Otego April 1st 1866

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Dear Brother

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Last week we were rejoiced to receive a letter from you to Barlow. He sent it home to us. If you knew what rejoicing there was in this family when we hear from you I think you would try to write a little oftener even if it was inconvenient. Well I suppose this is the last Sunday that this house will be our home. We have got to move and give place for others. If it was not for ma I should not care much but she will never feel at home again. For her sake I would be glad if we could stay while she lives. Our folks are well as usual. Lucius’ baby is a great stout thing - he is six months old. You would laugh to see the old traps that has been accumulating for the last sixty years in this house. It is so little ways that Lucius is going to move them for kindling wood, and the old bits of iron that is lying round he is going to sell. It has been quite sickly this fall. There has been a great deal of typhoid fever and some deaths. Adelhert Houghton is dead. His folks took his death very hard and it seemed to cast a gloom over the whole neighborhood for he was universally liked. He was a very good steady boy and he expressed a hope that it would be well with him in eternity. Helen is sick with sore throat. She had a doctor yesterday. I have not heard from her to day. Uncle John Barlow is dead - he was an old man eighty six years old. He had been parting a good while. Ma has only one brother left. Uncle Wheeler Robertson is dead, he died last fall. Fanny is dead also, she died a few weeks after her father. They have got the Albany and Susquehanna RR in running order to Unadilla. I don’t know how long it will take them to get through to Binghamton, a good while I reckon. There is one passenger train with one car each day from Albany to Unadilla and back again. I suppose Unadilla think they are some pumkins but I guess they ain’t much but squash. We have not any preacher in Otego. I begin to be afraid we shall have to go to the methodist or episcopalian. They have both been fixing their churches but we are getting too few and too poor to new model ours and folks are getting too popular to go to meeting in an old fashioned church. I wonder if heaven will be too old fashioned for such folk. We are getting to be strangers in our own neighborhood. There is a new family moved in where Ezekiel lived - strangers coming here, it makes me homesick to go to Otego, most all new faces. Tom Smith and Mrs. Arnold stay yet. Mrs. Horning is there part of the time when she ain’t off visiting. I have not seen her in a year or more.

It makes me sad to see all things passing away. The friends I loved in my earlier days are gone, some have passed from earth, others are scattered to the four winds of heaven and we know not whether we shall ever meet again on the shores of time. Ezekiel Tracy has showed Sal Cove quite a trick. Ten years ago this spring Cove sent Tracy to Ill. to farm for him, Cove owning quite a large tract. Tracy was to work and have half the profits. The time was out this spring. Tracy sold every thing he could, took the money and cleared out leaving Cove to whistle for his share and the fun of it is Zeke has been so cunning Cove can’t touch him for it if he should find him.

April 22nd

 

We have got moved and partly settled but it ain’t home and never will be. I wish I was rich and Otego would be too small to hold me. Amanda Arnold is dead, she was buried today but she was well prepared to go. We had a letter from Elvira a few days ago. They were all well there. She talks of coming home this summer to make a visit. She has been to work in a tailor’s shop this winter, has been earning good wages. Adeline’s children all go to school. They learn very easy. The three girls went to singing school through the winter. They had a concert and the little girls sung a piece alone on the stage and were cheered which pleased them very much. Ma is pretty well but she seems feeble. She is getting old and it is according to nature that she should fail. I guess we are not going to like our new neighbors first rate. I should judge they had not much refinement about them. It is a warm pleasant day but rather windy. The spring has been rather cold. I think we have only made a little sugar, after this we shall have to buy. We have heard that Warren Birdsall is dead. I suppose he had become pretty dissipated. His wife came back nearly seven years ago and folks have thought that they had parted but she never talked that way. She always said if he did not come home she should go back. I do wish you would come home and make us a visit. It is so sad and lonely but it would not seem much like home to you, pa gone and Lucius married and we moved away from our childhood’s home. George Goodrich is out of State prison again. If he has not reformed very much he had better be back there again. Mary Goodrich is crazy as ever, she has got so she don’t know any thing scarcely at all and she never was very bright, you know. O well I don’t know what will interest you so I tell what I happen to think of. Now do write. I wish I could send you some paper and be sure you would get it.

Yours affectionalty,

T. Chase

 

Helen Houghton is well now, she was sick when I commenced this letter.