(Letter written before emigration West, c.1850)

 

Salisbury Centre July 12

 

Monsieur Lucius, 

Many long and weary suns have risen and set since last I heard from home or friends. So long indeed that I hardly know where to direct my letter though I presume if you are still an inhabitant of earth, if the ethereal and mortal parts are still connected, if the bird of the brain, the essence of life, has not yet taken its flight to spirit land, which one would with much reason suspect might be the case with you all considering the ghostly silence you all keep, that you are still a dweller in the old cottage where we were born, and where we sported away the morning of our days, unconscious of the hardships that awaited us. Then the future was all sunshine, the past forgetfulness and the present Heaven or Hell as the the case may be. 

Then we were all together, cheerful and merry, enjoying ourselves with our laugh and fun, unmindful of everything save present enjoyment, “fearing nought but work and rainy weather”. But now how changed the scene! Divided, scattered among strangers, homeless, lonely and discontented, struggling to act a manly part on the stage of life, striving with a selfish unfeeling world, contending always with an evil genie which is ever an attendant on our steps, with no influential friends to succour or glittering dust to save. Such is our unhappy situation now; but I for one am not discouraged though I know not what course to take or what part to act. Fortune the fickle dame will yet smile upon us and load us with favors.

I’ve again closed my musty books, laid Coke and Blackstone upon the shelf and taken up the utensils of my trade in order to raise a little of the needful to procure the wherewithal to keep the vital spark which animates this mortal frame within its clayey tenement and clothe the body with what will protect it from the scorching heat of summer and from the chill icy blasts of winter.

I’m at work for Houghton, I commenced some four or five weeks ago. We’ve been building cowsheds for dairymen and when toiling with aching limbs from the rising to the setting sun with the perspiration pouring from my heated brow, scorched and almost blistered with the intensity of the heat for these selfishly tightfisted, hardhearted aristocrats, monopolizers of the soil of the richest and most productive portion of the State, I cannot help wondering why there should be a contrast in the condition of different individuals of the human race, why one man and he the meanest of his race should riot in his princely palace surrounded with broad and fertile acres, while another far better than he in every respect must toil his very life away to keep off the pinching hands of ghastly poverty. Many a time have I wished since I’ve been here, when from some high point of land I’ve cast my eyes over the extended fields of the Lords, of the soil well stocked with lusty cows grazing in richest of pastures, and when viewing their costly mansion, which might be furnished with every thing that could make life agreeable but are not aware of the littleness of soul of their occupants, that I could be possessed of an omnipotent power for a moment and would I not draw dividing lines through these princely domains? Yes! and the landless should share equally with the millionaire.

No one man should occupy his township excluding his fellows from deriving a living from the fecund bosom of their common mother earth and think you I would not appropriate the best to myself? I think I should have a goodly share. I told you I was working for Houghton; he pays me seventy-five cents a day. Don’t know whether I shall continue to work for him or go into the hayfields where I could earn perhaps nine or ten shillings per day, as wages are very high. I mean to come home sometime betwixt this and winter but can’t tell when.

Helen wants to know if Temperance is at home and if she will weave about 40 yards of carpeting for her and what she will ask a yard for weaving it. She wants to know as quick as this letter can have time to go to you and another come so she may make her calculations accordingly.

If Temperance will weave it she thinks of coming there within three or four weeks, if not she will be obliged, she says, to stay here till it’s wove and she wants to know as quick as possible so she may know what to do in the premises. I want you to write and fill a letter. Give me all the general and all the particular information in those diggens. Tell me who is dead and who is alive. You might all be dead and I should not be informed of it any more than if the broad Atlantic’s waves rolled between us. I want you should be particular and write everything which you yourself would like to know if our places were changed. The fact is I have hardly cared about receiving letters from home for when I have received one its contents have not been satisfactory, leaving me as much in the dark about many things of which I should like to know as I was before. Tell me what you’re driving at, what you’ve done on the farm, what you’ve done to the house, where all the folks are and what doing.

I want you to write me a letter once in a while if I don’t write. True, I’ve neglected to write for a long time but not because my thoughts have never wandered to the place of my birth, not because I’ve not thought of the green vale of the beautiful Sussquehanna, not because I had forgotten or would not like to hear from the friends of my childhood. What can I communicate that you would like to know? Of what can I write that will interest you? These have been my thoughts whenever I have thought of writing and this has detered me from taking up the pen. Where is Barlow and how does he prosper? I’ve not heard from the old coon in six months or more.

I shall leave Salisbury, Lucius, and before I’m six months older if my mind changes not I shall see the broad prairies of the far west. Will you go along with me? I want company so prepare yourself to emigrate.

I forgot to sign my name and I’ll put it here: W. Chase

Ain’t some of the Chases ingenius enough to trace their pedigree as well as Burnham did.

I’ve though some of our riches in England since I’ve been here though its not troubled me much of late. Thinking of it tonight put me in mind of a paper I saved to send you long ago. Polk’s3 damnable Post Office law kept me from sending it. I’ve cheated the old cus now I guess.

I’ve written this letter in the night and on the keen jump too so you must overlook everything and not criticise. We are all well.

W. Chase

don’t forget to remember Helen’s carpet.