Beaufort August 8^th 1806

Dear Brother,

As the season approaches wherein I usually made my visits among you, like the bird of passage, my attention is turned toward you with a friendly wish to enjoy, once more the satisfaction of social conversation with my beloved brethren, sisters and friends.

The day of life with me must be far spent and as I advance in years I find myself more attached to home and less capable of traveling, and therefore have but small hopes of ever seeing my native place again.

It is the lot of human nature to be subject to many infirmities, and altho` I seldom trouble my friends with an account of my complaints, yet as I have lately had some uncommon visitations and have but little else of consequence to relate, perhaps the feelings(?) I have had of my approaching dissolution may prove acceptable.

About 6 months ago I went to bed in good health and after a sleep of some hours I awoke in a situation which I cannot well describe. I had a very unusual feeling but on reflection found myself free from pain and altho` I could breathe without difficulty, yet it did not seem to answer the end of respiration, my feet felt cold and I could perceive no pulsation in my arms and I was possessed with the idea that the spiritual part which I call myself was in the action of quitting its clay tenement I endeavored to raise my head but finding it very giddy rested it on my pillow again and was at a loss to know whether it was best to awake my wife or to put myself in a posture to die in secret, but after one or two efforts more I raised myself and sat on the bed side, and my wife awaking asked me what was the matter. I told her I had been thinking that the Father of Mercies was about to grant the request I had often made, that is, that when it was his good pleasure, I might be removed hence without tedious pain and sickness to myself, and trouble to my friends.

I was restless the remainder of the night and continued indisposed for sometime.. had frequent returns of same disorder at irregular periods which gradually growing milder at length recovered my health. I continued tolerably well till about the last of May when after a comfortable nights rest I arose with no other complaint than a sensation of numbness in some parts of my face which I paid no attention to until I went to wash my mouth agreeable to my usual custom, when I found I could not sup the water and when I attempted to discharge it, it ran down my bosom. I repeated the attempt but found I had lost the use of the muscles of my mouth and one eye and could perceive a slight swelling on one side of my face but without any pain. I continued in this state for several days.. I could not chew my food nor drink any other way than by pouring a small quantity into my mouth and holding my hand onto my mouth until I swallowed it and I could only make use of food that could be taken in this way. After a few days the disorder removed from the right to the left side of my face (....?......) in my left eye could not close my eyelids. The eye ball became exquisitely tender so that I could neither bare the wind nor sunshine and I found great difficulty in covering it as the least touch was attended with pain. After continuing some weeks in this state I began to have some use of my lips and I have been mending but the recovery has been so slow that it is not yet complete. The disorder in my eye has been more obstinate. I cannot close my eyelids my eye is extremely weak and my sight much impaired so that I read and write with difficulty.

I conclude my tedious narrative by devoutly praising the giver of all good for the use of my senses so long and for the comfortable hope of a sufficiency to answer my necessary purposes for the few days I have yet to live.

Dear Brother, I heartily wish you could make it agreeable to take George under your guardianship and endeavor to put him in some way to learn to earn his living. This would certainly be doing a charitable and friendly act for the poor boy and perhaps with but little present disadvantage you might live to experience that satisfaction which is often the reward of good actions.

As I have several boys under my care and find myself almost unfit for any business, I tho`t as you have no children of your own and seem by your letters to have a good opinion of George you might agree to this proposal and thereby greatly oblige an aged brother and an orphan child.

• ed my friends in New York to see it I enclose??????????

August 13 1806

(Note; the last part this letter was lost possibly in copying as part appeared to be folded under.The following letter was written later but attached with out salutation.?)

I had written the foregoing part of my Letter at sundry times finishing the paragraph respecting George on Sunday morning the 10^th Instant, after which I passed my time at home, being somewhat indisposed, till about 12 o’clock when there come on a heavy shower of rain with some distant thunder. My wife was in a bedroom. Betsey Pugh and Sally Leffers were in the Kitchen and I happened to walk there and make a stand about 6 ft. from the fire place when I observed Betsey at the fire attending to a pot that was boiling. There I lost all sensation, occasioned by a body of lightning coming down the chimney which I cannot recollect seeing, feeling the stroke or hearing the thunder. Betsey was in a worse condition having received a more severe shock and having her feet badly scalded by the pots being over set. Sally was little hurt...My wife coming in frightened almost to distraction ordered Sally to run for help. It rained excessively and the nighest Neighbor about 200 yards off and People mostly at Church as was Samuel.

