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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, January 1866 Vol.
2. No. 138 [D 88]
Schoharie
Jan. 5th, 1866 My
Dear Your
letter dated a year ago Tuesday has just arrived and strange to say it seems as
fresh as if of recent date, and I am almost crazy with delight, if you only
will come! How I wish I was young and handsome and literary just for one
week, not that I want to go over life again, I have got past those foolish
times and am glad of it, but it is so natural to admire youth and beauty, and
was ever a woman born that did not like to please? I am me & am afraid
you will think I am young and be so shocked! I am half a mind to tell you my
age and weight, but that would just prove what our folks say, that I cannot
keep a secret and I must wait and see you. I know just what you are like, I
shall know you though you will not let me see your photograph, and now before
I rattle on any farther I must tell you all about it. We are four miles from
the depot by stage but it will be so much nicer for us to meet you with our
own conveyance and we have two daily mails from Albany so you can drop me a
line any day after you arrive there, however if you enjoy a surprise it will
not be difficult to find us as we are old residents (My father has been here
near forty years) and the Schoharie stage will bring you within half a mile.
Please do not disappoint me. None of them, Prof. Gray or any one else will be
half so happy to see you I know, and I want to get just the right directions
about my Herbarium. How I wish I had something really worthwhile for you to
come and see, well perhaps some day I shall for I think you have some years
the start of me after all. Oh dear: I hope I shant be afraid of you. I don’t know how I dare to
write so to Judge Clinton. The truth is, if you are half as good as I think
you are I shall just tell you every thing I ever knew, and then afterward I
shall just think how foolish it was at my age, that is the way I lecture
myself almost every day for my indiscretions. What fun we do have here when
Homer is well. He is the seventh son and we call him Doc. at home for a pet
name. I would like to tell you of all my brothers but some of them you will
see and I am so proud of them I might over draw the picture. my second brother is editor of the Sandusky Daily, Triweekly & Weekly Register, that is Charley, none of
them are noted men but as true as steel I know, and christians.
I must save my sisters to tell you about when you get here. I am afraid you
will leave for
Still your disciple,
Rhoda
Waterbury Hon.
G. W. Clinton I
am so glad you are full of fun in winter and I must try to modify my laugh
before you get here for I am given to laugh loud. There I have foolishly told
of it again. Do try to snare Mr. Peck one of your Polemoniums
for I do think a great deal of him, he is so kind and patient with my
mistakes I wonder at it. Truly
yours, R. W. Rhoda’s reference to Homer being the
seventh son is a reference to the biblical and mythic tradition of the
“seventh son of a seventh son,” a person of magic qualities. His
nickname “doc” probably refers to healing properties associated
with the seventh son. Phascum of the corn field,
probably Phascum cuspidatum
Hedw., a common, pygmy species of farming districts
where fallow fields abound, but also grassy roadsides, especially where bare,
calcareous clay soil is exposed; cf. Pleuridium
above; see note Oct. 28, 1865 above. Phascum bears
its great round ball of a capsule immersed down among its broad leaves making
the soil appear decorated with minute, glistening beads. Rhoda has not yet sent The stove pipe hat is reminiscent of the images
of Abraham Lincoln, in the photographs of whom the
stove pipe hat appeared in all weather. In old Democratic or Anti-federalist
strongholds in New York State, this hat may have drawn some hostility as
representing the class of privilege, the money class which Lincoln, a man of
the highest statesmanship and steeped in American ideals and patriotism,
affected as the first Republican president. Clinton had been writing to her that Asa Gray looked forward to his visit and that Clinton has
learned how to construct and organize a herbarium along the lines of that
developing at Cambridge under Gray’s direction (see Clinton Journal
January 1865). Vol.
2. No. 158 [D 66]
Schoharie, Jan. 19th, 1866 My
Dear I
don’t know but I ought to fear you, there is something of the stern
judge about those eyes, but that mouth I can trust, ah there is where the
pleasant things come from I know! and there letters
that keep me cheerful all the time even then you tell of those shocking
errors. I do hope Mrs. C. don’t care about it,
but I do like you and I knew I should. Then too you more than pay me for any
little effort I make by your kind appreciation, how pleasant to learn of such
a teacher. I am so glad the “Happy New Year” was admired at your
home and the Polemonium coeruleum
pleased you. I feel so inefficient so as if I could do no service, that I
mark every place where I can be of use. In regard to
the “... apple” I must explain as I see I have left the
impression that I have taken the “subacid,
watery, green excrescence” for the fruit, whereas I merely called it by
the popular name among us. I quite disgusted the juveniles in our
neighborhood last spring by telling them they were eating a worm’s
nest, and of course they contended against it stoutly, but I showed them by
the make of the flower and the dry pods of last years seed which were quite
plenty [i.e. in the neighborhood] that it was not the fruit, and as I knew
such peculiar excrescences were sometimes mentioned in Botany, I examined but
found no mention made of this and promised them to write you about it, but
you see how ignorant I am of entomology. I kept an eye out for you all last
week and as our folks were down to the depot several times with friends I
gave them a strict charge every time to look for Judge Clinton, (much to
their amusement) and they said they did. Ah how I shall weary you with
questions when I get you in sight! There is after all an advantage in knowing
very little, as no one expects much of you and you have no pride about it,
indeed I have become so accustomed to your kind “I apprehend you have
fallen into an error” that the blood does not mount to the face, as it
would you know if I knew just a little more, but I have to confess I am
shocking stupid sometimes. Now about that photograph. It is said in the use
of language the rule is the “practice of the best speakers and
writers,” does not this apply in other things too? well
let me see, last September it was I think when I managed so nicely to ask
what I had long wanted to but dare not - your photograph, five months ago,
well I dare not send mine now. It would be contrary to all rules of etiquette
besides Mrs. Willard used to tell us in her private lectures never to be in
too great haste in these things, but then there is that “Please
do” that always prompts me to obey as soon as possible! “I am in
a straight betwixt two”, well I will see how the thing appears when I
close this. I am tired of this kind of winter just snow enough to cover the
ground so I cannot look for any thing but not enough to take a sleigh ride,
and only now and then skating. I wish I was amiable and loved all kinds of
weather but I don’t, but after all do you think amiable people do the
most good in the world? I don’t, but then every body likes them, and
how pleasant that must be. You
say you must be in As
ever your disciple, Rhoda Waterbury Hon.
