(following two letters on same pages)

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Sept 7th 1863

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My Dear wandering Son

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It has been a long time since I have written to you, over a year. For two or three years past we have only received one letter in a year from you and I thought if we wrote often you would be away in the mountains where you would not be likely to get letters if sent. I have generally wrote at least twice a year. Last summer I wrote but once. Elvira wrote and Tempe wrote after she came home so you may look for letters if they ever find you. O Whitfield you don’t know how much I wish you would stop rambling and go into some place where you could have religious priviledges and live in good society but I have often urged you to change your way of living. I suppose it is not worth while for me to say more but I have not given up the hope nor the expectation that you will yet become a Christian and try to do some good in the world. I wish you would write a good long letter and tell me how and where you have spent those years of wandering, what success you have had in the mines. I am often asked the question how much you make digging gold, always answer don’t know but I don’t care so much about what you make as I do who you associate with and how you spend your sabbaths and how you live. Do you think you will ever return to visit your old home.

from your old Mother

 

Dear Brother

You can’t think how glad we all were to hear from you once more. We were sometimes ready to think we never more should hear from you in this world. I have been home almost a year but it seems very lonely indeed. We are having fine weather now but it has been rain rain all summer. The farmers have had a great time getting their hay. It would be pleasant for a day or two then rain for three or four days. We have but few apples this year, berries have been plenty where there was briars. Elvira is in Ill., she has been gone nearly a year. I was in hopes she would come home this fall for I want to go back but she intends to stay another year. I brought one of Adeline’s little girls home with me. She is very contented, says she don’t want to go home. She is a great deal of company. Her father is in the army. The last I heard from him he was well. He is in Rosecrans’ department. I think Rosecrans is the best general we have. Our President has handled the rebels with a great deal of leniency, too much so I think but perhaps it is for the best. I think old Jeff will have to knock under if traitors at the north don’t carry out their plans more effectively than they have done here so far. I would not once have believed there were Americans mad enough to want to destroy our government, the best the world ever saw, but so it is and the country has been deluged with blood. The peace democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy and thereby prolonging the war and I don’t know but they will succeed in destroying the nation. The French and English have been trying to stick their noses in the dish for nothing would please them so much as to see all democratic principle utterly crushed out. O well, I don’t know where this war will end but if other nations will mind their own business we shall come out right. I wish you would come home and not be way off up to the north pole. Barlow Murwin is dead, Milton is in the army, Dea Arnold is dead. I don’t know what to write, you have been gone so long I don’t know what will interest you. We are here on the old place yet, expect to stay another year, then we shall have to leave. The railroad is going to be built. They are at work above Oneonta. They expect to be down here by next summer. It is not yet decided which side of the river it is going on. Warren Birdsall has not been heard from for nearly two years. His wife is here in Otego, has been home nearly four years. She has heard nothing from her brothers or Warren in two. Orrin Houghton’s family are well. Martin is dead, he died in the hospital in Tenn. Willie Henry’s second boy was in the army before Vicksburg the last I heard from him. Deborah Blakeslee is in Otego living with Mrs. Follet. George’s address is Scranton Pa., Mary’s is Elizabeth Jo Davies Co. Ill., Adeline’s is Polo Ill. Alice, Adeline’s little girl, wants me to tell you she is a little lady. Lucius has gone a bee hunting today. I’d rather he’d gone black berrying. We got your letter last week and should have answered it next day but we had no paper. Now write a good long letter and tell all about the country you are in and the products and what do you have to live on. Do you have anything fit for white folks to eat. I wish you had some of our apples. I suppose you find berries enough. Is there any wild plums or grapes.

We would write oftener than we do but you get so few of our letters we get discouraged. Good bye

your T Chase