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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.

Van Valkenburgh, Robert B. (fl. 1856) to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06253.07 Author/Creator: Van Valkenburgh, Robert B. (fl. 1856) Place Written: Bath, New York Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 5 December 1856 Pagination: 3 p. ; 25.2 x 19.8 cm. Order a Copy

A letter written to Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh by brother Robert B. Van Valkenburgh. In this letter, Robert tells Franklin what it means to be a lawyer and the moral obligation he has to be honest with his clients. Robert also provides a list of books, with descriptions, that he believes would be useful to Franklin while he is practicing law. This letter is written on blue paper and has a note written in pencil at the top to the frist page that Franklin is a lawyer at the time this letter was written.

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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