UNDATED BLACKWELL FAMILY SAMUEL BLACKWELL BLACKWELL, HENRY B.[*SC. Blackwell*] Somerville N.J. Mar [6.67?] Dear Henry The March Advocate, which I have read through is I think decidedly superior as a whole to either of its predecessors. Except perhaps in the matter of type, which is inferior to that of January. Have you taken hold of the Editorship? It has evidently changed hands. Tomlinson's sketch is quite good isn't it? What's up in Roseville now? I have n't seen any of you for a month or two. The miserable stereotypers have not yet got Nettie's book into the binders' hands, tho. it is promised this week. It is now too late to send advance sheets to Mr. Putnam &c. who is now on his way home from London. Specimen copies will be sent to the Atheneum, Spectator, and Sat. Review, but it would have been better if P. could have presented them. Mr. Greely was kind though to send to Putnam the other day to request advance sheets so soon as they are to be had. We hear you intend a trip to Florida. Tell us about it. Can't you come out for a night and a day before you shoot off again? Love to Mother Lucy & Alice Affly S.C.B. Did you notice a good letter from Mrs. C.F. Young, (Carrie [Filkens) from Idaho in yesterdays Tribune, on her Agricultural xperience?Grant's inaugural is satisfactory isn't it? Hail! Mr Editor! Your performance is highly creditable and even satisfactory; and your own article the best yet. That call for agents to push the Advocate is just right. Keep it up to the last mark, and thrust it out into the world like a genuine worker, bound to success, and succeed it will, All hail, Mr Editor! A.L.B.B.78 South St. Thursday-- Dear Henry In case any thing ever comes to your box addressed to me, I shall be much obliged if you will before leaving the post office, just strike out "N. York and insert "Somerville, New Jersey. (In part will do) It will then reach me the same day or next morning. But in that case put on a stamp or pay the postage otherwise it will go the dead letter office and be heard of no more. I will note any such postages and repay them with thanks. We are all very well. I hope to find a detachment (or household complete) at the foot of Liberty St. at 4 p.m. Saturday. Would Lucy like a respectable capable young woman good at housework, washing, ironing, cooking who was 10 years in our place, but has the drawback of a little child 2 years old whom she would prefer to be with her. Such as ours, as elder sister of our little nursemaid, would be glad to go to you. Love to Mother, to Lucy and to Alice. Afly JcB.J.C. Blackwell June 26/68Dear Henry & Lucy Thanks for your kind invitation which is seconded by George, but I do not now see how I can go to Gardner on the 28th. I should exceedingly like to do so and dont at all like the idea of Emma going abroad for six months before we have an opportunity of knowing each other. However if I fail to be there, I shall hope to see them safe and sound in the spring, and to greet them in their house in Orange frequently. Nettie has come home all the better for her little change and various visits to old friends and new. She has your N. York Convention distinctly on her docket and will be there, health &c permitting. Affectionately S.F.B.SamBrookville Mo Dec 30 Friend & Brother "Out of the deeps" of this hoosier wilderness, I send thee an "all hail!" Poor beloved "Kittie" is perfectly well & fresh and would doubtless send her love, but as the evening is rather cool, I will not make a trip to the stable to gain her permission which you will therefore take for granted. I suppose you will receive my scrawl on Friday, the day of the first assembling of our little hill circle as a "literary club." I wish most sincerely I could be with you, but I fear that my presence will have to be a spiritual one only. Of news, of course, I can furnish none, as none originates on the bank of the Miami more important than an occasional "raisin" or flight of ducks. And as to "incidents of travel," I have not, absolutely, so much as the loss of a horse-shoe, or a hat to report. I was struck tho' uncommonly, at the change which has occurred during the last 2 or 3 years, along the river road for several miles below our city. Since the days of our pedestrian excursions in that direction. I believe the population has increased five fold & many parts I could hardly recognize as the land we passed thro' only yesterday, is entirely now [?] altered. The canal, which dates since that period you know, was covered with skaters & sliders & merry children of all sorts & sizes. This was almost the only lively thing to be seen for the hills are utterly bare & the leafless trees which covered them only added to their bleak aspect, while the cloudy sky and river filled with ice completed the desolate prospect. I never saw our river look so very disconsolate. On both sides, far into the stream the huge blocks of ice are crowded and frozen fast and extended far up on to the beach where the water had left them as the river fell. The current kept a narrow path unfrozen, but even this was filled with masses of floating ice. After I had ridden some miles & the country looked a little wild & the night began to close in, the sound of the floating ice crashing & grinding against that on either bank, was quite mysterious & romantic in the otherwise perfect stillness. As I was rather late in starting, it was quite dark when I got to North Bend. I rode on till I came to the tunnel and then the towpath ceases and a circuitous route on a side road must be pursued to regain it. I wasn't aware of this and having made sundry explorations over the hill thro' which it passes, and coming, as