Dear Nephew,

I cannot suppose that any benefit to anyone can possibly result from Mrs. Cochran's annuity passing through my hands - come from whom it may she will know that it is the county of her Father and if it be not, in her opinion enough, she will look to you to make up the deficiency - and if you refuse, you may be reproached by her and her husband and those reproaches you must hear as much like a Christian as you can.

If Doctor Henry has any real estate would it not be advisable to get an assignment of the oldest judgment against him and sell what estate he has in Otsego - [and] his equity of redemption in the triangle? This might save the expense of foreclosing his equity of redemption under the mortgage. His failure will I fear have a bad effect upon the future sale of the lands which he has had in charge, and it will require much consideration to determine how far it will be advisable to throw, the loss upon those who have purchased of him - how is that estate hereafter to be managed? To make it productive will it not require the attention of some person the greater part of the time?

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

Dear Nephew,

Your Father left us two weeks since very much depressive in spirits and very much dissatisfied with the world. On the 30th [Ult.] he writes to me and in his letter he says "I cannot do without a payment in May short of $10,000 I ought to have had it before, [cruel] that I have not! I must entreat you to see to it! I think I have reason to believe that the collection is to leave me this cramped thereby [ruling] down my spirits [lo when our] I to obtain a residence!" I know nothing about the means you have of raising money but money must be had and I am apprehensive that your Father intends me shall pay his bonds let the effect be on the estate what it may - and the estate must be great and productive indeed if $250 and can be paid out of it in 15 years and exclusive of takes [Ru?].

I have written to Mr [Talcott] in the Lasher cause + directed him to charge you with a [unusual fir?]. I shall bring our question in that cause before the Court on [demurrer?] unless the Plaintiffs around their replication - and should the Supreme Court decide against us I think we must bring a writ of error. I hope you finished Doctor Henry's business, in good order - Although I have suspected him to be had [way] - since I wrote to you last year.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
Daniel Cady

G. Smith

PS You were to have forwarded to me a list of the tax lands in this part of the estate - that a sale might be made. They ought first to be sold if any thing must go under price.

Dear Nephew,

It is difficult for me to say what you ought to do with Doctor Henry unless I knew what he has done I think however you ought at once to call upon him and get an account of all sales which have been made by him, and of all monies received, and of all bonds and mortgages which he [unreadable] has on hand, you ought if possible to get possession of the bonds and mortgages which may be in his hands. And when you have obtained all the information from him which you can get you ought then to go in person or by a competent agent to every man on the land and learn when he purchased how much and when he has paid any money to Doctor Henry - you ought then to search the Clerk's office from the date of his [power] to this present day and learn to whom he has sold any lands + from whom he has when any mortgages you will have to search the Clerk's offices in Chenango + Broome. And when you have done all this, you will be able to say very nearly how much of a rogue he is - and what must be done with him. I have no doubt he will be unwilling to exhibit his account he will wish you to call again; but you must stay with him until it is done. His power of attorney ought to be delivered up, if he refused that, it will furnish [evidence] that he wants to cheat more. The [reservation] of his [promise] ought to be shown to him, and [reserved] in Chenango + Broome, and notice ought to be given to all persons on the land not to pay him anything now.

In short you must adopt all wise and prudent and energetic measures to get into your hands all the papers relating to the estate and as much of an indemnity for his defaults as you can. He shall have to foreclose his mortgage and that will delay and [embarrass] my future sales of the property for some time. Were their [unreadable] judgments against him it might be safe to take a conveyance from him, but should this be done and the mortgage discharged. The judgment creditors would [claim] a right to sell his share of the land.

Were it not for the business of the roads I would meet you at the Doctors, but should you find the business with him so [embarrassed] that [resort] insist be used to law. Let me know all the facts and if necessary I will attend to it.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours sincerely
Daniel Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

Johnstown 22nd Nov 1821

Dear Nephew,

I am not certain when the cause with Lasher + Mc Michael will be tried but expect it will be in the first week in December and in January judgment may be given and then you must have ready $7000 to prevent an execution. Should the judgment be against the plaintiff of which I have little very little hope, you may dispose of the $7000 in some great speculation, although we ought to. Have you great crops of wheat ready for market?

