Letter
Dublin Core
Title
1844.11.08 – Elizabeth Huntington to Frederic Dan Huntington, Nov. 8, 1844
Description
Elizabeth writes to her son Frederic, sending him a box of butter from his brothers, Theodore and Theophilus. Elizabeth asks her son to tell her more about his neighbors and assumes that the reason he has not already done so is due to his involvement in the church. She urges him to keep his studying at a healthy amount. She then expresses her wishes to see a George Putnam and hug him. She tells Frederic of her new free time now that his father is busy working on some land, and that she has been visiting many people. Elizabeth ends the letter by saying that she has been thinking much on the dead and hopes that they are in heaven with God.
Creator
Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington
Source
Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (Box 12 Folder 9)
University of Massachusetts Special Collections and University Archives
Date
1844-11-08
Rights
public domain
Type
Correspondence
Transcription
Rev. D. Huntington
Boston –
Elm Valley Nov. 8th 1844
My Dear Frederic,
As Theodore1 is very busy, it falls to me, to introduce to you another box of butter. He & Theophilus2 have been waiting for a conveyance for it, which might be less expensive than the express – but as none is to be found, they send by this. The box you may keep use or give away as you choose – the cloth, and that which covered my butter, you may send by Bethia3 if you please. The number of pounds at this time is twenty six, the money for it you can send also by your sister. I had the pleasure of reading a letter from you and Hannah on the sabbath, written to B. Thanks to the author of all our blessings, for the health and comfort granted to you and your’s, may it be employed more entirely in his service than ever before. Before the next magazine comes out, perhaps you will be able to look out at the “city window” and let us know what is happening in the dwellings near you – the nearer you come to your neighbours, the less you tell us about them. There is a good rea-son for this, your parish must now receive much of your attention. I hope you will not undertake more labour of writing or study than is con-sistent with your health.
Helen Frances says George Putnam looks much like his father. I should love to see him and give him one hearty squeese, but no, I must not. But I can think of him and his father and mother, and send up many earnest desires to the Great Father on their behalf. Your father has been very much occupied with a wet shot of land on the hill during the fall, making fences and ditches see – of course I have been left much of the time to my own reflection – and on these occasions I frequently make long journeys, look in upon William4 and his little family – and then after I have hovered around you in your nursery I visit Mrs. [Lazro] and her good family, the Ellis’s and theirs, not forgetting others. Eustis and her daughter, all them at Mrs. Sargents household claim a large place in my remembrance–. During the last month, my thoughts have been employed in trying to trace the progress of those who have taken their upward flight. But it is all unavailing – of this we may be assured that if they died in the Lord they live with him, for God is not the God of the dead but of the living for all live to him. Forgive this long story – how apt is old age to be garrulous. Truly yours Elizabeth.
- Theodore, the eighth child of Dan and Elizabeth Huntington, was born March 18, 1813 in Middletown, Connecticut ↩︎
- Theophilus, the seventh child of Dan and Elizabeth Huntington, was born in Middletown on July 11, 1811 ↩︎
- Bethia was born October 7, 1805 in Litchfield, Connecticut. At the age of 11, she moved to Hadley with her parents, Dan and Elizabeth Huntington ↩︎
- William, the third child of Dan and Elizabeth Huntington, was born on July 16, 1804 in Litchfield, Connecticut ↩︎