92

Lot 92: Hamilton Fish Signed Letter 1875

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:90.00 USD Estimated At:150.00 - 300.00 USD
Lot   92: Hamilton Fish Signed Letter 1875
<b>Autographs</b><hr><b>A Secretary of State Writes to A Future President - About Orchids!</b>

<b>HAMILTON FISH. Patrician New York Congressman, Governor, and Senator; Grant’s Secretary of State.</b>
Autograph Letter Signed, 1 page, 8” x 10”, Washington, May 28, 1875; to the Collector of the Port of New York, CHESTER A. ARTHUR who, ten years later, would become the 21st President. Choice Very Fine. Slightly mirrored, having been folded before the ink had completely dried. With a handsome 6” x 8” steel engraved portrait of Fish. In part: “...Our Minister to Venezuela writes me...that he has sent to me by the ‘Jane Adeline’, a sailing vessel which was to leave...for New York on the 29th April a case of tropical plants. I do not know the cost or value of those now sent. I requested him to expend a hundred dollars in the purchase of plants & he now writes that another case is to be sent. The present case (or cases) contains as he tells me twenty (20) orchids. I am not aware what the duty may be, or if there be any duty on such things...May I ask of the favor..to have the plants...forward[ed] to my address at ‘Garrison - Putnam Co. NY’ by the American Express Co.”

Many cultivated people, in the Gilded Age, had an absolute passion for orchids. Missions were sent to the tropics for collecting orchids; prices grew to incredible heights; important gentlemen pulled strings to get their deliveries intact.