This Week in History: September 1- 7

[Just after the birth of the Camp­bel­l’s sec­ond child, Hugh, on  Octo­ber 9, 1843]

Raleigh Octo­ber 16th 1843
My very dear Virginia
You have been very much on my mind dur­ing the last week,  per­haps by this time you are the moth­er of a lit­tle Robert or  Eleanor Kyle if so I sin­cere­ly trust that all may be well with  you, you had some lit­tle expe­ri­ence by being with Mis­souri, that  with your own per­son­al expe­ri­ence enabled you to have more  con­fi­dence and patience than you had at the birth of our lit­tle  James.  I hope you did not for­get to put on a [?]______ this time although I was not there to “dress you up fine” as you called  it, my dear Via if I would have been with you at this time for a  few weeks only I should most cer­tain­ly have done so, but fate or  some­thing else has placed us too far dis­tant when I do go to see  you I shall have to stay a long time as I intend to make your  house one of my numer­ous homes.  Dear lit­tle James how I wish I  had him to sleep with me to take care of him at night, lit­tle  Julia is my bed fel­low now and she is as inter­est­ing as Via ever  was some­times two of them sleep with me you know my bed is very  large and you would be amused to hear us talk­ing in the morn­ing  about lit­tle James and about you and Robert.
[Pg. Break] I enjoy myself in this way think­ing and talk­ing about you though we can not be togeth­er in per­son, I take all the  com­fort and plea­sure I can in imag­i­na­tion.  Eleanor I see  fre­quent­ly but not half as often as I would like to see and when  she is with me there is such a mix­ture of joy and sor­row  per­vad­ing my whole feel­ing I can hard­ly tell which pre­dom­i­nates,  one thing I know I nev­er part with her with­out feel­ing melan­choly and a pang of the most bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment and dis­tress to  think of so love­ly a being as she is (though her faults are many) unit­ed for­ev­er to a man of so lit­tle prin­ci­ple as Otey, I think  she now sees how blind­ed she was, and still tries to be blind  which is cer­tain­ly the wis­est plan for her to take, you know she  is very art­less ad gen­er­al­ly tells all she knows, she does not  wait to be ques­tioned but tells all that pass­es, by this means I  get a pret­ty cor­rect idea of her feel­ings and sen­ti­ments, she  says Otey nev­er spends an evening at home that the door is left  open and he comes in at any hour of the night it suits him that  she is will­ing to go any where with him if he will only stay at  home, she seems to desire above all things to be set­tled, but I  fear will not be short­ly, she lives in the plainest and most  com­mon style at Miss Pul­liams though they are very clever peo­ple I had rather
[Pg. Break]she would board there than any oth­er board­ing house in town, she says they were very kind to her the 7 months Otey was  at the south, Otey tells her if she brings Bet­ty to see me she  will be sor­ry for it, final­ly she says she got mar­ried to have  her own way but she finds she can’t have it.  I lis­ten to all she  says but of course I have more sense than to cast any reflec­tions or to say any­thing cal­cu­lat­ed to make her unhap­py but if I had  $1,000,000 of dol­lars I would cheer­ful­ly give it to have her  Eleanor Kyle again, he has con­clud­ed for her to remain in Raleigh this win­ter, I sup­pose he does not wish to be incum­bered with  her, we talk a great deal about you every time she comes, she  says she has giv­en out writ­ing alto­geth­er that it is too much  trou­ble to write and that you have nev­er answered Otey’s let­ter,  she desires me to give her love t you both and says she intends  to see you, she has con­clud­ed to wean Bet­ty at last.  I have  noth­ing par­tic­u­lar to say about sis­ter Amelia and the chil­dren  they are all well, sis­ter Amelia is busi­ly engaged in domes­tic  duties John goes to school to Mr. Gray and improves very much,  broth­er Simp­son’s health is no bet­ter suf­fers a great deal of  pain.  Mrs. McK­in­non was delight­ed with her trip to Pha with our  friends there, and with every­thing she saw.  I expect she bought  a great deal of finery.
[Pg. Break] I for­got whether I told you that Mr. McK­in­non is  build­ing a fine house on the lot next to the Gov­er­nors house four rooms down­stairs and four rooms up it will be a very hand­some  place, they expect to get in it by New Years day.  I sup­pose you  will hard­ly get to house­keep­ing before the first of Jan­u­ary, I  hope you will live in a good neigh­bor­hood and a pleas­ant part of  the city when­ev­er you do go but of course Robert knows the  advan­tages of thee set­tling yourselves
[Sec­tion Break] bet­ter than I can tell him you know I have near­ly as great an opin­ion of his good judg­ment as you have but I must have a judg­ment for myself too and this is what I want you to  have or rather what I want you to exer­cise you have the judg­ment already my dear Via your sis­ter has just come up in my room and  Broth­er Simp­son has just hand­ed me your let­ter of the 7 inst.  which I have read with much plea­sure.  I am sur­prised you have  not received my let­ter, I wrote you a long let­ter some weeks  since but have
[Pg. Break] but have noth­ing par­tic­u­lar to write about my time is passed pret­ty much as it has been for the last few years not to  much prof­it to myself or to any body else.  I seem to have  noth­ing to invite me to action.  Tell Car­o­line she must take good care of my grandson.
[Sec­tion Break, side of first page] I can­not tell you with any  cer­tain­ty about James McPheeters affairs but the report is this,  that his wifes estate all belongs to his child but that he is to  have a sup­port out of it and to be guardian to his child  con­se­quent­ly is to be the man­ag­er of the estate none of it can be tak­en to pay his debts he says he is going to move to St. Louis  in Feb take his black peo­ple as he calls them and hire them out  there he says Mar­cel­lous does not ow a dol­lar in St. Louis when  he left.  I sup­pose he [?]_____ him, he looks very bad­ly and is  very dejected.
[Sec­tion Break, side of sec­ond page] Mr. McK­in­non and Miss  Gar­gose are to be mar­ried day after tomor­row in the church after  ser­vice.  Your friends all send love remem­ber me to your bet­ter  half and kiss dear lit­tle James on hun­dred times, best love to  our­self from our affec­tion­ate moth­er, LA Kyle.