often, against some fence or apple tree to my own utter quandary and Kitties infin-its terror and having peeped into the dimly discernible black hole by which the canal enters the hill, who concluded that I was not utterly weary of life on this planet, even if my horse would consent to inglorious suicide. I turned about and retraced my road some 1/2 a mile to a very questionable looking tenement which claimed to be a tavern. Darkness, strange roads & cold air reconcile one to almost anything which can furnish a fire, a light loaf of bread & peck of oats & so 1/2 a minute found me at a great log fire in the most spirited conversation with mine host a vast fellow of some 7 feet by 4 in and for auditors an old ragged nondescript who appeared to officiate as ostler and the juvenile male heir of the major domo. That entertaining téte a téte embraced various topics from robbers & their tricks to constables & theirs on which last capacity my giant despair professed to have had long & dangerous experience - to "the old General and the Campaign of 40" - I inferred that my conversation made a favorable impression for the monster (told) desired the little biped, in an aside, to tell his mother to "make up the bed in the setting' room" into which I immediately afterward desired to be conducted and a bolt on the door which he said I could make use of if I saw fit. Having stowed away my pocketbook in very satisfactory proximity to myself proper I threw myself into bed and had a delicious slumber till daybreak. As I had desired an early breakfast and departure. I found one ready for me judge how peculiarly fitter for my fancy. A dish piled up with fat slices of fried bacon to the amount of about 4 pounds, potatoes whose dear natural farina was almost totally ruined by the same train oil grossness, hot rolls perhaps a little heavier than lead & tougher than india rubber & hot coffee. Most happily milk was to be had & corn bread appeared in the background as hardly fit to entertain a stranger with - but I soon called its modest virtues into play & escaped thus the horrid alternative. And then came a blessed period of 2 or 3 hours on horseback at a slow pace, with an umbrella to carry and the thermometer rather low. Happy my baggage was infinitesimal, being but a night shirt a comb & a toothbrush, all which lay very snugly in one pocket. I got a little desperate at last and fastening my zebra to a fence I gymnasticised vehemently. Ah that was indeed! Caloric was soon raised and my experience Henceforward was decidedly less excruciating. I saw a stage arrive; after the night's journey, at a little village and the poor wretches creep out, deeply affected by their sad nocturnal congelation and I hope it was not exactly in the pharisees' spirit What I offered the pharisee's praise "that I was not as other men," i.e. I didn't take the stage. The canal was frozen hard except where here & there the extremes of spring kept a space free from ice. One instance of this was really tragical. Some poor pig had apparently attempted to cross & fallen in--of course he couldn't get out his awkward, clumsy weight. His neighbors came down, one after another to the brink to sympathise and slipped in too and 4 or 5 of the hapless wretches were at life's extremis. I rode up to the adjoining horde & stated the case. The men roared to his neighbor that his "hogs were in the Kin all a drowning" And as they immediately started in rescue the poor creatures was doubtless saved, tho' I would not stay to see this issue. I felt quite deplorably Harry to see the poor pigs led by mutual sympathy to inevitable death one after another of the rigid stern inexorable character of the laws which govern physical & doubtless also spiritual creation--laws whose dreadful certainly of operation none can escape. This is indeed a gloomy & repelling reflection until I remember that it presents but a partial & onesided & therefore erroneous view of the character of the great lawgiver who so equally the great Father of the Universe, and when I looked around me & beheld the forms of life & enjoyment & beauty infinitely multiplied & varied, I felt that the horrible exception to the general weal, attendant on the transgression, voluntary or involuntary, of the just laws of being, were but exceptions & unavoidable doubtless, in the sustenance of that great scheme whereof we know as yet but little save that it is it must be good. The bright blue sky was cloudless overhead & the clear air penetrated--filled--with the cheerful sunlight, two beautiful pigeons were wheeling free & glad far above in the fresh wind a piece of ice from a prism which presented to my eye the varied & lovely colors of the ray of light; the Miami passed gaily & laughingly by, the outlines of the surrounding hills & their forests were all full of grace. A father led his little daughter by the hand. Delightful & happy--and everything seemed to conspire to falsify any suggestion which unbelief can't originate against the essential benevolence of the Creator. But forgive me Harry for so long a dissertation--only believe me as I go to bed, for I must be up early & forward Yrs. Affely Sam. If you see West, tell him I am really grieved that I didn't ascertain the name residence of that young quakeress he met with in these parts somewhere. (*I should have delivered his respects with so much pleasure)Let us have a game of consequences Harry get some paper [?] night!! [?] PAID 5 Mr. H.B. Blackwell care of Messrs. Ellis & Vallette Cincinnati Ohio BROOKVILLE [?] Jan 1 I fear that this will make you feel worse Dear Miss M. Cannot you keep up two correspondences at once Kate? Non [German phrase]