Box 3, Folder 3: Typewritten Letters 1840-1844

439 [421] 1840.

lawsuit before the matter is decided. If you are willing you may send me the certificates and I will give you each the same amount in some others, I hold, about which there is no dispute, so you may still keep your money at interest and avoid the risk of losing it when the lawsuit is decided. You must send me the certificates [certificates] with your names endorsed on the back. If you prefer it, I will hold the certificates until the case is decided and get the deeds, if it is decided in favor of the holders of the certificates.

I have been engaged for a day or two back in making a walk of round stones about four rode long, in my yard. This is about all the improvements I have made this year, but I intend to make my yard and garden look very neat this summer if I can. ***

I suppose the farm looks quite like a new place now since you have built so many houses. How does the little grove of oaks flourish? I suppose it is finely hung with festoons of grape vines.

We have very dull times here, though I believe from all accounts, not more so than almost every other place in the United States. When flour is only 2.50 to $2.75 it must be hard times in Ohio. We now produce as much of everything as is needed for home consumption and will soon begin to export. It is believed that times will then change for the better. ***

Love to all,

Increase.

Columbus, Ohio, April 25, 1840.

I.A. Lapham, Esq.,

Dear Sir--

Yours of the 3rd with the catalogues has been

440 [422] 1840.

received. It will afford me much pleasure to keep up botanical exchanges with you. I have now put up most of the plants you have marked on my catalogue and shall send them by the first opportunity of those which I have not at present on hand, I shall keep a 'memo' to be sent hereafter. ***

You have a fine field to operate in, ground but little trod heretofore by the botanist, we therefore have a right to expect some novelties. ***

Very truly yours,

W.S. Sullivant.

Milwaukee, May 13, 1840.

Dear Brother--

I received your last letter written in pursuance of a resolution to answer immediately on the receipt: a very good resolve:

Why did you not tell me in that letter what you were doing in the Collector's office, for I learn from home that you intend doing so and so "when you get the collector's office off your hands." It must be a handful, especially for a philosophical loafer!

I have become very much of a domestic or rural sort of a fellow of late. I milk the cow, feed the chickens, dig in the garden, transplant bushes, vines, flowers, *c. *c. very much like any other clodhopper. By family has increased enormously of late, and the principal addition is an old hen with her decade of young chickens.

Mr. Williams writes that he intends to make us a visit this spring; and my wife will give me no peace until I write to

441 [423] 1840.

you suggesting that perhaps Mr. Williams as he is so great a friend of mine would be willing to take charge of Lorana on a journey here *** if she should be homesick she can return by the first opportunity. But after making so long a journey I should expect her to stay a year at least. ***

Our canal still lags for want of funds, although we have a donation of lands almost sufficient to pay for the entire work if properly managed. ***

We all wish to be remembered.

Increase.

Darius.

Milwaukee, June 21st 1840.

Dear Brother--

Your letter containing an account of Espy's theory of the Law of Storms was received and I have handed it to the editor of the Advertiser, thinking it would form a most capital article for that paper. It will probably appear with a puff—but no names of course. I will send you a copy. The figure had to be made with straight lines, which will answer just as well. ***

We have great deal of talk about this country now in consequence of an application for an injunction to prevent the building of a bridge across the Milwaukee river at a point where it is navigable for the largest steamboats of the great lakes. *** It will create quite a stir as well as talk if the write of injunction should be granted. It is contended that as the stream is navigable no one, not even the General Government, has a right to obstruct it, to the injury of individuals as the ordinance of 1787 declares that all navigable streams shall be forever free.

442 [424] 1840.

We have the opinion of Wright and Walker of your city on the subject and the bill was drawn up by them. This bridge question has always been a matter of dispute between the east and west parts of our town and every Legislature that we have had has passed a bridge law; but until this season when the expense of it was saddled upon the county nothing was done. This year however an attempt is making to construct the bridge. Already a pier has been put in some distance from the shore and several piles driven near the middle of the stream so as to interfere with the free navigation and prevent vessels from turning at that point.

There is but little doubt but that the thing will be stopped and the county will have to remove the obstructions already put into the river at their own cost.

The "Canal Documents," now in press, will be out soon. The Gazetteer [Gazetteer] is laid up for the present for want of time to complete it.

We have not effected our Canal Loan, and consequently nothing is doing in regard to the canal this season except efforts to procure the loan. ***

The first work to be done will be a dam across Milwaukee river at the head of navigation of twelve feet left, and a canal from there into town, affording an almost endless water power. *** This portion of the line will yield a rent immediately upon completion, sufficient to pay interest on the cost, and will give the public confidence in the usefulness of the project. ***

All’s well with your brother,

Increase.

D. Lapham, Esq.

443 [425] 1840.

Cincinnati, O., July 5, 1840.

Dear Brother--

*** This is the day after the 4th of July, and of course there are many men in these United States who feel as if it was the day on which they would like to be getting sober. I must say, however, that I have never seen the nation's birthday kept with as little excess of this kind as yesterday in Cincinnati. The greatest parade was by the military. Several companies from Louisville, Maysville, Piqua and other places joined with the several companies of the city and formed a grand encampment about two miles from the city, commencing on the 1st day of July and terminating with the 4th. Everything was conducted in due form. The encampment was guarded with sentinels who duly paced their rounds, with their muskets shouldered, crying out the orders as they passed around from one to another. ***

In the city we had a turn-out of scholars of the several Sunday Schools with a long string of exercises at Wesley chapel, including addresses by the scholars on various subjects. ***

In the afternoon Clayton made a splendid ascension with the largest balloon (he says) in the United States. In the evening we had fireworks, and all the gardens and coffeehouses, soda fountains and beer shops were put under contribution.

It is needless to say I did not attend all these places of amusement. But I did attend the Fair at the Ohio Mechanics' Institute (Mrs. Trollope's bazaar.) Fifty years ago the settlers in the vicinity of Fort Washington lived in log cabins, were rocked in sugar troughs; ate their meals from a trencher made of the buckeye, and slept upon bear skins spread on the puncheon floor, or laid upon puncheons elevated from the floor by poles bored into