To Nancy Fish Barnum
14 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS facsimile: Sotheby’s online catalog, 11 December 2006, lot 38, UCCL 13145)
14 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS facsimile: Sotheby’s online catalog, 11 December 2006, lot 38, UCCL 13145)
My wife & I are greatly pained to learn of the decease of Mrs. Seeley, whom we remember so well & so pleasantly.2explanatory note Words are of but little value at such a time, but still we are moved to tender our deep sympathy to you & your household in your great bereavement.
Truly Yours
Saml L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes
1 P. T. Barnum married Nancy Fish (1850–1927) in 1874, his first wife having died
in 1873 (7 June 1875 to Barnum, L6, 491–92).
2 Pauline Seeley, Barnum’s youngest daughter by his first wife, Charity Hallett, died
on 11 April, aged 31, from complications of measles and diphtheria. Barnum wrote
to Clemens, either informing him of her death or replying to the present letter: “We
have received a terrible blow, but ‘God’s will be done!’” (letter reported, without
date, in Joseph Bryan 1956, 149; Saxon 1989, 266). Possibly Clemens was writing to
Barnum’s wife because it was she rather than Barnum himself who first informed the
Clemenses of the death.
MS facsimile, Sotheby’s online catalog, accessed 11 December 2006, lot 38.