xt7qjq0stw34_4040 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection Martin Farquhar Tupper letter to Brantz Mayer text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. Martin Farquhar Tupper letter to Brantz Mayer 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_39/Folder_91/Multipage13759.pdf 1875 December 28 1875 1875 December 28 
  Scope and Contents
  
Peal accession no. 11088b. Includes a transcript and a summary of the letter.
 section false xt7qjq0stw34_4040 xt7qjq0stw34  

  

  

  

 5 The Villas. Anerley, London S E
(having let Albury for a while) Decr 28. 1875.

To General Brant'z Mayer &c Soc 860 Baltimore, U. 8.

my dear General,

At length, there is a reasonable dawn of hope for
me that my longmeditated American revisit may be realized. My health
is quite re-established, & all else agrees, & my great wish shall, D.
V., be accomplished. So then, let me announce a probable coming your
way of me & my daughter early in the Spring - I think at the end of
Febry: sailing from Southampton to Baltimore, in order to go South
first for warm weathers' sake & because a cousin at Charleston (S.
Y. Tupper, President of the Chamber of Commerce there) invites us;
thereafter going to New Orleans &c. My errand will be a business one,
of the literary sort; reading my own writings, & especially sundry Plays
suitable to America, as Alfred, Raleigh, and in particular for this
centenary my "washington". Let me have a chance of inaugurating this
at Baltimore: I am skilled at the sort of thing, & have won scores
of triumphs all over Scotland & the West of England & other places
to the winning of many new friends & the rivetting many old ones, -
as well as gaining otherwise golden harvests. my play is to be print- ‘
ed in America for copyright purposes, perhaps at Baltimore, if you
will make me acquainted with a first rate publisher there; and so
you shall have the first copy. It is in preliminary print here, but
I have only 4 copies, and it is private & imperfect; or you Should
have one. Kindly then expedite my purpose as you best can; write, &
advise; for we greet each other as ancient friends remembring a quar-
ter of a century. Commend me to any who know me in my books. God be
With you. Always yours

martin F. Tupper

P. S. As you may have seen from your papers, I have read my Play
before Genl Schenck your Minister here, & a mixed audience, to great
effect; & one chief feature in it is "Washington's Heraldry" - my
'51 discovery at Mt vernon made known by me at your Baltimore Din-
ner with dear Kennedy in the chair, which you will recollect. The
incident is now historic. I count on your support; & we perhaps may yet
accomplish what you & your good brother desired heretofore, a travel
with me even to St Francisco: Who knows? However, let me begin by cal-
ling on you at Baltimore in the end of Febry, Providence permitting.
write & tell me that you are well, & get this. So many friends are
"gone before", that I send no messages by name; commend me aSafore-
said.

 

washington's Heraldry. Notes & Queries (American) Vol. 180, 5, Jan.
18, 1941. Reply, clxxix, 224. Tupper refers to the supposed use of the
washington coat-of-arms as a basis for the design of the American flag.
(The washingtons bore: Argent, two bars gules, in chief 3 mullets of
the second, i.-e. "stars and stripes"). His play, 'Washington, a Drama',
New York, 1876, pp 51-32, relates-the incident of '51, as-he states in
his preface, and puts it into the mouth of Benjamin Franklin. In may,
1851, Tupper visited Mt vernon, and there spied the Washington coat-of-
arms on a cast iron chimney back. He reported this ”find" to the Histor-
ical Society at Baltimore, and was awarded a diploma for it. Present-day
authorities on the origin of the American flag are inclined to disenunt
_this theory of its origin. Hewever. there is a striking similarity
between the arms and the flag. The washington crest was an eagle
“issuant” , another striking coincidence, if it be that. (G. H. D.
University 6f,Wisconsin)

(Collection of Frank L. Pleadwell of anolulu)