...Having through Virginia gotten you address and this being my birthday, I have concluded to write all my absent children a letter, as this maybe my last birthday anniversary! Yes, John this is my 57th birthday. I am like an aged Hemlock, the winds of many winters have whistled through my branches & though I have stood the storms so far may soon fall in the midst of a calm in the stillness of the forest! The wear and tear of an arduous profession faithfully followed and industriously practiced, have at last after the period of 33 years begun to tell on a once robust constitution and I feel that my sands are well nigh run out and that at most I can promise myself but a few more years & then I shall be laid alongside of your Sainted Mother in the old church yard to await the reunion of spirit & body at the last day. A source of regret I find in the fact that so many of those I love so well, will not be near my couch to smoothe my dying pillow nor close my lusterless eyes! And their last resting places will not be in our church yard with their father and mother! But my son that glorious doctrine of our Savior & ______ illustrated by Him teaches us that these vile bodies shall be raised like His glorious body & we shall know even as we are known...

...And now my son I must close probably my last birthday letter,--File it away & on each succeeding 19th April when your Old Pa has gone to his account scan it over & follow his advice and remember him as a devoted father one that loves his children almost to idolatry & try to so act as to meet him in a better world than this. This shall be my endeavor.

And now farewell & may God bless you my dear son and namesake is the earnest prayer of your Father on his 57th birthday.