Thomas Wentworth Higginson, July 1862

Princeton, July, 1862

Here we are at this most placid of places, just now stirred to its Sunday excitement, the greatest it ever knows. Country wagons with people in their best bonnets go quietly by, or stop to call at our door because we are the Post-Office. During the week scarcely a person passes by day — only an occasional haymaker; the shop opposite with a large sign is a scene of profound repose, and you would only know it to be “business hours” by the door’s being open. At half-past six, however, the mail arrives and the current of life sets in, and from that time till eight we and the shop are in fashion — all manner of vehicles, from boys with wheelbarrows to Mr. Charles Appleton in his barouche; old farmers for the newspaper and young girls for letters from brothers or lovers at the war; and it is quite entertaining. The road is very narrow and turning round very difficult, so that Mary perceives why they have a doctor for postmaster, to provide for the broken bones.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 146