30 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
as it is called, a church which was built before the Revolutionary 
War, and there also an oration was delivered. Your uncle Penrose 
and myself were invited to join the procession of the old people. 
In the afternoon we went in a steamboat down to a place called 
Nahant. There is a narrow strip of land that extends a great way 
out into the sea and at the end of it is a high rock and on this rock 
there is a beautiful house built, and you can see from it a great way 
out into the Ocean, as far as your eye can reach. The people of Boston 
come down to this place in the summer months because it is very 
cool and pleasant and they have an opportunity of bathing in the 
sea water which is very agreeable and refreshing. When we came 
back in the steamboat there were about twelve hundred people on 
board of it and we had scarcely room to stand or sit. 
We expect to set out in the stage to-day at one o’clock for Albany. 
Get your mother to show you the map of Massachusetts. If nothing 
happens we are to sleep to-night at Worcester and to go through 
Northampton, New Lebanon, and so on to Albany. It will take two 
days and a half to reach Albany. I hope you take care to water my 
flowers every other day when it does not rain and are very good and 
obedient to your mother and kind to your sisters and try to love 
God and that I shall hear a good account of you when I come home. 
Your affectionate father, 
SAMUEL Barrp. 
Tell Sam I will write to him if I live to get to Saratoga. Kiss 
your mother and sisters for me. 
Only one other letter from his father to the boy is 
preserved. Both parents were together and Samuel 
Baird was in poor health. It runs as follows: 
From Samuel Baird, Sr., to Spencer F. Baird. 
CaRLisLE, July 3, 1833. 
My Dear Son:— 
I was very much gratified to receive your letter yesterday morn- 
ing informing us that you were all well in Reading. Your mother 
began to feel very uneasy, not hearing from home. She expected a 
letter a day or two sooner than the one that came from you. 
