$750
Estimate: $1,500 - $2,500
Auction: November 12, 2020 10:00:00 AM EDT
Princeton, April 16, 1899. 4 pp. on one sheet folded to make four pages. 7 x 4 1/2 in. (177 x 114 mm). Autograph letter, signed by Cleveland, to New York banker and yachtsman, Commodore E.C. Benedict; with original mailing envelope. Creasing from original folds. Lot includes a small trade card with an image of Cleveland.
A lengthy letter from former president Grover Cleveland to friend and stockbroker, E.C. Benedict: "Your letter is at hand. I fully appreciate your kindness in signing my name to the document which will develop me into a stockholder in the New Trust Company. The only thing that bothers me is the question of payment. I don't think I want to sell anything I hold just now, and I haven't money enough in your hands to settle the subscription. Besides I want to use what I have there to live on. You are characteristcally kind to write that you will take care of it, but I would like it better if I could settle as I go. Do I understand that we have to pay $5000 for $2500 in stock?"
E.C. Benedict was a close friend and confidant of Cleveland's, even allowing him to use his yacht, the Oneida, to perform a secret surgery to remove a cancerous growth on Cleveland's jaw in 1893.