1844 - Letter home from a man who traveled from New Hampshire to Alabama to retrieve the personal effects of his brother-in-law

Gainesville, Alabama, 1844. Envelope or Cover. Very good. This three-page stampless folded letter measures approximately 15" x 10" unfolded. Two pages were written by Horace Brooks in Gainesville, Alabama to his brother, Ira, at Franconia, New Hampshire and one page was written to his sister, Dolly Whitney. It is dated December 8. It bears a circular Gainesville postmark dated December 11 and a "25" rate mark. In nice shape.

In this letter Horace reports that he had located the boarding house where Dolly's husband had stayed and found his trunk, paperwork related to cash and bank accounts, and some clothes "them negroes wore out." More interestingly, (truncated) he describes his voyage to Mobile and steamboat trip up the Tombigbee River.

"After experiencing all the vicissitudes of a land & sea voyage I have at last got to my journey's end in good health. It was midnight when the signal gun was fired to break the slumber of the inhabitants of Gainesville. It is refreshing after having been on the water ever since the 9th of Nov. to lay down on something like a bed. I have no wish to be a child of nepture, I have got to be too old to be rocked to sleep like a child. . .. To me there was not veriety enough [on the trip, although] we had the promis of something grand when we first sailed. . .. We run affawl of a schooner & [it] carried away our jib boom, it created some excitement but our voyage up the river was sick with veriety at every turn we found something to amuse us and . . . our boat seemed to be unmanageable at times and we several times came near having broaken to pieces she would be running into the woods at a angry plenty of ducks, crains, & other water fowle but little of the country is to be seen [as] the banks are mostly covered with timber. . .. I wish Luke had come out with me. The sea voyage & our Chinese cook would have cured him. . .."

Horace also reported that he had obtained a job at a mill, so perhaps he was planning to wait for nicer weather before making the return trip to New Hampshire. . (For more information, see Doster and Weaver's Historic Settlement in the Upper Tombigbee Valley and "Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway" at Steamboats.org.) . (Inventory #: 010266)