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{At top: POLK Letters: April 7, 1841}
1841,
April 7
Bishop Polk, Bayou La Fourche, La., to his sister, Susan Polk, re: comments about his brother, George, and his marriage; his trips to the river with his brother, Lucius, for the purpose of examining lands in the sugar region, describing the country; his impatience to get home again; news about his children and the plantation. 4 pp. ( 1 mss. original, 1 typed copy).
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Bayou Lafourche
Apl. 7th, 1841
My beloved Sue:
I received your letter at New Orleans & thank you for the good account you give of your journey. I hope Ma gave to those naughty young folks, who dared behave so much amiss as to marry without her consent, a patient hearing, & a kiss or two, by way of forgiveness. I did my best for them, & as a requital shall hold them bound to be very civil to me from this out, & be very good neighbours. Give my love to them & say we shall be expecting them home very soon, & that when they come they must bring Ma & Sue back with them.
I thought I should have found time to write you when in N.O. but had not. I sent to Ma as a specimen of the growing national extravagance, a certain paper, a coverlid which I hope she received. On its envelope I marked the date when I was in N.O. I spent near two weeks in the city the greater part of the time Lucius was with me. He has grown quite stout & weighs very nearly as much as I do & you know that I am now the heaviest man of the family. Lucius I expect will ere long be rolling &
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trundling along quite like a certain great ancestor of ours. We came up the river & turned into this Bayou for the purpose of examining lands. This is the great sugar region & we have been looking & are yet to look at more plantations. We are pretty well pleased, but do not know whether we shall purchase or not. It is a most singular looking country. By looking at the map, you will see that this Bayou leaves the Mississippi River at Donaldsonville & runs off west and south into the Gulph. It is what the name implies "a fork" & is a fork of the Miss. river branching off at Donaldsonville & making for the ocean.
From the north at {illegible}, down to Thibadeauxville 40 or 50 miles it is a continuous village of small French farmers with occasionally an American planter among them. The Bayou is about as wide as an ordinary street in one of our cities & is navigable for large steam boats, which ply on it regularly, & seem to pass just by the door. There are also boats of other kinds & I had well nigh said of all kinds also on the Bayou. Sail, oars, flats & boats drawn by horses which go on the bank like those on the canals. Indeed it is a
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canal. Shrubbery grow, finely, & the orange is in perfection. You may say to George, that we are at Mr. James{underlined} Porter's,{underlined}an acquaintance of his. He lives very comfortably & has a fine estate. Mr. Porter has made very particular enquiries for him. I hope myself to see more of him.
We shall be here some time yet & shall then go {insert symbol}up to Vicksburg & by way of Mr. Madison's plantation home. I am as you may suppose extremely anxious to get to my own habitation and more I am fatigued mind & body. And I have promised myself & my wife too that this is the last time I shall be so long away from her. I am told that all my chickens are thriving fairly. Kate is talking rapidly & Sally a perfect rose-bud.
Now dont you envy me the treat I am to have in that said library, "riding {illegible: gentleman?}", "running way will stage" &c. I become sometimes so impatient I can hardly wait a moment. But I must{underlined} look a little, now I have finished my visitationof the Diocese, after my private affairs. I shall write ma before a great while. My love to her & tell her I love her more & more every day. With my
