Alexander Brown Titus County, Texas - May 10, 1858 Transcript LETTERS.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0
Dear Sister, Nephews and Nieces: In due time we received your Chastening letter. After perusing its contents and permitting some time to elapse, partly through negligence and partly through a press of business, and part for what I don’t know what to say. But suffise it to say after so long a time I have seated myself to comply with your request as well as I can. Today myself and family, with all the rest of the connections in this part of the country, are enjoying pretty good health. Brother William is complaining but not confined to bed. I think nothing serious to be the matter with him. This I hope will come safe to hand and find you and family in the best of health as well as prosperity. This letter will inform you what sickness and death has done among us as a connection. Isabella has lost an infant about six weeks old and her husband. She was very low herself, in fact her whole family was sick but are now well. Father departed this life on the twenty seventh of last month with only five days sickness. He bore his sickness, which was very severe, with more composidness than I ever saw him bear severe sickness before and he died calmly and perfectly resigned. We feel his loss greatly but we are submissive to the will of him who has supported and kept us through this world. Father lost a little negro about a year old some time previous to his death. I lost a girl about fifteen years old that I payed a thousand dollars for not quite a year previous to her death. Osker was very low. He came very near dying but he has got quite hearty again. We have had the most severe sickness this winter and spring that I ever witnessed before in my life. I have visited about one hundred and forty patients since the first day of January last and for the last month the health has been pretty good. I had liked to have forgotten to tell you with what disease Father died with. It was accute inflamation of the Liver. The general disease that has been prevailing here this winter and spring was congestion and inflamation of the Brain. Some patients died in twenty four hours afater they were attacked and very few that died survived longer than the fifth day. So you see that we have had suffering and distress amongst us but we thank God that it is as well with us as it is. We are still permitted to remain here in this unfriendly world with time and opportunity to make our calling and selection sure. Oh that we may improve that to the salvation of our souls. I hardly know how to proceed to your edification but I will just state that we have had the wettest winter and spring that we have had for several years and the farmers are generally very backward with their crops. Wheat crops have the appearance of being very good and will soon be fit to harvest. We have a fine prospect for fruit but how we will come out with our corn and cotton time will prove. Page 2 Sarah and me had it in contemplation to go to Missouri this spring. We designed a starting on the sixth day of last month. We had a chance for company at the time as far as Bollivar and I took the last of my cotton to Jefferson about the last of March on purpose to make arrangements to go but on my return there were a number of calls for me in a day or two and I found that I could not be ready at the time appointed to start and we dispensed with the trip and I think now it is very likely that we will never be able to make it though I would be happy to see you all once more, my old friends and country. We are getting old and I would like very much to take a little recreation and relaxation from business cares but I fear it will never be the case while we are able to go. Orfila talks of going to Missouri in July. Whether he will go or not I can’t say, but if he lives and keeps well, I expect he will make the attempt, so you may look for him. He says he wants to see some of the Missouri girls before he binds himself down to any woman. He says maybe that some of them would like to see Texas or at any rate a Texas boy. I will now inform you something of Father’s will. He has had a will written for several years but kept altering them occasionally. His last will was written in October last, the way that he designed it to stand. He left Stepmother one years provision, a horse worth one hundred dollars, one hundred dollars in money, a Negro girl eight or nine years old, during her lifetime or during her widowhood. He left Sam to Brother William, Markham to James, and Jane, a very large stout young woman, to Wesley. Markham and Old Polly to remain under my control until James calls for Markham. He requested me in his will to furnish Markham land to work and a house to live in until he was called on. All his labour, after paying the rent for the land and a support for himself and his mother, to go to the benefit of James, with the stock that they might have on hands also, for he left for their benefit one years provisions, a horse to be worth seventy five dollars, gear and plows sufficient for him to farm with, two cows and calves, a sow and pigs, hogs sufficient for another years meat. After Markham is called off, Polly is to select her master or mistress whom she prefers to live with, if she is living at that time. He left to your two youngest sons three hundred and twenty acres of land, the same land that he designed for George, though he never made any wright to him. Therefore it will now go as the will directs. He left in the hands of Rufus Godwin about sixty head of cattle until 1865 in October. Then they are to be sold and the proceeds of them is to be divided between Brother John’s children. He also left John’s son two hundred dollars to be paid him when the cattle is sold. He then leaves the balance of his effects to be divided between myself, Billy, James, yourself, Wesley and Sarah E. Wlliams, Samuel McCrarey’s daughter. His stock, consisting of about forty head of cattle, three head of horses, some hogs, a wagon and one yoke of steers, some farming tools and some household and kitchen furniture, is to be sold to the highest bidder on twelve months credit. There will be some twelve or fifteen hundred dollars worth of notes. I do not know how much for I have not examined them. He left me Executor of his will and I expect to carry it out as requested if I should live. I will inform you further on the subject as I proceed with it. Izabella is living with us again. Yours til death Alexander and S. H. Brown © Copyright 2007 - All rights reserved