Joseph Alston Letters for the years 1800 thru 1816

Charleston, SC - 28 December 1800

Aristotle says that a man should not marry before he is six-and-thirty: pray, Mr. Alston, what arguments have you to oppose to such authority? Hear me, Miss Burr.

The Oaks, SC - 6 February 1807

I have received and read the President's Message with deep mortification and concern; but the letter annexed to it, stated to be a communication in cyphers from Col. Burr to Gen. Wilkinson, excites my unfeigned astonishment.

The Oaks, SC - 22 June 1807

Col. Burr feels that he has not the smallest grounds of resentment against me ; he is perfectly satisfied ; nor does there exist a shadow of that animosity between us that you deprecate.

, SC - 26 July 1812

he who was to have redeemed all your glory, and shed new lustre upon our families--that boy, at once our happiness and our pride, is taken from us-- 'is dead'. We saw him dead. My own hand surrendered him to the grave

Columbia, SC - 15 January 1813

Another mail, and still no letter! I hear, too, rumours of a gale off Cape Hatteras the beginning of the month! The state of my mind is dreadful.

Columbia, SC - 19 January 1813

To-morrow will be three weeks since, in obedience to your wishes, Theodosia left me. It is three weeks, and not yet one line from her. My mind is tortured.

, SC - 25 February 1813

It was there, in the chamber of my wife, where every thing was disposed as usual; with the clothes, the books, the play-things of my boy around me, that I sustained this second shock, doubled in a manner that I could not account for.

Charleston, SC - 16 February 1816

I fully coincide with you in sentiment; but the spirit, the energy, the health necessary to give practical effect to sentiment, are all gone. I feel too much alone, too entirely unconnected with the world, to take much interest in any thing.