JOHN JAY II - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 02/12/1876 - HFSID 3749

JOHN JAY JR.
He signs an autograph letter to Scribner & Co., wanting to know what has happened to a book he had them mail to a German countess.
Autograph Letter signed: "John Jay", 2 pages, 5x7¾ (front and verso). 22 Washington Square (New York City), 1876 February 12. To Messrs Scribner & Co", in full: "Some weeks since I bought at your place a copy of Dana's Household Post, which was to be sent by post to the Countess Bruhl - Palace of the Crown Prince, Berlin. It was [2 words illegible] & addressed by me & left with one of your Clerks, who was to add postage stamps which I paid for & send it. Madame Bruhl writes to Mrs. Jay that the package has never been received. Will you be so good as to have enquiry made whether it was duly posted - & when. & much oblige." John Jay, Jr. (1817-94, born in New York City) was an American lawyer, abolitionist and diplomat, a grandson of Supreme Court Chief Justice, New York Governor and constitution advocate John Jay. He became president of the New York Young Men's Antislavery Society while attending Columbia University. Jay was active in the short-lived anti-slavery Free Soil Party and prominent in the founding of the Republican Party, which absorbed the Free Soil Party in 1854. He was also United States Minister to Austria-Hungary in 1869 to 1875 and became president of the American Historical Association in 1889. No specifics are available on Countess Bruhl, but the German Crown Prince in 1876 was Frederick, son of the Emperor Wilhelm I and father of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor. The Crown Prince, married to the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, ascended the throne himself as Frederick III in 1888, but died after only 99 days on the throne. His death from throat cancer is considered one a great "what if" of history, since he was a liberal admirer of English parliamentary government and an opponent of the autocratic militarism espoused by both Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II. Adhesive residue left edge p1. Horizontal and vertical fold creases. Lightly soiled at margin beneath signature on page 2 and at upper left margin on page1. Otherwise, fine condition.