LETTER RE: PEGGY EATON "PETTICOAT" AFFAIR-ANDREW JACKSON SCANDAL: SAMUEL D. INGHAM TO JOHNATHAN INGHAM, DEC 13, 1848
1848. Document. 1. Letter, Samuel D. Ingham to son, Johnathan Ingham, Dec 13 1848, which makes mention of “The Eldorado of California that is now driving every body crazy."
Bifolium, 10" x 7 7/8." pp. 4. Good quality wove paper. Slight tear to fore-edge, 1/2", text unaffected. Also included: 1) Home-made scrapbook, "A Gallery of Inghams." Dark green cardstock, 9" x 6 1/2." pp. 4. Pasted reproduced photographs from original film with captions, 1981. 2 of 7 paste downs detached; 2) Home-made scrapbook, "Johnathan Ingham: An Eighteenth Century Bucks County Physician." Dark green cardstock, folio, 11" x 8." Contains photocopied biographical entry on Johnathan Ingham, father of Samuel D. Ingham, 1986. And assorted notes. Very Good Plus. Item #84959
Samuel D. Ingham (1779-1860) served as US Treasury Secretary under President Andrew Jackson from 1829 to 1831. During his tenure, Ingham attempted to mediate the dispute over hard currency between the president and the Second Bank of the US. He garnered national attention, however, for his role in the scandalous "Petticoat Affair" that rocked the Jacksonian administration. The affair concerned Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War, John Eaton. Mrs. Eaton's reputation as an uncouth, impure, and immoral woman caused the couple to be ostracized by the wives of Jackson's cabinet members. The crisis reached a breaking point when Jackson requested that the anti-Eaton faction resign from his cabinet. Ingham resigned in June of 1831 along with the other cabinet members. On June 20th, 1831, Eaton challenged Ingham to a duel, to which Ingham refused. Fearing for his life, Ingham fled to Baltimore. After the affair, he retired from public life and returned to the manufacturing and coal sectors, but as the present letter demonstrates, his experience as Secretary of Treasury made him a shrewd commentator on the development of the nation's economy. (Wikipedia) In the present letter to his son, Ingham expresses concern about the California Gold Rush and "the consequences of an inexhaustible supply of gold." He delineates some of these consequences and suggests ways that the federal government should handle the situation. The letter evidences Ingham's continued engagement with matters of political economy. Perhaps more importantly, it documents a point of view on a major historical moment held by a man who had once been at the helm of the nation's economy. The documents that accompany the letter attest to Ingham's descendants' interest in preserving his legacy. In the 1980s, his relative Barbara Penrose of NY and Diana Jewel researched their family's history at the Spruance Library of the Bucks County Historical Society in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Penrose amassed a collection of family documents (four file drawers to be exact) and gifted her relatives with scrapbooks based on her research. The first scrapbook, "A Gallery of Inghams" contains her typed captions and photographs of the Ingham family in the 1860s, developed from the original film by an Ithaca based photographer, C. Hadley Smith. The second scrapbook "Jonathan Ingham: An Eighteenth Century Bucks County Physician" contains a photocopy of a painting and accompanying biographic description of Samuel's father, Jonathan Ingham, a famous physician. Penrose gifted this book to a Joel and Sheila in 1986. The present portfolio comprises an important historical document produced by Samuel D. Ingham and documents produced by his descendants who sought to preserve his legacy.
Price: $225.00