So --... Well what do you think I have found and am going to send you? The "Small book" of poetry which Aunt Sue thought was burned up in their first fire! And in that is Nancy Crooke. Of course in G. Father's own handwriting. The poems are mostly Rebuses which I suppose were greatly in fashion about the 1780s.

How this book of Aunt Sue's came here I do not know but you see I was correct in feeling sure that I had seen the Nancy Crooke Rebus- Although I thought it was an acrosticd as Nellie G. entitled it. Of course A Visit from St. Nick if written by Grandfather was written a number of years after these contained in the little book which I am sending you. This book was in the top of dear Aunt Jeannie's bookdcase which stands on the bureau in my room. I do not think there is anything in that which could clinch the authorship of "A Visit etc - still such as it is I send to thee. You need not return it to me - just keep it - with love. And please show to Nellie.

Oconomowac
October 5th, 1920

Dear Cousin Will-

I was much pleased to hear from you. And wish I could help you to find letters, or any writings, of grandfather Livingston. But I have nothing, and do not know who has.

Mother had a blank book in which grandfather had written a number of his poems. And oh how often I have wished for it. But it was burned when our house burned in 1869. I have an old book that belonged to Grandfather, and his name is written in it. I don't think the book is of much account, but if you would like it, I will send it to you.

It's quite possible that this book might have disappeared to the future had it not come into the possession of William Sturgis Thomas so we, as researchers, should be grateful that it did!

There is one more confusion over the poetry manuscript book. In a talk she gave in 1921, Cornelia Griswold Goodrich refers twice to poems that are in the New York Historical Society.

Fifty or more poems, many similar in their quaint swing and meter to that well-known poem of Childhood are to be found in the New York Historical Society.

If they were in the NYHS in 1921, they've been removed since then, as no originals or copies remain there, and the New York Historical Society claims not to have ever had them.

Cornelia has an even more frustratingly confusing statement.

His taste for music, by preference the flute, the most fashionable in those days, being his chief delight, gave him occasion for writing out all he wanted, the scarcity of printed music being evident. These he fancifully embroidered round the edges with delicate etchings & quaint designs. (See New York Historical Society).

This does not correspond to either the poetry manuscript book or to the the music manuscript book, which does not have illustrations.

And the New York Historical Society claims that they know nothing of either of these matters!