Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Salmon Brown to Owen Brown Sr., August 22, 1830

LOUISVILLE, KY., Aug. 22, 1830.

HONORED FATHER, — I avail myself of the first moment of leisure on my arrival at this place to relieve you from the anxiety which I am conscious you have ere this begun to feel on my account. I could not have neglected writing so long had I anticipated the possibility of being detained so long at the South. One cause of delay after another prolonged the period of my departure from New Orleans till the latter part of July, and having to stop at several places on the river where I had business to look after, and the rivers being almost too low for steamboat navigation at this season, August has almost passed away before I could reach here. My health, thank God, has been uniformly good, and I am quite well at this time. I am without news from any of my family or friends these several mouths past, which makes me exceedingly anxious about their welfare. I hope some of you will write instantly on receiving this, and direct to Wheeling, Virginia, where I expect to be in the course of three or four weeks. It is impossible for me to determine whether I can visit Hudson this fall or not. I am engaged about some political arrangements in opposition to the present unprincipled and corrupt Administration, to which I have become so committed as not to be master of my own time. The arrangements alluded to have for their object the best interests of our common country; and believing that I may be instrumental in doing good in this way, I feel it to be my duty to exert my endeavors. I go from this place to Frankfort, thence to Lexington,1 thence to Maysville, and thence to Wheeling. If it shall be possible for me to visit Hudson before I proceed to the eastward, I will do so. An infirmity of my nerves, proceeding from an unknown cause, makes it difficult to write legibly. I have been conscious that this was growing on me for years, without being able to apply any remedy. I never lived so temperately as I have the year past. Pray present me to the recollection of my brothers and sisters, and to all my friends affectionately. Years do but increase and confirm the sense of filial duty and gratitude with which I remain

Your son,
SALMON BROWN
__________

1 Henry Clay lived near Lexington, and it was doubtless in the interest of that statesman and his friends that young Brown undertook this crusade against the "unprincipled and corrupt administration" of General Jackson, who had been elected in 1828 and inaugurated in 1829, in spite of Clay, — defeating John Quincy Adams. I have not yet found copies of Brown's "New Orleans Bee," but doubtless the sting of this journal was directed against Jackson in the city which he rescued from British invasion.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 29-30

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