Letter from SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated March 1, 1867.
Primary tabs
My Dear Mr. Marsh
I have yours of Feb. 5' with stamps enclosed, for which I am much obliged Please save all you can from your [... ...], no matter how many of a kind, as I can make good use of any number.
You have doubtless received Mr Seward letter about the Baltimore matter, after learning to my disgust that they would not pay more than $3000.00 and wanted a young man to "grow up." with the affair, which means to impress on it all kinds of Juvenile Crudities and inexperience. No plan of operation is yet decided on, and they want more than anything else, some one of experience to plan for them, from a large knowledge of the world, and the object more worthy of attention of students and scholars yet they ask for a young man of 3000.00! I have no patience with such doings, and as the thing is so far at an end it is not worth while to discuss it any further.
I trust that you may be undisturbed in your place as long as you care to stay there: even after the next President comes in. The country cannot afford to lose such representatives as yourself, if they are willing to give their time and services. When you come back I cannot believe but that something worthy of you will show itself, ready for your acceptance
Mary and Lucy send bushels of love. They have tried several times to see Mrs. Hetzel? and learn something personal about you all, but have not yet succeeded.
Sincerely & affectionately YoursSpencer F. BairdHon. Geo P MarshFlorence.
References in this letter:
A Whig, William Henry Seward (1801-1872) was governor of New York and U.S. Senator before he became Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.
Founded in 1857 with the financial backing of George Peabody (d. 1869), a self-made investment banker, this Baltimore institution originally served as an lyceum of all the arts, featuring lectures and a library.