An actress and a Pfaff's regular. Clare's address appears twice in Whitman's notebooks. Clare also wrote for the New York Leader. She hosted Bohemian gatherings in her home at which Whitman was a likely attendee.
Her birth name was Jane McElhinney; she was a cousin of Paul Hamilton Hayne and the grandniece of Senator Robert Hayne.
Clare was twenty-six when the "Ellen Eyre" letter was written. She is a possible but unlikely candidate for the author of this letter.
The name given by author of mysterious letter Whitman received at Pfaff's. Speculating on its author, Holloway raises and defeats Ada Clare, dismisses Mrs. James Parton, and finally suggests further investigation of Whitman admirer Juliette H. Beach.
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