Autograph Letter Signed ('J. T. Headley') from Joel Tyler Headley, Secretary of State of New York, [to his father], expressing his desire to return to the Auburn Theological Seminary in New York following a bout of ill health.

1p., 4to. Good, on lightly-aged lined paper. Headley's father - a Presbyterian clergyman - is not named, but the letter is addressed to 'Rev and dear Sir', with the valediction reading 'Respectfully & affectionately', and the context makes it quite clear that he is the recipient. Headley begins: 'After I had left Auburn I found my constitution had received a severer shock than I at first anticipated and that it would require all the care and relaxation I could give my system to restore it to any thing like its usual tone.' He at first 'deemed it imprudent to return to the Seminary this term fully believing that I should be acting in accordance with your own views if you knew all the circumstances of the case'. Nevertheless he is writing to inform him that he will 'nevertheless endeavor to be there at commencement & fulfil my appointment as speaker of my class'.