LETTER: Saml A. Goodman, Jr. to Ed J. MingSmith County, TX Contributed by Mary Love Berryman August 5, 2002 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm *********************************************************************** Copied 31 July 2002 from the Goodman File, Smith County Archives, Carnegie History Center Jany, 1861 Ed J. Ming: ......Here I drop this matter & turn to an other subject of deep interest to feelings - Ed you asked me about Billie Jefferies - how he is pleased etc. - Now Ed I shall speak to you on this matter with the candor for which I think you will give me credit - and while I speak plain - I say nothing confidential. Well he arrived in 6 weeks & 2 days without any accident - he came here the worst dissatisfied man that ever I saw. Indeed it looked like he might go crazy. You know his temperament. Nor is it known to me that a single member of his family was or is any better satisfied than himself. Nothing here dissatisfied them for they came here dissatisfied. And as much as I appreciate his society and that of his family yet I feel that if there is a place where he would be better satisfied he ought to go to it. True he has come here a gloomy year as Provisions are high - but he was apprised of all these things before he left Union. I wrote him that he would have to pay $1.50 per Bushel for corn until Navigation opens. Well he paid $2.50 for the first bushel & the next $1.25. I now buying for less than $1.00 have bought Pork at 6 cents ....at his house - he has had two offers to take his land off of his hands - these things all put together satisfied me that the cause of distress is the separation from friends & his native home. He pitched his tents in the woods the last of October & I will tell you what he as done. He has built a house 2 rooms below and 2 rooms above with passage, 2 chimneys - 6 negro houses Kitchen - Meat house & Blacksmith shop, cleared and nearly fenced 170 acres of land, about 50 acres broke up. He is doing the work and is exposing himself a great deal and if he does not change his course I would not be surprised if he shortened his days. You can't perhaps realize how deeply we feel for him. I fear indeed, it will not be any better with Thom here. He has a large family to satisfy - and all of them capable of judging for themselves. His heart is as true as steel & deserves a better fate. I urged him last winter to come and look before he moved. I used this argument with him - that being satisfied with a new country was so much a matter of taste - that he might take two Brothers of Equal capacity of judging - Send them to a new country & the one would be perfectly delighted while the other would be disgusted. Had he come he might have been saved from deep mortification and us from his regrets. There is no family upon this earth that I would do more to give them peace of mind than for his. Here I close this unpleasant subject. Regards, Saml A. Goodman, Sr.