Sidney May 18 1869

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My Dear son Whitfield

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Once more I have taken pen and paper to let you know I am yet among the living but I feel I am growing more feeble every year and my wrists are so lame that I can hardly hold a pen. I can walk about a little but can’t go far. I have a good appetite and feel comfortable for the most part but can’t work. Lucius has poor health but he keeps at work. We are living on the farm yet. Lucius has talked of selling and giving up farming and going to Otego to live but he haint got to it. He moved into the Village two years ago, stayed one year, and then come back. He bought one acre of land with an old house on it and he rents that for enough to pay the interest on what he paid for the lot. Land is very high here since they got the Albany and Susquehanna railroad under way. Land come up more than double what it was a few years ago. As soon as it was decided the road would go through Otego Village people began to flock in, buy lots and build houses and those that were not able to build would hire and pay high rent. They have got the road through from Albany to Binghamton and appear to be doing a good deal of business. Three trains go East and three West every day, Sunday excepted. I received a letter from you last fall dated Sept. I sent it to Polo. Adeline wanted to write to you but had forgotten your place of address. So you see she don’t get letters from you often. I hope you have received a letter from her before this. I would have wrote to you sooner but cold weather come on and we live in a cold house and I want to be alone when I write so I put off till warm weather. Tempe has written I think two letters since we got yours. It has been a long time since she has received a letter from you. She has wrote many. She is here now, her health is not very good but keeps at work. I have not heard from Barlow lately, he finds it hard scratching to make a living. They have five children, provisions high and sometimes business dull. I presume he writes occasionally but whether he gets letters from you or you from him is not certain. It has been some time since I heard from the girls. They were all well last time I heard. Elvira stays with Adeline, Smith has moved back to Plum river. What more shall I say. There has been such a change in this neighborhood that it ain’t the same place it used to be and our family has changed as much. We are not the same family we were when you left. If we were I would say come home if you are poor but as it is, glad as I should be to see you I can’t say to you come home unless you can come prepared to provide, for number one, your father left but little property. You know when he died all title to the farm was dead, what there was left was there. Lucius took a short lease but he had to pay a hundred dollars a year. We lived on the farm six years then our land lady wanted more rent and Lucius wasn’t willing to pay more so he left the old homestead and moved onto his own farm. I have nothing left to make myself a home so of course must depend on Lucius. I have all I need but can’t help others. The time is short that I shall need a home in this world. I am now eighty two years old, can’t expect to stay here many years so I must give up all hopes of seeing your in this world. When I look back 25 years and see you striving for an education I then flattered myself you would go into some business that would make you a useful man in the world but when you turned mechanic I was disappointed yet I expected you would make a respectable living in that way and was content but when you became dissatisfied with your occupation and determined to seek your fortune you nor I knew not how, then I felt very anxious for your safety and prosperity but my greatest anxiety has been for the salvation of your soul. For that I have daily prayed and will continue to pray as long as we both live and I am blessed with reason. O Whitfield, I beg of you, whatever else you leave undone make your peace with God and secure your soul's salvation. Then if we meet no more on earth I will try to meet you in heaven.

this from your poor old Mother

 

Lucius has a little son two years old. They buried one a year ago last Dec., his name was Frank.