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Davidson College
Febr 15th 1861
Dear Joe,
Your weekly epistle came as usual on Saturday and on Wednesday I was surprised as well as delighted to get another favor extra from you. Between the two I cam some better of my old disease of the blues. Notwithstanding your great demonstration remember that I am an Ass. You have helped to prove it yourself, by showing that my Q. E. D. is an Ass’ Q.E.D. But we have wasted paper enough on this self evident proposition, and all I claim is the no-man’s privilege– the last word.
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The examination closes this evening and I , for one, am glad that it is so. I go through yesterday evening with the examination in my department and sat up til midnight marking out the marks. The Senior Class did very well in Ast. , but I was disappointed in the examination of the Juniors. Some of them injured their standing. I have not seen the reports from the other departments.
The next session opens on Monday morning under the administration of the new president. I think he will take hold with a vigor and energy that will be felt. He is well liked so far. He has not yet properly begun.
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Joe, you must excuse this dull letter. I feel dull and hence write dull. I must not close however without relating to you a most melancholy affair, which you have perhaps heard for ill news flies apace. On last Sunday morning this usually quiet place was startled by the sudden announcement that Dr. McLean was lying dead in his office. Friends and the citizens generally hastened to the place and found it even so. In a fit of despondency or something nobody knows what he put a period tot his life by drinking laudanum. The reason why he did the deed will remain a mystery by the means which he employed to accomplish the fatal end were evident. He was been drinking hard since he married and sometimes showed
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symptoms of insanity. He shut himself up in his office in his office on Saturday morning and although he was seen both in and out of his office during the day no one was admitted and he heeded not the attempts that were made to call him to his meals. Still his wife and others thought it a drunken humor, but sometime after midnight he took the fatal draught, was as found dead in the morning. Today the news came that Spec Harris’ brother at Chapel Hill was found dead in his room. He had also taken his life on Sunday night by drinking laudanum.
Yours truly in the lands of F&F.
Wm. N. Dickey
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Original
From: DC0090s, Joseph Thompson, 1834-1862 (1860) Papers, 1859-1861. (View Finding Aid)
Cite as:
Thompson, Joseph. Letter to Joe. 15 February 1861. Joseph Thompson Letters. Davidson College Archives, Davidson College, NC. Available: https://davidsonarchivesandspecialcollections.org/archives/digital-collections/joseph-thompson-letter-february-1861-transcript/.
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