A Letter Written on Nov 10, 1871

Potter Hall
Andalusia, Pa. Nov. 10, 1871

My dear Mary

Your welcome letter came this morning. It seems strange to get the mail only once a day, and then in the morning, living as we do on the most important railroad line in the U.S. Perhaps you were not aware of the fact, but it is probable that before many years this Penn. Centrall R. R will be such a moneyed concern that they can rule the country. They have just bought out the "Camden & Amboy Company" which adds immensely to their stock. It will be the greatest railroad monopoly in the country. So says the Independent. By-the-way, I wish I could see to the poor Advance since it has been burnt out. Would you just as soon send one or tow of these that come these days? I see the Independent every week, because Miss Sturtevant gets it at home & we have the news a week old, in that. The Dr. takes Phil. papers, and also some others, but we never see them. He is such a systematic man that he does not allow any one to disturb his papers because they will not be in their place when he wants them. Father has sent me the Gazette twice, and one or two Tribunes. It seems so good to get hold of papers from Mass.

You did not speak of the health of the family, so I conclude that you are all in a comfortable state of health. How is Grandma? I notice that Montague has been quite liberal towards Chicago, so much so that they considered it worthy of record in the paper. I also noticed that there was to be a lecture on Pompeii & Herculaneum by Moore of G- tonight. I wish I could hear it. Miss Sturtevant & I are going to city tomorrow, if it does not rain. We expect to go on the boat. There was a smash up down to Andalusia Station Wednesday. An engine ran into a car loaded with iron and ran off the track confusing things generally. No one was seriously injoured [sic], however. Dr went down with Annie and I. It was really quite a sight[.] The engine was a perfect wreck.

Miss Pearce, the music teacher down to the other place, was here to tea last evening, and we teachers were invited into the family dining room to tea. We had canned salmon, omelet, brown bread, cake with plum preserves. It is the custom here to dish out the sauce with the cake instead of with the bread & butter. Miss P. is an English lady and quite peculiar, in many respects.

8 10 o'clock - Dr Wells has been in here and hindered me in my writing. He always mounts my trunk in preference to a chair, and rattles on at a great rate. Dr is an indescribably man. I wish you could hear him "rake the boys over the coals" as he calls it: He talks strait out in plain Eng - list[ens] to them, still they like him.

I am reading "Minister's Wooing," just now. How did Hattie like it. I took "Little Men" from the Library, but did not get much interested in it. Write often[.] Oh I forgot that I was not going to say that again[.]

"Winning his Way" I am reading also. Miss S. and I are coming on famously in our singing. We practice every day generally.

Good night, Molly

Ever your loving
Cornelia

Does mother hear from Miss Bailey, if so I want a letter

Received a letter from father in which he expresses a great deal of delight at the receipt of a letter from his daughter Harriet also enclosed a letter from mother which he thought might be interesting to me. It consisted of four lines. He said that he did not find it at all tedious, even read it through at one sitting.

I hope you are thro' house cleaning by this time. May I, in my official capacity, act, and tell you that you misspelled scholars & thorough.