Benjamin Franklin Butler Papers (N)
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I arrived at Albany yesterday morning at 8 oClock having rode from Schenectady before breakfast. Your letter of the 29th reached me. I plead guilty to the charge of short letters & dull ones. But what can I do? For the last 5 weeks I have been entirely on the wing. When I return I find every thing topsy turvey, a thousand things to do, and all requiring haste. I have no time "to sport with... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Jabez Burroughs note endorsed by Thomas Turner & Asa Hart (or Burt I cannot decipher which,) of Troy & D.H. Wickham of this city, the latter I consider prudent & unembarrassed but not rich. The others have been represented to me as good men & if nothing is publicly known to <be> the matter with either of them I wish you to deliver over the money left with you to Burroughs,... Continue Reading
Recipient: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Mr. Olcott was kind enough to bring me my letter as soon as I returned. I love you very much for your cheerful submission to the necessity which prevented me from accompanying Mr. O. to the "land of delight" as he styles it. He says he had a fine time of it & I doubt it not. He says you look very well, but that is a matter which I had rather judge of myself, than submit it to the inspection... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I am obliged by your attention to delivering the money to Mr. Burrows, I have sent a note for one thousand dollars to the Cashier of the Mechanics & Farmers Bank for collection payable on the 15th. Inst with a request when paid to hand the money to you, do me the favor to apply for it and when paid <revert> it to me by mail and thereby oblige
Recipient: Benjamin Franklin Butler
I have just finished the last of half a dozen letters which I was desirous to send tomorrow morning & for fear of oversleeping or some other accident thought best to dispose of ^them^ tonight, although they kept me from writing to my dear H. I have two of your letters in hand to which I have not attempted to reply. How very backward I have become in my epistolary concerns. The first I... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I find it inconvenient to leave Albany tomorrow and shall therefore be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you as we had expected. I hope you will bear this disappointment for such I presume it will be, with your accustomed patience. A variety of concerns induced me to put off the visit until Monday. Besides, Mr. Van Buren is yet extremely ill, and I begin to think it doubtful whether he goes to N... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
You have herewith a coppy of a letter I wrote the Cashr on the 11th to which I have had no reply on the same day I wrote to you requesting you to call at the Bank and receive the money and remit it to me by mail, to which no reply has been recd do me the favor to apply at the Bank and enquire if the money has been collected and if it has please receive it and forward it to me by the Steam Boat if... Continue Reading
Recipient: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Enclosed you have a Note drawn by Samuel Smith on which I advanced him $1000 on the payment of that sum you will be pleased to deliver up the Note to him if it should not be paid when due you will please have it protested and hold it subject to my further directions, when paid you will [please] hand the money to my friend BFB and oblige
Recipient: Thomas Worth Olcott
For more than three weeks our correspondence has been suspended, a circumstance which until now I believe has never happened since it was first commenced. And yet those weeks have been among the happiest of my life. They were happy for they were spent with you. Since we have again been seperated, I recur with avidity & pleasure, to the old method of transmitting thoughts & sighs &... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
This is an evening of leisure & I will devote a good share of it to you. First however let me thank you for your two letters the last of which I received to day. They were doubly interesting, because they were the first or our new series, I am sorry dear H that you wrote me the last one for it must have been painful & inconvenient. I charge you not to undertake it again until your thumb... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
What am I to do? I promised you a letter on Wednesday by the last mail, and it is now within 15 minutes of 5 at which time the mail closes. I did intend to have written you a long letter and actually commenced one before dinner but had proceeded but a few lines when I was broken off & have ever since been prevented from writing. Do you remember last December of my being very much driven by... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Not having a sheet of petter paper at hand, I have adopted your method of <lessening> the larger kind, for I don't feel like writing a very long letter to night. The truth is I am somewhat puzzled & perplexed and as yet utterly unable to clear myself of the difficulty I have met with. For the last two weeks I been receiving a great deal of money for Mr. Van Buren & the state and on... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I found your last lying on my table in the office on Sunday evening. Mr. Hoyt usually goes to the Post office on that day and brings whatever there may be to the house. I very seldom look at any letters I receive on that day for it is not only proper but wise to avoid every thing that tends to fill the mind with ideas of business. On Sunday evening however I requested Mr. Norton to go with me... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Tomorrow I start for NewYork, and shall be favored with a glance at the spot which holds you. I have concluded since yesterday morning that it would be best & safest to go down to NewYork and complete the business to be done there in person, which is nothing more than to see Col. Burr & confer with him on the subject of a very important controversy in which I am about commencing the... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
