(NEW YORK) Papers of Dr Cornelius R Agnew including dozens o

Sale 2486 - Lot 339

Price Realized: $ 2,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

(NEW YORK.) Papers of Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, including dozens of notable autographs. 95 items (0.25 linear feet) in one box, including 61 letters received, the remainder being mostly printed ephemera; condition generally strong. Vp, 1856-82

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Cornelius Rea Agnew (1830-1888) was a prominent New York surgeon who founded the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital and taught at Columbia. A highlight is an 1881 letter from Richard Henry Pratt, head of the Carlisle Indian School, offering his dispiriting philosophy: "If 10% of our Ind'n youth could be subjected to training & education in civilized surroundings and the other 90% brought forward at agencies, one generation would not be required to relieve us from the cost of their support, and make the Ind'n able for the lower walks of life." The lot also includes letters signed by magnates John Jacob Astor III, William E. Dodge Jr. (4), Cyrus West Field, John S. Kennedy, and William Henry Vanderbilt; academic Frederick A.P. Barnard; politicians Hamilton Fish, Abram S. Hewitt (2), Seth Low, Senator Edwin D, Morgan (16), and George H. Sharpe; artists Jonathan Scott Hartley (2) and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (2); author Oliver Wendell Holmes; ministers Aaron H. Hand (5) and Henry J. Van Lennep (6); lawyer John Jay (1817-1894); General Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas); and two close relations of Theodore Roosevelt: Elliott Roosevelt (his brother) and James A. Roosevelt (his uncle). Several programs and menus are signed by the members of the Union League and the New York Farmers, signed by some of the preceding including Dodge and Jay.