When the brigEnvoyreached its destination there was no one to receive
the goods, however. It was as though Niels Andreas had disappeared from
the face of the earth. Expressing equal parts of anxiety and irritation, Peter
Christian wrote in his diary in July that “the lack of letters and the longing
for same causes me many unpleasant moments these days.” As the weeks
went by, the brothers Johan Christian and Henrik Ferdinand Lund also
becameuneasyabouttheirexpatriatebrother-in-law,whoseproblemsthey
related in a letter to their brother Peter Wilhel min Brazil, who replied on
August 2, expressing the hope that the matter might “take a turn for the
better.” When the entire month of August had passed without any sign of
lifefromNielsAndreas,PeterChristianreiterated,inaletterdatedSeptem-
ber 9, the contents of the letter his father had dictated on March 23. The
tone was brusque and hortatory, but the letter was never answered.
In October the explanation arrived: For most of the summer Niels An-
dreashadlainillinahotelroominPaterson,NewJersey,aboutthirtymiles
northwest of New York City. In the meanwhile the drapery goods from
Johan Christian had been unloaded in Boston, but since no one had turned
up to clai mthe six bales of coarse and fine textiles, they had been stored at
the customs warehouse, awaiting the day when they would be removed
fro mthe shelves at the behest of yet another adventurer who might chance
along. Johan Christian Lund had thus lost about one thousand rixdollars on
his transatlantic venture. It is unclear what had brought Niels Andreas to
Paterson fro mNew York, where he presu mably had spent three or four
months, but it is likely that he had moved to New Jersey in the hope of
finding employment. On October 25, 1833, Peter Christian received a let-
terfromRalphWilliston,anEpiscopalpriest.TheletterwasdatedSeptem-
ber 15 and in it Williston asked his Danish colleague to prepare his mother
forher son’simminentdeath.A bitlessthana weeklaterthe familylearned
that Niels Andreas had died on September 21 and had been buried the
following day, a Sunday, at Saint Paul’s cemetery in Sandy Hill. The day
afterreceivingthissadnewsthefamilypublishedanobituaryintheAdressea-
visen: “On their own behalf and on behalf of his surviving siblings, notice
is hereby given by his profoundly grieving parents that our beloved son,
NielsAndreasKierkegaard,wascalledfromthislifeonSeptember21inthe
city of Paterson in North America, twenty-four and one-half years old.
Copenhagen, October 31, 1833. A. Kierkegaard ne ́e Lund. M. P. Kierke-
gaard.” That was the end of Niels Andreas. “May God grant hi ma joyous
resurrection,”wrotePeterChristian,whenhesubsequentlynotedthedeath
day in his diary.
Later, on December 3, after most of the condolence notes had been re-
ceived, a letter several pages in length arrived fro mRalph Williston, the
{1813–1834} 43