1879. Original Purchase:
June 25. To cash paid Mutual Life
Insurance Co $3,000 00
Sept. 4. To cash paid Mutual Life
Insurance Co 119,162 26
Sept. 5. To cash paid taxes 12,544 77
Sept. 5. To cash paid J. F. Waring 3,500 00
Sept. 5. To cash paid J. F. Waring 11,792 97--$150,000 00
Improvement (?) 48,208 91
Baldwin Property, purchase 55,198 40
Baldwin Property, improvements 546 02
Clark Property, purchase 12,266 38
Other plot 10,521 10
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_Forward_ $276,779 81
_Carried forward_ $276,779 81
Work on Greenhouse:
Lord Hort Mfg. Co. $49,611 50
Stewart, mason 635 83
Plumbing, painting, concreting, etc. 685 12
Labor, blasting, and digging 4,696 21
Supplies, chairs, bedding, etc. 102 87-- 55,731 53
Wall in front of Greenhouse 945 62
Gardener's Cottage 3,045 88
Farmer's Cottage 6,849 38
Additions to barn 703 27
Plumbing 18,964 55
Allowance Stone Stable 1,500 00
Furniture 19,269 05
Furniture Baldwin House 1,600 00
Plants in Greenhouse 8,901 89
Plants outside 75 25-- 8,977 14
____________
$394,327 23
JOHN BIGELOW TO HON. WILLIAM H. PECK, EX-SECRETARY OF STATE OF
MICHIGAN
"NEW YORK, _Febry. 28th, 1879_.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--In your last note you ask me if Tilden
will be in the field for the Presidency in 1880.
"That is a question which, I presume, no one, not even Tilden
himself, could answer categorically at present. I can express to you
my own conviction, and you may take it for what it is worth.
"Mr. Tilden has scarcely been in a position at any time, since the
election, to consult his own tastes or personal comfort in this
matter; if he had been, I think he would have notified his friends
immediately upon his return from Europe in 1877 that they must
look for another leader. He forbore to take that step, because
he shared the popular belief that he was the President-elect of
the United States, and that he was thereby clothed with certain
responsibilities to his party at least, anomalous and unprecedented
it is true, but which were of the gravest character and which it was
impossible for him to put off.
"He was still the commander in the midst of a campaign in which
he had defeated the enemy, but had not yet realized the fruits of
victory. To leave his soldiers in the field and in the presence of
the enemy without a leader was a step which would not stand the test
of a moment's reflection. Washington could, with equal propriety,
have resigned his command after the battle at Yorktown and delivered
his sword to Cornwallis, instead of himself taking the sword of the
British general.
"Such a procedure on Mr. Tilden's part would have practically
disarmed the Democratic party and compelled its surrender at
discretion. What in 1877 would have been only compromising
subsequent events would now make disgraceful. Conscious that they
had come into office by criminal processes, and that Tilden was the
choice of the people, the administration has exerted all the powers
of the Federal government in the effort to reconcile the country
with this result by defaming and maligning the character of Mr.
Tilden, and persecuting him, if possible, out of public life.
"In the latter purpose, they would probably have succeeded had Mr.
Tilden been a poor man, and dependent upon his profession for his
daily bread.
"Mr. Tilden could easily accommodate himself to the choice of any
good man for the Presidency, for it is no vulgar ambition which has
led him to accept the prominence which his party has given him, but
he cannot be expected to make the slightest concession that involves
his personal honor. He will defend that as long as he has a drop of
blood in his body, whoever may stand by him or desert him. Of this
you may feel perfectly assured.
"Now, I do not see how it is possible for Tilden, under the
circumstances, to withdraw from the canvass for 1880; and just so
far as it seems impossible for him to withdraw, it seems impossible
for his party to assent to his withdrawal.
"There are three questions which must take precedence of every other
in the next national convention.
"1. Was Tilden elected by the people in 1876?
"2. Was Hayes counted in by corrupt and fraudulent means?
"3. Has Tilden done anything since the election to forfeit the
confidence of his party or of the nation?
"Its answer to these three questions will exercise a controlling
influence over its final action.
"On the proofs already in the possession of Congress, I venture to
say that there could not be found a jury of twelve disinterested and
unbiased freeholders in the land who would hesitate to hold---
"_First._ That Tilden was elected President by the people.
"_Second._ That he was deprived of the office by fraud; and,
"_Third._ That the charges of attempting to purchase electoral
votes are not only not proven, but that they are the foul offspring
of the most ruffianly and rancorous partisanship.
"To take another candidate in 1880 is to admit that Tilden was
never the choice either of his party or of the country, and that he
was unworthy of the support of either. It is to sanction the base
conspiracy by which the people were defrauded of their choice. It
is to lie down under the degrading imputations by which, through
Tilden, the conspirators have sought to humiliate and demoralize his
party.
"Can you believe for a moment that the Democratic party is or can be
reduced to such extremities?
"The calumnies which have been propagated against Tilden will rather
strengthen than weaken him as a candidate if renominated. They will
be fatal to any other candidate, and for the obvious reason that any
other candidate would have to contend with the practical admission
of his party that it had presented and supported a candidate at
the last Presidential election who was unworthy of its own or the
country's confidence, and whom they had in consequence deliberately
abandoned.
"Such an admission would be fatal, and the more surely fatal both
because it would be an act of the most flagrant injustice to Mr.
Tilden, and because the responsibility for such an act of political
brutality would be directly traceable to the unreasonable ambition
of men whose first duty it should be to sustain and defend him.
"It is, therefore, a vital necessity for the party to vindicate
itself no less than Mr. Tilden, while to desert him would be as
much more disastrous to the former as the interests of a nation are
greater than those of any individual citizen however eminent.
"I do not think there are many people in the Democratic party so
dull as not to see this, or so wanting in loyalty to a brave and
successful leader as not to feel that they themselves will have to
suffer most by deserting the man who has endured three years of
unparalleled persecution rather than desert them.
"To you I need not dwell upon other obvious reasons for renominating
Tilden--I need not remind you of what he has done for the
Democratic party during the last fifty years, and especially since
1874; I need not tell you how he has stood and stands to-day, like
Saul in Israel, a head and shoulders above all his countrymen as a
statesman and party-leader; of the impossibility of our carrying
his native State for any other candidate whose nomination must of
necessity be an insult to him and to it; of the vast power and
promise treasured up in the political personality, which for several
years has enjoyed the distinction of concentrating upon itself the
hostility and malignity of all those classes and parties which it
has always been the paramount effort and duty of the Democracy to
subdue or to exterminate.
"Independent of these obvious, though on that account none the
less important, considerations, and looking solely to the special
questions which for the first time in our history will confront
the next national Democratic convention, I do not see how it can
hesitate to renominate Mr. Tilden by acclamation unless he refuses
to be a candidate. Nor do I see how, under the circumstances, he
can refuse to be a candidate. I have never heard him express any
determination upon the subject, but I think it safe to presume
that if he had not intended to be a candidate again he would have
purchased the peace and repose which such an announcement would have
procured him long before this, and when such a step was beset with
fewer difficulties than at present.
"That I have not incorrectly interpreted the drift of public
sentiment on this subject, I send you a copy of the Albany _Argus_
containing five or six columns of extracts from the leading
Democratic journals of nearly every State in the Union. They show
how much more logically the people generally are reasoning upon the
subject than many who aspire to lead them. These journals, as you
will see, almost unanimously recognize not only the expediency, but
the necessity of renominating Mr. Tilden. Yours faithfully,