See The Fine Looking Women Here
Fayetteville ~ 1834
Copyright © 1998, Julie Hampton Ganis. All Rights Reserved.
From Philip Cruse to his nephew, Allison Stirewalt ~ 1834

LINCOLN TN 2
Folded letter sheet, stampless.
Circular postmark: Fayetteville, Te Aug 28

Addressee: Allison Stirewalt, North Carolina
Rowan County, Salisbury P. Office

Tennessee Lincoln County
August the 25th 1834

Dear Nephew
I take the pleasure of writing to you again to inform you that I received your letter you wrote to me some time ago and also that we are all well and hoping that these few lines will find you and your farthers in the same state of Health together with your neighbors and Acquantances. I wrote a letter to you some time back, so soon I received yours but I canot help thinking you never got the letter, for I particular requested in it for you to write me imetiately, tho never received no Answer Makes me think you never got the letter I sent, you wrote to me that times where hard in N Carolina and no doubt is from all information, You also wrote in your letter that very little incouradgement would bring you to Tennessee. I wish you would come for you never would mind the trip. I would recommend you to come out here, that is if your partners are willing for you to come, for I know this to be a better place for young men then there. Particular machanics of our bussiness, for blacksmiths are not plenty here. There is two shops in the town of Fayetteville not very extentively carried on an and mine 2 miles of Fayetteville is only three shops in existence. I can not half do the work that I would get to do if I another furnace going, therefore I wish you come and work a wile with me and Moses. I will give you liberal wages. Me and the gentleman I live with, James C. Esselman, concluded to have a large shop built this foal. If you dond come we must have some body els, for this is a fine settlement of substantial farmers and a high and dry beautifule plantation where I live on, and the stage passes every day in the week besides hundreds of others. We have a fine crop. The man I live with has no white family but himself. I want to stay here myself a few years longer till the Chickasaw gets fairly settled that I intended to move there. Oh there is plenty places that is better for a blacksmith then North Carolina, for there is so many there. Why Allison, down in Mississippi, the smith has a dollar for a horse shoe, four dollars for a horse round. Come and try, if you dond like, go father or back home to your old native part where your prety maidens is. If you just come out here and stay here six months and see the fine looking women here, you hardly go back to North Carolina. I would ____ but say jokes aside, a real metalic workman is a wellcome one here. No more at present.
Respectfully,
Signed: Philip Cruse

PS. I want you to write imetiately when you get this letter and come right on then. Your Aunt Mary would be very glad to see you come and sends her best compliments to your mother. She is a hardy hail stout woman like one not more than 22 years old.
Signed: Philip Cruse
to Allison Stirewadt

PS. If you see any of my farthes family befor start tell them we all well and have plenty to live on.

NOTES:
In the Treaty Of Pontotoc, 20 October 1832, at the Council House on Pontotoc Creek, Mississippi, the Chickasaw nation ceded all land which they owned on the east side of the Mississippi River. As the Chickasaw had already ceded all their West Tennessee land in 1818, we might conclude that Philip Cruse had plans to move to northern Mississippi.

From the Collection of Julie Hampton Ganis