GREAT 1828 LETTER TROY NY - FROM JEREMIAH PORTER MISSIONARY - w/ ORIGINAL POEM

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Lengthy, 3+ folio pgs letter, approx. 7-3/4" x 12-5/8", dated at Troy, N.Y., July 5, 1828, from Jeremiah Porter, to his mother, Mrs. Charlotte Porter, at Hadley, Mass. (NOTE - the letter is taller at top than appears in the 1st photo, and is longer at the bottom than appears in the next 3 photos). Folded letter has "TROY/N.Y." dotted oval postmark, and manuscript "12-1/2" rate. The writer of this letter , JEREMIAH PORTER, (1809-1893), was born in Hadley, Mass.; Graduated Williams College in 1825, and entered Andover Theological Seminary that year, but left after 2 years; Taught High School at Troy, N.Y., 1827-1828; Graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1830; In 1831, at the request of the American Home Missionary Society, he was ordained as a Missionary Evangelist (Presbyterian), and began missionary work at Fort Brady, Sault Ste Marie, Michigan Territory; In 1833, he accompanied Major Towle & his troops from Ft. Brady to Ft. Dearborn (Chicago), and organized the First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, with just 5 families - the oldest religious society in Chicago - predating the incorporation of the town of Chicago in Nov. 1833 ; In 1835, he accepted a call to be Pastor to the Main Street Presbyterian Church at Peoria, Ill., and his next pastorate was at Farmington, Ill. where he labored until 1840; From 1840-1858, was pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and in 1858, came to Edward's Congregational Church of Chicago; Very active during the Civil War , in both the Sanitary Commission, and the U.S. Christian Commission, and served at Cairo, Mound City, Pittsburg Landing, Memphis, Vicksburg, Kennesaw Mountain, & Savannah; In 1868, was appointed by the U.S. Senate as Post Chaplain at Ft. Brown, Texas, where he served until 1873; Was Post Chaplain at Ft. Sill, Indian Territory (1873-1875), and at Ft. Russell, Wyoming Territory, 1875-1882. A wonderfully written letter, written while teaching in Troy, N.Y., just a couple years before starting his missionary & preaching career, with great content, including writing of dining with the Spanish Minister to Columbia & his wife, the progress of his school; and of special interest is the very lengthy original poem he wrote just for his mother, in reaction to her letter in which she expressed fears for his safety & well-being, in which he sets forth exaggerated dangerous situations she might be imagining him in. Includes: "I have just been to the post office for my New York Observer, to provide for myself my usual diversion for Saturday afternoon; but either because they would not work at N.Y. on the Fourth [4th of July], or for some better reason, that, & my Journal of Commerce were neither of them there (there, means, post office, not N. York). Deprived of these amusements, I can think of no more pleasing substitute in my power than chatting a while with my dear absent Mother; than answering your last kind letter, which expressed so deep an interest for me. Those feelings, so honorable to your own heart, & so flattering to mine, I could not of course wish diminished; tho' perhaps trusting too much to my virtuous principles, I could not feel that the danger was by any means as great as your vigorous imagination seems to have painted it to your maternal tenderness. That letter has induced me to spend a little of my leisure in attempting to describe, in my kind of limping poetry, a Mother's feelings under such circumstances, & if I have succeeded in hitting a few of yours, so as to give you a few hours entertainment, I shall feel highly compensated. If I have found these self same lines in a public gazette, I should not have thought them worth transcribing, but being the offspring of my own brain, I have conceived a sort of fatherly attachment for them, & send them forth with some of the parental interest therein exhibited. What follows is 14 stanzas (56 lines) of verse - an original poem by Jeremiah Porter. I'll transcribe just a few stanzas here: "One morn I missed him from ... read more

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