May 25, 1870 Robert Benjamin-1795 to John Benjamin-1823

Bagillt

May 25, 1870

My Dear John,

I assure you I am always glad to hear from you or any of my sons, and if anything can alleviate my personal suffering and bereavement, it is some encouraging word or action of my family.  As you observe ___ my time cannot be long in this troublesome world.  But it is possible that short as it may be, that in trouble it may appear many times as long as the years already passed over my head. 

I already had great bodily pain to endure and then the loss of you poor mother has completed my cup of sorrow.  The only natural source by which the great disposer of events can alleviate my earthly suffering is through my family.  As you are aware, my daughters here are all  dependent on their husbands who are strangers to me in blood, so that were they ever so well off I cannot expect much assistance from them.   And as well, they are all put to the greatest stress to meet all demands on their small resources.  I therefore am compelled to appeal as feelingly as I can without offending to the stronger branches of my family to assist in softening to some extent the privations I am forced to endure.  And while doing a parent a kind service there is no doubt but that they will be heaping up treasures in heaven and thus receive a more lasting reward than any worldly means can give.  That you and you little and growing family want the help of all your energies I am satisfied, yet there may be a few of the fallen crumbs that may not be missed and yet may go far to alleviate mental and bodily anguish.  If you think me exacting, let the sufferings I endure be some excuse.  It seems to be the order of providence that distress should exist perhaps to call into activity our better and charitable natures that might herewith lie dormant.

Well, I must conclude this time with all our kind love to yourself and dear wife and children, and remain,

Your dear father,

Robert Benjamin

 

[This letter was dictated by Robert and written by someone else due to his physical condidtion]

March 30, 1870 St Paul Railroad Land Department to John Benjamin-1823

Feb. 27, 1870 Edwin Benjamin-1833 to John Benjamin-1823

Chicago, Feb. 27^th, 1870

Dear Brother & Sister,

I received your letter in due time but have not had the opportunity to answer it until now, for I can assure you that I have been very busy for the past two weeks and I have been about half sick with a cold in my head and the children the same and Winnie is very bad with it yet. 

I have not been able to go see about your saw mill as yet, but will in a day or two, and it would be of no use for me to even talk of such an arrangement as you proposed in your letter for I have got all I can attend to at present, and the prospect is that I will have more this summer.  I have just completed another large sawing machine for to cut box lumber.  I think by the middle of the week I shall have it in operation.  And I have got two or three other machines in contemplation which I am bound to put through this spring.  And I also have my house to finish which will be worth about three thousand dollars, perhaps more.  And so you see that I have room for you all.  The morning that I can command for some time although I may be one of the lucky ones and have fortune ___ me some of those dogs.  If I do, I will let you know but as it is now I can’t do anything for you.  But it seems to me that you might advertise in one of the papers here under the heading of Business Chances for someone to take hold of such an enterprise, and I think if the inducements are what you represent them to be, you would have no trouble in getting a person that would be all right to take hold with you.

Whenever you get ready to get a mill you will let me know and I will get you one of these new saws with inverted teeth which are far superior to all others to saw all kinds of hard timber.  And also you had better run a double mill, that is one saw above another.  Say the bottom saw 52 or 54 in. and the upper saw 30 or 32 in. and you will cut any log you will be able to get in the mill and do better work with it.  And by all means have a bull wheel to turn over the logs for it saves a great deal of hard labor.  And in regard to the water wheel you can get them here that are all right, which will give you plenty of power.  And if you want them let me know and I will see the parties about them.  And in the meantime I am going over this week and perhaps they can send you some circulars with all the information required. 

I must close for the present in love to you all, hoping that this may find you all well as this leaves us all with a bad cold. 

