JIMMY CARTER INSCRIBES A PHOTOGRAPH TO THE FAITH BAPTIST CHURCH

JAMES E. “JIMMY” CARTER (1924-).  Thirty-Ninth President.

PS. 10” x 8”. No date. No place.  A color photograph signed “Best wishes to Faith Baptist Church, Jimmy Carter” on the lower margin.  The image shows Carter grinning.  The photograph is in mint condition.

COLLECTION OF LETTERS TO FORMER FIRST DAUGHTER ESTHER CLEVELAND, THE ONLY CHILD BORN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

ESTHER CLEVELAND (1893-1980). Cleveland was the second child of President Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances Folsom Cleveland.

This archive is a collection of correspondence belonging to Esther Cleveland. Cleveland, the second child of President Grover Cleveland, was the recipient of these 23 letters between the years 1910-1919. Most of the letters include the original mailing envelope. The letters reveal the private side of Cleveland, one of the most famous first children, including her social and love lives. Notable letters in the collection include:

1. ALS. 3 pg. 4” x 6”. 1915. Baltimore. An autograph letter signed “Gordon” to “Esther”: “May I get down and crawl around for a while so you can see what I think of myself. I thought I had sent you those pictures from Biddeford Pool until you reminded me about them and found them with a lot of stuff in my desk. Please forgive me. Will you?...When are you coming down to visit us again? Just name the day and Mother will write you…I am going to write a long letter soon. Am very busy at present. My love to your family. Am I forgiven? Please”. Biddeford Pool is a large tidal pool, located off Saco Bay on the south coast of Maine. The small harbor has been popular with vacationers since the middle of the 19^th century.

2. ALS. 5 pg. 4” x 6”. November 3, 1915. Cambridge. An autograph letter signed “Nick” to “Esther”: “It was a welcome sight, that handwriting of yours and the letter was more welcome when I read its contents. I do appreciate your thought of me at this…of fame time and as we get on in years, these thoughts are the ones that count, after all, and they are the ones which make you feel that this world is pretty good after all. In short, dear Esther, ss usual your thoughtfulness has scored heavily. But I shall not be in Princeton this gay week-end. Time is too precious just at this time and besides I rather dislike Princeton when it is throbbing with a big game crowd, unruly because one sees nobody and the quieter more fraternal Princeton is the one I have always liked…Esther, your foot is still troubling you and I can not help feeling quite worried. Please do take care of yourself, for I hate to think of your suffering. I liked your sentiments about self-sufficiency. It is a pleasure to tell that there are those on whom you can rely and that is how I feel concerning you…” This letter provides a window into when Princeton University was a leader in national athletics and the surrounding town on game weekends filled up like a large state school does today.

3. ALS. 1 pg. 4” x 6”. 1916. South Orange, New Jersey. An autograph letter signed “Ray Biglow” to “My dear Miss Cleveland”: “I will be at Mrs. Hastings, 15 West 50^th Dt, at 6 P.M. on Wednesday Feb. 9^th. I will come prepared to go Mrs. Binnell to dinner, absolutely informally, and will bring my skates”. The sender is most likely Lucius Horatio "Ray" Biglow III (1885-1961), a three-time All-American football player at Yale, and later a publisher and decorated World War I soldier. A subsequent letter by Biglow to Cleveland references her “hero worship…I’m afraid I acted towards my visit very much as a debutant does towards her first party after she gets to bed”.

