Monday, August 17, 2026

Daniel S. Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, August 9, 1858

Binghamton
Aug. 9, 1858
Dear Sir

Your favor of the 3d with enclosure of Mr Alfred Hyde toyou, has just been recd. Hyde was here and in business, a few years, and I know him, not intimately, but as I know men of that class who are here for two or three years. He consulted me as counsel, on one or two occasions, & I conducted some business being against him. He came here from Boston as I understood, where it is said he was well brought up & respectably active in domestic & business relations. His intercourse with me was always frank & honorable. He was connected here in a mercantile establishment, and was one of a good many free trade speculators and as it was speculating [?] their dealings were pretty miscellaneous, but I saw nothing in Hydes course but that he was as good as the average. His establishment here failed badly, as it was natural it should, and he was a good deal censured in connection with it, but I not not [sic] know that he was more censured that [??ings], [???liss] dealers generally are.

This is all I know of him personally. he went west and the stories circulated concerning him there, and among them his booking &c, were not creditable, but I know nothing of their truth He is said to have married respectably in Cleveland

Sincerely Yours
D. S. Dickinson
Hon. A. Lincoln

SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Daniel S. Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, Monday,Legal. August 9, 1858. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.0119100/.

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