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[[marginalia]] 8918 [[/marginalia]]

[[round stamp]] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
DEC
11
1886 [[/round stamp]]

On Board Ship Nightingale in
Plover Bay NW, Asia
Oct'r 12th 1866

Dear Prof. Baird

Although you have probably already received by telegraph the sad news of the death of Maj. Kennicott. Yet Pease and myself thought ^[[insertion]] it [[/insertion]] best to improve the opportunity afforded by the bark Rutgers' leaving for San Francisco direct and to send this letter in addition to the telegraphic dispatch.

Maj. Kennicott died very suddenly at Nulato on the 13th of last May. There were at that place, at the time, Maj's Ketchum, Dyer, Pease, ^[[insertion]] Adams, Smith [[/insertion]] & Laberge. They were waiting for the breaking up of the ice of the Kwichpak when they intended to start for Fort Yukon by water. The other explorations were all well under weigh or already completed.

For several weeks before his death Mr. Kennicott had been in rather ill health complaining of sleepless night &c, but for