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December 15, 1857

My dear Brother & Sisters.       Metuchen, Near New Brunswick, New Jersey

I received your very kind and welcome letter this morning while at breakfast and may just say that it is a rare occurrence to have a letter delivered as a general rule everybody must go the post office to fetch them  and I had been 2 to 3 times there and there would be one for me and I should have gone again today had  this not come to hand because last night or this morning I dreamt I had received one but have no recollection of what it contained only that there was but  5 to 6 lines on the side which is very different than then of which I have I have got tangible possession of. I shall have to answer you all in one this time and I have written one to Mr. Lofton and one to Emma Picksin. In the first place I must make a reply to Mary’s as it is the first she sent to me and I am sure it is a first rate.   I kept on laughing all through it and it is written so well and the quotations are interspersed so nicely that it is as good as a media to read it and for the future (times gone by) should excuse her writing when she is well. I am glad you have been to see Mary and Anne and brought her to spend a few days with you. I think we ought not to forget our relations for I can tell you that I have received nothing but kindness from our relations here.

I thought of Dicky Breiny when you told me George Dewley was at Sleaford you had caused the so nicely I will write to mother’s cousin after a while and will tell you what reply I get. I should think there will be a great fuss when the church is open, and if the bishop was going to be pin’d it would be worth going to see.  I am sorry Jess has made his home what Charles Andrew has brought of his hogs to a pratty market with all his fuss and then shaking to be hand-picked already, I have not seen any spry old Coons nor yet any flopping and snapping window curtains yet, but  . . . I’ve seen a few old and some very young niggers. You say it is not your comfort to write I think it is and?  slacking I know you are as good as here and then one. I am very pleased with all your letters … I cannot pretend to answer all your questions this time     after this is posted I will look them all over and answer them as far as I am able. I have been to see William Watson he lives about 8 miles from here at a town called Perth Amboy on a large river about 30 miles from New York. There are several steamboats that run daily on it they only charge six pence English but I did not go,  there are so many men out of work and so many thieves and one thing or other that I thought it best to stay away keep away. W Watson is a nice sort of man made me very welcome and told me that my father once scolded him and his brother John when he came to see them in Sunberry Luboryne for being so slow told them they should stir off the ground and quicker and I think he seems to have remembered it for when he’s at work now he seems to fling his whole mind into it.  The last time he was at our house he says there was a great piece of roast beef he should think 20 pounds on the table for dinner and a good many other things, he has a very nice house well framed he

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Has two daughters and one son about seven years old his eldest daughter is about 17 very tall and a very pleasant young lady for she is very smart I can tell you dear her gold watch wears her gold watch and dresses very smart they have got a mellodian and they have not had any lessons but can play some tunes. I played my chants and sung them or chanted them.   they never hear they never hear any chanting so I thought it pretty .  their father goes sometimes and plays the old hundreds with one finger   His fingers don’t look much cut out for that kind of work or play as it is called.  So upon the whole I enjoyed my visit very much he told me to come and see them again when ever I liked they would be glad to see me and told me I’m regards to my father when I wrote.  I may a just say that he and his brother John believe in shaving every hair off their faces I can’t find all but their eyebrows then of course they are not as they’re not ashamed . Aunt Watson tells me I should shave in the same unreserved manner as her two sons.  I told her it was an impious attempt to improve the works of the creator. She still persisted it was always meant to be shaved off       one day her son William went out with the wagon and horses his face nicely shaved all over so asked to look quite smooth and nice.     it was cold and by the time he got to his journeys end his jaws was so stiff with the cold that the people could not understand what he said that is what he told us that’s what he told us when he came back I told him I was not at all surprised for, says I, every hair on your chin is a hollow tube  and every time you cut it, you open the tube so the process of shaving makes your face full of holes so that the cold rushes in and numbs your face till you can’t talk. she stared at me very hard while I was telling him.  Why are they all hollow?  well, I declared I can’t exactly say unless it was his determination to follow the preaching of his forefathers. Last Sunday there was a minister preaching at Metuchen he had been a missionary but his health failed So he returned and last Sunday preached as a candidate for they want to pastor at Metuchen Well on the way home John says I liked the sermon very much. I feel inclined to be in his favor but don’t like to see so much hair around his face      don’t look well for a minister.

