Autograph Letter Signed, as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives, to his wife, Emma A. Bearss, Washington, August 25, 1842
- SIGNED
Quarto, 4 pages, including stamp less address leaf, paper browned, some staining, two small holes from seal opening with no significant loss of text, else in good condition.
1842 Indiana politician lobbies in Washington for claims against Midwestern Tribes – and threatens violence.
A merchant, farmer, and politician who had emigrated to the Midwest frontier from New York, Bearss first went to work for a firm engaged in the Indian trade until opening his own mercantile business, growing wealthy from land and business investments. He was elected as a Whig to the Indiana Legislature in 1841, serving in both legislative houses for 12 years, before, during and after the Civil War. Switching to the new Republican Party in 1856, he attended the first Republican National Convention that nominated John Fremont.
This letter was written while he was visiting Washington as a lobbyist for business interests holding treaty claims against the Pottawatomi, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Miami Indians.
"… It appears to me that the last six months of my life has been throwed away…had I known that I would have been detained one fourth the time when I came here I should have started back the same week I arrived here but we have been put off from one week to another…I can't tell you when I will get a way from here…I expect my Claims will be cut down probably to one half the am[oun]t allowed me by the Comm[issioner]s. And it will be so with all the claimants after the treaty. It is a discouraging business but we will make the Indians pay us the balance or kill ever(y) one of them ..."
1842 Indiana politician lobbies in Washington for claims against Midwestern Tribes – and threatens violence.
A merchant, farmer, and politician who had emigrated to the Midwest frontier from New York, Bearss first went to work for a firm engaged in the Indian trade until opening his own mercantile business, growing wealthy from land and business investments. He was elected as a Whig to the Indiana Legislature in 1841, serving in both legislative houses for 12 years, before, during and after the Civil War. Switching to the new Republican Party in 1856, he attended the first Republican National Convention that nominated John Fremont.
This letter was written while he was visiting Washington as a lobbyist for business interests holding treaty claims against the Pottawatomi, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Miami Indians.
"… It appears to me that the last six months of my life has been throwed away…had I known that I would have been detained one fourth the time when I came here I should have started back the same week I arrived here but we have been put off from one week to another…I can't tell you when I will get a way from here…I expect my Claims will be cut down probably to one half the am[oun]t allowed me by the Comm[issioner]s. And it will be so with all the claimants after the treaty. It is a discouraging business but we will make the Indians pay us the balance or kill ever(y) one of them ..."