Jan. 3, 1868

"…it will be sometime yet before the demoralizing effects and tendencies of slavery can be eradicated in Va and the people enmasse brought up to that stand point of morality, and civilization presented so gloriously in Old New England. With our negroes I fear we can never have a really high state of civilization. But we have room enough to work among ourselves before ---- our evils upon them. We must have schools for all. Arrived in Gordonsville at noon where I was pleasantly greeted. In the afternoon dispatched the accumulated business of my absence and in the evening hear lectures on ----- till a late hour. I found Mrs. Poor had moved our bed to the room back of the office where we have a wood fireplace which we shall doubtless find quite comfortable. Heater pleasant but the ground muddy. Mr. Maur agrees to board me for fifteen dollars per month."

Jan. 4, 1868

"…Went up to the teachers room and read a few chapters in David Copperfield aloud in the afternoon. Gave Miss Hosner the bottle of wine Cod sent her. Received a present of a bottle of whisky from Mr. Snyder with whom I concluded the purchase of his lot for the freedman's school house to be moved upon…"

Jan. 5, 1868

"Sunday bright and pleasant as a May day. Yet the day has been long. This life I am leading working for a salary where the benefits depend upon the passage of time is not what I desire. Knowing my occupation is only temporary and it not being such as to require much diligence or effort, I find leisure to look forward constantly to the end of the month or year when I am to obtain the results not of my labors but of the expiration of so much time."

Jan. 7, 1868

"The day has been rather unpleasant. I have spent it as usual in the office. A fighting party consisting of a negro and a white man came rushing into my office in the afternoon and I was obliged to talk sharp to stop the difficulty. I shut the negor up in the office and quieted the white man. He ought to have been thrashed I believe as he struck the negro for 'impudence' as understood in Va. The crowd of negroes were read to protect their champion but I did not think best - to second the --- demand to 'let them fight it out.' I paid one dollar of my school money for the purpose of caring for a colored girl who has 'come down' as the phrase goes, and fifty of the same to Mr. Snyder for the school lot."

Jan. 13, 1868

"Clear and cold. Was as busy as usual all day with all manner of cases involving questions of law and individual rights and morals generally. The freedmen are being outraged and swindled to about the extent that such an ignorant stupid yielding subservient class would be anywhere else, and a little more on account of political feeling. Capt. Higgs came on the noon train and I introduced him to a good many people. We spent most of the afternoon in my room at the hotel where many people white and black called to see me on business. There are many cases of desertion of wives and husbands and sometimes of young children on the part of the freedmen. They are very sharp to get children who are old enough to care something and to hire them out. In such cases their parental and guardianship discipline are very severe. The relatives of orphans apply to me often for such as are old enough to be profitable but I can seldom get them to take the slightest care or interest in infants. Blood don't thicken as the phrase goes until children get to be about ten years age."