596327

[marlow.FTW]

[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 3, Ed. 1, Tree #6300, Date of Import: Sep 11, 1998]

A letter dated 1844, from Marietta Hunt to sister Laura:

Unadilla Sabbath Evening

My dear Sister, Now that the house is still I will sit down a while to talk with you and don't it seem curious and yet perfectly simple that by looking at these numerous marks you can obtain my meaning. I have often wondered who the inventor of this science was. He should go down to posterity as much renowned as that of the inventor of printing for it has aided as much in improving Mankind as that noble art. I am sorry to be obliged to say that we are not in our usual health. Jane has the ague. It is quite disappointing to her as she had intended to commence at school in a few days. I feel sorry, but it is no more than I have anticipated. I knew we must take our share of sickness with the rest and feel that we ought not complain for surely we have been more highly favored than we deserve. Grandpa is not very well. He has a tedious boil on his face which makes him feel unwell-right on the cheekbone the worst place it seems is could be in it affects his head a good deal.
The spring is unusually wet here but warm and vegetation is quite forward. The uncultivated Lanes appear almost as blooming as a garden. A great many kinds of flowers are made to beautify the Landscape around us-Flowers which to me are entirely new. While walking about I often think of the girls-how they could adorn their little yard and I mean they shall have some of our varieties if we can have an opportunity to send seeds when they are fit to gather. And what sport the boys would have finding birds nests. I never happened to live where birds were so plenty. There are various kinds but Blackbirds are most numerous. There is the red winged and the Bobolink Blackbird, the last named I do believe the sweetest of all Songsters. It's soft silvery notes rising and falling in the air will calm and gladden the Heart-let it be ever so agitated or burdened. The ear catches the melody of it's music and the heart cannot but join in the light joyousness it inspires. We were much pleased with seeing Mr. Stedmans family and know you will be glad too for they are the right kind of folks to make good inhabitants. Now if we were glad to welcome them, how much more so should we be to welcome nearer and dearer Friends. John wishes me to say that he will not be able to write as he intended- he has had no days and the evenings are so short - you know when a man is tired - Today he thought he should have time but has been hindered. He has received a package of $ from Samuel by way of Mr. Stedman.
Our little boy grows finely but is quite troublesome-that is, I suppose, a natural consequence and must endevour to put up with it. Be pleased to remember me to all the Children. How I should like to see them. I shall be such a wrinkled old body they won't know me- but it is getting late and certain sonorous voices remind it is getting to be bedtime. The girls wish to be remembered to their cousins and often wish they were here to ramble with them in the woods. We expect to have much sport in picking strawberries. They will be so large and so many, they are everywhere in the fields, in the openings round the door, by the roadside-all large and thrifty.
I am forgetting myself again and with much love and respect I fold this up and go to bed for the sun will be up before I am ready-he is up here in the morning not having to climb numberless Hills before he can show his bright eye.

Mariette Watson

 

to Mr. Samuel S Watson
Newark,
Tioga County
New York

 

Another letter dated March 25, 1844

My good sister Laura:

I have purposed for some time past to write unto you a lengthy epistle but a number of causes has prevented me from accomplishing my purpose until now. And while my thoughts revert back to you and the rest of the dear friends I ask myself a number of questions--how are you all, what are your prospects, what are you doing, are you in possession of worldly happiness or of that which is eternal? I need not tell you how much I hope you are in the possession of all present good as well as the prospect of that which is to come. I have had a great many thoughts about you, Laura, of late, perhaps from a foolish little circumstance, but trifling as it might be, it made quite an impression on my mind. You appeared before me the other night as I was awake with so much vividness that the very expression of your contenance is before me, and you was so sad and poor and pale it made me feel dispirited and nervous for sometime. How is it, are you sick or in trouble? If so, let me know it, if I cannot alleviate it, I can at least sympathise with you and that will do some good. We were made glad by receiving a letter from William not long since and was much gratified by the intelligence it contained. He informed us that he had some intention of settling in these parts. There is land enough here which can be obtained on reasonable terms, good land and near us, but I think he had better jump on a steamboat and give us a call. It would take but a few days and then he would have a better idea of the west than he could receive by a letter. I have no idea but that he would like the situation here though, and then you could satisfy yourself by him how you would like it here. There was work enough here last fall and winter and in some of the villages around here I guess steady employment might be obtained. I want you to come if you think it best, I can't tell how gratifying it would be to us all to have you come and stay in this country. I feel alone now, many weary miles stretch between me and all that I claim affinity with except my own immediate family. A feeling of loneliness comes over me when I look to the green hills, the grassy fields and purling streams of my own native state, for beautiful they were to me, in storms as well as in sunshine. Here there are no murmuring brooks, the land is too level, when you see one, it will remind you of some lazy serpent silently and lazily creeping along over its sandy bed, not a pebbleto be seen on its smooth bottom. You don't think, do you, there would be much pleasure in wading as we used to in such a brook, the stone used to cool our feet so when hot and wearied by play. I look back to them days now with delight and often live them over in imagination. All was sunshine, there was no burden of cares for the present or future, no peering into futurity to know what our condition will be or that of our friends, but you must not infer from the vein of my discourse that I am homesick or in anyway dissatisfied with the country, quite the reverse, I only wish we had moved here before and I feel sorry that Mr. Patch is not coming till fall, but I must endeavor to be patient till that time arrives. Sometimes I fear I reckon on it too much, I almost tremble lest death should not mar my prospects, every letter we have had from the east has made my heard palpitate dreading lest it should chronicle the removal of some one of the number, and when I read of good health, my heart has beat with delight and every sentence has been devoured and redevoured that the substance might be treasured up. Oh how I pray that I may live to see you all in the land of the living. You did not mention when you wrote where you was or what you was doing. I want to know and also the particulars of Uncle Horton's death, and about Isaiah and his family, and Sylvester, how his health is as well as that of his family. I cannot sufficiently thank you for all your papers, they are most welcome. I hope soon to have some to exchange, as yet we have made no arrangements about taking any, though I have one in my mind's eye.

