In Their Own Words: Daily Life in Antebellum Rural New Yorka

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Family and Daily Life Home Page | Letters, Diaries, Newspapers, etc. | 1826 letter from Samuel Sherwood to his wife Laura  (see also the Biography of Samuel Sherwood) : New York City is cutthroat--misses home

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New York,  July 11, 1826

My dear Wife.

I have not yet been able to accomplish the business which brought me here, and in attempting to effect which, I am now toiling & sweating under a sun which raises the mercury to 90. I can assure you the peaceful shades and tranquil domain of our own poor dwelling, is an Elysium, to this bustling, turmoiling, heartless, cutthroat city – I can see every body; hear them say “How do you do, Sir”, “Happy to see you” & etc. for 24 hours in succession, without an honest thought or reciprocity of kindly feeling in their composition – all self.

Oh, that I was by the side of my wife in our little green bed room, a rose casting its fragrance in at one window, and a sweet briar nodding at the other, with no other cares than the direction of our boys and the ordinary requirements of our possessions & household.

 


 

Courtesy of the Delaware County Historical Association Archives, 46549 State Hwy 10, Delhi, NY, 13753. Transcribed for this website by Margaret Monaco.

Further information on the Sherwood Family is available in the Letters and Journals of Samuel and Laura Sherwood (1813 - 1823), edited by John Crocker, Delhi, NY, 1967,  available in the Delaware County Historical Association Archives and Milne Library, State University of New York College at Oneonta.

All materials on this website are for non-profit, educational use. 

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