Pettigrew, John, 1779-1799
Pettigrew, Ebenezer, 1783-1848
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Orange Couny University
May 4th 1795.
Dear Father,
This being a day of rest
2 I thaught there
was nothing I could engage in that would give me so much pleasure as in
wrighting to so good a Father, which I conceiv
ed is the
most we can add to your happiness now, with close attention to our studies, and
hope you may never have to say that you wish you had never had a Son, as I dare
say many have, but to the contrary I hope we shall live to be a pleasure to you
in time. We have been as well as common except the splean which is as bad as
ever, un
till within this few days I think it is some better, I swing by my
hands every morning and knight; also have been taking Steel Dust steept in
Brandy for better than a week but cannot perceive whither it has done me any
good or not yet; last week I
was troubled very
much with a griping but I am quite clear of it now and am in hopes I shall be
able to give a better account of it the next time I wright.
I shall inform you of something that may perhaps seem strange at
first, that is
Mr Kimbel is going to move to
Caintucky and
that we shall have to board at commons though he is not to sett off untill the
first of September, but he says that he and
Mrs Kimbel are going from home and will not return in
less than a Month: and that
his other business
is so that he cannot attend to boarders, and he intends if he can to get
Mr Taylor
to board us if he will trust you untill you
come up as he generally has a quarter or half at enrance, he is not at home at
present if he had been I should have known whither he would have taken us or
not; he went away a day or two before I knew any thing of this, and I don't
expect him back in less than
two eight
or
three ten days but I
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dont doubt he will comply with the offer. I
expect you will be up about the end of August, or the first of September
however it will be necessary you
should come by
that time, on sundry occasions, first that
Mr Kimbel will be going away and will want to settle with
you for the bed and bedclothes which he says he will let us have
untill that time, and also for our washing
which
Mrs Kimbel says she will have done at the rates of thee
pounds a year, and I supose we shall have to take a room in the Colledge which
will amount to 5 dollars a year each I for my part am very sorry we did not
board at commons first; I thaught there was no certainty nor regularity in
them such Cabbins; there is not one
Student except
Mr Daniels Son and ourselve but what board
at Commons.
M
r Yergans
3 family was taken sickly and his two boarders
that he had board now at the Colledge. I believe there is 21 studying Latin,
and 5 or six English.
Mrs Kimbel has been very sick this few days and I have
been obliged to stay at
Mr Puckits
ther being but one room in the house. He has
not done anything attall to the house that he told you he was going to finish
and has advertised his lot for sale.
General Dave [William Davie]
and some
others of the
Trustees were here about a fortnit ago, and he
told me that he intended to wright to you to come up and exammine the Students
and get a place for us in the Colledge, as there is to be an examination
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and vacation of one week, and that is to set in
on the first monday after the tenth day of July,
4 but I expect that
the wither will be so excessively warm that you cannot come up then, I should
be very glad to know if you intended going to
Philidelphia this sumer if you do I supose
perhaps that would intefere with the concern. We are now in the
Cordeiry
5and I think we
both understand more of it than we ever did, the masters are very capable of
their business, I hope we shall get perty far advanced in
Corneliusnepos
6 by the
examination, we have four boys in the
class
with us. We are very much in want of some English Books, we read every saturday
fournoon. We have only saturday evening and sunday to refresh ourselves; before
sunrse in the morning we have to attend prayers and study untill eight, &
then eat brakefast and go in again at
eight nine, study untill twelve, we dine and go in at two, we
study untill five, then we have
nothing
appointed for us to do untill next morning: On sunday we have prayrs in the
morning as usual at twelve we have a Sermon red, and at four we are questioned
uppon religius questions. The books I reckon we most want is the
Pantheon
7 and some Roman
Histories. As soon as I consult
Mr Taylor
, I will let
you
how it is, I sh
all
ould be glad you would
notbe uneasy about it, for I shall do the best I
can. I wrote you the sixth of last month and have been waiting wih great
impatence for an answer, as I supose mine has
home reached
home long ago, the
next time I wright I shall acquaint you of some particulars we shall want.
then
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Please to give our duty to our Mother and Grandmother, to our Aunt
and Cousins,
Mrs
Barns,
Miss Betsy, and every one that [respectfully] asks after
us.
Endnotes:
2. If
Pettigrew
wrote his letter on Sunday, it is misdated.
Sunday was May 3, not May 4.
4. "The first public examination was held on the 13th of
July, 1795" (
Battle 1:69).
5.
Mathurin
Cordier,
Corderii colloquiorum centuria selecta; or, A Select Century
of the Colloguies of Corderius
, trans.
John
Clarke, 3d ed. (Boston: B. Eliot, 1724). In June 1795,
Hugh
Williamson submitted to the
trustees a bill for $198.21 2/3 for books
to be sold to students;
Williamson purchased thirty-six copies of Corderii for
twenty-eight cents each (
Connor 1:401).
6.
Cornelius
Nepos,
Cornelii nepotis vitae excellentium imperatorum; or, Lives
of the Excellent Commanders
, by
John
Clarke, 2nd ed. (London: A. Bettesworth, 1726).
Williamson purchased two copies of "Clark's
Nepos" for $1.33 each (
Connor 1:401).
7. Possibly
François Antoine Pomey,
The Pantheon, representing the fabulous histories of the
heathen gods, and most illustrious heroes
(1659; translated
1694).