I says he can’t help it     John says he could shave it off of course he could if he was ashamed of it.   well says he.   I should be as ashamed to let mine grow    Aunt says to me sometimes is William I’m afraid you’ll think I make too free with you.   I asked her why       she says I talk to you just to see if you were my very own son telling to do this and the other        well I like you all the better for that     She overlooks all my clothes and does whatever I want to doing     mends my stockings and addresses everything     She has knitted me a pair of mittens for my hands with a thumb to them they are very warm and she is going to make me a couple of fine shirts after a while. I brought the stuff I think

she needs. 

She Is partly disapproving that father did not write her a few lines she always speaks very affectionately of him and says that he was more like a son than a nephew so I hope either father or some of you write a note expressly for her next time. Aunt and I were sitting together the other night and if I could afford it I would send a stove to England I asked her for whom she said why

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to your father it would keep them so nice and warm in winter every body has stoves and you can keep yourselves first rate warm in a room where there is a stove . Wood is the principle article used for fuel,  Coz John has 14 or 15 acres of woodlands so that he has a good supply.

I am very glad you have written a letter though a short one to cousin Mary Jackson she will be very pleased I am sure. When I left Reading she said she should miss me very much and told me that I must write to her so I have done that in her answers she with calling me  her grammatical and historical connoisseur [sic] cousin. She said they should like to see you all very much and thinks that John looks very much like a minister   and asked me why he was not one

Now I will try to answer a few of Sarah’s questions for she seems to asked me than four she seems to ask me more than any of you.

I gave the book and collar to Matilda Jackson and she was much obliged. I have not seen much of her for she went from home soon after I got there but what I saw of her was kindness towards me which in her company she is now with an aunt of? best and may of hire at a town called Scranton. I think she is going to teach in school there. Her father has been to see her since I’ve come here and called on his way back and stayed here a few days.  He is very kind indeed to me he posted this letter on to me and enclosed one to me with a five dollar bill in it for I was rather short of money having had to buy several different articles (which you know I wanted bad enough) and told me if I wanted any more to write to him and he shall be very glad to see me in the spring. He has none men at work half time and he says  must provide for their families somehow or they would starve very soon.

However John told me when I came that I must stay all winter with them and I shall instruct Charles in whatever I can.  he is about 11 years old and sadly wanted to stay at home and have me for a teacher  One rainy day he stayed at home and got his copybook out for me to set him a copy   I got a pen and was astonished at my own handwriting. I did not think I could have done so well  then I wrote with a lead pencil for him to guide his hand by then proceeded to other lessons.  They think I know enough to teach school  What think you of me commencing the above line. I think I shall get along with as get along at ropemaking when trade revives a game and most people think it will at spring and the better than it has been for sometime.

Farmers have plenty of work but it is a kind of employment that I am not over head and can soon live with unless I had a farm of my own then  would go into it with all the courage  and energy I was possessd of but to work as a laborer for someone else I can’t begin to thiink about below is a think I can’t be in to them I can’t I can’t begin to think of else if I had nothing to trust to besides I could stay with JOHN Watson tell has till I was gray as a badger and looked like a pint can.

And swanks want me out as if you had some good reason for doing it and taking him on the whole if he could show us he would do it nearly as soon as I could walk it it’s not right to make fun but you won’t want to say something that you may be able to form some idea but I must also tell you that he is a very kind man and also a Christian he has a family worship morning and night and read the Bible a great deal. The weather is very fine and it is light before against the morning till at light you where he has been for Shop frosts so that ice was strong and enough to ban me by they 25 of has tops of lots of labs were skating it made me long for a pair of skates to have a turn with them cousin John’s wife is sick she has been bad about a week and is little impaired John was saying to me this morning he should like to write a few lines to my father I suppose it will be on a religious subject he said when I came it was a happy to meet ones relations on earth but would be far happier to meet them all in heaven I believe all he wise may say will be that I know you’re I know precisely out of love. I begin I came it was a.

What he may say because is younger than father I believe all that he may say will be I know preach out of love I begin to feel sad days if I could have a few hours slack it could tell you something last being ones if you think I ramble from one thing to another you must excuse it and say the other him

Be well satisfied if I did not. I have not received a newspaper since that one of Lloyd. I think they have something that is not up so much in Port sense I thought it should like to see them as much you used onto Metuchen post office

As you’ll see at the head of my letter it is no you sending them to Reading now I am here it only prolong is the time before I get them and put them to sense expense and the stage show next time you write address as I have told you JOHN Watson farm is about 105,014 acres Woodland included he has got it good condition and has a good dairy cows and makes butter no cheese

