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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Woodhouse, J.O., (fl. 1877) to the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09400.127 Author/Creator: Woodhouse, J.O., (fl. 1877) Place Written: Pascagoula, Mississippi Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 10 October 1877 Pagination: 2 p. : docket ; 24.6 x 19.4 cm. Order a Copy

This letter to the Secretary of the Treasury concerns the collector of taxes for the District of Perl River. According to Woodhouse he is behaving in a manner that is not totally honorable. He asks the Secretary to look into it and provides a list of names that will bear witness to his actions. The name John Sherman has been attached because he was the Secretary of the Treasury when this letter was written and while he is not addresses in a personal matter he was the office holder then.

Blanche Kelso Bruce was born into slavery near Farmville, Prince Edward County, Va. on March 1 1841. He was tutored by his master's son, but left his master at the beginning of the civil war and taught school in Hannibal Mo. After the civil war Bruce became a planter in Mississippi, and a member of the Mississippi Levee Board, and Sheriff and Tax Collector for Bolivar County from 1872-1875. Bruce was then elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, where he served from March 4 1875 - March 3 1881. Bruce was the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. In 1881 Bruce was appointed by President James Garfield as the Register of the Treasury. Bruce then went on to serve as the Recorder of Deeds for the District of Colombia from 1891-1893, returning to the office of Register of the Treasury from 1897 until his death on March 17, 1898.

Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 1841-1898
Sherman, John, 1823-1900
Woodhouse, J.O., fl. 1877

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