Noteworthy TLS as president, one page, 5 x 7.75, black-bordered Executive Mansion letterhead, September 20, 1901. Letter to Boston banker George Cabot Lee, Jr. (1871-1950), the brother of Alice Hathaway Lee, the first wife of President Theodore Roosevelt. The letter, written only six days after assuming the presidency, in full: “I am very much obliged to you, old fellow, for your letter of the 16th. I shall do my best to bear myself well.” In very good to fine condition, with light soiling, a crease to the upper right corner, and short splits to the ends of the central horizontal fold.
On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Roosevelt, who was vacationing in Vermont, rushed to visit McKinley in the hospital; when it appeared the president would recover, Roosevelt traveled to the Adirondacks to go hiking. Roosevelt learned of McKinley's worsening condition while at Lake Tear of the Clouds, and immediately took a midnight stagecoach ride to the Adirondack Railway station and boarded a train for Buffalo. President McKinley passed while Roosevelt was en route. Upon his arrival in Buffalo, Roosevelt paid his respects to the fallen McKinley and his widow, then was sworn in as the nation's 26th president at the Ansley Wilcox House on September 14th, six days before this letter was written. As such, the immediacy of President McKinley’s death is the cause for the uncommon black-bordered stationery.
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