SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Dec.
4, 1850.
DEAR SONS JOHN, JASON, FREDERICK, AND DAUGHTERS, — I this
moment received the letter of John and Jason of the 29th November, and feel
grateful not only to learn that you are all alive and well, but also for almost
everything your letters communicate. I am much pleased with the reflection that
you are all three once more together, and all engaged in the same calling that
the old patriarchs followed. I will say but one word more on that score, and
that is taken from their history: “See that ye fall not out by the way,” and
all will be exactly right in the end. I should think matters were brightening a
little in this direction, in regard to our claims; but I have not yet been able
to get any of them to a final issue. I think, too, that the prospect for the
fine-wool business rather improves. What burdens me most of all is the
apprehension that Mr. Perkins expects of me in the way of bringing matters to a
close what no living man can possibly bring about in a short time, and that he
is getting out of patience and becoming distrustful. If I could be with him in
all I do, or could possibly attend to all my cares, and give him full
explanations by letter of all my movements, I should be greatly relieved. He is
a most noble-spirited man, to whom I feel most deeply indebted; and no amount
of money would atone to my feelings for the loss of confidence and cordiality
on his part. If my sons, who are so near him, conduct wisely and faithfully and
kindly in what they have undertaken, they will, beyond the possibility of a
doubt, secure to themselves a full reward, if they should not be the means of
entirely relieving a father of his burdens.
I will once more repeat an idea I have often mentioned in
regard to business life in general. A world of pleasure and of success is the
sure and constant attendant upon early rising. It makes all the business
of the day go off with a peculiar cheerfulness, while the effects of the
contrary course are a great and constant draft upon one's vitality and good
temper. When last at home in Essex, I spent every day but the first afternoon
surveying or in tracing out old lost boundaries, about which I was very
successful, working early and late, at two dollars per day. This was of the
utmost service to both body and mind; it exercised me to the full extent, and
for the time being almost entirely divested my mind from its burdens, so that I
returned to my task very greatly refreshed and invigorated.
John asks me about Essex. I will say that the family there
were living upon the bread, milk, butter, pork, chickens, potatoes, turnips,
carrots, etc., of their own raising, and the most of them abundant in quantity
and superior in quality. I have nowhere seen such potatoes. Essex County so
abounds in hay, grain, potatoes, and rutabagas, etc., that I find unexpected
difficulty in selling for cash oats and some other things we have to spare.
Last year it was exactly the reverse. The weather was charming up to the 15th
November, when I left, and never before did the country seem to hold out so
many things to entice me to stay on its soil. Nothing but a strong sense of
duty, obligation, and propriety would keep me from laying my bones to rest
there; but I shall cheerfully endeavor to make that sense my guide, God always
helping. It is a source of the utmost comfort to feel that I retain a warm
place in the sympathies, affections, and confidence of my own most familiar
acquaintance, my family; and allow me to say that a man can hardly get
into difficulties too big to be surmounted, if he has a firm foothold at home. Remember
that.
I am glad Jason has made the sales he mentions, on many
accounts. It will relieve his immediate money wants, a thing that made me
somewhat unhappy, as I could not at once supply them. It will lessen his care
and the need of being gone from home, perhaps to the injury somewhat of the
flock that lies at the foundation, and possibly to the injury of Mr. Perkins's
feelings on that account, in some measure. He will certainly have less to divide
his attention. I had felt some worried about it, and I most heartily rejoice to
hear it; for you may all rest assured that the old flock has been, and so long
as we have anything to do with it will continue to be, the main root, either
directly or indirectly. In a few short months it will afford another crop of
wool.
I am sorry for John's trouble in his throat; I hope he will
soon get relieved of that. I have some doubt about the cold-water practice in
cases of that kind, but do not suppose a resort to medicines of much account.
Regular out-of-door labor I believe to be one of the best medicines of all that
God has yet provided. As to Essex, I have no question at all. For stock-growing
and dairy business, considering its healthfulness, cheapness of price, and
nearness to the two best markets in the Union (New York and Boston), I do not
know where we could go to do better. I am much refreshed by your letters, and
until you hear from me to the contrary, shall be glad to have you write me here
often. Last night I was up till after midnight writing to Mr. Perkins, and
perhaps used some expressions in my rather cloudy state of mind that I had
better not have used. I mentioned to him that Jason understood that he disliked
his management of the flock somewhat, and was worried about that and the poor
hay he would have to feed out during the winter. I did not mean to write him
anything offensive, and hope he will so understand me.
There is now a fine plank road completed from Westport to
Elizabethtown. We have no hired person about the family in Essex. Henry
Thompson is clearing up a piece of ground that the “colored brethren” chopped
for me. He boards with the family; and, by the way, ho gets Ruth out of bed so
as to have breakfast before light, mornings.
I want to have you save or secure the first real prompt,
fine-looking, black shepherd puppy whose ears stand erect, that you can get; I
do not care about his training at all, further than to have him learn to come
to you when bid, to sit down and lie down when told, or something in the way of
play. Messrs. Cleveland & Titus, our lawyers in New York, are
anxious to get one for a plaything; and I am well satisfied, that, should I
give them one as a matter of friendship, it would be more appreciated by them,
and do more to secure their best services in our suit with Pickersgill, than
would a hundred dollars paid them in the way of fees. I want Jason to obtain
from Mr. Perkins, or anywhere he can get them, two good junk-bottles, have them
thoroughly cleaned, and filled with the cherry wine, being very careful not to
roil it up before filling the bottles, — providing good corks and filling them
perfectly full. These I want him to pack safely in a very small strong box,
which he can make, direct them to Perkins & Brown, Springfield, Mass., and
send them by express. We can effect something to purpose by producing
unadulterated domestic wines. They will command great prices.1 It is again
getting late at night; and I close by wishing every present as well as future
good.
Your affectionate
father,
JOHN BROWN.
__________
1 This fixes the date of the anecdote told by Mr.
Leonard concerning the wines which Brown had to exhibit; it must have been
after this time, and probably in 1851. John Brown, Jr., has been for many years
cultivating the grape on an island in Lake Erie, and his brother Jason is now
doing the same in Southern California. Their principles, however, forbid them
to make wine.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of
John Brown, p. 75-8
