JULIA GARDINER TYLER | Two letters by Julia Gardiner Tyler, the former First Lady and second wife of President John Tyler

JULIA GARDINER TYLER

TWO AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED ("JULIA GARDINER TYLER"), TO, RESPECTIVELY, MRS. PRATE AND DR. GEORGE B. LORING

The first, 3 1/2 pages (7 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.; 184 x 120 mm) on a bifolium of black-edged mourning stationery, Georgetown, D.C., 1 May 1872; some short fold separations and repairs. The second, 2 pages (6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.; 173 x 112 mm) on a bifolium of notepaper, Sherwood Forest, James River, Virginia, 4 February 1882; mounting remnant on verso of second leaf.

In the first of these letters, which Mrs. Tyler asks her correspondent to "keep the contents of this letter strictly to yourself," the former First Lady describes her conversion to Roman Catholicism: "This evening I will receive in the Chapel of the Convent of the Visitation the Roman Catholic Baptism—not that the baptism I before received was not as much a true baptism as far as I know yet of course I receive the rite of baptism according to the Roman Catholic Church in becoming one of its members. I sincerely believe in this Church above all others but all that has drawn me so mysteriously to it I will talk with you. …" Since John Tyler had died a decade earlier, the mourning stationery here use by Mrs. Tyler was probably in commemoration of her daughter Julia, which had died in childbirth less than a year before.

In the second letter, Mrs. Tyler, resident once again in Virginia, asks the U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture for some assistance. "Will you oblige me so much as to direct seeds of various kinds to be forwarded from the Dept. to me?—flower & vegetable and even cereals—in fact anything worth growing that can be spared."

PROVENANCE:

Dr. Max Thorek, Chicago (his ink-stamp on last page of 1882 letter)