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Waldo, Otis H. (fl. 1857) to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06253.08 Author/Creator: Waldo, Otis H. (fl. 1857) Place Written: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 15 April 1857 Pagination: 4 p. ; 24.4 x 19.5 cm. Order a Copy

A letter written to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh by Otis H. Waldo. In this letter Waldo entreats Van Valkenburgh to return and continue working for the firm stating the amounts Van Valkenburgh would be paid for his first and second year of employment. While Otis H. Waldo appears in this letter as O.H. Waldo, his first name was determined from letter GLC06253.10 of this collection. Van Valkenburgh's reply to this letter is GLC06253.23. Otis H. Waldo married Franklin's sister Gertrude, but it is unclear what year the marriage occured.

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.

Hathinway, Joshua, fl. 1857
Gunt, Edmund, fl. 1857
Hubbaw, Ervine C., fl. 1857
Clark, Lewis, fl. 1857

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