I know that you will be interested to hear the particulars of my father’s death and it will be grateful to write you of him.

About a month ago he mentioned in a letter that when I should be coming to Hartford, he had a small matter of business upon which he would like to advise with me. I telegraphed that I would come the same night and when I arrived he had my brother Harry (Albert) to meet me. After dinner he took us apart and said he wanted to speak of his will which he handed me to read. It was drawn up in 1863 when I was in California and Harry and Coit of Litchfield were named as Executors & Trustees. He now suggested that it might be better that I should take Coit’s place, but added, laughing, that as the signature of a man over 80 was not worth much on a will in these days, he would if I approved ask Co it to resign & nominate me. (He afterwds did so and in effect the arrangment was carried out). He then gave me a very full & particular account of all his property & what needed to be done, so that Harry & I might be prepared from that day if it should be needed to take up the management of it—going to the smallest particulars of dues for household expenses &c. all with great cheerfulness, kindliness & some pleasantry. He referred very fully & with great good sense, charity and considerateness to certain crosses of his household and expressed his judgment as to what we should do in certain respects after his death, but with apparent caution lest he should too much influence our judgement. I felt the greatest possible respect and admiration for his character, meek, dignified and sagacious.

The next morning he called me into his bathroom for a moment and spoke with great feeling of the comfort with which he was provided in his own age and said he often thought of the cold old clapboarded house in which his old father died. He had done what he could in those days to make it comfortable for him but it was as nothing to what he had, &c.

Wednesday last I recvd a letter from Harry telling me of his fall but (I think at father’s suggestion) incidentally to other matters as if it were of no great consequence. He said the doctor did not consider it at all a dangerous injury but that he might not be able to go out again this winter. I went to Hartford by the first train. He was surprised that I should come & feared Harry had made too much of it—but was evidently very much pleased to see me. He was in considerable pain—not from the fracture so much as from flatulence & the very irksome position in which he was obliged to lie. I stayed with him, frequently conversing cheerfully, half the night until the morphine began to affect him.

In the morning he had enjoyed two hours of unbroken sleep and [590] seemed to be in good spirits. I returned to New York. He continued doing well all that day, but had a bad night & next morning was very feverish & showed other symptoms which alarmed the doctor. (Curtis—he had two surgeons at first.) Harry telegraphed me to this effect and I was fortunately able to catch the 3 o’clock train. When I arrived he was sleeping, and I saw that he appeared dreadfully older than the day before. He awoke moaning and tossing like one in typhoid fever but when I spoke to him he turned his head quickly toward me and in a pleasant natural voice and with a smile said “Why! Who’s this? Fred? So you’ve come back!” Almost immediately he turned away, however, groaning and tossing his hands. The doctor came and he spoke again in a natural way, describing his sensations. The doctor, taking me out, said he was better than in the morning, was in no immediate danger but he had no hope that he would now rally. He hardly thought that he would live another day. Returning to the bed side the doctor asked if there was any of father’s old medicine, McMann’s elixer, in the house. Father himself replied, telling me where to find it. Under the influence of this sedative he slept from 10 to 11. When he woke, the nurse—a professional German man—asked if he hadn’t better take some more whiskey toddy. Father said, “Yes, I suppose so, if you think so”, then, turning to me, “I’m sick of it, and of everything else, most”. He was very restless and grew more so. I gave him some punch of sherry, brandy & lemon. He said “anything different is better but it will do no good”. After this he could not sleep except very fitfully. At half past twelve Harry who had not before left his pillow since I came, was about to go to the station to bring Bishop Niles & Bertha, coming from Concord. Before he went out, I told him I thought father was failing rapidly but he thought it necessary he should go, as they might be left in town with no carriage & Bertha had her baby. Just after he had gone, as I was wetting father’s lips he said: “air—give me all the air you can,” & I then for the first time began fanning him. He immediately became quieter. After watching his face a moment I looked at the nurse who nodded: I gave him the fan and ran into the street and on until I saw Harry passing a lamp at some distance. I called, he heard me & came back & I persuaded him to return. Mother and Mary came in at the same time. Three minutes afterwards father breathed his last without a struggle, apparently conscious & with his perfect senses until the very end of life.

On the previous morning, when he was probably suffering more than at any other time, he recvd a letter from F. J. Huntington referring pleasantly to a joke played by him & some other young man on my father on the day of his wedding with Miss Hull, more than half a century ago. Father was much gratified, and referring to this & several kindly inquiries and messages that had come in, he said to my mother, “It is very pleasant that an old man like me should be so much thought of.”

I have been myself very much touched by the manifestations of sympathy which have occurred, not only from his older friends but from young [591] people who could not know him well. But I am glad to think that the real loveliness of his character had not been unrecognized though so much veiled by the habits into which his extreme diffidence had led him. He was a very good man and a kinder father never lived. It is strange how much of the world I feel has gone from me with him. The value of any success in the future is gone for me.

In examining father’s papers it is interesting to see how, day by day, recently he has had the likelihood of death before him and has meant to have everything clear. He was treasurer—my mother nominally—of a widows’ fund. After the last entry in the account book of it, there is a memorandum written out clearly and fully within a few days, in pencil, directing the next thing to be done. The day before he died, he said to Harry that he hoped he might get up again but so old a man was liable to go at any moment, if he should, he (Harry) had better [put] the funeral arrangements in the hands of Whittemore and let him do what was customary. I think he had abandoned the hope of pulling through before I came and was hoping for a quick and easy release.

It was gratifying to me to find among his papers filed in his private drawer, a number of scraps of newspapers running back 20 years, referring to my books or the parks or other works in which I have been engaged.