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The Dorr Letters ProjectThomas Wilson Dorr to Lydia Allen Dorr: |
Letter
Ap. 18. '45 -
My Dear M.
Yours of the 11th was received with much pleasure; and
I am happy also to learn thro’ Mr. B that you & F. are in such good spirits.
I see you are preparing yourself for a further disappointment. You say you
are informed that “liberation” will be arranged in May, and will take place in
June! All the good that can be expected from the Legislature will be in May.
If they rise in May without doing anything, this recourse will be unavoid-
able. This is evident enough. There are no arrangements to be made. The
members are ready, or they are not, to vote on a proposition for my liberation,
which needs not to occupy half a day. The Old Hunkers, (if not the rest of the Whig members)
will of course exert themselves to prevent any action, and to gain time, which they trust
will accomplish for them all that is desired. M. B. Ives, & that clique will
be particularly earnest on this point. Their hatred to Simmons as well as to myself will stir them
up to greater activity in opposing any measure that he may appear to
favor. You will excuse me I trust for speaking of things as they are; how-
ever agreeable the delusion to my friends may be of regarding them in imagina-
tion as very different from what they are. – Whatever the Legislature may
intend to do, or not to do, I most earnestly wish may be bro’t to a test in May.
This matter has been trifled with about long enough.
It would be no harm to ask Dorcas to show to some person
the envelope containing the document in question, that it may be ascertained
that all is right.
Many thanks for your renewed offer to procure for me anything I may
need and which a pocket can convey. Of the shirts I have already spoken—they are
inadmissible. The myrrh and charcoal for the torch were received. I have four
pairs of stockings in good order though my darning, which is strong, however uncome-
ly to a woman’s eye. I have a good tooth brush, which will last sometime longer.
The suggestion of the Inspectors & warden, that the prisoners
are dissatisfied, because I am too well treated (!) here is an entire fiction. This I
have ascertained since your last. Every man knows that my labor
is greater & harder than his own is to himself, all circumstances con-
sidered; and the wonder in prison is that I work at all. I have no favor here
(if such an expression may be used) which others have not had, or would not have
if requested by their condition. This falsehood indicates the course of
proceedings which the officers will adopt in defense, should I come out hence,
in representing the extreme indulgence with which I have been treated, by
way of staving off the odium of their infamous conduct relating to the
uniform, books, exercise, debarring intercourse with friends & counsel, &c. The
scoundrels will not save themselves by the pretense which you mention.
The foolish remark of Parsons, which you note, viz, that the hardships
and privations to which I have been subjected here, will be the means of
lengthening out my life (!) shows very clearly that the time has arrived when
he can retire from his profession with benefit to himself & the community. –
I learn from your last that the Bernons have been traced
back to Burgundy, the country famous for its pitch. This accounts for the
adhesiveness of some of the descendants of the race! They stick hard
& fast where they take hold! Old Gabriel no doubt wore a Burgundy plaster
when he came over!
Please to send the A.H. paper whole, when an opportunity
occurs. ‘Tis long since I have seen anything from that quarter. It is the
region of warm & devoted friends.
They are about to add a wing to the county jail, and have
taken down a part of the yard wall, so that a prospect of some dozen
houses in the North part of the city is opened to the astonished bisiou? ! It
looks very odd indeed to see anything more than a sandhill; but as
yet I have received no inquiry from this sudden influx of new impress-
ions upon the sense of sight!
The fine pumice-stone came in good times; and my teeth were
sadly in need of it. Two of them, which are quite thin, & filled, have been broken
off, by carelessly chewing upon hard crusts. A part of one of the teeth was swal-
lowed: but no harm came of it! –
The Inspectors refused admission to F., on the 9th inst. at their quarterly
meeting. This of course: they must act themselves out to the life, and go thro’
as they began.
Christoph Rhodes Inspector, & the warden bro’t in an
ill-mannered fellow from Tennessee (Whig of course) to stare at me in the shop
on Monday last; the warden pulling aside the screen of paste board, which
I have to protect me from the head of the stove, to give the visitor an
opportunity for better observation in the rear (as you would pull a blank-
et from a horse in his stall). All three of the rascals richly deserved
a smart application of the cowhide, and felt that they did. The rules of
the place unfortunately did not admit of its application. –
I am very much gratified to hear that Mr. B has
been installed into the place of A.I. District Attorney B. Anthony
is also well suited to his old station of Marshal. The Pitmans, it is said,
are passing into a state of petrification in consequence.
But it is getting late, and I must close. Give my love to F.,
and believe me, as ever, yours truly,
T.W. Dorr
19th. Yours of the 16th has just come to hand: answer next week. I am amu-
sed with your question as to the mode & style in which I shall come out;
when it is so far from certain that the Legislature will open the doors!
On this in my next. Do not trouble yourself about my relations. Death,
which I have undergone, in one form, abolishes all legal relationships. Some
few of them, as you will know, I shall be most happy to renew. The rest will
pass away, and be known no more. The quittance will be more
prompt & satisfactory on my side than it can possibly be on
the other. – In a special case like this I shall doubtless enjoy
the privilege of selecting a few new relatives, uncles &c; which I shall
not probably be disposed to abuse by carrying it too far. But
I am falling into the same vein of anticipation, which amused me
in your last; and “counting my chickens before they are hatched”.
Dr Cleveland keeps himself
very much in the background. I
can give a tolerable guess respecting the cause of Brownell’s concision!
But must postpone till my next. –
Poor Mrs. W has trouble in her family. Her son in law has
relapsed into an old complaint, which, I infer, is drink. –
My work up to Thursday last amounted to 10.550; that is
to so many operations upon the fans as they come round. I have
painted say 40.000 figures of bears, bucks, &c. –