From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
My time has been very much occupied for a number of weeks and I have had not time to write letters at all. I have not kept school any now for a little more than a week but I have had all I could do to take care of our boarders. We have had sometimes 15 or 20 at once that had their meals here tho they did not all sleep here and now for three or four days I have had all the work to do alone as Mr. Stearns has done nothing ‘at all’ and I have had 13 or more regular boarders all the time besides lots of transient folks so you may guess that I have been somewhat busy. I think now I shall sell out my share and if I get enough to make me square, that is just pay my living through the winter, I shall be pretty well satisfied tho I expected to make something when I commenced but Stearns has acted so about the Em. A. Soc. that he is not popular here and we suffer some for it – you may have seen some of his letters in the papers, he writes for the Tribune (NY) and the Liberator also. He is down on the E.A. Co. “like a thousand of brick”. I don’t think so much of it as some do but I don’t think quite so badly of it as he does for he says it has been a curse to the territory while I merely say it has not done as much good as I wish it had and as it ought to have done. There are some things about it that I don’t like at all. You need not be surprised if the next news you hear from me is that I have decided to go to California. There are a lot of young fellows going from here and I don’t know but I shall go with them. We shall start about the 10th of May, and go by way of Salt Lake City. We can have 30, per month and found to drive team out there; go in a train of about 100 wagons.
I want you, Father, to get the Boston Weekly Journal of Feb. 22nd if you have not seen it and read what Dr. Webb and Dr. Robinson write about Stearns and Willard. And then get the Journal of April 6th or about that time and see the answers that they have just written. Dr. Robinson has told some lies in that piece and no mistake – but they have paid him off with truth mostly. I shall if I can get and send along some papers with this letter that I want you to read the Editorials and see what they said about Em Aid Soc. to read and circulate. There is a large mail at Westport now but we can’t get it because the P.M. would not send to Lawrence until he received orders from the Department of Washington .
Our election will come on Friday and we shall have a hot time of it. I expect almost that the pro slavery ticket will be elected but if it is there will be some Free State men on that. I have not heard from you at home for some time; you ought to write oftener. You can shows this to any one that wants to see it. The reason why I have not kept school has been that they have made my schoolroom into a boarding house, and many Emigrants are arriving and we can’t accommodate them any other way.
Give my love to all. Yours, E.P. Fitch
