Raynor HCA 2013-07
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/18/2013
Excelsior Diary for 1882, 402 pages, 3" x 5-3/4", front cover loose. The title page, the last 14 pages headed "Memoranda" and "Cash Account" (January to July), and a few inner sheets are loose; the concluding "Cash Account" pages for August to December are missing as is the back cover. Prior to the actual diary are an 1882 calendar, astronomical calculations, sunrise, sunset, and moon set times, interest tables, representative stock prices, yearly life expectancy tables (at birth, a male could expect to live to 39.91 years old, a female 41.85 – if you got to age 21, a male could expect to reach 59.80, a female, 60.63, etc.), population of the 39 principal U.S. cities and the states and territories, postal rates, and the 20 Presidents of the United States showing Garfield as still being president, indicating this diary was printed before the summer of 1881. Almost every page of the diary is written upon, mostly in brown, blue, or purple ink until April 10, 1882 when the writer started using red ink.On the morning of July 2, 1881, President Garfield had gone with his Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, and a few others, to the Constitution Avenue Sixth Street depot of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. He was going on a short vacation, his first as President, during which he would deliver the commencement address at his alma mater, Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. They entered the ladies' waiting room at the depot and headed towards the presidential train. As Garfield and Blaine walked through the room, side by side, Charles Guiteau, a Washington lawyer and disappointed office seeker, walked towards them, drew a revolver from his pocket, and fired two shots at the President. The first shot was a flesh wound in the right arm; the second entered his back. President Garfield died from infections resulting from that wound on September 19, 1881. Guiteau attempted to flee but was apprehended by a special agent of the railroad. He was tried and convicted, and, on June 30, 1882, Guiteau was hanged in the District of Columbia jail. The writer of this diary, Malachi Suttan Englest, has signed his name in full at the conclusion of his March 5th entry and "M S Englest" on a few other pages. Englest has frequent entries stating that he worked for various people; e.g. October 28th: "I got up and went to work for Nels Nelson a maken a tomb stone I worked all day. He notes "Election" on Tuesday, November 7th. Englest has headed the Friday, June 30, 1882 page "The Death" and has sketched Guiteau hanging from the gallows and has written, in part (uncorrected spelling): "Guiteau. One home killed Garfield. He was hung this day and a good dead it was his name was Charles Guiteau...he was hung at 12 o clock and 00 minutes today." Overall, in good condition, internally fine.
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