We have received an addition to the number of little responsibilities since I wrote last, quite a bright little fellow for one of so tender years. We talk some of calling him Albert Isaiah or A. Hunt. Give me your united opinions and tell me all you know about Albert V. as well as my other two nephews. Our little fellow was born the fifteenth of this month. We were moving as usual, not on our own domain, but so near as to make it convenient commencing operations on it. John will build this spring as he intended it being rather bad getting such materials as he wants, I guess it will go up this summer if nothing prevents so we shall get in the new house by fall. I shall be obliged to stop now I am so tired. You and Diana fill out a full sheet, be a week about it and don't leave a vacant line. I want to hear particulars about all. Won't you do me the favor to send this to mother when you read it, I do want to hear how whe is this winter. I begun a letter to her sometime ago, but waited so long for John to finish it got too old.
How is the weather, is it cold and snowy? Here birds are merry as larks, butterflies are out and the spring is too far altogether the warmest I have ever seen since I can remember, nor the winter want severe. I have not been in a sleigh this winter at all. Mr. Sales, Laura, comes your way this spring, he will start in May and will make you a call most likely. Remember me to Brother J. when you see him, I send him a paper this mail and shall write to him soon, and now bear us in mind often not only you but the rest too.
Adieu M.H.W.

Contrary to my expectations I shall have an opportunity to finish this communication so I will tell you something about the place we live in now. It is rather retired at present but as soon as a road is worked through it will be quite public. The lots which surround ours are mostly unimproved, but that I think no objection for people are coming in very fast and mostly from New York. The two lots which join, John has his eye on for William. They are really beautiful, so level, and late as the season was when we got here last fall, covered with late flowers, strawberry vines cover the ground almost, an unimproved lots there is also a kind of whortleberry which grows in the swamps as large as a damson plum growing on tall bushes and said to be very good. The cranberries I should like to send Diana a sample of as they come off the marshes in the spring. I know they are superior to any she has seen offered in the markets there. Fruit just about here is yet rather scarce but by going a few miles last fall could be got very cheap. Apples dried can be got now at the nearest store for ten shillings a bushel - there was a good many peaches after we arrived so in a year or two there will be an abundance. How I should like to have you taste the fish which abound in the little lakes of this country--there is every variety, but among the best I reckon bass and pickerel. John has got to be quite an fisherman. Speaking of the lakes, you stumble over one as often as you would over the brooks at the east. Wild game is suffered to go unmolested, nobody meddles with it. Flocks of Prarie hens, quails, and immense droves of Pidgeons meet you most everywhere. It seems most too bad when they make such nice stews but I content myself with thinking how they will suffer when Dan comes this way. At present that will be all for no one here uses a gun. Deer are shot sometimes though. I saw in a paper which Sylvester sent me the death of Mary Hammond. How quick she followed her mother, when I see her last she was in the bloom of health and I had no thought the next I heard would be her death. Alas! How uncertain is life and how certain is death. I often wish I could lay it more to heart and not let the trifling affairs of this world occupy my mind so much as to exclude things of such vast importance, but no more at present.

M. Watson