LINCOLN, Mary Todd (1818-1882). Autograph letter signed ("M.L.") to Leonard Swett, Chicago, 13 September 1866.

2pp., 8vo (210 x 133 mm) on black-bordered mourning stationery, folds, minor staining, partial split along fold.

MARY LINCOLN APPEALS FOR AID IN MAINTAINING HER LIVING SITUATION.

Leonard Swett was a lawyer and friend of Abraham Lincoln who advised the president throughout his political career. Along with Ward Hill Lamon and David Davis, Swett is generally credited with having helped engineer Lincoln's presidential nomination in 1860. Swett was famously involved in an ill-conceived attempt to seize ownership of the New Almaden Mine from a British-Mexican firm, whom Swett had misrepresented to Lincoln as acting as squatters on American land. The affair provoked outrage in California and Nevada, and Lincoln, well aware that significant portions of both were pro-Confederate, quickly rescinded the order and demoted Swett. In 1865, Swett moved to Chicago, where he renewed his acquaintance with Mary and Robert Todd Lincoln.

In part: "You will pardon me for being solicitous about hearing from the result of communications with the friends to whom you proposed writing. With the most rigid economy, which I am compelled to practice, I find it will be absolutely impossible to continue housekeeping on my present means two months longer. Seeking retirement as a necessity, with my great sorrow upon me, it would be to me the greatest conceivable pain, that I should have to rent this place... I can assure you, it will add another pang to my afflictions if I have to give up for want of means to keep it up - my present situation."

PROVENANCE:
Sotheby Parke Bernet, 29 June 1982, Lot 380

REFERENCES:
Turner, pp. 388-389

This lot is located in Chicago.