Life in St. Louis compared to Virginia

St. Louis July 4th/60
Mrs. Gleaves,
Dear friend:
I had the plasure a few days since of receiving your kind & interesting letter. It was the first that I had received from Wythe Co, since I left Va.

This is the fourth of July a great day in St. Louis. I have seen a great deal that I have never seen before, but have not had as pleasant a time as if I had have been acquainted. It is very hard to get acquainted here. I have been here some three or four weeks and have made but very few acquaintances indeed. I have not spoken to a young lady since I came here, and you know that that does not suit me at all. It

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Tell Misters Wythe & James Gleaves that I intend to write to them. I have never seen a face here yet that ever I saw before. If I should happen in Fayette Co, it would afford me much pleasure to meet with your friends. If I return to Pike should be glad to meet with your acquaintances there, the young lady you spoke of.

would afford me great pleasure to meet with some of my lady friends from Wythe. The people of this city are the most distant people I have ever seen. I am very slightly acquainted with the lady of the house where I am boarding. As for the boarders, we all eat at the same table, and live in the same house, but hardly ever recognize each other on the street. If a man speaks to one politely, he must be primed for it. If a young man asks another to give him business, he will deny him in an abrupt manner; in such a manner, that no true Virginian will do. One can see the difference so soon as he crosses the Virginia line. A person to live and spend his life in Va can't form a correct idea of human nature, for their is as much differ-

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You must excuse these blots (on the margin) for I have turned over my ink. Just as I am about finishing, and I really haven't time to write another. I hope that your health is improving. Remember me to the Major. What has become of Dr. Kincannon. Is he living on the Creek yet?

ence as between white & black. This city is filled up with people from every quarter in the Globe. There is a chinese living in a tea store here. In one part of the city, nothing scarcely but the Dutch and French languages are spoken.

I have never been out of the corporation yet. I should like very much to see the country around the city, but I have been told, without one crosses the River, he can not get out of the city, without traveling some three or four miles in any direction. One of the great curiosities to me here is, the Court House which covers one whole square. They have been at work on it for fifteen years but have not finished it yet. It is a monster building. Another is a new Hotel which is building, but not completed that also

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Did Mrs. Dyer & Cody, both recover? Remember me to my friend Rev. Jess A Brown. Direct to Jones' Com'l College St. Louis

covers a square. It will be some seven or eight stories high. I have been to some very fine churches since I have been in the city. Some of the Presbyterian Churches are magnificent structures. I was at an Episcopalean Church not long since which surpassed any thing I have ever seen in the way of a church. I was at the St. Louis Museum on last Saturday night, and saw at least ten thousand curiosities. One among them was the skeleton of a monster Sea animal, which was 80 feet long. The museum is the best thing I have seen yet. There are not many things to be seen in the world that can't be seen there.

The young ladies live a much faster life here than they do in the Va cities. A young lady can take a Steamboat, & go up or down the River, go to the Theatre, go to Church, or any where else she pleases without an escort, going it on her own hook. Do not understand me to mean that those are common young ladies. The daughters

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Please tell me who that widow is that was in Wythe last summer at Dr. Ab's & Mrs Pierce's. I saw her in Pike Co. no at church but I suffize she did not recognize me. I was introduced to her at Mrs. Pierce's, but have forgotten the name.