Hore Browse Trist to Nicholas P. Trist

Dear Nic

I have been here for a week and have had the blues all the time, It is indeed a miserable place and can hardly be borne with after spending a month at monticello, however “sic fata voluissent” I dont know how long I am to stay, an age I expect if I am to wait for the university. I think I must take some decisive step if it is not ready in the course of the year & go to the north to some college there. I thought I’d come to the Dr for a few months to see how matters go on, & am now fixed up stairs in a Room with a fireplace with four others which is past enduring & I seize this opportunity while they were absent to write to you. I suppose by your not mentioning it that all disturbances are settled at West Point I suppose your examination is ended & [. . .] I hope that you have acquitted yourself suitably to the expectations formed of you. we have had the pleasure of Cousins Mary and Peachy’s company they have been in the neighborhood a fortnight. their arrival raised my Grandmothers spirits very much which are again depressed very much. she is now at mr Divers & I wish with1 all due reverence to her that she was safely landed at Liberty you must not fail to come in november & escort her there, as she might remain forty years & I would not know how to get her off. I shall never forget the treatment I received at monticello It has endeared them to me by the most affectionate links & wherever I may be it I will always think of that place with the most pleasing recollections & I hope to see you are yet united to Miss V. for whom I feel a real affection, considering her as one of the most amiable and sensible girls in existence. My Grandmother Brown from a letter of hers to Grandmother Trist seems to be in a most melancholy state of mind I beg you will write to her soon. she has always been the kindest parent to us and we owe her every thing that is affectionate in return, I hope however that she will recover & that we will find her well at our return. the location of the university at the central college is fixed, It passed the lower house of by a great &2 there was but one dissenting vote in the senate. Mr Jefferson will go now full tilt on his hobby you may depend he is infinitely delighted tell me if you think you finish your education here if you find the place ready when you come back. Leitch told me that he would prefer your keeping the check and telling him how he may draw for it I suppose he means you to have it some where in New York he is a great scoundrel. I have not told you the news Major Sam Carr has married Miss Maria Dabney who turned him off so often, & more strange yet Dabney Minor has married Martha Terrell! dont you say a woman that married a man twice her age ought to have a red hot poker up — So with marriages Ill end my letter wishing you all the felicity & success imaginable

your devoted Brother
H B Trist
RC (DLC: NPT); addressed: “Mr N. P. Trist West Point Orange County New York”; stamped; postmarked Charlottesville, 2 Feb.; endorsed by recipient: “H B Trist Jany 26 1819.”

sic fata voluissent: “thus fate might have wished,” with opening quotation marks editorially supplied.

1Manuscript: “with with.”
2Thus in manuscript.
Date Range
Date
January 26, 1819
Collection
Repository