The following letter was written in January 1840 by Robert Henry Bishop (1815-1843), the son of James Bishop (1765-1823) and Mary Shields (17xx-1831) of Amherst Court House, Virginia. We learn from the letter that Robert has made the journey from Missouri to South Carolina by way of Tennessee and that he was visiting or living with a brother who resided in York District, South Carolina. The brother was Rev. Pierpont Edwards Bishop (1804-1859), an Old School Presbyterian who supplied the pulpit in Ebenezer from 1833 to 1846.

Robert was listed among the members of the senior class at South Carolina College (University of South Carolina) in 1843 but he apparently died while a student at the college in 1843. He was buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Columbia. He was 28 years old.

He wrote the letter to his brother, David Harbison Bishop (1806-1891), who married first in 1834 at Union, Missouri, to Mary Ann Park (1818-1838) and second to Susan Bragg Stevens (1817-1841). Susan was a sister of Isaac Ingalls Stevens.

While major, large-scale slave revolts were rare in the United States, they evoked profound fear among white enslavers and the general public, as evidenced by this letter from South Carolina.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Ebenezer [South Carolina]
January 24, 1840

Dear Brother,

A longer interval has passed since I wrote to you last than I recollect ever existed but I determined not to write until that aforesaid subscription could be forthcoming. That has at last been accomplished but I am compelled to send you South Carolina money for it is out of the question to get any other kind. But it is the best State Bank money in the United States for they pay specie always on demand. It was my wish to have gotten Virginia money but it was not possible. In Kentucky and Tennessee it is as good as their own bank. When I came through Tennessee I expected to exchange Tennessee money for South Carolina and get a premium but the people told me that if there was a premium, it would have to come from the other side of the house.

I have lately learned that no less a personage than Addoc [?] Wood has been living in the neighborhood working at the caninet business. He worked for six months [with]in three miles of Ebenezer. I saw him once but he was so starchey [?] and dressed so fine that I did not recognize him. I met with him at the Post Office and I suppose that he knew me for he left the neighborhood immediately. The man for whom he worked told me that he was a very good workman. You may wonder that I did not know him but if you would imagine the old ragged sinner dressed in a fashionable suit of cloth cutting the dandy, you will not be so much astonished. He is said to be the best and fastest cabinetmaker that ever worked in this country. How he learned the trade this deponent sueth not.

Ebenezer has been stirred upwards fully by an excitement caused by a report that the negroes were on the eve of open hostility. The excitement was in everything, both in kind and in results as you might expect. I think it is a hard case that those who have no negroes should have to watch them that belong to others. By the way, the negroes in Y. D. [York District] have less reason to revolt than any I have ever known. I have never seen a place where the strict discipline and kindness so happily met or where they seemed to be more happy. The fears of the people proved to be groundless. The rebellion existed only in the heated imagination of some cruel fellows.

Tell Col. Chiles that I received a letter from home a few days since for which he has my warmest thanks. It was every way just such a letter as I like. Nothing that I have received since I left Union has given me more real pleasure in testimony of which I will embrace the first opportunity to write in return. From him I learned the continued ill health of Miss Ann in whose affliction there seems to be much to call forth the sympathy of all her friends. I had hoped to have heard of her improvement but the Colonel gave little room to expect so desirable a termination of her disease.

Brother and Sis and that stranger of whom I have spoke are in good health. Brother has had a number of invitations this year to leave Ebenezer but the old fellow seems to be tied down (in will at least) here. I have been electioneering a little for Missouri but I find it a hopeless task. Another plan must be taken to supply Missouri with ministers—that is, to make personal application to individuals. I find it is of no use to talk about destitution for this is so common that it has but little effect. They tell you we have them at our own door but when the churches wake up to their duty and tell individual men, come and preach for us, and you state mot want [?], then will her destitution be supplied. I know that they are weak in Missouri, but let them apply to the right source for help. That is, to go to G. A. B. M. and their application and they will be successful. In this way, the Southwestern States are actually draining this state of her preachers. You press the question, “Will I come to Missouri?” In answer to which I may say I never entertained any other thought but every day increases my determination to do so. Nothing that is future or that depends on the frail times of human life can be more certain or I should rather say nothing that depends on the will of Him who disposes of all things as a Sovereign not tells His purpose to any whose ways in wisdom are hid from the knowledge of man. But I may say if it be the will of God that I should live and enter the ministry, I expect Missouri will be my field of labor.

Now brother, I must tell you farewell. May Heavens richest in time and in eternity rest on you is the prayer of your brother, — R. H. Bishop

Give my love to Mrs. Park and Miss Ann in particular and to the good people in general in general. The inmates of your house are too much unknown for me to take any liberties. You will discover that this letter is mailed at Yorkville instead of Ebenezer from the belief that it could get a straiter direction being put in a distributing office.