Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER VC 1748 B
OBJECT NAME letter
DATE January 25, 1802
AUTHOR Ann [lay?] (“Miss Nancy Lay”)
RECIPIENT Anne Stevenson (later wife of Pierre Van Cortlandt) (“AVC”)
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/K4TV-XMW
MEDIUM Paper, ink
PEOPLE ill school friend, her cousin, Magdalen Douw Stevenson (“your
mama”), Caty (possible Catherine Stevenson?)
PLACES Bedford
KEYWORDS female friendship, school, illness and death of school friend,
musings on life and death,
Bedford Jan’y . 25th. 1802
Your kind favor dear Anne merited / an earlier acknowledgement, indeed I should have thank’d you / before for it, had I known any thing amusing or interesting / to communicate . It shall be my endeavour dearest Anne to / to deserve the affection & good wishes you exprefs for me, for which / I really feel grateful. Nor can my friends desire more to see / me, than I long for the pleasure of seeing her, a pleasure which / must be postponed for the present _ What a delightful sea / son this has been, altho’ not the most [^ agreeable], still very pleasant. / In the country ‘tis lefs gay than in the City, but I am far / from supposing that the winter evenings, which some think / very long, can be more agreably pafsed in an afsembly [^ room] than / with a pleasant little circle around a comfortable fire
Since your last, we have began a New Year; the thought / which that naturally inspires, are to look back upon those / that
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That have gone & reflect upon the changes which time has / made. How swiftly Anne times flies, & takes us with it _ / a few years will now deprive us of our youth, & then not / many more are necessary to put an end to our career _ al / -ready I can discover a vast alteration among my acquaint- / ances, within 6 or 8 years many of them have closed their / eyes upon all earthly scenes _ Some families who then appear / -ed to live in harmony & friendship, are now left to mourn the lofs / of tender parents, & affec’t brothers & sisters, others again that are / almost all gone; as is the case of several _ Fickler fortune too has / made her changes, & rendered many, whom she once favored great / -ly, now unhappy. Indeed there is few whose situations are no-[page folded, unrecovered] / very much altered. But perhaps my friend these are un- / welcome reflections, your society has likewise felt the effects of / time, & is now threatened with farther diminution, which Good / God forbid, pardon me, my intention was not to give pain, these / considerations where chiefly awakened by receiving a letter yes- / terday from a friend at N.Y. who informed me that a relation / of here, whom I have often seen at school, lays at the point of / death
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Beyond all probability of recovery, & will soon follow her / sister, who died a few months ago, likewise quite young / She speaks of her cousin with great tendernefs & is entirely / resigned to die _ We too Anne in our turn will also die Oh / that we may be prepared for that aweful event, that we may / deprive death of it sting _ And is it dear Anne unnatural / that reflecting on the death bed of a young schoolmate, shou / should give rise to serious considerations -
Adieu my dear friend, may you [??-illegible], many / happy years, but as wishing you perfect happinefs here / is but a vain desire, for true it is, that no age or st-[wax seal] / [page torn by seal] exempt from trouble, I will extend my thoughts to -[wax seal] / other world, where, may you enjoy forever supreme blifs.
My best respects to your dear Mama, & best love to Caty, whom / I wish very much to see _ Again adieu & believe me
Your much attached
Friend
Ann lay
Mifs Stevenson.
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Bedford
[ADDRESS]
Mifs Stevenson
Albany -
[POSTAGE MARK]
12 [½ ?]
[LABEL]
[PENCIL]
Miss Nancy Lay
To AVC
[?? Mrs Le Roy
Mr Stuyvesant
El -?? Fran?]Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
