File:Alford Pierrepont to Alice Mary Longfellow, 18 November 1903 (d741cf03-e71d-419d-b2a2-08888336f1b9).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1007.001/002.003-001#093

[printed letterhead: Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute.]
Hampton, Va, November 18 1903
Dear Miss Longfellow
I have finished the senior year with success and I am now taking a post-graduate year in the study of agriculture. I am learning only the general principles that underlie scientific agriculture. In this work I take turns with the other members of the class in working in the field, greenhouse, dairy, barn, orchard and in helping the teachers as they show the little children at the Whittier School how to make little gardens, flower beds etc. I enjoy agriculture very much [p. 2] and expect to be a farmer for a while at least after I leave Hampton.
I have been appointed first lieutenant of the Indian company this year. Last year we had a very small company but this year the Wigwam is almost full of new boys.
I spent last summer working on a farm in Sheffield Massachusetts among the Berkshire Hills. My father worked in Berkshire County while he was a Hampton student so I felt very much interested in following Father's footsteps. The hills about Berkshire County are very beautiful, quite a contrast to the Western Plains and Oklahoma sand dunes or “Black Jack" hills as we call them. My [p. 3] work was general farm work. The farmer was a scientific man and I learned a great many things from him about different methods of farming. He farmed differently from the people about him and they made a great deal of fun of him but in the end he always had the better crops. I think that in a few years his neighbors will change their minds about him.
Father writes to me about the great boom that is taking hold of the West. Shawnee, my native town has three railroads passing thru it and has the promise of a fourth. Land in Oklahoma sells [p. 4] for from $25 to $100 an acre and is still going up. This is considered a high price for land in Oklahoma. Father is at present working in the Indian Agents Office and is taking a census of the Shawnee Indians. He also looks after the farm.
There are many changes at this school now. A large new kitchen is being built and the grounds are being beautified. I think there are more students than ever before, this year at Hampton.
I have greatly enjoyed the companionship of my two brothers and a cousin during the last term of school. They are still here and I think they will stay until they finish the four years academic course.
[p. 5] I thank you for paying my scholarship to this school and I hope that I shall prove worthy of it. I shall try my best at least. After I leave Hampton I expect to go home but I do not know yet what work I will take up. I expect to farm a while and help Father. I may work in the Shawnee Government School as an industrial teacher. When I get home and take up my work I will let you know what it is and how I am getting along.
Yours respectfully
Pierrepont Alford.

• Keywords: long archives; document; alice m. longfellow papers (long 16173); correspondence; education; hampton institute; Manuscripts (1007.001); (LONG-Subcollection); Correspondence (1007.001/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Scholarship Student Correspondence (1007.001/002.003); (LONG-SubseriesName); Letters to Alice Longfellow (1007.001/002.003-001); (LONG-FileUnitName)