EARLY 1900s FATHER TO SON LETTERS DISCUSSING MINING STOCKS AND OTHER INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS MATTERS; GILDED AGE

[EARLY 1900s FATHER TO SON LETTERS DISCUSSING MINING STOCKS AND OTHER INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS MATTERS; GILDED AGE] THREE LETTERS FROM JOSEPH SHATTUCK of Lawrence, Massachusetts to "My Dear Son" (unnamed) mostly discussing mining stocks and others and also the son's new position as "treasurer of a Savings Bank," and words of advice, handwritten 6 pages total over 4 lined sheets, 5-3/4" x 9" with Lawrence as location with dates 1905, 1906, 1910…samplings of the three letters are: (1) one page dated Oct. 20th 1905, "the position you have now is one the equal of which there are very few in the state and probably not one filled by one of your age...very liberal salary [the Trustees] are paying..."; (2) 3 pages dated January 16, 1906, "I have a feeling that American Telephone stock will sell higher before the year is ended...my income was over 36M ($36,000) last year...I suppose the Rogers crowd control [shares of a certain mining company, Henry H. Rogers was a Gilded Age financier/investor collaborating with John D. Rockefeller in forming the Standard Oil Trust, and who subsequently worked with William Rockefeller in investments in the copper and other metals field]...The papers say that the public are now beginning to invest in the market...The Bingham stock [Bingham Copper and Gold Mining] that has been selling was the property of a Director…his name was Kimberly [Peter Kimberly, d. 1905] died about a year ago...If I only had the courage to have sold all my Bingham and put the proceeds with enough more to have bought the same number of shares of Utah…"; (3) 2 pages dated February 1910, "...The stock market has had a bad break. A. Smelting [presumably American Amalgamated Smelting and Mining Company] felt it more than most of the copper stocks...my gift to you in 1901 of securities was not good judgment and has not been any benefit to you…I have always thought and do now that a treasurer of a Savings Bank that was receiving a living Salary should not be taking the risk of any outside business as it would have the tendency to weaken rather than to strengthen him in his position, and I still think so, even if he was successful...It has been said and I am inclined to think that it is true that the value of money depends upon the effort that is made to secure it…in Sept 1900 I bought 30 shares United Fruit Co. [United Fruit formed in 1899 by the merger of Boston Fruit Company and a banana-trading concern] at par..."; the letters represent a father-son relationship in a well-to-do, Gilded Age, family and financial management and investment thinking of the time as well as investment areas of interest to wealthy individuals active in the stock market at the time; NOTES: the Shattuck family was prominent in business and social affairs in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in the latter 1880s-early 1900s, the son presumably is Joseph Shattuck born in Lawrence in 1871, graduated from Harvard in 1892, and in 1906 was treasurer of the Springfield Institute for Savings in Springfield, MA; the father Joseph Shattuck is presumably an officer in the Essex Savings Bank of Lawrence incorporated in 1847; /// CONDITION: each letter well-preserved with light normal wear, folds in each as mailed, a few minor spots of edgewear, all text legible.