Autographed Letter Signed to a female music teacher

New York, 1848. unbound. 1 page, 10 x 8 inches, New York City, September 6, 1848, to Helen Musgrove, agreeing to hire her as a music teacher at the Knoxville Female Institute, in part: "...I am urged to prep the matter upon your favorable consideration and allow me to say, on behalf of the Principal of the Institute, that if you will accept the place, you shall receive a salary of $600 annum. I will simply add that I believe you would find Knoxville a delightful residence and would be pleased with the change of scene, of climate and society, which a visit there would afford..." Several minor stains plus a tiny hole at one of the folds; good condition. Note: the majority of Dr. Hume's surviving papers are housed at the University of Tennessee, and they date from 1865 until his death. Correspondence from the 1840s and 1850s, when he freed his slaves, and including the period encompassing the American Civil War rarely come to market, as most letters were destroyed during the Rebellion. Provenance: The Rufus Woodward Archive: sold at Alexander Autographs, February 2007.<br/><br/> American social reformer, clergyman and educator in Knoxville, Tennessee. During the 1840s and 1850s he freed his slaves and helped several slaves in Knoxville purchase their freedom, spending the rest of his life championing the education of freed blacks and slaves. His pro Union sentiments forced him to resign from the clergy in 1861 after he refused to acknowledge Confederate President Jefferson Davis's National Day of Prayer. He survived the Civil War to become President of the University of Tennessee.<br/><br/>