New York June 14th 1861 [Friday]
My Beloved Elisabeth, notwithstanding I have recently sent you several letters I thought I must drop you also a few lines again to inform you that I went to Boston this day [a] week [ago] [7 Jun 1861], partly to see if I could effect a compromise of the suit against me there, but more especially to gather up our emigration from that conference and bring them on to start with the New York and Philadelphia saints from here on the 11th inst [instant – 11 Jun 1861]. And having a few hours to spare on Monday [10 Jun 1861] I steped [stepped] into the car and went down to Marblehead called on Thos [Thomas] Proctor & Nat. [Nathanial] Reynolds (still under pettycoat Bonds [?]) and on your uncle Richard Hammond, found him at the shoe bench in rags and looking old and forlorn, having buried his second wife several years ago and his daughter Mary June keeping his house (18 years of age) with a young daughter about six from his last wife. The eldest son gone out on the Newfoundland Banks fishing prefering [preferring] that to enlisting for the War. Uncle Richard said Mormons had spoiled him for any thing [anything] else, and yet I perceived that he lacked the moral courage to embrace it in the teeth of his friends. I guessed that having been ruled by his wife while living He now submitted to his daughter as successor to her throne. She at my request left her washtub and sat down and visited with me about an hour and a half while [Thomas] Proctor & Bro Byerd [Byrd ?] of Salem listened. She has a strong spirit but withal a very good heart and after letting out the preajudice [prejudice] with which her aunt Stewart and others had filled her I had an opportunity to talk considerable Mormonism unto her and left her your address with a request for her to write to you and your mothers family, for whom she had learned respect of her father, though she had no recollection of them. I hope you will write to her and kindly water and nourish the good seed which I hastily and imperfectly sowed in her heart. That is a string to pull on for the salvation of Uncle R. [Richard Hammond] and his household. Let your Brother also write. Richard [Hammond] told me that your Uncle John had read “the Pearl of Great Price” but seemed rather indifferent. Mother Farley is still living. I returned without calling at Salem this time. Aunt Stewart is in Boston didnt [didn't] see her. Hurah [hurrah] for Martha! Tis [It is] your turn next. E.S. [Erastus Snow]