1860 March 27, Astor House, New York, to Thomas P. Cope, Philadelphia

              Thomas P. Cope Philada



My dear Son, I thought I could no longer forbear expressing in this way my feeble acknowledgements for thy many tokens of unparalleled kindness and generosity towards me and mine, the number and magnitude of which have frequently overwhelmed me with feelings that I cannot ever attempt to express, and that simple gratitude is but a feeble term to represent. For since the departure of my beloved and sainted consort, whose loss I more and more deplore and which seems more and more irreparable, and almost constantly weighs upon my feelings, there seems but few ties remaining to attach me to this world, except my children, who seem to me (pardon a fathers weakness), so worthily to rifle at their mother’s virtues and graces, that I hold myself excusable for wearing them in my hearts care, as constituting the principal charm of my declining years. So that amid all my trials, and I have had my share, I feel thankful that I am blessed with such a family, and have been so favored in sundry ways, not the least of which is that of having in incorporated with us, one, who seems to have been as a guardian angel to us all. And I am humbly sensible that I cannot be too thankful to a kind providence for such a blessing, and regard it as a special dispensation of divine mercy and goodness towards us, that thee has been