"NEW LEBANON, _March 19, 1810_.
"DEAR SIR,--I want to get four or five pounds of your best _full-blood_
Merino Wool to manufacture into cloth for a Coat. I applied to you
once before for the article for the same purpose, but you informed me
that your wool was all previously engaged. I hope, Sir, that you will
accommodate me; I can by some means get it forwarded to Hudson, from
whence I can get it. I will thank you to drop me an answer by the mail,
by which conveyance I will forward you the money, or get it to you by
way of my friend, Dr. Younglove, of Hudson, if you accommodate me with
the wool.
"I am, Sir, Your
"humble Servant,
"ELAM TILDEN."
The most disastrous fire with which the city of New York has ever yet
been visited is referred to in the following letter. It reduced to
ashes pretty much every structure within the area bounded by Wall and
Broad streets and the East River, a tract which then embraced nearly,
if not quite all the important commission houses in the city; crippled
all our insurance companies, and gave to the territory it covered a
blow from which, after a lapse of nearly three-quarters of a century,
it has but partially recovered. Like the great fire of London in the
seventeenth century, it is still referred to as the _Great Fire_ of
1835.