Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, 1773-1774.Fithian, Philip Vickers
History
Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, 1773-1774.
Fithian, Philip Vickers
Carter family; Virginia -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
I expected notwithstanding your small offence you would have let me
know before this time whether you had made any determination different
from what you designed when I left you. If you design teaching before
you get into business, there are now several considerable offers made
to young men who are willing to go to Virginia by some of the first
gentlemen in the colony; one particularly who will give as good as
60£, the best accomodations, a room to study in and the advantage of a
library, a horse kept and a servant to wait upon you.
[27] Philip Vickers Fithian had left his home at Cohansie, New Jersey,
in 1770, at the age of twenty-three, to enter the College of New
Jersey at Princeton. Nassau Hall was the principal structure of the
college, and the institution was often familiarly referred to by that
name. Fithian was graduated there in September 1772. His parents had
both died suddenly during the previous February. Andrew Hunter, Jr.,
of Cohansie, who wrote this letter, was the nephew of the Reverend
Andrew Hunter, Sr., of Greenwich, New Jersey, under whom Philip was at
this time studying Hebrew in connection with his preparation for the
ministry.
Dr Witherspoon[28] is very fond of getting a person to send him. I
make no kind of doubt but if you were to write to the doctor but he
would engage it to you, the terms are exactly as I write you as I have
informed myself that I might let you know--
[28] Dr. John Witherspoon (1723-1794), a Scottish Presbyterian
clergyman, served as president of the College of New Jersey at
Princeton intermittently from 1768 until his death in 1794. A staunch
Calvinist, Witherspoon exerted a strong influence on American
educational, religious, and political development. Owing largely to
the labors of his former students, a number of whom went as clergymen
and tutors to the Southern colonies, his influence was very extensive
in that region.
There are a number of our friends and class-mates getting into
business as fast as possible, whether they are called or not I cannot
pretend to judge, this much I would say that I think it is not any
ones duty to run too fast. No less than four Debow, Reese, McCorkle,
Allen, under trials by a presbytery, and Bryan[29] trying to get
license to plead law in some of the best courts on the continent, if
infamy were law or lies were Gospel he might get license either to
plead or preach.
[29] John Debow, Oliver Reese, Samuel McCorkle and Moses Allen, and
Andrew Bryan. With the exception of Andrew Bryan of Baltimore who was
admitted to the bar, all of these young men were licensed as
Presbyterian ministers.
We have had the pleasure of Laura's[30] company here for some weeks
past, I hope you will not envy us considering that continual pleasure
is too much for such mortals as we to bear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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