Yours truly,

Edwin

Jan. 2, 1870 Edwin Benjamin-1833 to John Benjamin-1823

Chicago

Jan. 2, 1870

Dear Brother & Sister,

I have been so busy that I have had very little time to write to you since I received your last letter.  We all went out to Belvidere to spend Christmas and I can assure you that we had a very nice time and Jamie (Frances’s sister) was married. We got home on Tuesday morning at 11 o’clock and we found a letter here from Richard’s sister in which she says that mother died on the 5^th day of December, but did not give any of the particulars and so I expect to hear from father every day, but I expect that he feels so bad that he delays writing.   Just as soon as I hear from him I will write to you again.   I am sorry that I could not go home before mother died but it can’t be helped now and I don’t suppose that father will live long now mother is gone, although I should like very much to see him before he was taken away from us.  There would be nothing in this world that would [give] me greater pleasure than to meet all my relations once more, and if God gives me health and other things permit, I shall go to see them all and I should have gone next summer only for my building a house this fall.  And it has taken all of my means to do so. 

Jamie and her husband has been here ever since last Thursday and Henry Albright’s wife & daughter they went off today.  Jamie is going home Tuesday. 

We have been living in our new house for two weeks.  We like it very much.  I have got a horse and buggy and we ride up and down to the mill every day.  My mare you ought to have.  She is very large, only 5 years old and weighs about 1,300 lbs. and is a good traveler.   I paid $150 for her but is worth $200.  I keep her in a neighbor’s barn.  I am going to build one soon.  The carpenter just has to get through with the house and I think I will make a bargain with for the barn. 

I must close for the present in love to you all, hoping this will find you all in good health as this leave us very well indeed.  Thanks for the same at all times.

Yours affectionately,

Edwin

PS – Since I wrote above I received a letter from father and I enclose it in this for you.  And so I had no object in sending Richard’s sister letter to you for there is nothing of interest in it for you.  Write soon……..

E Benjamin

Dec. 15, 1869 Robert Benjamin-1795 to Edwin Benjamin-1833

Bagillt,

December 15, 1869

Dear Edwin and Richard,

I for once more send a few lines to you as I am very sorry what I have to relate to you this time as I have lost the best friend as I had.  I have lost your dear poor mother.  It took place between one and two o’clock on Sunday morning the fifth of December and she left me that I had not to speak a word with her.   But you must excuse me for not writing sooner for I could not for you can see that my hand is shaking very much.  I sent a few lines in October and I never received an answer to it.  I was obliged to do by your mother as Richard had sent in his last letter that you had promised to assist him in sending us money for the rent and we think that that pressed on her mind a good deal, for I had not the money for to pay and they had to travel up and down the place until it was too late just, but you got them borrowed last and I don’t know how I shall pay them back either, they have never been paid yet.  

Your mother had been for some weeks unwell and she had gone for some time that she did not care about coming into the bakehouse at all hardly.  She kept telling Harriet all the while for some time that she would not live long but did not like to say anything to me for to ___ me and Harriett must not tell me what she was saying to her.  I don’t know what would become of me only that Harriett was us now and indeed I cannot say now what will become of me from now out if the Lord spares me for a little time more, for I have gone very lame and clumsy that I cannot go about very little.   I don’t think that I shall be here long after your mother.  She prayed a deal that we would both go together but the Lord had no purpose of taking me at the present time. 

I should be very thankful to you if you would be so kind as to write to your brother John in my staid and to let him know all this.   I have not heard nothing from him for above two years.  Whatever is the reason I don’t know.  Richard promised to write to him before for me and I sent in my letter in October last to for to know whether Richard has sent to John and got an answer or not, but I have never heard nothing from Richard never since, whatever is the reason.

I must conclude for the present with the kind regard to you all, and Mr. Judson  and Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Thomas and all enquiring friends sends their best respects to you all, and all very sorry to lose your  mother.  Humphrey and Charlotte and the children sends their best respects to you.  Thomas and Harriett sends the same and accept the same from your poor dutyful father as is a great cripple as is sorry he has lost his best friend as he had this side of the grave.  Been together within four months of fifty one years in the year 1819 on the fifth of April. Please to write soon for I don’t think that I shall be here long to trouble none of you.

Dec. 11, 1869 Mrs Edwin Benjamin to John Benjamin-1823

Dec. 11, 1869

Chicago

Dear Brother & Sister,

It has been a long time since I received a letter from you.  I have thought a great many times that I would certainly write this week but every week brings so much to do that there is very little time that I have to write.  We are all very well at present and hope that you are enjoying the same blessing.  

