Excerpts from Three Letters from Abraham Bradley to Timothy Pickering, PostmasterGeneral, 1791-92Author(s): Abraham BradleySource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Spring, 1946), p. 170Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/972611 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 13:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Wiley and American Society for Public Administration are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Public Administration Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.192 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:23:46 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Excerpts from Three Letters from Abraham Bradley to Timothy Pickering, Postmaster General, 1791-92

T IS the third of these letters alone which may have a professional interest to the readers

of Public Administration Review. The first two, however, possess a certain charm of their own, and make clear the considerations that led the poor but ambitious school teacher to seek a post-office clerkship rather than to be- come a Pennsylvania farmer. The third letter was written while Bradley was walking home from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre. Copies of the originals were found by Leonard D. White in the collection of Pickering Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 41, pp. 33, 37, 80.

WILKESBARRE

November 6th AD 1791 DEAR SIR

As to marriage, my finances are too low at

present, to engage in it. Very little money is

necessary here to [be] sure, but that little, neither I nor miss Smith the person, I suppose you allude to are possessed of.-I indeed think she is [a] very amiable girl; altho' I should wish her to be better read & more used to

polite society: but on that account perhaps she is not the less suited to this place. I have visited her almost every sunday evening. but as it

grows cold & I shall keep school, I shall not visit. I believe only once & now 8 then on

saturday evening. By the next fall when I receive my salary, I shall endeavour to get a wife.

[Dec. 9, 1791] DEAR SIR

How our fancies & whims turn us; by my last I wrote you I was too poor to think of marry- ing, by this you are informed I am married. And yet I am not a farthing richer nor like to be. The nights are something colder, and yet, the cause is not removed for I do not live with

my wife. A lazy citizen would think a man

gained little ease by marrying if he was obliged to walk three miles in the evening to sleep

with his wife 8c to walk it back again in the morning soon enough to rest himself and teach a school. ...

BETHLEHEM

August 26th AD 1792 DEAR SIR

If Mr Wetmore resigns I suppose you will appoint Mr Burrall assistant; if you should, & you think I am competent to discharge the duties of a clerk, you would do me a very great kindness in giving me the place. When I was in the city I enquired 8 computed the various expences of house hire, food & cloathing & found that the salary would leave one or two hundred dollars after paying all that were- necessary. My wife in the country does all our washing, cooking, tailoring & hairdressing, be- sides spinning & knitting stockings: was she in the city her duty would be much easier if she had no assistance, for spinning & bakeing would be entirely out of the way; & she would have better utensils for performing the other parts. I had tho'ts of proposing the subject to you when I was in the city, but you had done me so many kindnesses, & it looked so much like begging of offices I thot to try to live with- out rather than ask. But when I was on my journey I began to consider what things were necessary & how I should procure them if I turned farmer: that I must build something of a house, a barn, fences [,] that there were oxen & ploughs, a cart, shed, hoes axes &c 8c. to be procured, & that I had not wherewithal to procure one article I began to think it was

only asking for employment, which every one was bound modestly to do rather than suffer. If any person wishes the place who is better

qualified for it than it is probable I should be after a month or two's service, I have noth- ing to say. I must ask pardon for the hurry & confusion of this letter. I came but 34 miles

yesterday, & I must either get hbme or lodge in the swamp tomorrow night. My respects to Mrs Pickering & Miss Betsy.

I am sir, etc. ABRAHAM BRADLEY

170

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.192 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:23:46 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions