Heading: (American millionaire bibliophile to President Grant, 1869)
Author:
Title: James Lenox, foremost American book collector, sends limited edition to President Grant, 1869 letter
Place Published:
Publisher:
Date Published: 1869
Description:

Lenox, James. Autograph Letter Signed. 53 Fifth Avenue, NY, March 22, 1869. 2pp. To "General Grant, President of the United States".

Two weeks after Grant 's Inauguration, Lenox, the New York millionaire who had assembled the finest collection of rare books and manuscripts and paintings in America, presented him - as he done with Presidents Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln - "a copy of Washington 's Farewell Adderess, printed from the autograph original in my possession". Carried to the White House by the eminent scientist Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lenox 's letter notes that his limited edition of the Address, printed long before, had some historical comments which had since been proven "mistaken" - an academic "vexed question" which the cigar-chomping General must have found monumentally uninteresting. Lenox, who had written and self-published essays on a Columbus letter and other treasures in his collection, had bought the original Washington manuscript for $2,200 in 1848, outbidding the Library of Congress. Soon after he wrote this letter, Lenox presented his million-dollar Library to the City of New York, to be housed and preserved in a massive million-dollar building on Fifth Avenue. Twenty five years later, the Lenox collection became the nucleus of the New York Public Library. It would be interesting to know what became of the book Lenox sent to Abraham Lincoln. Grant 's copy may later have ended up, like other books give to him, stuffed into bookcases on the mezzanine floor of the U.S.Grant Hotel in San Diego.

Very Good