Two Autograph Letters Signed. Hartford, Connecticut, May 15 and August 14, 1871, both to A. Andrews

LINCOLN'S FAVORITE ENGRAVER

Octavo, two letters, two pages, folded, in very good, clean, and legible condition.

"…I have just sent you two more impressions of the plate of Prof. Edmund Andrews. I think [none?] the plates should be satisfactory and if so please send the thirty dolls, for engraving it and very much oblige…Have you any suggestions to make in regard to Rev. Josiah Andrews M.S. which I propose to improve if possible and send a proof?...I have about finished the engraving of the Steel plate of your Son and if you will send me his Autograph I will engrave it on the plate and send you an impression by mail. I should have had it done before but from health prevented me from engraving all the time which has caused the delay,,,"

Pelton had begun his career as a banknote engraver in the 1830s. By the 1850s, he was engraving portraits of American notables, his most famous being an 1861 rendition of Gilbert Stuart's painting of George Washington. A framed copy hung in the Springfield, Illinois home of Abraham Lincoln while he was serving as President. Ironically, in 1865, Pelton produced an engraving of Lincoln's assassination. Pelton himself died in 1882.

Edmund Andrews, whose portrait Pelton engraved in 1871, together with that of his father, a Congregational Minister – probably for an Andrews family genealogy - was a famous American Doctor, a pioneer in surgery who was a leader of medical education in the western United States.

Oliver Pelton (1798-1882) Banknote and general engraver, born August 31, 1798, at Portland, Connecticut. He worked principally in Boston and died at East Hartford, Connecticut, August 15, 1882. With Terry, Pelton & Co. in 1836-37, Fielding, Supplement to Stauffer; Boston CD 1829-1856. Groce Wallace, Dictionary of Artists in America, p. 497