Mis112TN-X
TENNESSEE, MISC
September 17th, 1850 Homer,
Louisiana
Written to
Mr. Perlemon Pate
Murphysboro
Illinois
Dear Brother and Sister and Nephews
We once more
take our pen in hand to inform you that we are all in tolerable health at this
time
hoping that
when these lines reaches you they may find you all enjoying the same state of
health
and
happiness. If I could see you I would
say a great many things that I shall not attempt to right
in this
letter. I recieved a letter from you
about the first of June that you had wrote last Winter
which gave us
great pleasure to hear from you all once more that you were all well and doing
well
and also that
you hadn't forgotten us entirely as that is all we have heard from you in three
years
and if you are
so lucky as to get this letter I want you to right me one this is the first
time I have
written to you
in three years for which I ask your pardon and I hope you will forgive me my
neglect
knowing that he
would be forgiven must forgive and may God give you a forgiving heart is my
prayer
for Christ sake
who suffered and died for us all that we through him'might obtain eternal
life.
I said that we
were all in tolerable health and so we are except on last Friday I was helping
one
of my neighbors
raise a house and cut my foot very bad.
I have not walked since, though I think
it will get
well soon as this is the fourth day and it looks in a healing condition. My dear Brother
my only excuse
for not writing to you often is the continual bad luck I have in my
family. We have
buried three of
our children since we have been in this country and have had three born
here.
The first one
we lost was little BAGLEY PAYTON PATE, was drowned on the 24th
October 1842,
he was the baby
when we left Tennessee you know the next was ALFRED V. PATE on the 24th
of October
1847 with out a moments
warning he was called to eternity it was on Sunday evening
he had been off
some where in the neighborhood and come home just before sundown and without
his dinner he
asked his Mother for something to eat, she gave him some. The other children
were
out at the
cotton house playing on the cotton it was now about sundown and his mother told
him
to go and tell
the other children to come to their supper.
He went Out there and told them He told
BLAKE to make
hast back and play with him on the cotton and when BLAKE went back he had
grabbed
a hole in the
cotton some three feet deep about the size of a body and was in that hole head
foremost
and was dead. He had not been from the house more than a
halfhour in good health so far as we know
my Dear Brother
you must try to imagine my feelings which I am writing you those berievements
in my
family for I
right with a heart full of sorrows yet I have a hope when the last trumpet is
sounded that
we will meet
again in a better world than this where parting is no more. My dear Brother I give glory
to God who has
given us hope beyond this veil of tears my dear Brother I don't want to hurt
your
feelings and I
hope I shall not but I must speak the truth.
We are all Methodist here in the spring of
1848. Myself, my wife and EMELINE all joined the
church my wife as a professor of religion and myself
and EMELINE as
seekers and so we went on untill fall in September the camp meeting came on
well I
went there the
day it commenced which was Thrusday the 27th of September and stayed untill it
broke
up and on
Friday night about ten or eleven I felt that I got a hope of a better
inheritance than the
things of this vane
world can give and through faith in Jesus I hope to get to heaven where parting
is no more my
Dear Brother I pray God that you and yours may meet us there. Brother pray for it you
see this was in
1848. Well in July 1849 I took the
fever I had a short spell and got about again in
August I took
the conjestive fever and I had a close call of it I lay eleven days without
eating a
mouth full I
had two doctors waiting on me they both thought it a bad chance for me ever to
recover
but they still
worked on for they said that there was some hope as long as there was life and
I felt that
the Lord Blest
the means in the hands for I must confess I had gave up myself but Bless God I
felt
resigned. to
his will. The Doctors gave me calomel
every two hours for night and days before they
broke the fever
and when the fever left me I was badly salivated but I recovered so I could
walk
about the house
a little and then took the chills and fever which lasted me untill February
since then
I have been in reasonable
health and here I must tell you of another death in our family while I was
sick and not
able to get out of bed our little daughter JANE S. PATE took the fever
and died the ninth
day which was
the 21st of September 1849 and dear brother these things seem for us to
bear unless
we are resigned
to the will of God and I believe that all these earthly losses is our faith in
heaven.
We brought four
children here and have but four yet I will give you their names: POLLY EMELINE,
BLAKE THACKSTON,
SARAH FRANCIS, PEMBROOK SUMMERETTE PATE. He is the
youngest and was
two years old
the 29th of June last and he is some pumpkin I recon my wife is in
better health than
she was but her
health is not good yet. Our daughter
EMELINE made a profession of religion last
Sunday at a
protracted meeting that was held in the neighborhood the meeting a week we have
very good crops
in this country this year our cotton is first and it is thought is will bring
form ten
to fifteen
cents a pound I think it will make ten bales this year if I can save it all but
picking in cold
weather is bad
work, since I wrote to youlast we had our parish divided and the court house
was
located within
five miles of my house and the town is called Homer We have a splendid brick court
house there is
six stores there and some fifty families in the place. When you right direct letter to
Homer I reckon
I had better quit so farewell to-
ANTHONY PATE