| Madison County Letters©
- 23Jun1846 Copyright 2000 Fredi Perry In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data and images may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or for other presentation without express permission by the contributor(s) Ridge Prairie, Madison Co. Illinois, June 23, 1846 Dear Caroline, Your husband's letter came to hand on the 18th inst. Your honored Father was here today and I counseled him to slick up at Kingston Bluff, for I expected he would have a visit from his son-in-law and lady. He says he shall have a plenty of peaches and apples, and (?) this time plenty of cherries. Complains of an abundance of rats. I copies from the June No. of the Prairie Farmer a Recipe to poison them. So I reckon they will all be gone by the time you arrive. It is said that Lucy Gaskill has married a man named Frank (not Gov. French) in the Bottom. Pharsalia has a baby called Helen Minerva. Square Scott doesn't like it because it sounds like Hell-and-Minerva. Does not your baby's name admit of the same objections? Your Father has rec'd several papers, but no letter form Monroe. Levi is fat, healthy, lazy, shiftless, and spiritless, as usual. I have warned him to go -a (?) before Lady Bingham arrives. People here generally well. Wheat harvest commenced today at George W. Gaskill's. The Saybold girls, not married, but Rumor says two of them are "being" courted. The Gaskill girls will probably get back to the brick house before you arrive. Old Billy Hall, dead. Sunday people are going to Mexico to "extend the area of freedom." Truly yours, George Churchill (Note: There is a four-page letter, but it is all political and probably copied from a newspaper. It is not included.) |