San Francisco Jan 31^st 185[?]

 

Dear Mother                                                                          

                                    And here it is again, the last day the last hour, and I have been fool enough to keep putting off writing till this time I had intended to have written you very full letter this time but have had other letters to answer and I doubt very much if I have time to fill this out much less write to Susan as I should do for I got a good letter from her by the last mail You say (or half say) that you sent Susans daguerotype by some one you hint it was Mr Stimpsons gardener, but I do not think he will go by that cognomen in this city I called to see Mrs Horner she was in a state of blissful ignorance about Mr Stimpson or anything in Prov. I hope by the next mail to get some further information about You should have sent it by mail other people do I had to wait a long time for my last letter  as the mail steamer went ashore. she has been got off from the bar now and we people of San Fran are all very much pleased for she was the best of all the steamers and would have been a public loss I had quite a number of things to tell you but I think they have all gone somewhere for I^l be hanged if I can think of one of them I am writing so fast I have not seen any more [?] talkers since I last wrote that is nothing to speak of Dr Upton still wishes me to come to the Circle and I am as awfully / interested in it as ever I like him very much and like his preaching but as I tell him I dont believe half he says I think his wife & myself have rather got the better of the spirit as regards the baby for it has all turned out with the child as I said it would and she has [?] hopes in my judgment while the Dr rather inclined to the idea that the clairvoyant and the spirit held out. The child is very much better and I am in hopes will get well but has been very sick Mrs Upson dose not believe as the Dr dose about these things and I think she has more of what is called common sence in her little finger than the Dr has in his whole body You would be very much pleased with the Dr he is a devoted worker for humanity and would do more good if he could be a little less of the enthusiast. Such kind of people when they find out they have been mistaken jump way over to the other side of a question You will I have no doubt see some of his ideas and facts as he thinks them in the spiritual newspaper one of these days so you must look out for it. Did I ever send you the paper by which the Medical Society acknowledged that they were nothing more or less than an allopathic society, which was all I wanted of them and I am now on a good foundation let them say what they will but they now say nothing and will let me rest in quiet if I wish it We have another Homoepath in the city who is I should judge a well educated man he is a married man also and in that has (as the boys used to say the disadvantage of me) I do not think he can / get any of my patients however for they all stick to me like bricks after they know me I have been so remarkably fortunate as to retain the confidence of the friends of the patients that I have lost which is not at all common in this place One german whose wife I attended for some time (it was an old chronic case) and who died, gave me the other day the following doubtful compliment Well doctor said he when he paid his bill I is very satisfied vat you have done for my vife an if I should get anoder I shall get you for to doctor her. We have had some weather that realy put me in mind of home. it was the coldest that has been for the last 16 years for one or two days it froze water into ice 1½ inches thick people did not know what to make of it Since that time it has been most delightful and for the past 3 days as mild as your home. We have had but little rain this winter, which makes it very bad for the miners and of course all the rest of us they must have water to wash the dirt and if it dont come they get no gold. Stu writes me that they do nothing the weather is so horridly pleasant, he went up to see the big trees and says the stories about them are all true on New Years night they had a ball at that place & 16 couples danced on the stump of the tree that had been cut down and that one of the trees which was blown down had been burned out years since & that you could drive a horse & buggy into it for 200 feet I will not write any more for I did not see them myself and I would not like to have Stu thought to be a story teller /

I was not prepared to hear of the death of a good friend Mrs Goddard but do not think it right to mourn for her she must have been so great a sufferer and she was more fit for a residence in the other world than this I never saw such a union of intelligence simplicity & goodness in any one person as she possessed But my sorrow is for Miss Abby & Mary & not for my good friend

 

I shall send a letter by the Nicaragua line and you must send this up to Susan and to her I say that I was talking the other day with my friend John A Collins who said his wife was a connection of the Cheneys, and he knew them very well He said he had a daughter near by Manchester at school, do you know his wife or daughter

                                                                                               

Good night

John

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