10 Handwritten Letters Chittenden Wickes Yale Alumni 1874 European Travel 105pgs

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I had such an incredible time reading this group of letters. His writing is none other then amazing. There are a total of 10 letters and between them there are 105 handwritten pages. Our author is Horace H. Chittenden, Yale alumni among other great things. He had taken a trip to Europe in 1874 with his family and a few other young men from Yale and is writing to his good friend, another Yale alumni, Tomas P. Wickes. Before I quote from the letters I want to give you a bit of background on these two men. First Horace, the author of these letters. Horace Hatch Chittenden was born January 24 th , 1855, in Burlington , Vt. His father was secretary of the Peace Conference of 1861, Registrar of the United States Treasure during the Civil War and an author of note. Two years after graduation from college he completed the course in Columbia Law School and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was associated with his father’s firm of Chittenden & Hubbard and was later a member of that firm and of Chittenden, Townsend and Chittenden until 1888. He ended up moving to Burlington where he died from shock following an operation, December 26 th , 1909, in the 55 th year of his age. He married Bertha Boradil on October 11 th , 1877 and they had two sons. Next is Thomas Parmelee Wickes, the receiver of these letters. Thomas was born on April 17 th , 1853 in Albany New York . He was educated at the Albany Academy , Philips Academy in Andover Massachusetts then Yale. He graduated from Yale in 1874 and then also Columbia College Law School and admitted to the bar in 1876. For twelve years he was an assistant in the Corporation Counsel’s. He was a candidate for a Democratic nomination as Justice of the Supreme Court. He married Harriett D. Alley who died in May of 1899, leaving him with two children. Not quite sure when Thomas died. On an additional note he was also member of Yale’s secret society called the Skull and Bones: /time/nation/article/0,8599,1881172,00.html I found on a Yale web site a statement from William Kelly (another man who went on this trip) and he writes… “Immediately after graduation Horace Chittenden, Arthur Dodge, Frank Olmsted and I went abroad. We landed at Queenstown and were together in Ireland but after reaching London , Frank and Arthur went to the Continent, while Horace and I accompanied Horace’s parents and sisters in a tour through England and Scotland with a short trip to Paris afterward” As stated above the letters are written while Horace is touring Europe and his descriptions of the places, events and people he meets is really wonderful. You could say that they are almost written in the form of a diary. Some of them have fabulous letter heads of the various hotels he staid at. The left hand edge of the letters is foxed or have a faint stain and I believe it’s because they were once tipped into a scrapbook or album of sorts. However all of the writing is very easy to read. I really can’t say enough about the contents and Horace’s ability to pull the reader into his memorable adventures giving vivid accounts while touring the European country side 138 years ago. There is even one letter where Horace is very drunk but decided to write to Thomas anyway. You can read excerpts from that in the 2 nd letter quoted below on July 29 th , 1874. In “drunk” letter his writing becomes very big and sloppy but very readable and very entertaining. He also has an eye for the young women and on numerous occasions has romantic interludes with many of them. Last but not least, he describes stealing something from Westminster Abbey!!!!! Again, best way to describe these letters is to use Horace’s own words and please note there are way too many pages for me to quote from all of them but I do want to give you a taste of what’s between the pages….. (Royal Victoria Hotel , Lakes of Killarney letterhead) “July 16, 1874 My dear Tom, Tired is no name for my state of mind and body at present but I feel that I must ... read more

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