Box 3, Folder 3: Typewritten Letters 1840-1844

454 [436] 1840.

law suit, and the other certificates which I hold for them are consequently paid for. They are drawing 25 or 30 pr.ct [percent] interest. I hope ere long they may produce for each one a town lot or a farm. ***

All's well, write soon,

Yours truly,

I.A. Lapham.

Milwaukee Nov. 16th, 1840.

Dear Brother William,--

I have just received your letter accompanied by Hannah's and although I have only a few days ago written to father and mother I will sit down and answer yours hoping to bring out from under your pen another letter upon your receiving this.

I am very sorry you had so much trouble with the Hessian Fly. I hope you will set your ingenuity at work to devise some means of preventing the evil in future. Study the natural history of the insect, learn where its eggs are deposited, observe its growth from its first appearance until it becomes a perfect fly and see if you can not invent some means of destroying it, at some of the stages of its growth. Try what kinds of food it will eat and if you can not find something rather than wheat. I suppose you have many articles on the subject in the agricultural papers, study them carefully. ***

I am so much thronged with business that it is out of the question for me to make you a visit very soon.

The canal is going on slowly but will not continue long unless more funds are provided. We commenced 1840 with $6,000 which will not last long.

Your brother,

Ink.

455 [437] 1840

Dear Sister Hannah,--

As I received William's letter of course yours was also received for they occupy the same sheet.

I hope you will practice in composition until words do flow freely from your pen, for all that is wanting in practice.

Try, try again until you effect your object, your present essay is very good, I find very few faults. ***

Say to William that we have very little political excitement here as we have no vote for president, not being one of the United States, but only a territory. We are very anxious however that Harrison shall be president for we have but little hopes of having our interests attended to at Washington while the present order of things exists there. As we have no vote for president Van Buren cares nothing about us, and will do nothing for us. Hope Harrison will do differently.

Remember us to father and mother and all the rest.

That's all from

Increase.

Milwaukee Dec. 19th, 1840.

Dear father and mother,--

Your letter of the 22nd ult. came duly to hand a few days since just as I was about to start for the famous city of Aztalan fifty miles west from Milwaukee. I had no time to examine the antique wonders of the place, indeed the whole country is now covered with from 8 to 12 inches of snow, so that it would have been out of the question to make examinations, if I had made the attempt. Winter has set in very early and very severely. ***

We were apprehensive that you would deem it too hard a

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journey for mother to come here in the winter and suppose that you are perhaps correct. I hope therefore you will make the necessary preparations to make us a visit in the spring, when steamboats begin to navigate the "Upper Lake" and to stay with us all summer. It is too long a journey to make only to stay a few weeks. I shall not be satisfied with less than a few months.

I propose that you eschew all work for one season, leave the farm for Pazzi and William to manage, let they try their hands alone for once. ***

I shall probably be able to send you another fifty dollars next month, which you can dispose of as best suits your wants, as well as the amount I sent before. Although I send you the money to enable you to make me a visit, I deem it placed at your entire disposal to do with it as you see fit.

All's well with, your affectionate son,

Increase.

Dear father and mother,--

Increase has noticed the arrival of your last which destroyed all our hopes of seeing you this winter, for which we are truly sorry for we had anticipated much happiness these long evenings, having father and two mothers part of the time. I am sure it would be our fault if we were not among the happiest of the happy. In father, I think I may find an old acquaintance or rather of my father's, who was Amos Allcott and at the time of his death, had the Cotton Factory at Rochester. Increase says he remembers that you attended my father's funeral, and remembers your description of our house and perhaps when we meet you will recog-

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-nize [recognize] in me the "little red-headed girl" for whom your sympathy was excited. I have always wished to meet with some one who was acquainted with my father for I can truly say no person can say aught against him. How true it is that the best legacy a father can leave his children is a good name. I was very young when he died, but can remember enough of him to know it was a great loss. **

We are very sorry to hear of Pazzi's ill health and hope he will recover soon. ***

Your affectionate daughter,

Ann Maria.

Jackson, Louisiana, Dec. 24th, 1840.

My Dear Sir,--

I had the pleasure yesterday of receiving your catalogue of plants collected in the vicinity of Milwaukee. In one of them I noticed a few lines written in pencil containing an invitation to exchange. This I am happy to accept, more particularly as your excellent catalogue contains a great number of plants that will be most acceptable to me. I have lost no time in marking those which are desiderata with me and from the number I have marked and the extensive geographical distribution of many of them, you will be led to view me as one who is only a beginner in forming a herbarium. ***

Many of those marked are already in my hands and my object in asking for them is for comparison, as many of them vary so much in different latitudes [latitudes] as to form what Rufinesque has called incipient species, which are of the first importance to the student.

Our southern vegetable forms are not to be recognized in many cases by those who are acquainted with descriptions, by northern botanists, of the same species as found in the northern

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states. ***

I have been much engaged during several months past upon the [caries?], we have a large number here than theoretical botanical geographers would credit to the latitude of 31° north. ***

In hopes that our scientific commerce will prove agreeable and useful to both of us, I remain with great esteem,

Your friend and obdt. servt.

Wm. M. Carpenter.

To I.A. Lapham, Esq.