February 10, 1864: Henry and Mary Warner to John Warner

Henry and Mary Warner lived in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh. They are the great-grandparents of poet Marianne Moore.  By the 1860s they had three surviving children:  John, Henry, and Anne. Their letters to John, a Presbyterian minister living in Gettysburg, are preserved as part of Marianne Moore’s family papers.

Transcript:

Allegheny City, Wednesday, February 10—1864 1 ¾ P.M.

Dear John, your kind & welcome letter we received yesterday, the contents of which interested us very much, your parents have much reason to be thankful, and we are thankful; Yesterday I mailed an evening chronicle of February 8^th to you, and also one to Henry of same date, that you might see, an allusion to your lecture, we hope you have received it—The friend of Mrs Dean’s was a gentleman, a relative of James Marshall’s present wife—The obituary is most excellent & Mother says I must paste it somewhere so that we can have access to it, and also the preserve it, I have copied extracts from McElwes letter, that I might send to Henry, also that we may refer to it ourselves—will hold on to Mrs Eysters letter until we write again, it will save postage, you treated the Milton folks right—we have no news—we are all well, the weather is cold & dreary, with frost, & a sprinkling of snow on the ground—On last monday 8^th Inst we received a note from Henry, says he is very busy, was then writing in the Gen.’ls office—Says “I omitted to say in my last, that it would be very uncertain now when I could get home—but almost certain, that I cannot go next Spring”; we are glad to know our dear little Mary is improving in health of body and vigour of mind, may she be a blessing & a comfort to you, an ornament to society and a valuable labourer in the vineyard of her Master our Lord Jesus Christ, when time with us will be no more—Mother says if she takes the measles now, she could not take them in a better time, if she is only kept from taking cold, we will feel anxious to know about her—the last letter we sent to Hy, Mother sent him an advice to take care of his money, so that he might have a little for himself, when the war would be over, but from the tone of his letter, she thinks, he took it in high dudgeon—now she says, if he sows it along the streets, she will never give him a word of advice on that subject. John Dutch called here yesterday & made us very sad, for he says, out of the Fort they are going to the field for certain and that the company has positioned to go—we had to bear many things and will have to try and bear that too as we cannot help it—Dutch will leave this tomorrow for the Fort—we leave the event to Providence

Your affectionate father & mother, Henry & Mary Warner

Citation: Henry and Mary Warner, autograph letter signed to John Riddle Warner.  Allegheny City [Pittsburgh],10 February 1864. Moore VI:06:2