Letter - Overton to Potter - 1957 - Smith Co, TX - Maury Co, TN

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Permission has been granted from Howard Bramlette of Nashville, TN,
owner of the letter, for submission to the Smith County TXGenWeb
Archives by Joel Patrick Childress - londonwildcat@earthlink.net
19 September 2000
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LETTER FROM JOHN F. OVERTON TO JAMES C. POTTER IN TENNESSEE

Smith County, Texas, November 13, 1857
James C. Potter

Dear Sir:

Your letter September 1st, 1857 was duly received and I would have 
answered it before this, but left home the next day and was absent 
from home two or three weeks and since my return, I have hardly had 
time.  Still, I have nothing to write that can interest you much more 
than to inform you that Mary Eliza is well and going to school at the 
same place and teacher that she did last session. 

From the tenor of your last letter to me it would seem that some of us 
have said or done something that has caused you to take on, or see a 
little troubled about Mary Eliza.  It would seem that some of us have 
been trying to get you to relinquish your rights to her and give her 
up to some of us. All I can say about it is that I have not asked it 
of you, neither have I intimated or insinuated it to you or anyone 
else, and if anyone else has done so, I have no knowledge of that. I 
do not think you may give yourself any uneasiness up on that score, 
For I know under what circumstances she came here and what 
circumstances she stays here and my word for it, that whenever you 
demand her, you shall not find any difficulty in exercising all the 
privileges and rights belonging to you as her father and guaranteed 
to you by the laws of our country. 

Of course it is and always will be a pleasure for us to keep her as 
long as it is your will for her to stay with us.  As for my bringing 
her back I will do so sometime if life and circumstances will admit it 
to, unless you come after her yourself.  I would be glad for you to 
come to see us all and to look at our country.  I think you would be 
pleased considering the many unfavorable circumstances that have 
transpired of this fall and the past summer and spring.  Times are 
comparatively easy, but the present indicates that the future will be 
very different.  The frost on last Monday night killed 10 our 12 bales 
of cotton for me.  Some of our cotton in this country grew too long 
after the rain said in in the summer.  I have not made more than one-
fourth of a crop of corn or cotton.  I made a fine crop of potatoes 
and well fatten some pork for sale.  Pork will be worth seven or eight 
cents per pound. I have bought some corn, I reckon it enough to do me,
 which is the first I have bought since the first crop I made in Texas.  
It will cost me from 85 cents to $1 per bushel delivered. I have sold 
no cotton as yet but have shipped what I have off to new Orleans and 
expect to hold it until this time next year if I cannot get as much as 
a bit per pound.  I think times will somewhat react by next spring, if 
not they will by this time next year. 

Nothing more at present but I remain your friend and relation,
John F. Overton 

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