Book Description

In an autograph letter signed 14 May 1853 to D.T. Lauman, Esq., Dr. Jer. (Jeremiah) Van Rensselaer (1793-1871) in Green Bush, Rensselaer County, New York, accounts for the expenses of the demise of a Mr. Clay. Tipped-on is a list of expenses: hotel bill, grave, coffin, bills for physician and apothecary, and more. He indicates there is a check enclosed for the balance and that personal effects are forwarded to Albany by Express. Accompanied by “Extract of letter received from J. Van Rensselaer ... September 10th, 1852” describing the case and his goal to reunite Mr. Clay’s effects with his family in Birmingham or Manchester, England. He reports that Clay, staying at the Delevan House hotel in Albany, arrived very ill with legs swollen from dropsy, “but in a few days I succeeded in making a favorable impression upon the disease, and gave him hopes of a recovery. On Sunday the 29th a severe storm, such as we seldom experience here prevented my leaving the house, and I did not see him until Monday morning, when I found him suffering from chills taken by an open window on Saturday night, and from excessive doses of morphine, which he had incautiously taken in the dark without measuring it. In his debilitated state this was too much for him, and he died on Tuesday the 31st.”ritten in ink on unlined buff paper. Printed letterhead lists the community and county and prompts the date with "189[blank line]".