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File: Rev. M. Ashley Curtis (early trustee)
Hillsborough, N.C. July 2nd '70

My dear Sir,

Much obliged for your kind offer of hositalities at the coming meeting of the Board. I am so accustomed to these, that I do not think I should know how to go to any other house & be altogether comfortable. But I am sorry to tell you, that I have no intention of going to Sewanee this year. I made up my mind to this at the last meeting, & told the Board, if we were to be a mere caput mortuans & everything turned over to the "Executive Committee", that I would come no more. It is a pretty serious tax, to pay $100 for the trip, & after all have nothing to do. I have had no more hand or voice in the election of the Teachers at Sewanee, than has the Chief of the Pawnees. It is the same case with all the other Trustees, excepting the two or three who may be in the Executive Committee. And then this Committee is, I suppose, manipulated by your Bishop at his will. I look upon all this as an absurdity;-the Board, a cypher, & Bp. Q. factotum. I have been working, all these years, for a grand University; but, as things loked to me last years, I came to the conclusions that it is, & for a generation will be, nothing more than a Tennessee High School,-a very good thing of its kind, perhaps, but not what I have been laboring for, nor what I am willing to labor for.

Your letter encourages me a little to hope for a better state of things; &, possibly, had I received your statements two or three months ago, I might have been inclined more to attend your meeting. It is now too late to change my resolution. I shall not go.

I should like well to be with you, & have a few days pleasure with my old friends. These trips have always been pleasant, but for pleasure only I cannot afford to make them.

I have been in bad health since I saw you, that trouble in my head becoming more and more aggravated during the Autumn, until last Winter it culminated in what seemed to be Neuralgia or Rheumatism which I thought, for awhile, would really kill me. Thank God, for a few weeks past I have been getting better, & am now all but well again.

Give my kindest regards to Mrs. F. & the young folk, not forgetting my little pet Rene. Remember me kindly, also, to Bps. Green & Gregg with their families. I truly regret not seeing them this Summer. If they would know why I am not in my place, you can tell them that I can see no use in it.

Dr. DeRosset will not attend the meeting, as I learn by a letter rec'd this morning. I have not heard from Wilkes; but as he has been sold out, poor fellow!, I have a suspicion that he too will stay at home.

What our Bishop purposes, I do not know.

With every good wish,

Yours truly,

M. A. CURTIS