Letter from Samuel G. Barker, Charleston, Sept. 27, 1857, to Susan Milliken Barker, on the illness of their grandfather Thomas Milliken (recto)

A folded bifolium letter, in flowing cursive in brown ink, photographed open so that two manuscript pages face one another. The left half shows the tail of a previous page; a vertical pencilled annotation in the compiler’s hand runs up the inner margin, identifying the writer, addressee, and subject. The right half begins a new sheet datelined Charleston, September 27, 1857.

Left page (tail of previous sheet)

let you have y[e] Bartlett & Em[s]’ ½ day [uncertain] intentionally in town. — I wait for you to stay again — when I must buy y[e] things copy or let Sis read this letter — even tho he May have all been already told to both of you. — He got y[e] Father to assist him in looking over some old papers (this summer) and instance after instance of the same generous feeling were among them —

[Annotation in the compiler’s hand, in pencil, written up the inner margin and rotated 90° relative to the letter text:]

[from] Samuel G. Barker [to] [our?] grand mother Susan B[arker] / [illegible] telling of the illness / of our grand father Thomas Milliken

Amy F. Walker

Right page

[The writer is Samuel Gaillard Barker (1799–1863), addressing his daughter Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons (1827–1900, the compiler’s paternal grandmother) about her grandfather Thomas Milliken, the Dublin-born Charleston merchant who once owned a fleet of four ships in the India trade. The “Uncle Eddie” attending the sickroom is one of Susan’s maternal-side Milliken uncles; the letter precedes Thomas Milliken’s death and continues onto page 065.]

Charleston Sept 27, 57

My Dearest Child

Mother is writing to her & desires me to make report to you. — Dr. Moultrie says this evening that Gr. Father is recovering what he lost yesterday — last night he found him with much febrile excitement & a dry tongue — both have gradually worn off today. He has slept all day with short intervals of wakefulness. Tonight he is to take no Physic and have arrow root at 2 hours of awake. — Uncle Eddie came back from N.Y. this morning at ½ past two, not as much fatigued as I supposed he would be — he went to bed late Breakfast, was about the House till dinner, slept after dinner and thinks tonight will set him up again. — Thos has possession of the sick room now. Thos & Adam will watch during the night — Tomorrow I go to Bolton where I have not been since Wednesday. — It will probably be a tedious recovery [uncertain]