Author: John F. Draper of Taberg
Title: Letter to “Father” [Ebenezer Draper of Westmoreland, Oneida Co, NY]
Date: 27 April 1863
Curator: Christine Fisher
Note:
Taberg
April 27, 1863
Dear Father [Ebenezer Draper – Westmoreland, Oneida Co NY]
I learned from Hannah [JF’s sister, Hannah P Draper] that you and Beckwiths folks have had a kind of a flair up. I have been thinking the mater over and I have came to the conclusion that they had better leave as soon as they can arrange matters to do so. William is as good a man as there is in Hampton and he has been like a son and brother to you and Hannah for which I mean to reward him if I ever get able to do so, and now what I want is to have him live near you so that he can help you if you should nead help when either of you are sick. I have thought of a plan that I think you will like when you understand it, now supposing you sell Beckwith the shop and barn with that part of the lot and have him fix up the barn for a house and move into it as soon as he can, and have it in the bargain that he shall make a tight board fence between your lot and his so high that the king can’t see over it and then things will all go right. If Beckwith will give you $300 for it you had better let it slide (as Uncle Lawton used to say) for that old shop fraim is a miserable old thing for you know that some of the timbers were rotten when it was built and I am sure that the 20 years that it has stood there has not made it much better besides the cost of making that barn into a house is going to be more, as high as every thing is than any of us was aware of. Now if you will do this it will pay the mortgage into $100 and that I will pay so that Hannah will be free once more. I could not pay it all at once but I would pay it within a year if I had my health. You had better let them stay where they are two or three months and in that time he can fix the barn so that he can live in it and then you and Hannah just occupy the whole of your own house. And I should take down that hall partition and have the outside door open into the front room and then Hannah could have a bed in one corner of the front room. She can have a bedstead made big enough for her to sleep on that can be turned up in the day time so that it will look like a cupboard. Then make a kitchen of your room, and just take out the paritions in that wing and it will make you the neatest kind of a shop. That will save all the fuss of building on to the south side of the house for there is enough built on to it all ready. Hannah told me that ? [unclear] was most out of flour and just as soon as I ghet some money to spair I will send you some. If you have not planted all your garden yet you had better raise a lot of onions for they will be high this fall.
Yours truly,
JF Draper