4. ALS. 6 pg. 1916. Harrisburg. An autograph letter signed “Jack” to “Esther”: “I hope you have been able to make up your lost sleep by this time. Do take awfully good care of yourself and don’t get run down before going to Europe. Its {sic} only fair you know. I can hardly wait to know what your mother said but I hope nothing will happen to make things harder for you…I wonder why I can’t write you a letter without telling you I love you. I think I will this time if you’ll take it for granted that I do, Esther, more than I can ever tell you or show you, but I’ll always try and show you in the very biggest and best way I know I can. P.S. I know you’re cynical & I also know you’re not really cynical and I just hate my brain for the thoughts that come into it. I just read this letter over and of course annalized {sic} it and fool ideas came into my head. But I don’t care, because I know my love for you is just one step ahead of anything that my try to bother me”. While many letters in the archive have romantic undertones, this is the most explicitly romantic letter in the collection. Jackson Herr Boyd (1892-1983) wrote seven letters to Cleveland that survive in the archive. A graduate of Princeton University (where he probably met Cleveland), Boyd’s letters to Cleveland are written from Harrisburg, where he was born and resided, or from the North Carolina estate of his brother, the novelist James Boyd (who is referenced in several of the letters). Other letters by Boyd to Cleveland include: “My; but I miss you; how I wish you were here now” (December 24, 1915) and “It may be silly, but I hate the thou8ght of you going through the operation {referenced in the opening of the 1916 letter} while I’m way down here and perfectly comfortable and well” (December 23, 1915). Ultimately, Esther Cleveland married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet (1883-1966) at Westminster Abbey, while Boyd’s second marriage was to Alice Hay Wadsworth, daughter of a U.S. Secretary of State and widow of a U.S. Senator.

All the letters are in fine condition. Many have been folded repeatedly and some have minor tears. The Biglow letter referenced above was for some reason ripped in half, but is still easily legible.

GROVER CLEVELAND THANKS A FRIEND FOR GIFTING HIM A BOOK

GROVER CLEVELAND (1837-1908). Cleveland was the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fourth Presidents. ALS. 2pgs. 4 ½” x 7”. January 3, 1899. Princeton, NJ. An autograph letter signed “Grover Cleveland”. It is written on letterhead reading “Westland, Princeton, New Jersey”, the name and location of Cleveland’s residence after his second term as President. Cleveland thanks his friend, a Syracuse lawyer by the name of A. Nathaniel, for sending him a biography of Tammany Hall-affiliated politician Samuel S. Cox (1824-1889): “My dear Mr. Nathaniel, Please accept my sincere thanks for a copy of the “Life of Samuel S. Cox” which you kindly sent me on Christmas. I have just laid it aside after an hour delightfully spent in glancing it through, and I anticipate added pleasure in its thorough perusal. I wish in these days we had more of Mr. Cox’s committed attachment to his secretary. Yours very truly, Grover Cleveland”. The letter is in fine condition.

BILL CLINTON (1946- ).  Clinton was the Forty-Second President.

SB. 1000pg. No date. No place.  My Life signed by President Bill Clinton on a bookplate attached to the first endpage.  The bookplate was produced by Knopf and has the initials "WJC" and a golden border.  This is a second printing and the book is in very fine condition.

BILL CLINTON (1946- ).  Clinton was the Forty-Second President.

TLS. 1pg. 6 ¾” x 8 ¼”. January 30, 1996. The White House.  A typed letter signed “Bill” as President to Betty Fuller, a friend from Arkansas: “Happy Birthday!  Hillary and I send our very best wishes for a wonderful day and for a healthy and happy year ahead.”  The letter is in very fine condition on pale green paper.

PRESIDENT COOLIDGE TURNS DOWN AN HONORARY POSITION ON A CHARITY COUNCIL, THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF OPERATIC AND ALLIED ARTS

CALVIN COOLIDGE (1872-1933). Coolidge was the Thirtieth President.

TLS. 1pg. February 18, 1925. The White House, Washington. A typed letter signed “Calvin Coolidge” as President on “The White House” letterhead. Coolidge wrote to Mrs. John D. Sherman, President of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, turning down an honorary position: “Your letter of the 13^th instant affords me an opportunity of which I am glad to avail myself, to express once more my convictions as to the usefulness and fine idealism which are embodied in the program of the American Institute of Operatic and Allied Arts. Convinced that it represents a thoroughly unselfish contribution in the important field of national culture, I have been glad to note the strong support which has been given to it by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. In view of these sentiments, and of your earnest invitation, on behalf of the General Federation, I regret that I cannot accept the post of Honorary President of the National Advisory Council. I am compelled, of course, by the demands of other duties upon my time to restrict my privilege of outside service; but I am glad to give this testimony of interest and encouragement to so worthy a movement.”.  The letter is in very good condition with a rust stain from a paperclip, light soiling and it is mounted to a larger sheet. Coolidge’s signature is a bit choppy due to an evident pen failure.