Chapel
Hill
May 30th 1839
Dear
Father
By
Cousin
John
2 I received a
letter from you with two-hundred Dollars inclosed—
You mentioned that you wished to know, what the accounts against
you here & at
Hillsborough would amount to by the end of this
session—Before receiving the fifty Dollars which you sent me, by mail, I
borrowed about 120 Dollars of
Mickle &
Norwood,
3 which I hope
will be sufficient to cancel all my debts on
Chapel
Hill—Therefore your whole account will be transfered to
M. &
Norwood's store—I was in
Hillsborough about ten days ago, the balance then due to
Mickle &
Norwood, on the accounts of
Mary Ann
,
Walter
,
Rufus
, & myself, for merchandise, Tuition, board
&c., amounted to 464 Dollars, & I suppose that the money necessary to
carry us home,
will together with a few
necessary articles which the boys & my-self may have to purchase, will
increase the amount to 500 dollars—I have paid them twohundred dollars of
what you sent by
John
Jones
, & if we borrow money of them to pay the expenses of our trip
to
Wilkes, there will remain due to them threehundred dollars,
which I suppose would be very acceptable at this time—
Sister
& her family were pretty well on last
Page 2
Thursday evening—Some of
Sister's
boarders have given
Lou
the itch but as it has only broken out on her feet
& ancles perhaps they will be able to stop it—I fear that all of them
will get it—
I do not think that
Jo.
will do much at farming this year, the
bug is in his wheat, and a good deal of his corn was planted rather late, &
in new ground that was not properly broken—I suppose that he
is making a little by taking boarders He &
Mickle
I believe are doing pretty well at merchandising—
Sister
appears to get along at housekeeping pretty well
for a new hand, she has a good deal of trouble with
Dinah, & I believe that she and
Jo.
are both heartily tired of her—& would be
glad to get clear of her & children, she appears to be what she always was
at in
Wilkes,
4 an artful,
deceitful, & lazy
negroe, willing to decoy others into mischief, &
therefore a dangerous fellow-servant for young
negroes, & an unprofitable
servant to the owner—They have very little trouble with their other
servants,
Jayson,
Ad. &
Eliza,
who all appear to be doing well
Negroes hired here last spring at the rates of about 75. Dollars
for a common man & 30. for a woman without children—I have heard of
no
negroes selling lately 15 or 20 were sold here about 2 months ago at very
high prices, the men, without trades, sold, some as high as 13,000 Dollars,
5 &
none went for under 1000, six months
credit—The women sold proportionably high, most of them bought by
speculators—
Page 3
Walter
&
Rufus
are both doing well, & I think that they
are uncommonly good boys especially
Walter
I hope that
Mr Green
will let
Walter
have the room which I now occupy, if I knew that he
would not I would try to procure him one somewhere else in the Vilage, for I
think it greatly preferable to roo
ming in
college In the Vilage he would not be anoyed by company, & noise which is
sometimes almost intolerable—One is about as dear as the other—My
board costs me ten dollars p
r month, besides bed &
washing, wood, candles, room rent &c. This is about the average cost, at
some places board may be had at nine dollars, but at others it costs
eleven—If I were five or six years younger & had plenty of money I
would like very much to spend a year or two more at
Chapel
Hill, but under present circumstances I have no idea of doing so, but
calculate on improving my self in future by studying alone—When I leave
Chapel
Hill I expect to feel very much like a fish out of water, in consequence
of having no settled business to engage in, but hope that you will give me some
advice upon that subject—Several weeks since, upon hearing some persons
conversing about taking the Census for 1840, the idea struck me, that if I
could get the appointment for
Wilkes, that I might be as profitably engaged at that
business for a month or two as at any thing else, & upon consulting with
Govr Swain
about it, he seemed to think that it
would be well for me to get the appointment if
Page 4
I
could, & suggested the propriety of applying immediately, &
(he) kindly proposed to write to
Genl Daniel
of
Raleigh,
whose
has business it is to make the
appointments, he accordingly did so—I do not yet know whether I shall be
appointed or not
(as there are some other
applicants)—I also wrote to
Genl Patterson
6 a few days
since requesting him to write to
Genl Daniel
about it. I do not yet
know much about the duties or profits of the office, I would be glad if you
would give me any information that you can upon that subject, & if you know
of any particular reason why
the
appointment it
it will not suit me, I will yet decline the appointment, provided I get
it, if I can do so with propriety
7 —