Description:

Cleveland Grover

Grover Cleveland ALS: "I am getting on track and I think when my strength comes again I shall be quite myself"

 

3pp ALS inscribed overall and signed by former U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) as "Grover Cleveland" near bottom of third page. Written in Princeton, New Jersey on December 10, 1901. Cream bifold paper with embossed "Westland, Princeton, New Jersey" letterhead. In near fine condition with expected paper folds, each page measuring 4.375" x 6.875".

 

Cleveland, recovering from pneumonia, thanked his friend John Sergeant Wise (1846-1913) for sending him the spoils of a recent hunting trip. His joking reference to a "jailor" probably refers to a strict doctor or nurse.

 

The ex-President wrote: "I avail myself of the first permission given me by my jailor to acknowledge your friendly letter of Nov 23d, and to assure you of my appreciation of your recent hospitality and kindness. My trip to the Chincapuke (?) Club as your guest was full of enjoyment, the birds you took such care to send us have been very much enjoyed, and the terrapin accompanying them lead uncertain lives, bounded by sufficient recuperation on my part, to share in their consumption."

 

He continued: "I had some [of the seeds of the illness which bore so flagrantly immediately on my return home, a number of days before I started on my trip; and I have no doubt I should have reaped the leaf under my circumstances." Although Cleveland describes his illness in poetic, almost euphemistic terms, his condition was serious enough to require bedrest.

 

We're given a look inside Cleveland's sickroom by referring to Richard Watson Gilder's memoirs Grover Cleveland: A Record of Friendship (New York: The Century Co., 1910). Gilder (1844-1909), a New Jersey magazine editor, visited his friend Grover Cleveland in December 1901: "Found Mr. Cleveland still in bed, and somewhat weak after his attack of pneumonia…His complexion was good, and he seemed bright and cheerful; evidently was doing a good deal of book-reading. He seemed a shorn Samson, a giant lying helpless, reduced to the gentle ministries of the sick-room." (223-224).

 

The recovering patient optimistically concludes his letter to Wise: "I am getting on track and I think when my strength comes again I shall be quite myself."

 

Cleveland also mentions someone named the "Commodore" in his letter. Commodore Elias Cornelius Benedict (1834-1920) was an old friend and highly successful banker, stockbroker, and industrialist. He was an avid sportsman and Commodore of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club of Long Island. In 1893, Cleveland had convalesced aboard Benedict's 138-foot-long steam yacht Oneida after a secret surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his left jaw.

 

Cleveland's correspondent John Sergeant Wise served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The lawyer later served as a Virginia Congressman and wrote several books, notably his paean to the antebellum South The End of an Era (1899).

 

Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. President to have served non-consecutive presidential terms, the first between 1885 and 1889, and the second between 1893-1897. A Democrat, Cleveland first became involved in politics in his early 30s, while serving as Sheriff of Erie County, New York, Mayor of Buffalo, and later Governor of New York. Cleveland's administrations focused mainly on domestic issues, like corruption, the gold standard, tariff reform, and subduing labor unrest. After 1897, Cleveland retired to his estate Westland Mansion in Princeton, New Jersey.

 

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