BENJAMIN PEIRCE - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED 08/17/1875 - HFSID 71623

BENJAMIN PEIRCE
He signs a humorous 1875 handwritten note to his niece, advising her to "love your neighbor as yourself, provided that neighbor is your old uncle or a sweet cousin."
Autograph Note signed: "Benjamin Peirce", 1 page, 7x4½. Orchard, August 17, 1875. To "My Dear Niece", in full: "Be sure that you love your neighbor as yourself, provided that neighbor, is your old uncle or some sweet cousin." Benjamin Peirce (1809-1880), Harvard professor of mathematics and astronomy from 1833-1880, was Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1867-1874. He was renowned for his accurate computation of the general perturbations of Uranus and Neptune and for his researches on the rings of Saturn. He also made important discoveries in mathematics. The identity of the niece to whom this humorous note is addressed is unknown. Peirce and his wife, the former Sarah Hunt Mills, had three sons and a daughter. Also intriguing is the originating address, Orchard. Was this the famed Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, owned by educator and transcendentalist philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott, which would become a School of Philosophy in 1879, with Benjamin Peirce among its faculty of lecturers? If so, it was the home where Bronson's daughter Louisa May Alcott grew up, and where she had penned (and located) her novel Little Women in 1868. Clearly, this piece merits further research. Lightly toned at edges. Otherwise, fine condition.