Brook Farm: Historic and Personal MemoirsCodman, John Thomas
History
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs
Codman, John Thomas
Brook Farm Phalanx (West Roxbury, Boston, Mass.)
_Mr. Ripley_ DIR SIR I was requsted to pit the following on paper for
the consideration of your society. R. H. wife and four children the
oldest ten the youngest thre the two eldest boys, the two youngest
girles. Furniture wile consist of thre beds and bedding one bedstead
one tabel and workstand six or eight chairs crockery ware &c. Tooles
and machinery as follows 1 planing machine 1 upright boaring machine 1
circular saw, irons for an upright saw morticing machine 1 turning
lathe and belting 1 doz of hand screws 1 copper pot to make varnish in,
two dimejons 3-5 gls. each for varnish and oil tooles for cutting bench
screws &c likewise 1 cow 3 cosset sheep 1 yew & 2 wethers the cow 11
years old and little lame in one foot otherways a veryry good cow, also
a verry light handcart. There are other articles not mentioned perhaps
that might be usful to the Association that would be thrown in for the
benefit of all.
The Association can consider the above articles and select wat articles
would be usful or beneficial and let me know their action thereon at
the next meeting of the Association If I should be called to visit my
family before the next meeting you will pleas direct a line to me.
Yours--
ROBERT DAY.
The Brook Farm wits would say that the writer of the above letter
should go to college "for a _spell_."
_Seeking Success in Life._
LOCKPORT, Oct. 28, 1842.
DEAR FRIENDS, if I may so call you: I read in the New York _Tribune_ a
piece taken from the _Dial_, headed "The West Roxbury Community." Now
what I want to know is, can I and my children be admitted into your
society, _and be better off than we are here?_ I have enough of the
plainest kind to eat and wear. I have no _home_ but what we hire from
year to year. I have _no property_ but movables, and not a cent to
spare when the year comes round. I have _three children_, two boys and
one girl: the oldest fourteen, the youngest nine. Now I want to educate
them. How shall I do it in the country? There is no chance but ordinary
schools. To move into the village I could not bring the year round, and
the danger they would be exposed to without a father to restrain their
wanderings, would be an undertaking more than I dare attempt.
Now if you should presume to let me come, where can I live? Can our
industry and economy clothe us for the year? Can I keep a cow? How can
I be supplied with fire in that _dear place?_ How can I _pay my school
bills?_ How can I find all the necessary requisites for my children to
advance in learning? If I should wish to leave in two or three or five
years, could I and mine, if I paid my way whilst there? If you should
let me come, and I _think best to go, how shall I get there?_ What
would be my _best and cheapest route?_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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