His horse is very good ones about one something and sometimes he drives a pair to church one of them is very lively dancers above locks when another carriage comes near he drives them very carefully like most other people pass him and another road when he would let them very carefully tell most other people passed him on the road when he would let them so then would tear away like o’clock will make the Mac fly off the wheels skyhigh one day he gave me the reins to hold while he did something when he was ready I Crohn’s on he I drove and he seated surprised that I knew how to guide and keep a pair surprised that I knew how to get a pair used to some thing haven’t gone he always say is you are very distinctive and when he something work and a

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I hope you will go as often as you can to see Aunt Riley and make her as comfortable and happy as you can tell her that her sister is glad to hear that she is had the use of her faculties and wishes it was in her power to do something for her but it is not she is left dependent on her sons.  Her home is principally at John’s at the old Homestead she goes occasionally to see her other two sons and stays a few weeks mending their stockings or what else she can find  for to do.  She will always have some thing to do.

Aunt Watson considers her very kind and loving to her sons. I tell you knowsI would love fetch her over to our home when you get this and read it to her when you get this and read it to her. What you think proper and read the one I have written to Mr. Lighton she will like hear it.  Goodbye to you all and to my dear good old aunt.

17th last night cousin John and I went to go to a meeting with William.  John [father John Watson] got up and addressed the meeting I said

I had told before watch reason long thing the earth over ground the sea years so he introduced it and his way supposing were I suppose in Iowa you that earth went to round the time John Jesus Christ died to save sinners it will rejoice the believers heart time so he who hears it be spoke very well he spoke very well but not very fluently he is writing piece for me and copper and father not to get vexed

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Remember me to all Alfreton  friends tell E Webster I am much obliged to her for thinking to send me a paper though it is not come to hand and also I am now? and all the neighbors another word and I’ve done as Hides? Says I have left the letter unsealed for Mr Leighton so you can read it and seal it up and deliver it and you must take that as part of an apology for not answering you separately, how my dear Brother and Sisters I must give my love to be divided by 4 short dimensions and remember  your affectionate

Brother William Slater

My dear Father & Mother

After I received the letters and found that you were all well I felt quite relieved, for when I begin to expect a letter I can’t rest very well till I have got it and know the contents   sometimes I lay awake hour after hour thinking about you,   it is a great blessing that we have health and strength and our daily wants supplied,    I am glad to hear that you had such a good crop of apples they are rather scarce here this year they stew pears down here and bring them on the table at tea time   they are first rate to eat in that way, they have different ways of doing a many things but I can’t say that they are all better than our pears,    I should like to have a glass or two of your elder wine    I know it would be first rate for I have neither tasted wine nor ale or any thing else of that kind     tea and coffee is the principal beverage at dinner   How do the cows milk and how are things in general at home   I have not seen so fine a cow as our old one in all my travels. I told John Watson that you once kept account? What you made form two cows one year that it was near 50   he was quite astonished. Sometimes I think about you pictureing to myself Mother sitting in her old place before the fire at work either mending or making something and Father in his old place on the settee (as they call them in America) reading till his eyes are tired then shuts the book and lays his specks on it and has a good sleep on the above named piece of furniture till bed time and Mary sitting some where round the table with her work and ever and anon glancing from her work to the book till finally she thinks she will lay the work away and give her undivided attention to the book till it is time to go to bed then in the morning Mother calls Mary and she tries to answer as if she was going to get up directly but I’m afraid it often turns out that she manages to get down after Mother has lit the fire then you go through your regular routines of domestic duties. The man that works for John is an English man it was easy to tell he was Yorkshire he says to me its no use writing so much there is nothing worth writing about in this country, he told – he had never written home since he has been here and that is eight years perhaps he is not much of a scribe and would most likely con- as John says. I take my pen in hand and so forth something like  Harry Turton? Dear Grandmother  half dozen times in one page with the distance up like cows tails in hot weather when they are gadding there being about- as much sense to be gleaned from the whole epistle as there is in a cow running from the flees ‘Aunt wants me to write a receipt that she has got so I must leave? ? for it This receipt is one that Uncle John Jackson wrote    It is for wounds of any description 1 oz of olive oil 1 oz of Bees wax melted to gel her over a slow fire ? add ¾ of an oz of Diachylon Plaster and this this over the fire till it is dissolved (or resolved)

Now I must conclude with my very best love to you and am still your affectionate son William Slater

I should be glad if Father would take the trouble to inquire after J W Kirkby    I think if  Father has not time, John might try some day.   I hope some one will for they are very kind to me and it would be but a small return

Remember me kindly to ?Len and his family and in fact everyone else that inquires after me I cant pretend to write all their names, tell Mr. ? when you see him I have not heard from him yet.

Adieu W Slater