Richard has just received a letter from father and mother Benjamin.  They are in very poor health.  It makes me very sad indeed to think of their destitute circumstances and not able to help them anymore.  We are trying to get us our home paid for and it will be very hard for us to help them anymore this fall. 

I do not know whether Edwin has written to you or not since he commenced to build.  He has bought two city lots in the suburbs of the city and is building a very nice house.  The first story is ready for the plaster now.  That is all that we expect to finish this fall. There will be twelve rooms when it is all finished.  I like it very much and then we shall have a nice yard for the children. 

You asked if I had a sewing machine.  I have a very nice one that I can sew anything and everything on.   I cut and make everything we have, even to Edwin’s pants and he thinks better than anyone else could do it.  It is a Heeds Machine that I have known most all of the different machines and I like this one the best of any.   Pa and Mother was here and made me a skirt that week.  They made a good many purchase for Jennie in silk ___ and ___ gloves.  I believe she talks of getting married. 

Richard stays with us now.  Winnie thinks that he is the best friend she has got.  Hattie goes to school so that I get very little help from here now.  She sews and knits very nicely.   Do they have music in your peoples’ schools?  Hattie can read music as well as anybody. 

I think that Edwin intends writing some so I will close with love to you all.

Mrs. E. Benjamin

PS - Write soon.

 

Chicago   Nov. 8^th, 1869

Dear Brother & Sister,

I am very sorry to say that I could not come to see you this fall.  But you will excuse me when I come to tell you the reason.   I bought me two city lots last month and have got a home almost completed and I expect move about the twenty fifth of this month. 

Richard got a letter from father last week and I will enclose it so you can see for yourself what they have to say.   Don’t think I will be able to send them any money at present and I gave Willie Wait eleven dollars for you, and if you can send it to father you will confer a favor on us and I am sure a great one for them.  Willie Wait is in St. Louis and says he was advised by a friend of his to go there while at Clinton, Iowa, and says he wrote to you to that effect. 

Richard wants to know why you don’t write to him.

Edwin

Nov. 9, 1869 McQuirk & Bacon to John Benjamin-1823

Oct. 1, 1869 Robert Benjamin-1795 to Richard Jones-1850

Bagillt

Oct. 1, 1869

Dear Richard,

I send these few lines to you in hopes to find you all enjoying the best of health as these leaves us but very indifferent, but your mother’s leg has gotten very near well thank god for that, for it has plagued her very much, and you must allow me for not writing to you sooner for I have got a very bad leg myself and it makes me very downhearted to do nothing, and as you can see by my writing that my hands is shaking very much, and as you was saying that your uncle meant to help you with a little money for to send home, we should be very glad and thankful if you could send by the twelfth or thirteenth of November.  It would do for the rent day and we shall not be here long for to trouble you nor nobody else.

PS – You wanted me to send your Uncle James’ address to you.  I cannot get his address nowhere nor I cannot give it myself and we have never heard from him nothing as yet, and I saw Rowlang Hughes about a month or six weeks back and I gave him your address and he said that he would send to you there and then and I have never seen him since, and as for Mary Ellen Davies I cannot say nothing about her, only that she has got a place in some part of Liverpool to play her piano, but I cannot say where for I never see none of her family for to know nothing, and it seems that you wanted Mary Ellen to get herself ready by August next and that you would send money to fetch her and that you would come to New York to meet her and I thought that a very good chance for her myself, but her mother says she shall not come.  They say that they are going to write to you themselves, but I don’t know when you said in your last that you would write to your Uncle John and send him my letter in yours.  I should wish to know if you have sent to him and if you have had an answer or not from him for he has never sent home this two years if not more.

PS – Your mother desires me to tell you that she is praying very much that God will give her health and strength for to live until next summer, that is in expectation to see your Uncle Edwin coming home to England once more according to his promise in his own letter as he sent himself that we should see him then if all would be well, and we should be very glad to see him and your Aunty Corning then I am sure.

