- Crosby Nathan
- Crosby Stephen Moody
- Loring Thomas
In search of laborious exercise I undertook this morning with my Spade,
hoe and Saw to clear out an apple tree close to the wall in the ally
leading over the hill, beyond Charles’s house— It is overrun with suckers and the
ground over its root is hard bound almost as stone, and covered with
blackberry vines; unapproachable— With my spade and hoe, I broke up the
ground; about one half surrounding the trunk and took off a couple of
the suckers nearest to the surface of the ground— It was a sweating work
of two hours; the remainder of which I left for to-morrow— The wild
cherry seedling that I crop’d off some time since has put out two or
three buttons, and close under the crop two leaves.— And this morning
for the first time I saw 2 pears on the sucker tree near the dwarf apple
tree. It is a bergamot and must be at least 25 years old— I thought it
never would bear— Mr Nathan Crosby called on me again, with his Son
Stephen Moody Crosby; whose
mother is the daughter of my
brother Thomas’s Classmate
Stephen Moody, recently
deceased— He came again to my
son’s house for his contribution to
the Temperance funds— Mr Thomas Loring came to renew
the proposal for another fishing party. I agreed to meet him at his
house on Thursday Morning at 7. O’Clock, if the weather promise to be
fair; and if not, either of the following days Friday or Saturday.— I
find it impossible, taking three hours of exercise a day, to write the
page of Journal, two or three short Letters, and even one page of the
Astronomical Discourse—and having yesterday written three short Letters,
I was last night, spell bound, and physically unable to write more than
three or four lines— This day I made an effort and got through my
journal page by 11. but then fell to searching for files of Letters and
papers, which took up the time till dinner— I received a second Letter
from Mr
Giddings, with one of the same date (13 September) from
him, James M Bloss, and Gaius N. St
John, as a Committee of the People of Ashtabula County,
Ohio inviting me to visit them on my way to or returning from
Cincinnati— This afternoon I answered the invitation and the Letter from
Giddings; but it left me in the evening only the power to finish the
page I had begun yesterday of my discourse. In the distribution of my
time, it is distressing to be so exceedingly straitened for hours to
read; and I feel it cruelly now—when I want to compress a history of
Astronomy into a discourse of three hours delivery. My task is to turn
this transient gust of enthusiasm for the Science of