[Rarebooks] fs: The Vice President is Dead...

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

Wilson, Henry. FOUR ITEMS FROM THE FUNERAL SOLEMNITIES FOR VICE PRESIDENT
HENRY WILSON.  Boston: 1875.

Born Jeremiah Jones Colbath in Farmington, New Hampshire in 1812, Henry
Wilson became an important abolitionist leader, a Senator, and Vice
President of the United States. Early life was hard for Jeremiah- he came
from a family so poor that his father named him after a rich neighbor in
hopes of extracting money in return; from the ages 10 to 21 he was
apprenticed to a farmer and never had more than a month of school a year.

At the age of 21 he changed his name to Henry Wilson and traveled to
Natick, Massachusetts where he became a shoemaker. An 1836 trip to
Washington, D.C. aroused a fierce antipathy to slavery in Wilson, and he
entered state politics as a Whig, winning election to both state House and
Senate. When the Whigs proved too conservative he joined the radical Free
Soil party, but the party collapsed. Something of a political opportunist,
he then joined the "Know Nothings", and, in a complicated maneuver, got
himself elected to the United States Senate as a Republican.

Wilson never lost touch with the common man, never forgot his roots, and
disdained the society of Boston Brahmins. He is said to have traveled
tirelessly through Massachusetts and the other states, talking and
listening to people. Paired in the Senate with his colleague Charles
Sumner, Wilson worked hard for abolition, and became the Chairman of the
powerful Senate Committee on Military Affairs during the Civil War.

After the War he introduced the first civil rights legislation in the
Senate and became extremely critical of President Johnson, supporting
Johnson's impeachment. In 1868 he began to angle for the Vice Presidency,
and although backroom maneuvering denied him the job in 1868, he got it in
1872. Unfortunately, just as he got the job during Ulysses Grant's second
term, he suffered a stroke, from which he never really recovered. He died
in the Capitol building on November 22nd, 1875.

This interesting lot includes a black-bordered admission card to the
"Solemnities" at the Massachusetts State House; the program for the
Commemoration Services at the State House; an invitation to a "meeting of
citizens" at Boston's Faneuil Hall to commemorate the Vice President, and
a black-bordered program for the services held at Wilson's home in Natick.
A little light soil, but overall very nice condition. [02491] $125.00

Illustration-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images/th-02491.jpg>


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