| Title: | [Letter] 1840 January 21, Tarrytown [to] Kemble, Washington City / Washington Irving. |
| Personal Author: | Irving, Washington, 1783-1859. |
| Date: | 1840 January 21. |
| Extent: | [3] leaves. |
| General Note: | The letter is date stamped and bears the impression of a seal. See also additional letters in the collection from Irving. See also Kemble's biography and a guide to research collections of his papers (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000084). |
| Abstract: | Irving writes to Kemble on the matter of the heirs of Joseph Young who are urging a claim for remuneration for the house that was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. Irving characterizes their claim as just, stating that the house was used as a headquarters by American troops which drew upon it "the wrath of the enemy" which caused the family to suffer greatly. The recipient of the letter, Gouverneur Kemble, served as a Representative from New York from 1837 to 1841, later interested in promoting the Hudson River and Pacific Railroads. The youngest of 11 children, Irving grew up by the woods on the Hudson River, leaving his early career in law to write, travel, and fill diplomatic posts in Europe. He published a New York magazine Salmagundi (1807-1808) focusing on literature, drama, and politics, and then wrote the comic satire A History of New York (1809). While in Europe his The Sketch Book was published in New York in installments, including the popular tales of "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He was attached to the US embassy in Madrid in 1826 and London in 1829; in 1832 he returned to New York to write about the western frontier, and accepted a diplomatic post in Spain in 1842, returning to New York in 1846. By 1859 he finished the fifth volume of his biography of Washington. |
| Personal Subject: | Irving, Washington, 1783-1859--Correspondence
Kemble, Gouverneur, 1786-1875--Correspondence. |
| Corporate Subject: | United States. Congress. House. |
| Subject: | American literature--19th century
United States--Politics and government--19th century
United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. |
| Recipient: | Kemble, Gouverneur, 1786-1875. |
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