The first thing I recollect was that I was lying on my back on the floor and several People around me raising my head. The circulation from my body downwards seemed totally suspended and my thighs & legs felt like solid masses of lead which I was totally unable to stir. I told the people my legs and feet were dead. They then stripped them and by chaffing and rubbing with camphor soon encouraged the circulation which proceeded gradually downward until the dead weight was in a measure removed and I could stir my feet. As the floor was covered with fire, ashes, soot, broken bricks and lime I was removed to another room. Here I discovered Betsey gasping for breath in the utmost agony, which was all the symptoms of life I could discover in her. The sight of this revived in me a heartfelt grief which I had not felt for myself. After some time I could begin to move my legs and feet.was washed and put to bed. Betsey was also put to bed in a much worse condition and my heart still melts when I recollect what my wife must have felt on this tragic occasion.

I proceed now to give you a short and imperfect account of some of the wonderful and incomprehensible properties of lightning.

The top of the chimney was broken to pieces and fell on the back of the house. As it was a (stack ??) in the middle of the house the rafters and roof kept the part that was confined standing, after which one side was burst off almost to the second floor. The lightning then proceeded down the fireplace where 2 trammels were hanging. The lightning then seems to have separated into a number of parts, one stream struck the jamb of the chimney, a solid wall of bricks about 12 inches thick and drilled a hole through which was not more than a quarter of an inch in diameter at the entrance and not so big as a goose quill on the other side. It then went through the floor took a shiver out of a (.?...sleeper..) to the door which has a stairway of 3 steps one of the side pieces of which it split and followed to the ground, another stream entered the floor at the opposite end of the fireplace, took a shiver out of the underside of a plank running nearly at right angles with the first mentioned stream to another door and descended to the ground exactly in the manner of the first. Between these two streams we all three stood. Betsey received a violent stroke on the left side of her neck which proceeded down her breast inclining towards her side until it took her arm and proceeded in a spiral manner round her arm and ended in a point. The skin seemed seared and of a dark color. The streak in the widest part about an inch growing less toward each end. Altho` the wound itself is neither much sore or painful yet her whole body is disorder being sore and painful in every part. It is with difficulty she can swallow any kind of nourishment and she is still in a low state but we have good hopes of her recovery.

It has been long known that one property of lightning is that it is of as subtle a nature that will pass thro` a bar of solid Iron without impeding its force or velocity. Another property of this inexplicable something I find is that when it meets a brick wall which it seems resists it subtlety, Though the stream is not bigger than a straw, it will bore its was though with equal velocity. I have reason to believe that a stream of this incompressible something passed though my clothing with out any visible mark and coincided with my body a little below my armpit .. glided down my side nearly to my hip, it then became forked.. one stream continued its course in a pretty direct line down my thigh and leg and went off at my heel bursting my shoe behind. The other streak went down the right side of my belly directly to my watch.. melted the silver on the edge of the case and left a black tarnish on the edge of the crystal without doing her any other damage. The skin in these streaks is of a deep red color in some places an inch wide and others less. In parts that are fleshy the skin was colored but not injured but in the bony parts, as down the side of my knee the skin seemed seared and was a dark color and some small blisters appeared. Under the crystal of my watch there still remains a very deep red spot, all this done without scorching a thread of my clothing, as I can perceive, altho` they have been washed. The streaks and blister are neither sore or painful and the smart of the whole is not more than what I have felt in one day from being sunburnt.

Thus my friends, tho` laboring under much bodily infirmity, I have thro` mercy been enabled to give you an imperfect account of this visitation. If the ????????????had???????????? have put an end to my existence I should have died without pain or sickness, but as it did not, I revived with a calm composure of mind which has continued without one terrifying reflection, or any grief of mind except what I feel for Betsy’s misfortune and the grief and trouble of my Wife and friends.

My thoughts are chiefly employed in endeavoring to make ? whole lesson of wonderful instruction.

I have in it a striking view of the mighty power of God together with a full conviction that his goodness is equal to his power. I can rely with confidence on his protecting mercy in full assurance that all his dispensations toward me are for the best. I will endeavor to wait my appointed time with patient resignation, constantly praying to be instructed in the knowledge of my duty and inspired with resolution to persevere therein to my life’s end. My eyes are weary

The above letters sent in cover to Mr. John Lefferts , Hempstead Long Island. By favor of Capt. Duncan...1806