G. W. Clinton How
could you say you reluctantly sent me your photograph when it gave me so much
sincere happiness? and of course you cannot
appreciate your own face, and you don’t know how I like to look at it,
and think of the kind good letters I have received during a whole year, you
have made me happy so many times.
Carte de Visite of G. W. Clinton The annual Regents meeting occurred between
Jan. 11 and Jan. 23, 1866. Hall was appointed before the 23d. According to letters written to That Clinton was to have trouble with the
proper display of his virtues expressed in his so-called physiognomy can be
seen among the expectations of Rhoda Waterbury, but also of Leo Lesquereux,
in a letter of nearly the same date: Jany 7th
[18]66 “When I received your first letter, I [judged] you at once as a
man whose heart contained something better than a mere blank book with
Dollars and cents on the pages, and whose mind was provided with the best
materials constituting a reasonable being. I long to get your likeness, to
see if the ideal which I have got of your physiognomy is near the truth and I
hope that you will soon fulfill my desire of obliging it. I shall be sincerely
thankfull for it.” Lesquereux, upon receiving Note Recd. Feb. 17 “ After the Regents meeting, Laura Catherine Spencer, the wife of George
William Clinton, was the daughter of John Canfield Spencer (1788-1855) of Ambrose was still alive when George Clinton
married Ambrose’s son John’s daughter Laura in 1832, after The reference to Mrs. Willard and to exclusive
lessons is to the famous Troy Female Seminary which Rhoda apparently
attended. So, too, did Elizabeth E. Atwater, the diplomat’s wife, a
correspondent of In the advertisement in French’s 1860
Gazetteer, it is said that the Troy Seminary had been in operation for 50
years where “Every facility is provided for a thorough course of useful
and ornamental education, under the direction of a corps of more than twenty
professors and teachers. The members of the Institution have the benefit of
Lectures of the highest order on science, history, literature, art, &c.m &c. and the use of a valuable Library, an
extensive Philosophical Apparatus, a well selected Cabinet of Minerals, and
Shells, Maps, Charts, and Models.” The “members’ enjoy
Superior Music Teachers, French is learned with classes in drawing, painting,
oil and water colors. Every arrangement, we are told “is made for [the
members] physical education and the improvement of their manners and
morals.” Vol.
2. No. 166 [D 58]
My
dear Sir, When
you left
James Hall Hon.
Geo. W. Clinton &c &c Recd.
Jan. 26. For notes on James Hall, see introduction
above. It appears that unbeknownst to Rhoda, It
is possible from this note that The voucher specimens for John Torrey’s 1843
Flora of the State of Vol.
2. No. 168 [D 56]
My
Dear I
must write you or you will go east while I am here and visit Schoharie. I was
called here by telagram [sic] to the death bed of
my pet and namesake, my sisters oldest child a lovely
little creature of ten years. It must be that you know the bitterness of
these things, for I know that kind sympathetic nature must have been educated
in some school. How shall I write you, my heart is breaking, we buried her
yesterday in the snow, how can I live all these long! long!
years without her. There is no more sunlight, no
more hearty, but so lonely, sister is heart broken. I can not leave her now. Do
send a word of comfort to Your
afflicted disciple Rhoda Waterbury Hon.
G. W. Clinton Direct
Care C. H. Dawn. Recd.
Jan. 30 & ansd. “Direct Care C. H. Dawn” written
by Rhoda on this letter may be an avenue to historical or genealogical
information on Rhoda’s sister. The sister’s husband’s
surname may have been Dawn, if “C. H. Dawn” was Rhoda’s
sister’s maiden name. The burial seems to have been literally
“in the snow,” not while snow was falling, and not in the ground.
The body would then be preserved until a proper burial could take place in Rhoda’s handwriting here is not so school-girlish or careful as in her other ones. According to French’s New York State
Gazette, |
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