White Creek Tuesday morning Feb. 6, 1827

My dear husband,

I am now at father Waits.  I returned with the family Sabbath evening after meeting.  The family, myself and Ann Eliza, are all in tolerable health.
Your letter dated Norfolk Jan. 15 I received on the 31st of the same month.  I need not say we were all very happy to hear from you, - a period of one month having elapsed since the receipt of your first.  I had long anxiously looked for another and indeed I had begun to think it quite tardy on its passage.  Do not let it be so long again before we hear from you.  I am sure you would not, if you knew how anxious we are all to hear from you, and how much pleasure your letters afford us.

I learn by your last, that you are progressing southward much more slowly than you at first anticipated.  I fear if you visit Savannah, you will be in a climate as warm weather advances, which so often proves fatal to northern constitutions.  I cannot express to you, my dear, half of the solicitude I feel on this subject.  I think of the fate of poor Alvan Meriam, and of many others.  I hope you will not venture south of Washington after the first of June.  The weather must be very warm in April and May in Savannah, as even the Carolinas.  I suppose the trees are now in bloom in Georgia.

The newspapers, I review regularly.  I think of sending them to mother Merriam after we have read them.  They may perhaps be a source of some pleasure to her in her lonely situation.  She has always been very fond of reading them and brother Powers does not take them this year.