I am going to offer myself for the office of Superintendent of the Central Park. You know that I have had a good deal of experience in working land and in the management of New York laborers, that I have planted several thousand trees (and I have been particularly successful with them), also that I have long had great interest in public parks and have observed them closely (not as a botanist or gardener, but as landscapes and pictures & in their popular educative character). I suppose that I am much more trustworthy for the duties, which include police regulations, but are independent of the landscape gardener, engineer etc., than anyone who is likely to apply or be considered.

Could you do me the favor to address a note, expressing a favorable opinion of my qualifications to the President of the Commissioners of the Central Park, and send to me as soon as you can make convenient—321 Broadway, New York?

I hope you did not lose much by Putnam’s failure; by that of Miller & Curtis, I lose everything.

My best regards to Mrs. Gray.