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To Miss Mildred Cameron of Raleigh, N. C. Philadelphia Sep 4/59
Dear Madame I beg leave to introduce myself for the sake of my subject, which I know will interest you, and which I hope will elicit your warmest sympathies.
I have been lately touched to the heart with a case of heartbreaking distress which you have it entirely in your power I find to cure. And I know by my own mother my sister and my wife that there can be no surer confidence placed in any thing on earth than that which a man instinctively places upon the delight with which women find they can alleviate or remove distress. In this case the misery has been so protracted and is so deep that if I can only present it clearly I feel sure that you will stretch out your hand to it to
heal it up at once.
I have come to know one Mary Walker formerly in your family, and I have seen how sick at heart she is about her mother and especially her two children, ?? (if I remember their names aright) who are still with you, Agnes and Briant. She has been herself in miserable health for some years and sometimes ready to die; but is now in her usual health, able to go about and do her daily work, but very frail and often very suffering. She is a lovely person, so far as I have had the opportunity to know through the report of my friends and several interviews with herself. She is a sincere & elevated Christian, bears everything without complaint, with a sweet smile and a pleasant word for everybody; and her winning ladylike & conscientious carriage has made her a large circle of friends.
But with all this her heart is slowly breaking. She thinks of nothing but her children, and speaks of nothing else when
she speaks of herself at all, which is very seldom. Her mother-heart yearns unspeakably after them and her eyes fail with looking towards the South, over the dreary interval which separates them from her. She has saved a considerable sum of money to buy them, can command more from her friends, and will sacrifice anything to see them once again and have their young lives renew the freshness of her own weary spirit. It is in this behalf that I address you,--to realize this hope of hers. She says you were always kind and good. I can imagine that her children must be valuable, in fact invaluable; that any value named for them must be merely nominal. Therefore I must trust in your goodness of heart and in your own the remembrance of any sufferings you may have had, and in your own hopes of future happiness to suggest the various arguments which I could urge for letting this mother buy her children back to her own bosom.
I am a father — and not a mother — yet I can well imagine the heartbreaking longings
of this woman after the fruit of her womb, the joys of her youth, the staff and stay of her declining age. She has suffered & still must the exquisite pain of fearing night and day some terrible calamity befalling either or both of her children and especially her daughter; whose blooming womanhood exposes her more terribly than the worst adventures happening to a young man. She feels as if she must die of anxiety and grief and longing love, unless she can get her children with her soon. Not that I think she will die. It would perhaps be better if she could. But she is so well situated, in all merely worldly particulars, that she may perhaps live ten or twenty years; but if she must live so— these years will all be years of lingering heartbreak.
I have delayed writing until it was probable that the cooler weather had invited you home from travel. I need not add how anxiously I will await your kind reply, and pray for your health and happiness, and remain
with the highest respect Madame Your Obedient Servant J. P. Lesley. Professor of Mining in the University of Pennsylvania.
Petersburg Sep 12. 1859
P C. Cameron Esq
Dear Sir We have your favor of 1st inst. and are pleased to know that your daughters health is now improving and hope she with your family may return home Entirely recovered. We had forwarded your own, sisters’ and brothers accts to Stagville P. O. where their letter now lies at the P. O. there – please drop a line to the P M there to forward you same.
Your 6 horse Waggon was also sent out to you a few days ago to Durhams Depot and to a very superior piece of workmanship and may so prove we hope when put to work –
The activities now ordered shall be forwarded immediately to Durhams Depot.
With much regard Yours very truly And. Kevan & Bro