a medium or
psychic. The advocates of spiritism argue that
death merely means a change of wavelength for those who die, and the medium
is said to be able to receive radiations, frequencies, or vibrations which
cannot be sensed by an ordinary person. ... In its modern development spiritism dates from the activities of the Fox sisters in
America in 1848. Such notable figures as Andrew Jackson Davis, Daniel Dunglas Home, Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky, and Aurthur Conan Doyle later became
widely known spiritualists. In upper New York state, the community of Lily
Dale, a center for mediums and periodic conferences of spiritualists, is
still active ...” A. F. Schrenck von Notzing, Phenomena
of Materialism (1920); Arthur Conan Doyle, History of Spiritualism (1926);
Sir Oliver Lodge, Phantom Walls (1930); S. E. White, The Unobstructed
Universe (reprint, 1959). All from the New Columbia Encyclopedia, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1975.
Note how many of these works came at or near
the end of World War I. Such an extraordinary amount of the killing of young
men in that war led many of the bereft remaining at home to
“summon” the spirits of their loved ones for the purpose of
saying goodbye, making their peace, for separating, otherwise the painful or
debilitating grief process could go on indefinitely. In spite of Rhoda’s moving testament to
the loss of a beloved niece, she has recently written a suggestive letter to
one of Clinton and Charles Peck’s colleagues. Its sexual innuendo is
readily acknowledged by the recipient: From “P. S. (again) I have just
received a most charming letter from Miss Waterbury and if I were sure you
are a bachelor, which I believe I have understood to
be a fact, I would tell you what she said about Judge C. sub rosa. I think it would make you forget that you are
growing old - certainly this would be the case if she is a young and pretty
as she is intelligent.” It is perhaps too much to assume that Clinton has apparently expostulated to her on
her remarks to Austin in his letters of the 16th and 17th (see next letter
below), yet he still appeals to her mercy. In her next letter (March 23,
1866) she seems to acknowledge the flirtatious tone of her communications,
which is dangerous to a married politician, but she either seems to be
unaware of this or perhaps there is something somewhat sinister in her
communications: “Oh I must tell you Mr. Austin wrote me
in great haste for certain
mosses and ferns that he wanted immediately to complete some sets he
was putting up, and the
letter had to come from my home so it was some time before he received answer and
then I was away from my duplicates so I merely told him the situation of
affairs. I cannot remember a “charming” thing in it. You see I do not like you
to think I flirt but when my
brothers tease me they say if I protest my innocence so strongly it
is rather a proof of guilt,
what will the Judge think!” |
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