Friendly Visits?

Middleton, Hyde County, N. C.

May 11^th, 1878

 

Dear Miss,

            For some time, past I hav bin trying to hav a serious talk with you but some how or other, you all ways manage to prevent it. I do not no whether the fault is mine or yours, be that it may. I hav determined to Releave my mind by a letter whither you tear it up, in disgust, or preserve it as a memento, for the future; (words scratched through and C. B. Gibbs inserted) feeling an interest in you that it is impossibly to describe in words, and hav resorted to my pen and I hope I may not offend you in so doing, and if I know my own heart, it heaves such sympathy or delacacey of feelings for you that no effort of mine can shake off; I wish you could appreciate this feeling, and I am sure you wold pitty me, if you did not – except me as a suitor.

            Object of this note is to ask your permission to pay you friendly visits with a view to closer tie should my Society prove agreeably.

            So nothing more at present; hopeing you will favour me with a kind answer soon, Yours truly,

Alexander H. Gibbs

[This letter was in the Mrs. Walter Carr Cox papers, Kinston, N. C. The letter was first printed in the High Tides, Hyde County, North Carolina Historical Society Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1982]