From Silhouettes in the possession of W. B. Lawrence, Esq.
]
We get up early in the morning and make our beds and sweep the chamber,
it is a chamber about as large as our kitchen chamber, and a little
better finished. There’s 4 beds in the chamber, and two persons in each
bed, we have chocolate for breakfast and supper.
Your affectionate Daughter
ELIZA SOUTHGATE.
Medford, May 25, 1797.
My dear Parents:
I hope I am in some measure sensible of the great obligation I am under
to you for the inexpressible kindness and attention which I have
received of you from the cradle to my present situation in school. Many
have been your anxious cares for the welfare of me, your child, at every
stage and period of my inexperienced life to the present moment. In my
infancy you nursed and reared me up, my inclinations you have indulged
and checked my follies—have liberally fed me with the bounty of your
table, and from your instructive lips I have been admonished to virtue,
morality, and religion. The debt of gratitude I owe you is great, yet I
hope to repay you by duly attending to your counsels and to my
improvement in useful knowledge.
My thankful heart with grateful feelings beat,
With filial duty I my Parents greet,
Your fostering care hath reared me from my birth,
And been my Guardians, since I’ve been on earth,
With love unequalled taught the surest way,
And Check’d my passions when they went astray.
I wish and trust to glad declining years,—
Make each heart gay—each eye refrain from tears.
When days are finished and when time shall cease
May you be wafted to eternal peace
Is the sincere wish of your dutiful Daughter,