The long letter which I promised to give you has not yet been commenced. I have been so much engaged while at NewYork that I concluded to defer any despatch until after the passage was commenced, knowing that the hours of dulness usually spent on board the Steam boat would be rendered agreeable by devoting them to you. Dear Harriet I am almost resolved never again to visit NewYork or any other... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Two of your letters are now unanswered. The last was received this morning on my return from <Troy> where I passed the night. The Circuit Court for that County commenced its Session on Tuesday, and as it is a well known consequence of every lawyers duty to be called away ^frequently^ from home, I was obliged to go there to dispose of some little business. Tuesday, I returned after dinner... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I am under the necessity of excusing myself for not writing you this evening as I promised. I am so much engaged in the a concerns of Hart that I have really no time to devote to those of the Heart. Mr. V. B & myself have been since Friday constantly employed and I am entirely unable to add another line.
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
For the first time in seven or eight days I have a few moments leisure, but I expect every moment to have them taken from me by the arrival of a person from Renssellaer County who was to call on me to day. He has not yet made his appearance altho the hour has already elapsed, and in the mean time I will have a little chit chat with my dear H. I am really unable to write you on Tuesday. Mr. Van... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I feel almost afraid to write you again, for I perceive that you have been calculating with considerable certainty on my being with you by the 25th. and as that day will find me here you will have already learn'd that another disappointment awaits you. Shall I commence a formal apology for my delay, and endeavour to convince you that it originated from necessity & not from choice? Or will you... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I was safely landed on this side the River at 20 minutes before 8. I was obliged to wait a small time at <Doans>, & while there took up an old newspaper to amuse myself. I found in it two or three little things which pleased me & I now hand them to you. The address to melancholy is very pretty. The other little piece of poetry is just such an affectionate exposition as you might... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Permit me to congratulate you on the commencement of another year, and to offer my most ardent wishes that it may through all its changes it may find you blest with the full possession of every earthly happiness. May it bring you joy and peace and be ever unattended by Sorrow or Calamity. May its close find you happy and contented, and may its departure be followed by a long train of succeedings... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
Your favor of the 2d is at hand. The Bill for 2000$ it appeared had been paid. I am much obliged by the assistance you have rendered the Cashier. The business could not have been better managed. I wish to make an arrangement to supply the Washington & Warren Bank with specie in case of need without the least idea of its ever being necessary to act on the arrangement. I wish you to confer with... Continue Reading
Recipient: Benjamin Franklin Butler
You have neither been forgotten nor intentionally neglected. The enclosed letter will prove that first, & the following explanation the second of my assertions. On Friday morning at a very early hour I went down to the Post Office to place the letter in the mail, and to my great disappointment was informed that the carrier had been gone about ten or fifteen minutes. I then went to the stage... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
I arrived here precisely at 2 o.Clock without meeting with any accident by the way. Before that time you must have reached Hudson, and we are now at the old distance. One advantage however will attend this change of place. Between Albany & Kinderhook there is no communication, and Lovers may sigh, but their sighs can not be wafted to each others bosoms. The case is different at Hudson. You... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
If I was with you at this moment (as I should very well like to be) I should have a thousand things to say to you but so it is that at this moment I hardly know what to talk about. Whether its owing to a trifling cold that I have contrived to meet with, or the dullness of legal forms & the uninteresting details of office business, I am unable to say, but the truth is that I am remarkably dull... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler
The hour is somewhat late, and I am heartily tired of writing, yet I have a few moments to devote to you which I very gladly embrace, because tomorrow my time may be otherwise employed. I have been all the afternoon & evening employed in preparing papers for the morrow to be used in the Court of Chancery, and as you are something of a Chancery Lawyeress you may have some idea of the length... Continue Reading
Sender: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Recipient: Harriet Allen Butler