PS – Humphrey & Charlotte and all the children send their kind respects to you and also Mr. & Mrs. Thomas send their kind respects to you and also Mr. Judson and all.  Old friends and acquaintances send their best respects to you and they all say that they would be very glad to see you.

PS – Thomas and Harriet Roberts sends their kind respects to you.  Thomas is going to sea now.  He is mate and a fine schooner coasting being to Plymouth last and going this next time to British Channel just the same place called Bridgemaster.

Now at last from your dutyful father& mother, Robert & Sarah Benjamin, in hopes that the whole family will take this and it all as can.  Write soon again and don’t take it unkind of me for not writing sooner for my leg has been very troublesome for me and indeed is yet no better hardly.

RB

August 29, 1869 Edwin Benjamin-1833 to John Benjamin-1823

Chicago

August 29, 1869

Dear Brother & Sister,

I suppose that I ought to have written to you before this, but I have so much to do that I don’t have time to write or anything else just now.  We are very busy at present although business was very dull all summer, but has improved some considerably since the first of this month.   I suppose that ere this you are aware that Willie Wait was here to see me and he said he would get a pass to Clinton and wanted money to take him as far as your place, so I gave him $11 (eleven) and he started from here on evening of the 19^th and I suppose that if he intended to go to Hutchinson that he is there before this.  I will not say anything more at present.  I want to know if he is at your place.  I am very doubtful of him. 

I got two papers from Dedham a week ago, I suppose from Price.  There is a friend of his here in our shop that used to work with him there and he wrote to him and told him that I was here and sent him one of our cards. 

I don’t know that I told you that I was in Cincinnati some time ago.  If not let me know and I will tell you the result of the same.   If our business continues to improve and if so I can I may come to see you this fall although you must not take this as a promise for fear I may not, but still I may.  For if I take a fit I will start in one hour and so it goes.  I should like very much for you to come here for several reasons which I won’t give here, and I think that it is too bad for you to be tied to such a place that you can’t come and see what is going on.   I don’t think you would be any the loser by it.  I think that it would promote health, wealth, happiness and long life.  I mean this.

John, must excuse me for being so brief.  I will promise to do better the next time .  As soon as you get this write and let me know if Willie came to see you. 

Richard and all of my folks unite in love to you all.

Yours truly,

Edwin

July 22, 1869 Asa Hutchinson to John Benjamin-1823

Nantucket, Mass

July 22, 1869

Dr. J. Benjamin

Hutchinson, Minn

Dear Friend,

This day finds me on the cool sandy isle off in the Atlantic Ocean.  I left home to attend the coliseum or the “Hub” and the effect of that mighty occasion when I mingled my small voice with two thousand of my brothers and sisters in the ___ and listened to the instrumental performance of one thousand trained musicians and saw a curious auditing of twenty thousand patrons daily for one week took hold of me so deeply and thoroughly that instead of hurrying back to my prairie farm and its cares I have taken this golden opportunity to tarry awhile in New England and cool off before I travel west again.   We have visited our native town in New Hampshire, Milford, sang at the laying of the corner stone of a big town hall for which they are expending 75 thousand dollars.  Sacred ___ of yore gathered at the old family table at the old homestead, pledged mutual friendship ____ & parted.  ____ Lynn had grown as fast as any western city, so by advice of my best friends I shall hold on a while longer to what I thought when I left Minn.  I should sell right off.   Have rented my cottage for another term and measured up the land.   I found one man has put a 5 story house on to about 300 feet of my land and right in front of my best lots.  What should I do with him? 

Lynn is full of business.  The crispers flood the streets going to and from their shops.  The shoe interest is consolidating and concentrating.   The city is now a suburb of Boston, has 25 steam car trains a day and 16 horse cars, all in land that a few years ago was sold by the acre now sells quick at high prices per foot.  The shrewd merchants tell me that the growth of the west is what sustains them in their expansion.  The hum of machining making shoes is as loud and continuous almost as the waves of the sea.  From Lynn, where we had nearly one hundred dolls given us for a Methodist church in our settlement on numerous ___ and large hospitality.    Wife desires ___ myself your ___ to New Bedford ___ stay ten days with our relatives (wife’s sister), Mrs. James S. Kelley.  $15 were given here to the ___ Church.

