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Correspondence of Charles Mohr and G. W. Clinton |
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The
Correspondence of Charles
(Carl) Theodore Mohr (1824‑1901) and George
William Clinton (1807‑1885) 1876 Vol. 11 no. 122 [J 139] [ U. S. Postal Card, One cent. Clinton, General
Delivery. Mobile Ala. Aug. 25 postmark] Mobile, August 25th 1876. Esteemed friend! By this I have the pleasure to tell you that I shall
arrive at your place about the 1st or 2nd Septbr., and embrace that
opportunity to call upon you. In the happy anticipation to meet you soon I remain very
truly Yours Chas Mohr [no date receipt] Vol. 11 no. 123 [J 140] [ U. S. Postal Card, One cent. Clinton, General
Delivery., Mobile, Ala. Aug. 26. postmark] Mobile August 26th, 1876 My dear friend! Telegraphic advices compell me to alter my route and go
without delay by the shortest way to N. York. In consequence I shall have the
pleasure to visit you some few days after the 18th of next month and not as i
stated in my postal card of yesterday on the 1 or 2nd. Please give my best respects to Miss Wilson, Very truly Yours Chas Mohr. [no date of receipt] Vol. 11 no. 151
[J 108 & 109, two sheets] Mobile November 10th, 1876 Hon. G. W. Clinton Buffalo N.Y. Esteemed friend! All ready a month has passed that I arrived at my home.
I found my dear ones in the best of health, and I brought with me new
strength and energies with a corresponding freshness and serenity of mind I
have not known for many years before. I have indeed cause to bless my better
half for having me stirred up to take courage, to pack up my bundel and go
out in to the world amongst old and new friends, to free myself for a while
from the worry of every day life and to seek recreation in a fresher and
invigorating atmosphere than that which surrounded me with but little
interruption between the walls of the apothecarys shop. I feel myself indeed
greatly strengthened and particularly mentally so, for the discharge of my
duties, it seems as if look upon life with a brighter eye and to feel myself
inspired with a stronger confidence. I can scarcly find words to express to you and your
esteemed Lady my heartfelt thanks for the kindess and warm hospitality I meet
at your house; The happy I enjoyed [sic] with you will ever be remembered and
be counted amongst those cherished ones in my life, spend in pur and
unalloyed happiness. These spend at your blissful home and the intresting
ones spend with you and Miss Wilson at your museum will never be forgotten. By my arrival at Columbus I found our mutual friend
Prof. Lesquereux just returned from an excursion to the coal measures of
North Pa. and a visit to the Centennial, in full health, meeting me with the
embrace of a dear old friend. We did go immediatly to work; By a bottle of
wine Bryological examinations kept us busy to the very late of hours of night
and next day up to the hour (arriving only all to early) of my departure, we
have been engaged in discussing some of the many puzzling mysteries our
friend meet in his researches amongst the tertiary flora. I feel gretly enjoyed
to have found him in stronger health and with the same undiminished
enthusiasm and energie at his work as at my visit just 10 years before. In
Cincinnati yielding to the entreaties of my brother & sisters I had to
spend a full week. I found there most excellent opportunities for my son to
take up a course of studies in analitical chemistry & Physics, under
Prof. Clark at the University there, and of the pharmaceutical branches
proper at the College of Pharmacy [second sheet] Hard as it was for me to part with my son
before having secured other help, I thought it best to send him on without
delay and not to postpone this duty for another year, as in view of the
present good state of my health I find myself better capable to get along
without him. ‑ This is also the cause of my delay in letting you hear
sooner from me since we parted; During the whole of the time I was so closly
confined to the business of the one son that I had to leave untouched all my
treasures on plants books, pamphlets etc. I brought home with me. Next week
however I will get a reliable assistant and have a somewhat easier time
again. The political excitement of the week having absorbed all other
intrests caused a complete lull in all affairs so I found time to do justice
to my friends. I find myself guilty of a blunder, which I am afraid
might have committed at your house; I got aware of it but a short time ago
when my good wife questioned me admiringly about the price of that nice
umbrella I brought home; Answering proudly that I paid but two dollars for it
in Phil'a. She declared that to be an impossibility and that I surley must be
mistaken. By this remark I examined the object in question, closer, and found
that I must have made somewhere an exchange, certainly to the great disadvantage
of the party. I made unwittingly a partner in the transaction; Having had
never any use for it upon my whole tour I have never paid any particular
attention to the qualities of my umbrella and was constantly under the
believe I had the one with me I bought in a hurry on a rainy morning on my
way to the Exposition grounds; As I feel very anxious to see the matter set
right I beg you to be so kind and to inform me if I made the mistake at your
house. ‑ Please give my kindest regards and respects to your
esteemed Lady and remember me respectfully to your daughter Mrs. Wheeler.
