130 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



for the semi-centennial celebration of Lowville Acad- 

 emy. During this visit to his old home, he announced 

 his approaching marriage in a note to Professor 

 Brush : 



Lowville, Lewis Co. July 27/58. 



My dear George, I have a piece of good news for you. I 

 am in fair prospect to become a married man. I am engaged. 

 . . . Now I intend to get recruited for a splendid year 's work, 

 and you must stir up the folks to get those funds raised for 

 I don 't care to delay my usefulness as a married man. I only 

 wish I did not stand, as I seem to, in your way, it is time 

 you too, were paid for your work. ... S. "W. J. 



On October 13, 1858, Samuel William Johnson mar- 

 ried, at her father's home, Elizabeth Erwin, daughter 

 of George Hunt and Sophronia (Spencer) Blinn, of 

 Essex, New York. A few weeks after he had brought 

 his wife to New Haven, Mr. Abner A. Johnson sent 

 this letter, an affectionate reminder of the intense 

 interest he took in the welfare of all his children : 



Deer River, 10th Deer., 1858. 



Dear Son, I have not forgotten you, nor do I believe you 

 have forgotten your father. You doubtless have much to 

 occupy your mind. It is right and proper that every one 

 should be well employed in doing good and being useful, in 

 bettering the condition of our fellow-beings in the concerns 

 of the present life, in making improvements. In many things 

 surely this is an age of improvements. The steamboat was a 

 wonderful achiefement in 1807. Soon followed the Erie and 

 Champlain Canals, completed in 1825. But who thought of 

 five hundred or more persons in ten or twenty coaches flying 

 on iron rails at the rate of 30 or 40 miles an hour without 

 horse or mule, but more than twenty years ago was that event 