___ we railroaded and steamed to Nantucket, this island of the sea.  We’re at my father-in-law’s.  We are spending a few weeks and shall in meantime hold absent and make some further additions to our church fund.   We want you to make some movement for the pledges of funds in our own settlement and we will help all we can here by securing contributions from here.

Dr., as I shall not get home to help ___ ___, will you not happen over at the close of the day as early as possible and see how he is managing and advise him?  When to cut & where to stack the different grain and all.   And if he gets in a tight place will you not have the further care to help him out, and I will reciprocate this forever.  He writes me that the crop is looking finely.  Perhaps you can help him a day or two if he should need for which he will perhaps compensate you. 

Please write me after your visits, how you find things and how he is getting along.  If any better help than he has can be secured, please inform him. 

Did you have a good celebration the 4^th of July?

Don’t you think that all the straw of my field can be packed or stacked up near the old place of last year?  And is there not some good thrashers that you can recommend who can do better than those we employed last year?  Is there not a good mare in your circuit that Lisa can get to put with our old mare to do our fall plowing?  I suppose you are at your haying and harvesting in full force.  The reports are favorable for grain everywhere.  Is there any emigration coming in to stop or do they push on further west? 

Please advise ___ how to store the grain should he be successful in saving it in the stacks.  

I trust the Republicans of Minnesota will not break issue on any local question that will cause them a defeat and a transfer of power to a rotten Democracy. 

Please write me a letter of general impress pertaining to our settlement.  Give my kind regards to your wife & family all.   And believe me…..

Yours truly,

Asa B. Hutchinson

June 27, 1869 Edwin Benjamin-1833 to John Benjamin-1823

Chicago

June 27^th, 1869

Dear Brother & Sister,

I suppose you will expect a letter from me before this but you must excuse me for I have so much to do, and I am in hopes to make it all up some day if we ever have a chance to meet.  I have been tied up in business rather close for the past six (6) years and I am in hopes in another year or so that I can come take a little more leisure and perhaps go home to see our father and mother once more before they are taken away from us.  I wish that you could go with me.  We had a letter from them last week and father reminded me of my promise (a good while ago) to go home next summer.  Both father and mother are getting rather feeble and he wants me to goggle your memory and have your write to him.  He says that it is a good while since you wrote to him and he is very anxious to hear how you are getting along, and all about it. 

Frances has been gone to see her youngest sister that is married (EH).  Ever since last week her sister was not expected to live but I had a letter from her Friday morning and she said she was a little better and she thought that with good care she might get along.  If you recollect, EH was the one that put on the long dress for the first time the morning that we was married to a man from the east by the name of Fowler, and a very nice man he is indeed.  And they have got four or five children (I think that it is five) and it would have been a very serious loss to have her taken away from them.   She is now about 24 years of age and a better girl, as I call her, never lived. 

I have lost all track of my new relations.  I don’t believe I know how many children you have got.   Richard keeps me posted on his side of the question and I wish you would let me know how many you have got and their names and ages.  It don’t take long to count ours for we have only Hattie and Winnie.   Hattie is eleven years old and Winnie is 4 four.

I am now going to my dinner and I will finish this when I came back.  I have to take my meals to a boarding house now while Frances is gone.  It seems as lonesome here today without them that I don’t know what to do with myself.  And now for dinner……Let’s go, Richard!

Well, here it goes again.  I have been to a neighbor of ours to see birds.  We have got about 10 canaries and the old one is sitting on four eggs now.  We have some of the best singers you ever heard and Frances has given so many away.  When I come to visit you I will bring you a pair and you can raise all the birds you want in one season. 

Business has been uncommonly dull for this season here and a great many complain of rather hard times to do business, and it has rained nearly every day for long time.  And the prospects is that grain of all kind is ruined ere this.  I don’t suppose that we shall have any corn anywhere in this section, and if it lasts much longer it will ruin all kind of business.  And I hope that we shan’t have any more rain for a while. 

