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    To Sarah Savage Thatcher

    Boston        18 June 1821

    My dear—

    I hear this morning that our son Henry has arrived in town from North-Carolina, with his partner Mr. Haggens, whence I conclude he does not contemplate returning there again.1 I saw his cousin Thomas a few moments this morning, he saw him & conversed with him—he sais he is very well, tho he looks thin & sharp in the face—They have had a very long passage. If I mistake not over twenty days—I suppose you will see him soon on his way to Portsmouth [New Hampshire]—so ardent a Lover will think of nothing till he sees the object of his affections; so I hardly expect he will call on me—But all this is right; according to the good Book—

    I saw Anner [Lewis Thacher] on Saturday. She sais she is very well, but she too is thin as a shingle—probably she has or thinks she has troubles of the mind, fears and anxieties of the heart that always corrodes the flesh & haggards beauty itself—So it is that the young as well as the old have uneasy feelings to encounter.

    Saturday afternoon I rode out with my friend [Thomas B.] Waite & dra[n]k coffee with him & his family—Then We called a few moments on the celebrated Noah Worcester, Author of all or most all the pieces on the subject of peace, which have given rise [to] the Great Peace Society in Massachusetts, & has spread almost through Christendom2—He is a plain, honest, good common-sense man, with much reading and thinking on Religious subjects—He told me he had often heard of me, & for a great while had been trying to meet me. He said Mr. Neal of Elliot had often made mention of me in his letters to him.3 I observed that I had read much of his composition in the Christian Disciple, & thought on many religious subjects with him; & I had been talking of making him a visit ever since I saw his writings—Thus we mutually said pleasing things to each other & as I was really pleased with him I have no reason but he was left with pleasing ideas of myself—After all this I thought I could do no less than to put my name as a member of the Peace Society4—And take a set of his books that have been read throughout the Christian world with general approbation—for which I paid him three dollars & fifty cents—This I looked upon as charitable at least—My friend did the same—We left him with assurances that we will call & see him with more time at command in a week or fortnight—Mr. Waite then set me down at the Gate of Mr. [Abraham] Biglows [. . . .]

    Your most affectionate

    * * *

    ALS, TFP. Addressed to Newburyport, Massachusetts; postmarked. Omitted text relates news of friends and family, including Samuel Phillips Savage Thacher’s wife Jane’s “complaint in the Breast,” although the doctor “thinks there is no danger of a cancer.”