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Description
Philander Chase receives Mrs. Marriott's donation. He is awaiting a response from the Senate granting him a charter for Jubilee College.
Date
1-6-1847
Keywords
Philander Chase, Charlotte Marriott, Charlotte Maryatt, Jubilee College, Congress, donations, funds, finances, money, Senate, charter, endowment
Recommended Citation
Chase, Philander, "Letter to Charlotte Marryat" (1847). Philander Chase Letters. 1284.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/1284
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Transcript
Springfield Illinois Jan 6. 1847.
To Mrs [Maryatt]
Wimbledon. Eng’d
Very dear Lady
Yesterday I rec’d a letter from my dear wife dated at Jubilee College 1st of Jan: giving me the very pleasing intelligence that your present to her of £50 had been negotiated for $241 Dollars and 40 cents and that sum deposited to our Credit on the North River Bank in N. York.
This was and is very pleasing news to us and to me in particular now so far from home; and notwithstanding my feeble health and advanced age so much pressed with care and perplexed with the conscious want of cash to defray our numerous expenses in building up our School of the Prophets here in the Far West of America.
I am now 90 miles from Jubilee; attend’g on our State Legislature at this time in session here in the Town of Springfield Illinois. My Son the Rev. Dudley Chase is with me and of great assistance in watching the movements of so large a political body and in getting the Committees to wait on me in my invalid condition at my rooms.
My Petition for a Charter for an Episcopal College although it asks for no endowment only a corporate power and that of conferring degrees meets with opposition from the uninformed & prejudiced portion of our government in so much as greatly to embarrass the passage of a well guarded Bill in our favour. Forbearance & patience & long suffering are necessary and never was there more need of Heavenly grace to put them in constant practice than at the present crisis of my affairs. What grieves me most is the absence of my good wife your [kin] in the present trial. At first it was fully expected she would accompany me as she has always done since my sad catastrophy[sic] in the public coach when (a year ago last october) we were crossing the High Mountains. But it was found impossible for her to leave home for long a period. We have nine students in divinity besides many secular scholars and boys to attend to--besides our clerks, Mechanics and laborers whose demands for their weekly pay-- & my wife (being our treasurer as well as our Treasure) is the only one who makes the entry pays the money, & keeps the Vouchers. Over and above all they on her all depend for advice in case of sickness especially of females and young children.
Since writing the above a leading member of the Senate has called on me: and after examination of the Bill now before the Committee of which he is the Chairman says he us willing it should pass into a law. This cheers me: and should the whole Legislature be of his mind, I shall have reason to bless God for his over-ruling hand in favour of our Church in the Far West greater than at any former period. Jubilee College embracing a Theolical[sic] Department, a College proper, a grammar-school and a Female Seminary, will then be encorporated & endowed with the power of conferring degrees - and of holding property, and perpetuating its benefits to the latest generations: and who knows but it may attract the eyes and goodwill of Protestants so as to concentrate the means of contending against the tide of Idoletry[sic] and Sin to the salvation of millions of souls before the coming of our Lord to judment[sic]. God grant it for Jesus Ch. sake!
If you see him, pray give my love to good Mr Wiggin and his dear family to whom I shall always feel greatly obliged. If God should spare my life I think I shall return to Jubilee in the course of a Fortnight from this. Pray write me there and tell me if any in dear Old England remember
Your grateful Friend & Ser’t Phil’r Chase