Scope and ContentTranscripts of two letters to Hattie Smalley, who was the daughter of William James and Anna (Olcott) Smalley. The family arrived in Saugatuck in the early 1860s. William Smalley was a carpenter who built and repaired many of the tannery and mill buildings in fire area, in addition to building cutters and other smaller items. In the first letter it is hard to tell whether L.A. Phelps, who would later be a Saugatuck-area pharmacist, was attempting to court Miss Smalley, or simply being friendly. All three items are from the Society's Brown/Viets collection. --- White Lake, Mar. 14, 1882 My dear little friend. Here we are in the above named place and not a very pleasant one from here either. You see, I am going to keep my promise faithfully for I am lonesome this morning, indeed I always am when I am away from home and friends, and to top off with, I have been a little sea sick but I'm all over that now. I think one or two more trips will cure me quite of that trouble. You folks at home think that it is hard to stay alone, and I know it must be, but Hattie, you don't know anything about being lonely till you get away on a boat and get thoroughly homesick. I am not ashamed to own that I am so either. I would not give much for a man who don't care any more for home than any other place. I have so much to do today that I can't write a very long letter, and I guess it won't be a very interesting one, for you are too jolly and full of fun all the time to know how I feel. I never saw you when I though you very blue. We will not go to Michigan City as we had expected, but to Chicago again. I have got to write to Wayne again today to let him know where to find me. I thought he could direct to M. C. and now I will lose his pleasant letter unless I tell him where to find me. I tell you Hattie you would have found him a very pleasant correspondent had you had an opportunity to do so he said in one of his letters that he never received a letter from you as long as he went with you. I wonder if Bell finds him so pleasant to write to. Well I must draw this to a close and go uptown to see what kind of a place we have here. One thing there is good sleighing all round us for as far as I can see. Don't you want a sleigh ride? I might have stayed ashore till midnight for all of being late, for we didn't get away till 12:30 A.M. It was pretty rough and cold too. Did Ed go to work today? Write soon Hattie & all the news. Goodby from your true friend L.A. Phelps --- [This second letter, written in the fall by L. Viets, from his wintertime job in Tennessee clearly shows some romantic interest in the young Miss Smalley] Memphis, September 8, 1882 Dear Friend: I begun to think you were never going to write so Sunday I got the "blues" a trifle (I always have the blues Sunday and Monday when I am into the city). and wrote you a note to remind you of my continued existence in this world of sorrow & trouble. You wrote before that note reached you I judge from the date of your letter. Well, I stopped just now to eat a watermelon. It was a superb one & I am almost "to full for utterance." I am very pleasantly located here, have a nice room and steady work, the latter of which I have not had before in nearly 18 months, (except at Waterford when the work was very steady but the salary decidedly unsteady). In fact I have not much desired it till now. But I do want it now. & I don't propose to "loaf' a single day between now and the middle of April, I have firmly made up my mind to be - I was about to say economical but I can't be that - but to careful curtail my unnecessary expenses. Good clothes, good boards, tobacco etc. I insist on having if I have to steal them, but whiskey, gambling, etc. are luxuries which in future I will dispense with. I promised to be home last spring and failed, but this time I certainly intend to be in Saugatuck by the 1st of May if can raise money enough to get there on, and as I have 30 weeks to go yet, & am certain of over $15 a week I think I ought to be able to save one or two hundred by the middle of April. Prof Sutton is my particular friend & you positively must not abuse him so outrageously. He got away from Matamora in a lucky time, didn't he? [Warner P. Sutton was a former high school principal who had been appointed a counsel to Mexico.] The love I asked you to give Phile for me was only a very cousinly affection. I didn't want you to give all my love to her. While it was in your hands for transmission I should desire that you would abstract for your own use as much as you wanted & nothing would please me better than for you to appropriate it all. I don't suppose there is much danger of your having a disposition to give yourself to such a "What-is-it" as I described, but there are two things you never can bet on with reasonable certainty beforehand, how far a frog will jump or what sort of a man a sensible woman will marry. But if any such a chap, or any one else, attempts to take you, just tell him to wait till next April because there's another feller way off down south who wants a showing. Sincerely, L. Veits I've "rite a pome" on the Kalamazoo river (or rather concerning it). I'll turn that loose on you when I run out of other subjects. --- [Hattie eventually married L. E. Veits, and they later moved to a house on Water Street behind the Christian Scientist Church. Veit was freight agent for the Indiana Transportation Company and later for Graham and Morton and Goodrich. About the time of the Saugatuck Centennial in 1930 Hattie (Smalley) Viets wrote down her memories of early Saugatuck.] Saugatuck about 1876 By Mrs. Harriet Veits Going back in review of earlier days about 1876, Mr. and Mrs. William B. Smalley and family lived on the hill overlooking what is now known as the Park House property. I am the youngest child and only survivor of this family and I am writing this as I remember. There were four houses on top of the hill, and the one in which we lived stood on the site where is now the entrance to the road on the land recently purchased by Mr. Lewis Howard of Chicago. Mr. Horace D. Moore, an experienced young man in the lumber business, who came here from Vermont in this early time, owned all the property along the river, extending from Willow Park to Camp Oak Openings, now a summer school for girls. Logs were floated down the river from the Pine Plains and on the present site of the Howard home on the river was a saw mill which cut many million feet of lumber. From Moore Creek on for some distance were piles of lumber and edgings and lath. Many sailing vessels transporting this lumber were tied up at Moore's dock. This was a busy spot. There was a dry good and grocery store to the south, and a boarding house for the mill hands under the hill and to the north of the Moore home (The Park House), which at that time was newly built and very attractive with many porches which have been torn off, also part of the building to the west, otherwise it looks as it did many years ago. Many were the festivities held in this lively home of the Moore's. Mr. Moore became a very wealthy man, and in later years he and his family moved to Allegan, the county seat, where lit bought a beautiful home and continued on in the business work. He lived to the age of ninety some years and still retained a keen mind. His oldest daughter, Winona and myself were school girls together and I have fond memories of this spot.