DEPARTMENT OF STATE
SIR:* It is my melancholy duty to inform you that the Hon. Timothy O. Howe, Postmaster-General, and lately a Senator of the United States, died yesterday at Kenosha, Wis., at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. By reason of this afflicting event the President directs that the Executive Departments of the Government and the offices dependent thereon throughout the country will be careful to manifest by all customary and appropriate observances due honor to the memory of one so eminent in successive offices of public esteem and trust and so distinguished and respected as a citizen.
*Addressed to the heads of the Executive Department.
To this end the President directs that the Post-Office Department and its dependencies in this capital shall be draped in mourning for a period of thirty days; that the several Executive Departments shall be closed on Wednesday next, the day of the funeral of the deceased, and that on all public buildings of the Government throughout the United States the national flag shall be draped in mourning and displayed at half-mast.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
FREDK. T. FRELINGHUVYSEN.
Chester A. Arthur, Executive Order Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203507