Hatchie Mills
August 13, 1866
Dear Brother & Sister,
I do not know how much I may write, or how little, for I can
assure you that the past two weeks has been very hard ones on me. I have not been able to sit up an hour at a
time. I have had the chills. I do not know whether or not that I may have
another today. It is now nearly nine o’clock. The time is from 3 to 11 o’clock. Richard has had the shakes or chills for
about two weeks and it don’t seem as though we could stop them. He has got such an enormous appetite. He eats all you put before him and of course
this is against him with the chills. We
, in fact, are all with some ailment.
There is not one of us clear.
Oh, what a country.
Perhaps this is not the worse. In my business
here I had a man from Chicago attend to the sales of lumber at Memphis as fast
as shipped from the mill. In order that
you may know what became of Cooke, I will tell you he did not come to time with
the money and so he went out, and in the meantime Col. Eldridge of Chicago, a
friend of mine as I supposed, sent this man, Tourtelotte his name is, to assist
me in the mill and dispose of the lumber after it was manufactured. Well, I assure you he did dispose of it to my
sorrow on the 23rd day of June, 1866. I took all my men for the mill to Memphis to
settle up with them all and then start anew again. He, Tourtellotte, was to meet me at the
Commercial Hotel at 2 o’clock in the afternoon of the 23rd. I was very unwell that day and I could not go
out of the house; however, he came to see me and I told him I was very unwell and
could not go out that day. He said it
would be all right, he would help and have things all satisfactory and said he
was going to Fort Pickering to see a man to get more money and would be back in
an hour. I told him that it would be all
right. Well time past on and some of the
men began to get uneasy, and one or two of them went to hunt him, and about 6 o’clock
the young men came back and asked me if I had seen Tourtellotte. Told them
I had not. Well, says one of them, I am
sorry to say , Mr. Benjamin, I don’t think you will. I did not
know what to say. They said that
they went to his boarding house and the land lady told them that he had come and
got his things and gone home. Here he
has absconded with over $6,000.00 as ever I can tell. I had every reason in the world to put the
confidence in him, which I did. I have letters
in my possession which I think will make me all safe because this Col. Eldridge
is a responsible man in whom I always found a perfect gentleman until this
happened. I, of course, don’t know
whether he will stoop to so low a thing as this. I am not able to tell at present although I have
been before a Grand Jury in this county and stated to them my case and learned
since that the Attorney General said he had a good think there. So I concluded that they had found a good Bill against Tourtellotte and will make
a requisition on the Gov. of Ill to have him brought back to Memphis to answer
the charges against him. How long it is
going to take to do this I am not able to tell, and I must leave you here until
something more turns up.
I am now of the opinion that I will settle up my business
here as soon as I can and I will come to your place and stay to recoup up a little.
I don’t suppose you have the chills up your way; at any rate I never heard of
any such thing.
14th August, 1866
Well, since writing the above I had to go lay down and have
another chill and shiver that used me up for yesterday, and last night I did
not sleep much on account of my being broke out with the heat so that I am
scratching all the blessed time. I begin to think the chills can’t be cured in
this country with water for I can assure you I have given it a thorough trial,
but it has had no effect on me and ___ now I must get out of this, and tomorrow
about 11 o’clock I suppose I shall have another chill, and before that, or
three – four hours before they come on, I am going to take 3 big doses of
quinine. I don’t like the idea very well
but I must do something so as to get about again. My mill is standing idle on
account of my not being able to attend to it.
I do not know whether or not I had better write any more or
not . It has been the hardest work for
me to write this letter that I ever wrote and, of course, you will excuse all
my stakes for they are numerous. Hattie
had the chills and fever for weeks and we took it in hand in time. She was the poorest looking thing you ever
saw. We took her and stood her in a tub
and poured water on her until she was quite cold. We then took her out and as soon as her fever
came on again, which was about an hour, we cooled her the same as in the first
place. We kept a very close watch on her
all this time. Her fever was somewhat longer
the third time . We continued as before and
so on until we stopped the fever entirely, and in two days she seems as well as
ever.
I have not heard anything from Tourtellotte as yet. I was
going to send one of the men to town today to see my counsel and see if he had
any news for me , but the man did not come up from the mill and so I could not
send him today but will tomorrow, and will and will send this to the office by
him.
I wish you to write soon ____ ____. I must close for the present with love to you
all and expect to hear from soon. Frances,
Richard and all unite with me in love to you all,
Edwin
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