125 / 239
124
237
[
LAFAYETTE
, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de].
Lettre autographe signée de Mary Austin Holley au marquis de Lafayette
Lexingon, Kentucky, 17 mai 1825
3 pp. in-4
REMARQUABLE LETTRE DE L’UNE DES PREMIÈRES FEMMES ÉCRIVAINS DES
ÉTATS-UNIS ; ELLE ÉTAIT COUSINE DE STEPHEN J. AUSTIN : “THE FATHER OF
TEXAS”.
THE TEXAS AND LAFAYETTE : “MY BOAST, THAT I HAVE SEEN, AND SPOKE, TO
LAFAYETTE”
“It is painful to think that I have seen you but in a pageant, with no opportunity for social and
friendly inter-course, the inter-change of mind. But it is a happiness, an honour, and shall ever be”
A letter by an important pioneering writer of the American West : Mary Holley (1784-
1846), née Austin, was wife of the Rev Austin Holley, President of Transylvania
University, and had moved from the liberal milieu of Boston (to which she refers in
this letter) to Lexington in 1818, later moving to New Orleans. She was a friend and
correspondent of her cousin Stephen J. Austin, the “Father of Texas”, and was the
author of the classic account,
Texas : Observations, Historical, Geographical, and
Descriptive
(1833 ; or
Texas
, 1836). Holley’s work has recently been featured by Nina
Baym in her study
Women American Writers of the American West, 1833-1927
, where
her
Texas
is the earliest work under discussion.
RÉFÉRENCE : les papiers de Marie Austin Holley sont conservés au
Briscoe Center for American
History. University of Austin Texas
3 000 / 5 000
€
238
[
LAFAYETTE
, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de]
Lettre autographe signée de John H. Farnham
Cincinnati, 20 mai 1825
1 p. in-4, papier filigrané “JP”
“TO SOLICIT YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF A CLOAK”.
UN MANTEAU EST OFFERT À LAFAYETTE DANS L’INDIANA PAR LE FUTUR
FONDATEUR DE L’
INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Lettre écrite au nom du Gouverneur et des citoyens de l’Indiana : “to solicit your acceptance
of a Cloak in lieu of the one lost during your visit to the State at Jeffersonville”, APOSTILLE
AUTOGRAPHE DE LAFAYETTE “answered verbally”
A notice of the writer is given in Goodspeed’s
History of Washington County
(1884) ;
he was to found the
Indiana Historical Society
in 1830 :
“Another noteworthy citizen was John H. Farnham. With the exception of Judge Parke’s, it was
the largest library in Salem. He graduated at Harvard University in the same class with Edward
Everett. He was not a popular man. In the first place he was a Yankee, and a Boston Yankee
at that. He spent his winters at Indianapolis, and there turned an honest penny by writing the
speeches of some of the bucolic members of the Legislature, and it is said on good authority
that he wrote the welcome to Lafayette at Jeffersonville, which was delivered by his exellency,
Gov. James Brown Ray”.
400 / 600
€
Mary Austin Holley