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Friday Dec. 12" 1884. It was raining and snowing when I went over to breakfast and has rained steadily all day. I have worked on my picture all day and improved it and feel hopeful that I will make a good picture of it. In my seclusion here I think many times a day of dear Gertrude and always with a pang of sorrow too deep for utterance. This evening I was arranging one of the little bureau drawers and I came upon many little trifles she put there and which I infinitely treasure. Nothing that she has touched can I bear to destroy. It is enough to make a treasure of it that she has looked at it and held it in her hand. O! I wonder if I shall be with her once more when I am done with the things of this life. I hope and believe I shall and I love to believe that she is still conscious of my undying love for her. Many times a day I involuntarily speak her name and bless her with all the love of my soul. One would think after so many years I would not think of her so much but I miss her every day of my life and am conscious how entirely my life is changed without her. It is well that she is spared the sadness of these later years. She died before she had had any experience of serious trouble or anxiety and I love to remember her in the sunshine of her intense enjoyment of life. I have been thinking too of Gussie. Perhaps even now Joe may be on his way to take back her remains to Hillsboro. How can he bear to do it, so in direct opposition to her wishes and so shocking to the feelings of all of us.

[[newspaper clipping]]
Tribune
Dec. 13, 84
OBITUARY.

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.
Benjamin F. Butler, who died last Thursday night at his home, No. 9 West Tenth-st., was born in Albany, on January 9, 1830. His father, Benjamin F. Butler, was at that time practising law at the State Capital, and was the law partner of Martin Van Buren, and subsequently Attorney-General in the Cabinets of both President Andrew Jackson and President Van Buren. In 1847 the young man entered the University of the City of New-York, and in 1849, having romantic notions of the pleasures of a sea-faring life, enhanced by family traditions of the bravery of his uncle, Lieutenant William Howard Allen, of the United States Navy, who was killed off the coast of Cuba while pursuing pirates in his schooner, the Alligator, he left college and went "before the mast."

For two years he led a sailor's life and then settled down in this city. First entering the store of Edwin Hunt, a hardware merchant in Maiden-lane, he soon after became a clerk in the well-known house of Maitland, Phelps & Co. On July 1, 1860, he became a partner in the firm, which at that time consisted of Royal Phelps, Robert Gordon and himself. He continued in the firm till its dissolution, December 31, 1883, when he organized the banking and commission house of Butler, Macdonald & Co., No. 76 Wall-st. Gordon MacDonald and Benjamin F. Butler, jr., were his partners and still continue the business. Mr. Butler, whose older brother, William Allen Butler, the lawyer, survives him, married in 1855 the eldest daughter of the late Dr. Willard Parker. Mrs. Butler and eight children, of whom seven are sons, are living.

He was a man of great business tact, of warm spmpathetic nature and entered with great heartiness into the pursuits that engaged his attention. He was regarded by business men as a man of rare judgement and strict integrity, and was frequently called upon to act as arbitrator in disputed questions in the sugar trade, with which he was especially familiar.

In the War for the Union he went to the front with the Twenty-second Regiment, in which he was a Captain and on whose veteran roll his name is inscribed. He was for many years an officer of the Church of the Covenant, at Park-ave and Thirty-fifth-st., of which the Rev. Dr. Marvin R. Vincent is now pastor. He was active and liberal in his efforts for the building of the church. He was a member of the Century Club. For the last eighteen years Mr Butler lived at Scarsdale, in Westchester County, where his uncle, Charles Butler, lives. He occasionally passed the winter in this city. Since he came to the city, about October 1, he has been mostly confined to his house, his malady being Bright's disease. Last week he was at his office, but since then has gradually failed in strength. The funeral will take place at the Church of the Covenant, at 10a.m. on Monday.
[[/newspaper clipping]]

Monday Dec. 15" 1884.
I saw this notice of Mr. Butler's death this morning (Saturday) I went home and was greatly shocked by it although I feared he would hardly live through the winter. I wrote a note to Mrs. Butler expressive of my sorrow. He was an old and sincere friend and his death is another loss to me. I went home by 4 o'clk train. Up towards Haverstraw the fields were white with snow and at home it looked very misty. My father did not seem quite so well but I and Sara also thought it was a little indigestion. I hardly went out of doors all day Sunday. It was a grey day and the watery landscape was soothing and quieting to me I talked with my father and I think cheered him a great deal. In the evening Sara went up to Kingston with the Lawtons, & Natalie Anderson to a spiritual seance. She had been a week ago and much was promised this time. I Walked with her down to Geo. Stevens' where the rest of the party met her. She did not get home until near midnight. Meanwhile it had snowed and then rained and froze. The whole thing was most unsatisfactory and she said she did not want to go again. I came down this morning by 8 o clk train. To my great satisfaction I have found out the trouble with my stove and now it works perfectly. I called up at Jim Warrens in the evening but he and his wife had gone to Paterson to see Mrs. Barber, his sister so I came back to the club and wrote to Sara what Mary had told me about Joe having gone up to Yonkers and burdened poor Downing with his

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