unknown (fl. 1855) to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh Esquire
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06253.05 Author/Creator: unknown (fl. 1855) Place Written: Oakley Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 1 September 1854 Pagination: 4 p. ; 31.5 x 19.9 cm. Order a Copy
A letter written to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh. In this letter, the author writes about farming and how the lack of rain will effect the crops if the weather persists. The author goes on to write about the prices that his crops, including wheat, are likely to bring in, and the construction of a brick house that his father is overseeing. The author also mentions the death of a woman in the community as a result of dysentery. This letter is signed, but the signature appears illegible. There is a postscript written across the top of the last page of the letter. The author has written the location as Oakley, but written in pencil at a later date is Bath, New York.
Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh was born February 21, 1835 in Prattsburgh, Steuben County, New York and died May 9, 1924 in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He is the son of Jacob Van Valkenburgh and Mary Bethiah Van Valkenburgh. Franklin Van Valkenburgh had a twin brother, Gerrit Smith, and was one of eleven children. Van Valkenburgh's great grandfather, Jacob Van Valkenburgh immigrated to the United States in 1746 from Holland and settled in Claverback, New York. His grandfather, Bartholomew Jacob, served in Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Van Duyck's Company in New York's 1st Battalion during the Revolutionary War and was married to Catherine Pruyn. Van Valkenburgh's father, Jacob, was the third oldest of ten children and was drafted into the army during the War of 1812. Van Valkenburgh's mother was a direct decedent of Mathew Gilbert, one of the original colonists in New Haven, Connecticut. Her baptismal name was Polly Bethiah Higgins, but she always wrote her name as Mary. Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh was a lawyer in Milwaukee who married Emmeline Wells Pratt and had three children.
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