MOUNT VERNON — Time to dip into the ancient mail bag again.
One of the occasional projects of this column has been to read past people’s mail and try to figure out what they’re talking about. This time we examine a letter that was written to Mount Vernon mover-and-shaker Henry B. Curtis in 1847.
The letter appears to have been penned by one “D. M. McCann,” whoever he was. He identifies himself as writing from Martinsburg, but genealogy searches of the region have not turned up a clear candidate.
What is clear is why McCann wrote the letter: debt. He owed Curtis money. I have put my attempts to explain abbreviations and other references in italics.
“Dear Sir, I have received a line form esqr. [esquire, a form of address to lawyers in those days] Gilcrest informing me that you had parted with 35$ of my paper & he was ordered to collect it forthwith,” McCann begins.
After that, his handwriting becomes cramped, perhaps suggesting a degree of nervousness as he wrote the letter. Or perhaps he was just writing in haste. Whatever the case, it becomes difficult to follow.
“Now, if you remember I gave you an additional note for 15$ payable via [name is illegible] was gratuitous on my part & you then promised to throw off the int. [I’m guessing that’s almost certainly an abbreviation for ‘interest’.] so as to make it ‘even fifty dollars.’ —
It is optional legally with you whether you exact the int. on the 35 or not; but I do think that you will have the generosity to deduct it from the 15 not due when paid [illegible].
“Again, I would be glad if you would see Mr Gilcrest, & propose to him for me the following proposition — I hold a claim or rather the receipt from the administrator for 43 or 4 dollars for an acct. [account] vs the estate of C Beam, Decd [deceased]. They have or soon will sell the real estate for the “Rhino” [um, what? I swear, that’s what it clearly says!] & though it will not (so M. Beam one of the Ads [administrators] told me) pay more than 60 or 70 per cent on the doll. [dollar] yet I would be glad to transfer this to Mr G. if it will suit his client & pay the balance in money — Will you be so good as to let me hear from you at your convenience. I am yours, &c, &c.
(signed) D. M. McCann
“P.S. I will be in your town soon & do not wish to have a bill of costs to pay upon those notes, &c, &c. D. M. M.
“Martinsburg O March 9, 1847“
The handwritten letter was folded and is addressed on the back to “H. B. Curtis, esq, Mount Vernon, O.” This was before postage stamps were regularly used, so we don’t know what the postage cost was, but it does appear that there was no envelope.
The letter was merely folded and sealed with candle wax, a trace of which remains. On the edge of the back of the paper, a different hand has written “D. M. Cann” [which is how people sometimes abbreviated the Scottish surname prefix “Mc” or “Mac”] and the date, perhaps so the letter can be filed. There are also a handful of calculations done in pencil. Perhaps those marks were Henry Curtis himself calculating the interest on the figures under discussion?
Whatever the case, this is all we know. Henry Curtis (1799-1885) is a familiar figure from local history, not least as founder of the bank that became First Knox Bank.
But whether or not Curtis replied to this anxious debtor’s letter is unknown. I’ve not been able to turn up a solid lead on a “D. M. McCann” in Knox County history, though the surname does seem present. I did find a “D. M. Cann” who passed through New York in 1831.
He was Scottish and came to the States via Jamaica. It’s not a distinctive enough name, though, for one to be certain that’s our man.
What became of this transaction seems lost to history. What intrigues me most of all is, what could this “Rhino” be, that McCann refers to?
It sounds as if he is referring to something local. Could it be a nickname for a house? A building? A piece of land?
Anyone with further ideas or interpretations is welcome to take a crack at it.