Your Father has returned from his eastern journey very much pleased with the Yankees; but your letters which he received on his return at Albany trouble him very much. How he has [merited] from you a charge of having broken up your domestic happiness he cannot imagine. I very much regret that you should ever deem it necessary to make any accusation against him, but when that becomes necessary, would it not be most advisable to state the act which he has done, instead of making a general charge of his having broken up your schemes of happiness? He would then know in what he had offended.

He intends to send his horses to Schoharie, have his carriage at Johnstown, go to Utica in a stage, to Canastota, + boat from that place to Peterboro in a waggon [sic], pack up or sell his goods and bid a long farewell to Peterboro, although he would prefer living at that place to any other.

I hope you may be able to give him abundant consolation and induce him to take back his estate giving you enough to pay for Florence. I am confident he would manage his estate more advantageously than you and I can, and if he did not he would be better satisfied with it.

I think you have settled the Johnson business well + I wish you would negotiate as successfully with Lasher. That man ought to be punished, shall we put him in [gaol] and compel him to take the benefit of the act? Do you intend to let Brown escape? He too ought to be chastised as a rogue.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
Daniel Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

Johnstown 29th Oct 1821

Dear Nephew,

The Chancellor has dissolved the injunction in the cause of Lasher and McMichael vs. your Father. It will probably be tried at Troy at the next Circuit in the County of Rensselear [sic], in Nov. or Dec. next. I do not know what may be the result of the trial but you must have the money ready.

I wish you would take the letters which Mr [Trast] wrote to your Father respecting the note and call upon Mr [Trast] and see whether he still recollects what Lasher said respecting the consideration for which he received the note. I have written to Mr [Trast] on the subject but can get no answer from him. I fear he is the friend of Lasher and unwilling to say any thing to his prejudice.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

8th Oct. 1821

Dear Nephew,

Your turnpike question is one which has never been decided by the Court to my knowledge. I do not believe the right to demand toll is the subject of sale on execution. I give this opinion without examination. Yet the gates + road itself may probably be sold and the purchaser although he may not acquire the right to demand the toll may [and] probably would acquire the right of cutting down or removing the gates, + taking possession of the road + toll houses. To that you had better purchase than to loose [unreadable].

The business with Johnson will answer not withstanding the mistakes. Your Father left here last week after having his [gig] repaired in the [least] possible manner so that no lady who is the least inclined to matrimony can say no,

Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr G. Smith

Albany 13th August 1821

Dear Nephew,

About 3 weeks since a letter, enclosing an injunction [+] to serve on Johnson, was put into the Post office at Vernon. I am anxiously waiting to receive an affidavit of service.

Your Father is, I do not know exactly where - at the Springs - at lake George - at Albany or on the road from one of those places to the other or he may, in the eager pursuit of a wife, be on the road to Boston.

I have just received a short letter from Peter and from the [successes] in which he speaks of his health, I fear he is in danger. He speaks of drinking water, living on vegetables + being bled once a week. The physician must be a fool, or the patient is in danger. It frequently appears to be one of the dispensations of providence that a man capable of being splendidly great, should be beset with [passions] or misfortunes, to check his growth and bring on untimely decay. I hope however that Peter's fate will not tend to prove the truth of this remark.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith
Johnstown 2nd August 1821 [the top right notation of date is incorrect]

Dear Nephew,

You will recollect that last July an action was commenced against your Father by Lasher + Michael on a $5000 note. A will in Chancery was filed against them for [a discovery] of the time and circumstances at and under which they received the note. They have filed their answer to that will and have sworn to such parts as will probably prevent our being able to make any defence. You must therefore by the first of June before be prepared to pay
$5000
Interest 5 years +months 1837
Courts 300
$7137

An application will be made to the Chancellor to dissolve the injunction on the 19th instant which I can hardly hope to resist, and if not the cause will be tried on April at the Albany Circuit + final judgment + execution be had in May. We have a good defence I do not doubt could we get at the truth on the trial, but how can that be done when all the persons knowing the transaction are parties upon the record and cannot be witnesses. Glass or land must be converted into money as fast as may be.

