[Written at top of letter:] P.S. If cousin Aphia has left H. [Hamilton], please inform me and of her health when she left.

Dear Sister,

We were made glad by information received through cousin Aphia's note of the 21st inst. that you were intending to write us "in a day or two" confirmed by a similar statement in Lizzie Conner's short epistle, but we have not yet been made "twice glad" by the reception of the anticipated letter. You have probably before this time received mine of the 16th inst. informing you of the license and advertisement to sell the houses belonging to the estate of our deceased father. They were accordingly sold last week, and as I had feared, for less than the appraisal. The house in Amherst brought only $705 dollars and that in Concord $1355. One third of the sum were in both cases paid down, the remainder is due for the house in Amherst is payable in six months with good security. Hoping that it would favour the sale, we extended the pay-day on two thirds of the sum that should be paid for that at Concord, to a year though the purchaser would probably as readily pay in six months if we should wish it, as he proves to be a man of capital.

The money that I have received for property sold, I have deposited in Savings Banks at Nashua and Keene. It is my intention to render an account of my executorship and procure a decree for distribution and make the payments and settle up the business of the administration within the year from the time of my appointment, Providence Permitting. Jacob stopped and signed the deeds of conveyance of the real estate with me, and has left the remaining business with me to settle. I paid him his charges against the estate made both before and after his appointment to the Executorship--subject to the examination--and decision of the Judge. As near as I can estimate from present data, I conclude that after the payment of all the debts, expenses for sickness, funeral charges, gravestones and administration and the legacy to Cousin May Flint, there will remain to be distributed about $2842.88. One ninth part of this is to be paid to John Gillis and two ninths, viz. $631.75 to each of the other legatees. When the distribution is decided, if we live to see that day, you will know the exact sum.

I am glad and I hope some thankful, to be able to report my health as better than when Mrs. Fuller and Aphia left here. Persis is also as well as usual. The Spring here has been very cold and very dry, until within a week past when we have had two refreshing rains. The weather however is very cold yet, and the prospect for early crops very unpromising. There is a prospect of another hard year for poor people. I expect the Canadian farmers will grow rich rapidly now that our markets are opened to them.

Did Jacob and his family go by Hamilton and stop over night with you, or did Mary put her veto upon it, as she was inclined to, when I last saw them? Present my fraternal regards to Brother McQuesten and tell him that I do not feel reconciled to our remaining to so great a degree strangers to each other, and a letter from him even if it were a short one would afford me much pleasure. I want to know how he is prospering--temporally and spiritually.

Say to Lizzie Currier² that we were much gratified by her short letter and she must not forget that she is indebted to me for another and a longer one, which I shall be expecting soon.

I feel a strong desire to see you and brother McQ. and hope that if you, either of you visit N.E. again the present year, you will visit us. If not this year we shall expect to see you at our home, next year, if indeed we shall then have a habitation in this world.

I am afraid my sermon--will not get finished if I stop to fill the sheet. Let that letter be immediately forthcoming on the reception of this. Do you receive the Congregationalist regularly?

From your affectionate brother

R.W. Fuller

¹ Westmoreland, is in South Western New Hampshire near Keene, and on the river near the border of Vermont.

² Lizzie Currier is very likely Elizabeth Fuller McQuesten's niece. Mrs. McQuesten's sister, a Mrs. Currier, was institutionalized for an apparently extreme illness. See W1216.