I talk of going to Cincinnati to see a vernier machine.  I think that I shall build one for our concern.   I have got some nice machinery running here that I built this last year and I am now building a machine for sawing the blocks to pave the streets.  It is one third size and is self-feeder and operates with six (6) saws and will saw very rapid.  The velocipede I got done and is a very good one and Richard is an accomplished rider.   I have not had time to ride it as yet.  The new machine I have here in the house and don’t let anyone see it (only my friends).  I built a very fine machine to saw the blocks about a month ago that was four saws and saws four blocks at a time, but it requires a good many men to handle it, etc.  But this other, it will do all the business itself.  It may take some time to complete for I have to work at it just when I can get time to do so. 

Write soon.  Give my respects to all.

From yours truly,

Edwin Benjamin

 

PS – I am rather careless about my writing and so you will please excuse all mistakes.

Edwin

 

Oct. 25, 1868 Edwin Benjamin-1833 to John Benjamin-1823

Chicago

Oct. 25, 1868

Dear Brother & Sister,

I suppose that ere this you may begin to think that I am not going to write to you again, but our present excuse is for I have been very busy to get our new mill engine.  We have built a very large mill with a seventy horse power engine and ___ in it, and commenced running last Tuesday, and I can assure you I have been very busy over time.  We started to build and we are running the old one at the same time.  The saw mill we consider worth about twenty thousand dollars.   It is three stories high with six feet above the ground for the shafting to run under the floor.  We have two lines of shafting of > 2 feet each.  The lower is 2 ¾ inch diameter and the upper 1 ¾ inch dim on the lower floor, and we have five planers and two resawing machines, and I am about building a machine for drawing lattice work and roofing strips with four, and consequently it will saw four strips at a time, and all this to feed itself (self feeder).   Our building is 32 x 10 feet long and with a ___ house of brick 24 x 26 with chimney 50 feet high, 4 feet in the clear at the bottom and 2 feet 8 in. clear at the top.  Our boiler is 16 ft. long, 5 ft. in dia with 54 + in. flus and large mud drum.   The boiler ___ ____ ____ ____ cost___ two thousand one hundred dollars ($2,100).      The engine is made from a new pattern and I had ___ made to suit us and ___ got all the castings for it, and I hired a Scotchman here to build it by the name of  Teatie, and I must say he has make a good job of it too.   It is 16 inch bore by 24 inch stroke and is making 100 revs per minute and works like a watch.  It has such good bearings all over and would start to make 200 rev per minute.   

We had a grand opening of the whole concern last Monday evening and we had a great many engines and machinists to OK the engineering.  We had it running till after 9 o’clock in the evening.  There was something over 100 people there and they all had good time. 

And now what is the reason you couldn’t come here this winter to visit us?  And I tell you first what I will do if you will come.   I will pay your fare one way and I will come next summer to visit you.  And now you must come and I will do all that lies in my power to make your stay pleasant, and I know you will be very much profited by the journey to our great city, for such I must call it.  And I know that you can come just as well as not , and I think that after that we can visit one another often, for I can assure you that the ___ of my life is not going to be such a dull one.  I am going to see all my friends and that often. 

Richard is going to send some money home tomorrow.   We have not heard from home for a month but I expect perhaps they won’t write again until they hear from us.  Richard had a very nice letter from Richard Davis’s daughter about five weeks ago.  She did not say anything about her father, but I suppose she will in her next.   I hear from most all the old settlers through Richard.  Some are prospering and others are getting poorer.   I believe that father said in his last letter that he had not heard from you for some time.  I think that both father and mother will get along better now for Richard is doing well and he is anxious to help them all he can.  He saves all his money and is very steady.  He has no bad habits.  He puts his money in the savings bank every Saturday night, for we pay all of our men on Saturday.  And forgot to tell you we employ about 70 men and boys.  It takes from four to five hundred dollars per week to pay them; four hundred and fifty dollars last night.  Our business amounts to from five to seven thousand dollars per month. 

I must close for this time in hopes that this will find you all well as I am happy to say that we are all well.  Hattie has gone to Belvidere to visit her grandpa and gramma.  They have just returned from the east on a visit and Hattie went home with them.

Yours truly,

Edwin

(Write soon and come yourself)