Yours sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

5th March 1821

Dear Nephew,

I saw your Father last week at Albany very much engaged in buying lands while the sales last all his troubles are forgotten. He feels however somewhat uneasy respecting the Chenango estate in the hands of Doctor Henry and insists that we shall go to him and learn distinctly the situation of the business. I wish you would inform me what you have done with or heard from him, since I wrote to you on the subject.

The rumour is that you are engaged in a speculation in or about Rochester for more interesting glass making or taking care of an estate, and probably that may be attributed to your neglect in not writing to your Father while he has been at Albany. He speaks of that neglect most feeling by, I presume however that he did not know the cause. Land has for the present driven the ladies out of his heart and his mind and I hope that as soon as the tax sales are over he will purchase out the Holland company, to do which he I suspect is very much inclined.

Remember me to Mrs [Backus and Robert]

Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

Johnstown 27th Feb 1821

My Dear Friend,

Here I am in my office long before daylight. What is that for? Is the fellow becoming industrious and worldly minded? No but for ten days part a strange, [uncomfortable?] pain in the left side has confined me to my house and will not permit me to be in bed but a few hours, it must however, leave me by next Fryday [sic] for then I must go to Albany, or my pocket as well as my side will be most woefully out of order. I have little faith in Doctors, but I have almost determined to call one in at sunrise and set him to work, I do not like to part with my [beloved?], but that I presume must be let out as the first experiment.

Should that fail, pills and [purchers?] will he not cause - and what then? Why let the patient along, he will die or get well. The difference is only fifteen [years?].

I have hoped that you would by this time have laid up such a stack of happiness that you would spend the holydays [sic] with us. Our residents are inclined to be gay this winter - and I doubt not that [used?] have been at a party given by [Trilla?] a few days since. You would almost been tempted to ------ fill up the blank as you shall deem proper on such an occasion. I cannot say a word about [Mrs Laight?] + her [curside?] before I ascertain [how] the Doctor will [irrssiash?].

I am truly
Yours +
D Cady

Hon P Smith

Dear Nephew,

I enclose to you a writ which I wish delivered to a [Coronce?] unless a Sheriff and his very honest deputy Mr French calls refuge and settles the ballance [sic] due upon my foremans order. About 3 weeks since my partner called upon French who denies that he has ever collected the money. I have by this mail written to him and the Sheriff and one on [hath] may call upon you and [riettice?] than have the trouble of a [serit?] with the Sheriff + to trouble you as a witness to prove Frenchs admission that he had received the money you may take a good note note [sic] payable in sixty days. This you can tell them is a favor you give them as they are your other Clintonians.

I have received several letters from your Father who is disappointed that you do not write to him, in his last he intends to muster up courage and go to [theater]. What do your Farm and Treeholders say in regard to the convention? It is a more serious business than is generally supposed - I consider it an artful attempt to increase the power of influence of the large cities + towns at the expense of the county by extending the right of suffrage to every hukster [sic] and vagabond in New York [then?] [unreadable] a most pernicious influence in our elections. There are but few freeholders in that City compared with its population which in the country every solid industrious man is or easily can be a freeholder, but extend the right of suffrage as is contemplated, and that City alone would be entitled to two if not three Senators.

The Freeholders in the country ought to know the powers which they do possess and not tamely surrender them. The exclusive right which freeholders have of voting for governors + senators is a powerful incentive to all who can to purchase freeholds which has a beneficial affect in stimulating to industry + ought not to be needed.

