William Donahey to Charles W. Chesnutt, 1 May 1922
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WILLIAM DONAHEY
5808 WINTHROP AVENUE
CHICAGO
May 1, 1922.
Dear Mr. Chesnutt–
I received a letter from Frank Counts to day in which he offered to buy our shares and cottage.1
I suppose he wants to get me out, as he very likely, considers me the thorn in his side as far as Chesterland is concerned.2
I have not answered him and will not do so until I have heard from you.
Now this is how I stand on the matter—I'd rather give the whole blamed thing away than do anything which might make it unpleasant for you and your family. Just let me have an early reply and I will be guided entirely by your feeling in the matter.
I am sending his letter along and I wish you would mail it back to me.3
Sincerely yours, Wm. DonaheyCorrespondent: William (Bill) Donahey (1883–1970) was a White writer and cartoonist from Westchester, Ohio. After graduating from the Cleveland School of Art in 1903, he briefly worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he met and married Mary Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) in 1905 and became friends with the Chesnutts. The couple joined the Chester Cliffs Club and built a cottage on the land. After 1905, the couple moved to Chicago, where he worked for the Chicago Tribune and produced a widely syndicated comic strip, the "Teenie Weenies," which ran intermittently from 1914 until his death and became the basis of an advertising campaign for a canned-goods company in the 1920s as well as for several books he co-wrote with his wife.
1. Albert Franklin (Frank) Counts (1881–1946), a White Cleveland lawyer with a 1906 law degree from Western Reserve University's law school, was a member and initially the secretary and treasurer of the Chester Cliffs Club when it was founded. In 1913, he married Eulalie (Eula) Gaskill Miller Counts (1869–1942), who was also a shareholder in the Club. In 1930 Counts was given an eighteen-month prison sentence for embezzlement in a fraudulent divorce case. Paroled in December of 1931, he joined his wife in rural Virginia, where they lived on a farm that was auctioned off after his death. [back]
2. The Chester Cliffs Club or Company was a small stockholding corporation founded in September 1903 by Chesnutt and ten friends who were "stockholders," in order to purchase eleven acres of land in Chester Township near Chesterland, Ohio, and Scotland, Ohio, twenty miles from Cleveland. Summer cottages were built by three of the parties in order to spend their summers away from the city, and in 1916 the Chesnutts purchased one of these. Stockholder meetings were called every fall, even as eventually only three families seem to have remained: the Chesnutts, the Donaheys (who were living in Chicago after 1905), and the Counts. In 1921, Frank Counts (1881–1946), a Cleveland lawyer who was the longtime secretary and treasurer of the Club and his wife Eulalie (Eula) (1869–1942) sold a lot with a cottage to Mary Ellen Delahunte (1870–1951) without consulting the other members, causing conflicts about property tax and upkeep for years. Shortly afterwards, Chesnutt, as the club president, took on the responsibility of reminding members of tax payments and calling the annual meeting. Some of the property was transferred to individual owners in 1923, but the corporation was never legally dissolved. [back]
3. Chesnutt used the verso of this letter to draft his response to Donahey. While a fair copy or its carbon has not been found, Chesnutt followed up with a second letter to Donahey on May 12, 1922. The enclosure (Counts' letter) has not been preserved, presumably because Chesnutt returned it, as requested, with his response. [back]