Hoping that these lines will find you and your beloved ones in the best state
of health I remain very truly Your grateful friend Chas Mohr [The
Exposition grounds probably refers to one of the numerous expositions staged
throughout the United States as 1876 was the centennial of 1776.] Vol. 11 no. 174 [J 81] Mobile March [?] 19th 1876 [An
error in transcription? The letter's context supports a time in 1876 after
November (the letter transcribed just above). Hon. Judge G. W. Clinton. My dear friend! ‑ Your kind and welcome letter of 11th has been truly an enjoyment
to me. I longed to hear from you ever so long, many thanks for it. ‑
According to your wishes I have send lst Saturday per Express 1/2 Gallon of
my Eau de Cologne, for which you find enclosed bill as you desire.
To save unnecessary expense I would not send it pr C.O.D. as a P. O. money
order is much the cheaper way. ‑ I am highly pleased with the prised
bestowed by your kind and esteemed Lady upon my article; it is truly
gratifying to receive such words of encouragement, and I thank her much for it.
I only wish ... that those of our population here which use such an article
would entertain the same opinion about it, but nothing draws better here than
that what comes from far abroad. I added a smal parcel and a few Lichens with some shells
for the Museum for the ..., which you will be so kind and hand to our mutual
esteemed friend Miss M. Wilson. Also a paper with a very pretty fungus I
collected on my way home at Montomery last fall; I will be much obliged to
you in giving me its name. ‑ The rejuvenating influences of my northern
trip assert themselves still most beneficially. I never spend a winter more
free from my old debilitating neuralgic sufferings as the last and I have not
since many years entered the spring season (ever most severe upon me) in
better health. I wish you would come down here for a month; leave your
hyperborean atmosphere and the wear and tear of your profession and take
rambles in the pine clad hills and the sunny shores of the gulf with its
envigorating balmy breezes. ‑ I found it out myself that there is
nothing above a total change of habits and surroundings to invigorate [?]
build up again a constituion worn by continued strain. ‑ We all at my
house would be so happy in having you with us under our humble roof; There is
room enough, plenty of fresh perfumed [sic] by an abundance of flowers in the
surroundings, with concerts in the quiet hours of the evening and the rosy
ones of early morning by the charming voices of the denizen of our gardens
and yard the gentle restless mocking birds. ‑ I was ebarred [sic] from
all chance of botanical field work; When ever I could snatch up a few late
evening hours I have worked on a collection of plants I received from N.
Mexic., Arizona & South Calif. with absorbing intrest and indefinite
pleasure; With the splendid flora of Calif., the handy one of Colorado, the
Pac. R. R. P. Rep. [?] and some other books in my possession, I have
succeeded with comparitively fewer exceptions & I expected in the
determination of these plants. ‑ Engaged in that work I often wished to
be for an hour on your side in the room of your Museum, to refer to you your
fine books and collection there for advice, than I found myself often not a little
perplexed. ‑ I have read with very deep intrest your lecture; I am a
great admirer of Mr. Darwin; by his indefatigable labors & his singular
genius, he has given the study of natural history an impetus which has opened
entirely new and untrodden paths of research and has contributed [?] to the
advance of biologie in a degree unparalleled. ‑ But I can by no means
call my self an adherent of his hypothesis, that in spite of my efforts to
come to an understanding of his arguments I have so far not been able to
perceive the evidence of his derivation of species, except in very vague kind
of a way; many of them are beyond my comprehension. ‑ Please give my
kindest regards to Mrs. Clinton; i beseech her to use her imperial authority
to induce to pack up and go southerward as my dear domestic tyrant did led me
to strike up the dust of Mobile and go north; for which good advice I bless
her every day. I remain as ever your friend Chas Mohr. [no note of receipt] [That
the ladies of Mobile preferred their perfumes from far abroad attests to
their sophistication and perhaps a little to a southern chauvenism: perhaps
there was a pride in wearing a French perfume carried by a Confederate ship
that had run the Union naval blockage of southern ports throughout the Civil
War.] ["Pac.
R. R. P. Rep." = Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to ascertain the
most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi
River to the Pacific Ocean, made under the direction of the Secretary of War,
in 1853‑4. Volumes. I‑XII. Washington, Government Printing
Office, 1855‑61. For an excellent presentation on this series see: http://cprr.org/Museum/Pacific_RR_Surveys/
[Editor's posting of July 24, 2003] |
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