What a Change!
SOPHOMORE LETTER OF CENTURY AGO VERY DEVOUT, ASKS FOR NO MONEY
To THOSE OF us who remember the sort of letters we used to write home when we were students at Hanover, or who are in the occasional receipt of missives from the current breed, there may be a brief interest in a letter, now well over a century old, which was lately discovered in the process of clearing out an attic for the satisfaction of a zealous firewarden. It bears the date of April 22, 1839 and was written by John G. Sherburne of the class of 1842 at Dartmouth toward the close of his freshman year. It was addressed to his father, Capt. John Sherburne, of Northwood, N. H.—a town something like 20 miles east of Concord on the Dover road.
What Captain Sherburne was captain of I don't know; possibly he was in the militia, or possibly was an officer by brevet from the war of 1812. At all events he had a son, born in 1820, who went to Dartmouth and graduated in 1842 and who must have been about 19 years old when the letter which follows was penned. In that day there were no postage stamps, much less stamped envelopes, and this letter was folded conveniently to be sealed with wax and served as its own cover. The large figures "10" just above the address probably indicate what it cost to transport it from Hanover to Northwood; and it is to be supposed that in this case the cost fell on the addressee.
The tone of the letter is somewhat exalted and its style rather breathless, with an economy in the use of punctuation marks which makes some parts of it difficult to decipher. Obviously young Sherburne was not a good speller and had something to learn of rhetoric and orthography, but for these deficiencies he certainly atoned in other ways, notably in moral uplift. This seems to have been due in part to the fact that he was deeply moved by attending the death-bed of a classmate (name unknown, but the Catalogue mentions an 1842 student, Joseph Daniel Adams of Keene, as having "died while a student") and by the consciousness that still another classmate, equally anonymous, was, as he put it, "laying on death bed" and obviously not long for this world. The effect on young Sherburne was naturally to turn his thoughts toward religionthoughts which seem to have crowded on his mind so promiscuously as to lead to a certain "derangement of epitaphs" when it came to remembering up the language he had heard from the pulpit in the Northwood church.
I am interested to note various divergences from the customary letters of sophomores in my own time—notably the absence of any appeal for funds, and the implication that young John G. had been so car-sick in the stagecoach going to Hanover that he proposed to trudge on foot at the end of the term as far as "salsbury," which would be down Franklin way. In 1839 the railroad hadn't pushed its way very far into the north country. Hopefully Sherburne pere would meet his son somewhere on the Salisbury cut-off and drive him home from there.
For the rest, the letter is a rather turgid sermon—possibly padded a little, for one in those days wanted to make his letters worth the 10 cents involved, and would not be averse from adopting a style likely to convince father that all was going well with the process of higher education on the moral side. It seems not to have struck the writer that there was anything incongruous in urging his father to "remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," or that Canaan, N. H., which he must pass through and probably knew how to spell, bore any kinship with "canon's happy shore" to which the elect are wafted. I can only hope that the valiant captain was duly impressed and that on the "8 day" of May he picked up son John at Salisbury to ride home in comparative comfort for a vacation in Northwood, where we gather the people did not appreciate their blessings so acutely as did their delegate to Dartmouth's classic shade. But here follows the letter, ut verbat, ut literat, utpunctuate:
Hanover April 22, 1839
My respected and Affetionat Father
I am happy at this time to improve the privilege of informing you the circumstances of my condition and the state of my health through the medium of my pen, being that we are deprived of the privilege of conversing face to face.
I arived at Hanover on Wednesday evening at 9 oclock, and it was the hardest days work that I ever saw. I was taken sick in the morning and I was sick all the way up, so that I am entirely disgusted at the sight of a stage. I have been sick two or three days since I have come up here and the rest of the time I have enjoyed myself pretty well. I have moved from the room where I roomed last fall and I have got and excelent place, and I still room with Clark.
It is in general very healthy in this (town) considering the number of the inhabitants; there has been one of my clafsmates changed time for eternity and there is another one laying on death bed and soon we expect his soul will take its flight and go unto God who gave it and that his body will mould and return to its mother earth.
While I have been reflecting on the final judgement day solemn O how solemn (is the) thought of meeting the many dead —those with whom we have spent many pleasant houers, those who are dear to us by the ties of friendship, those who have fought for this our libertay, those who have proclaimed the glad tidings of the Gospel, yes with those who declared themselves to be the disciples of Christ and walked according to the chart which he has set before them; and with those who have disobayed the commands of God and believe not the words which he has set before them. Yes, more solemn is the thought that there must be a final separation, unto those who have done ill and being often rebuked and harden th their neck will have to take it at his hand to lye down in sorrow forever; but unto those who have done Good it shall be permitted to enter the perley gates of the new jerusalem and to lift up their voices in praise unto his name, and to chant their doxologies and to praise his name forever.
O how oft do I think of the privileges which the inhabitants in Northwood enjoy above many others, privileges which they are entirely ignorant of and will be ignorant of them untill they are deprived of them; when it is on the sabath morn then it is that my mind often inclines to that place where there is liberty and where I have enjoyed many Good seasons. It will be more tolerable for the heathen in the day of final retribution than for that people which has the Gospel dispensed from time to time unto them and has the chart not before them which if they will but obey the contence which it contains will lead them safe by all the shoals and quick sands and land them safe on canon happy shore. I was truly affected when that young man was called to leave us by the solemn admonition of death. With out clout he is better off than he would have been to tarried in this sinful and ungodly world, for he was a possesser of that which will cary him to briter worlds on high, for the most part of the time calling upon his mates to prepare to meet their God in peace, and in his name expired in the triump of faith. Oh thought I that I should hence forward devote myself more to the cause of God and live the life of the rigeous, that my last end of life might be like his. Oft when I am in my retired walk my soul is happy, for it is then that I can hould sweet converse with my God.
I have never found my God to be a baron wilderness to my soul and when I come unto him I would recommend to you all to seek the Lord in the days of your youth for there you can find happiness, for there you can find that which will fill the aching void within. The spirit of God is moving in this place I have heard the cries of the wounded and the songs of the redemed on the banks of deliverance. I have seen one of my teachers who has been a strong universalist fall upon the bened knees of his heart and call upon God to have mercy on his soul. This term will close on the 7 day of May and I shall walk down to salsbury on the 8 day and I want you to meet me there on the 8 day if you meet me at all. My health is not so good as it was when I came up here I find that I grow weaker and weaker. I have had faint spells this term. I do not kno what is the cause of it unlefs it is because that I do not exercise as much as I ought to.
You must excuse all mistakes, without dout they are numerous, for this has been wrote in haste. From your son,
JOHN G. SHERBURNE.
Capt. John Sherburne.
Despite the obvious religiosity of the letter and a rather hopeless view at the end concerning its writer's prospective length of days, one learns from the General Catalogue of Dartmouth College that John G. Sherburne, 1842, lived to the ripe age of 78 and devoted his active years to business and the practice of law, rather than to laboring in the vineyards of the Lord, as one might well have expected from the devout tone of his sophomoric correspondence. But surely one may be not slothful in business while serving the Lord.
MEETING GENERALS WAS PART OF THE DAY'S WORK TO LES NICHOLS '40 when he was public relations officer with the 10th Armored Division. He is shown receiving a cordial handclasp from General Charles DeGqulle, one of the several generals to whom Les was presented. He has now left the ETO for home.