I wish you would stop glass blowing enough to let me know what are the prospects of paying the first installment on our land + interest. Should we [make down] the first year it will discredit us as speculators.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

My Dear Friend,

When good wheat sells in Albany for 56 cents per bushel and pork for $2.50 per hundred, what is land worth! Nothing, but to him who holds the plough, and he must be successful if at the end of the year the balance be not against him. Under such circumstances, what can be dug or raised from the earth in Col. [unreadable]. By [Trusts] to pay the principal and interest of $50,000 in ten years! Boards if taken to Baltimore will not pay the Sawyer and raftsman and if the farmer takes his wheat or pork to Albany or New York he must go to bed supperless to save enough out of the proceeds of his farm to purchase a felt hat. How can he pay for a farm? He cannot, and you may every five years foreclose your mortgage and take your farm back. But the times may change so they may, when the Lord in his wrath shall blast the harvests in Europe, or suffer the nations in that part of the globe, to engage in wars for a prostituted Queen or debauched King. But when shall these things be! Until they shall happen, the only safe course is not to contract new debts; but try to pay off old ones. I could hardly be tempted to make [Mrs. Laight] an offer for the property which she wishes to sell, for the probability is, that the difficulty to raise money will continue to increase, and lands to decrease in value for some years, and it is wholly out of my power [to] satisfy myself, to what degree of depression real estate must depend. As you and [he] are both interested in those lands why not go before the Rev Doctor Mason and unite your interests? You want a wife and she probably would not be unwilling to have a husband. I once gave a letter of hers and that satisfied me that she possessed no ordinary mind. You are on the spot and can judge of the graces of [her] person. If she does answer all the qualifications which you demand in a wife, collect all the marriageable ladies in New York into one large room and take you choice of them. I have no doubt that most of them would most readily purchase a ticket in a lottery in which all the prizes were husbands, than in literature [lotting No: 4?]

Gerrit appears to enjoy glass making and to consider that as the only mode of making money during the hard times. I hope he may [unreadable] no more Brown's as purchasers.

I am My Dear Friend
Yours Sincerely
Daniel Cady

Hon Peter Smith-

Johnstown 29 Nov 1820

My Dear Friend,

I have this moment opened yours of this 21st instant. I returned from Albany last night at 9 o'clock from attending the funeral of Mrs [China?] + taking an inventory of her estate [ln.?]. I wrote in answer to your first letter from New York, + forwarded to you my annual [account], but this morning on reading a letter from Gerrit, I find my letter to you [instead] of reading you at New York has found its way to Peterboro where it is waiting your arrival.

The written arguments in case of Robertson have been submitted to the judges + they will decide in January as is expected. McMichael + [Lustier?] have not yet answered. I shall compel them to do so as soon as may be.

I hope you may in New York find every thing necessary to consummate your happiness if not there to be found the claim may be given up as hopeless.

I am My Dear Friend
Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Hon P Smith

Johnstown 25th Nov 1820

Dear Nephew,

I have not nor shall I have time to go to Oppenheim to see land advertised by Malcolm. I have however seen the deed and that is so drawn that it will cover but 105 acres instead of 200. The mistake however in the deed may never be discovered by those who [unreadable] it. I find that Malcolm was advertised under the same mortgage about 300 acres in Oppenheim. That is worth I presume about the same as the other. I think it probable that Mr Cochran has a description of all the lands advertised, made by [?] a surveyor. As these lands were mortgaged as collateral security for the note you gave. I think you ought to call on Malcolm + [Lathrop] and tell them that you shall insist on being credited the $200 which you have paid and whatever the land shall sell for + that unless they at once make that arrangement you will take measures to compel them or do it or protect yourself on account of the usury in the note.

I have forwarded to your Father at New York my years account which I presume will reach him but not cure all his misfortunes. I have heard from him and he does not appear to be in possession of a great share of happiness.

I am Dear Nephew
Yours Sincerely
D Cady

Mr Gerrit Smith

10th November