Wisconsin Man Writes Of Anti-Slavery Cause, Intemperance, Tilton-Beecher Affair For Sale

4 pp, 5 x 8, June 16, 1875, ALS, J.S. Loomis of Portage City, Wisconsin, to “My dear friend Sarah.” Loomis was an industrialist, developer and machinery inventor. He writes, somewhat poetically, about “a call from the Ladies Temperance Union,” bearing “marks” from the M.E. Church while the anti-slavery cause was in its birth throes and sympathizing with Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, whose publicly humiliating affair with Henry Ward Beecher was a world-wide scandal.

“From home as you see by the headline on my way to Green Bay to spend a Sunday in town to a call from the Ladies Temperance Union of that city. Six moons have waned since I looked last upon the forest skirted vale of Trout Brook & upon the faces of some who are very dear in all memories that come to me on winged thoughts by day, happy dreams at night & fill the prosaic duties of the time with the sweet poetry of conscious existence, heaven & earth conspire to make me wondrously blest principally in my few friends among whom you & Irving stand in no second place. Don’t think me indifferent to the transitions going on in your affairs so different from what you hoped as well as your friends – yet my dear Sarah how helpful the words ‘These light afflictions shall work out an eternal weight of glory’ should the lines that are cast for us be always as we desired, the problem of our final happiness would be very precarious, if solved at all but left in the dear Father’s loving hands a certainty is assured that shall give shine all the glory –

“Irving’s union with the M.E. Church was expected by me yet I wished otherwise, the marks I bear from that sect while the Anti-Slavery cause was in its birth throes it is hard for me to personally forget, but aside from that, its oligarchical government (not quite as bad as before its last gen convention) is abhorrent to my ideas of republican institutions. Yet great credit is due the sect for its zeal in gaining proselytes & increasing its power; its influence is second only to the Roman Church & is a powerful antidote to its dangerous influences.

“Poor Mrs. Tilton among the sufferers of Brooklyn. My sympathies are for her – a sensitive (not over sensible) plant scorched by the lightnings that struck the tree that overshadowed it. The tree makes good fuel for daily journals, but the poor plant has to feel unheeded the heat of all that burning. May the dear Lord keep her & all...”

In May 1875, the Ladies Temperance Union of Green Bay observed a highly publicized “Day of Fasting and Prayer” aimed at suppressing intemperance.

In August 1874, the infamous Beecher-Tilton scandal, which had been discussed widely for several years, culminated in a lawsuit triggering the trial of the century, exposing an adulterous affair between Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who preached to thousands weekly at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights. Mrs. Tilton was a devout parishioner. After an internal church committee cleared Beecher, a ruined and furious Theodore Tilton sued Beecher in Brooklyn. He charged the minister with adultery and alienation of affection, demanding $100,000. The trial was a media circus. After six months, the jury deadlocked, resulting in a hung jury that technically acquitted Beecher of legal penalties. While Beecher maintained his pulpit, the trial ruined the careers of Eliabeth and Theodore Tilton.

Folds. Light toning. Superb Americana.

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