Washington Irving Letter Gifted to Historic Hudson Valley

In 2025, Historic Hudson Valley was thrilled to accept a generous gift from Percy Preston, a sixth-generation descendant of William Irving, Washington Irving’s oldest brother. The gift includes an eight-page letter, dated October 28, 1858, from Washington Irving to his grandnephew, Irving Grinnell, whose mother was a daughter of William Irving. The note was sent to Baring Brothers, a historic London merchant bank founded in 1762, to await the Grinnell family’s arrival while on an extended tour of Europe.

“This letter is a valuable addition to our collection of Irving manuscripts, which is rich in correspondence and historical documentation from several generations of Washington Irving’s immediate family,” said Catalina Harran, research librarian at Historic Hudson Valley. “It, along with the rest of the collection, is easily accessible to our staff and external researchers.” The letter to Irving Grinnell shows Washington Irving as affectionate, proud, and offering advice—his typical role—and provides other snippets of information about family members, helping us better understand the private Washington Irving and build our profiles of his relatives.

The gift included five additional assorted pages in Irving’s hand that contain notes about places he visited in England, including Newstead Abbey, the former home of Romantic poet Lord Byron. It also features tiny pencil sketches of a rural landscape and heraldic shields.

This marks the second wonderful gift from Percy Preston, who, in 2016, donated a large passport document that was issued to Washington Irving by Spanish officials. Dated August 6, 1846, the document stated that Irving was concluding his four-year service as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Spain and was traveling “to return to his country.”