Our Friend Chuck, Is sharing a yarn with us.. in an accurate account of a possible letter... Hope you enjoy it. Cher Dearest family, I hope this leter finds you helthy and in good spirets. It is intolerble hot here, but I expect it is much better wether in the mountains I wish to have writen you before now but just havn't had the time. I don't know if you have herd but we have all got together last year and renamed the fort, we call it just Nashville now. We ar working real hard at trying to get all the crops we can, but with the wether the way it is most of the crops is just burning up. Charles spends all his days in the fields from sunup to sundown, although that is no different from any other person, all this heat just ain't good for nobody. Lucky for us we live rit on the crick and the Blanes and the Georges our closest neybors ar just a few miles away, so all of us kinda thro in and help each other. I wish Chuck could stay for awhile but it has got so that the people inside Nashvile depend on Chuck and his friends to suppli meet for the settlement. They hav become reglar longhunters. They go all the way over to Chickasa Naytion and even up throoh Kentuck by the Shawnee. I thank though wat happens is that when the settlement has fresh meat, they end up going explorin and pick up the meat on the way back. Chuck is has been out for a couple of weeks now, he sed somthing bout headin over towards Chickasaw land then maybe turnin north tward Kentucky, he says that ther is some purty cuntry up north where the rivers are so close that you can almost stand in one and throw a rock into the other. He got himself a new haversack a few months back, its all natural linin and purty strong so it wont tear. You ought to see him now, Chuck also likes to wer nee britches with leather leggins insted of all leather trosers cause he can pull the leggins off to cros a crick or streem then shake the water off and still have his leggins dry to put back on. His leggins are up to his thi, and he wears center seem mocasons lik the Cherokee use insted of boots. They are beter in the woods than boots more quiet and leeves les of a track than boots. He still uses that lether huntin bag that daddy gav him that he keeps his bullets and things in. You aint gonna beleve this, he now has a powder horn that he got off a frenchmen from New Orleens down in Spanish Lousiana. It is scrimshawed with a ocean scene of a sailing boat he also got a wood canteen from the same man. All he had to give for the stuff was a couple of polecat hides we still wonder why that man wanted those hides but Chuck wadnt askin either. Course he still wers those same shirts that com down to bout his nees with slits up to his hips and his leather belt but for some reason he liks to wer his bukle on his rit side with his skinin nife rit besid it. I wont you ta tell daddy that even tho he has his own felt hat he wood rather wer that blu bonnet that daddy gave him. Everbody knows him by that bonnet to he's the only purson in the cuntry that wears a bonnet lik that. He somtims calls himself a Scotsman even tho he hasnt many memories of anywer but the middle ground. He has him a nic 50 calibur rifel, that shoots true, and he carries a tomahawk that he uses more as a hatchit than anything else. I just wish that I could have got him intrested in lernin to reed and writ lik daddy taht me at leest Chuck can writ his nam he figgers that he dont need to no any mor than that. I will stop now Charles is stil out in the heet and I got to go and mak him get in the shad for a spell. I will writ again wen I can. Till then yu will all be in my praers. Yur luvin dauter, W. FOOTNOTES: 1) First I hope I didn't overdo the spelling. I was trying to write from the perspective of a women with no formal education except from her parents, and add to that the fact that for the common person in those days there was no conventional spelling, it was from what I have noticed spelled by phonetics. 2) The comment about renaming Nashville is because Nashville started life as a Trading Post established by French Fur Traders about 1710. In 1779, Fort Nashborough was started by settlers. In 1784 they renamed the community Nashville. 3) I tried to add a touch from present day life hence the weather. 4) My clothes that I describe are the actual clothes that I wear when I go to rendevous, and the black felt hat that I described is actually the hat I use when I do Fur Trade era rendevous and the Scottish Bonnet is the one I use to do the Longhunter impression. The bit I put in about the pulling the leggings off for crossing creeks and streams was what Mountain Men used to do, but wore knickers that weren't actually knee britches, they were called Trappers Pants, and came down to the top part of your calf. Of course a lot of men did wear buckskin pants, but they could get quite hot in the summer. These trappers pants is what I have, even for earlier periods(mainly because I can't quite get any knee britches that fit me right(hehe)). I also tend to wear the eastern center seam mocs, since even the fur trade stuff I do is early on, and people just coming west from back east would be wearing the footwear that they knew. 5) The part I mentioned about Spanish Louisana was because in 1767 a partition of Louisana between England and Spain left New Orleans as the capital of Spanish Louisana. New Orleans wasn't actually ceded back to 1800. This was done secretly so my personal belief is that modern day politics isn't any more a game of dirty pool than it was a few centuries ago(hehe). I hope I didn't put anyone off with this, and if there are any questions, comments, or complaints please feel free to email me. Chuck