Describes a visit to William Barth on Governors Island. Transcription: hour left and returned to [177] Canal. 9. Sunday. Joe [Greatbatch] calling with the intelligence that Mary Anne [Greatbatch] was sick, accompanied him to Clarkson Street. There for an hour, seeing all of them, then returned. Alf [Waud] being disinclined to accept [William] Barth ?s invite, set off alone, crossed to Brooklyn, hunted up a boatman, and was pulled across through the driving spray and sunny waves. Arrived at the Hospital [at Governor ?s Island] and found Barth, installed in a clean, tolerably spacious white-was
Describes a visit to William Barth on Governors Island. Transcription: hour left and returned to [177] Canal. 9. Sunday. Joe [Greatbatch] calling with the intelligence that Mary Anne [Greatbatch] was sick, accompanied him to Clarkson Street. There for an hour, seeing all of them, then returned. Alf [Waud] being disinclined to accept [William] Barth ?s invite, set off alone, crossed to Brooklyn, hunted up a boatman, and was pulled across through the driving spray and sunny waves. Arrived at the Hospital [at Governor ?s Island] and found Barth, installed in a clean, tolerably spacious white-washed room, a huge coal fire glowing intensely at one end, above the mantel piece divers books, a skull and cold dissecting knives. Three power pots in window and a small iron bed-stead in the corner of the room. Dined, he having done so, and sat reading [Thomas] Carlyle ?s Latter day pamphlets during intervals of his absence, on ?ǣHospital Steward ? duties. Book talk, and in the evening the company of an acquaintance of his, one Creecy from Missouri. [words crossed out] A tall, keen looking and long sided lad man with a history. His father a wealthy planter, he himself being intimate with a handsome girl, discovering reason to suspect her virtue he broke off the affair; and after a month wooing his father was wed to her. So his sons quitted the parental roof, and the old man moved further west. / Some book talk, a little whist playing, and more talk. At about 11 or twelve we go to bed. Barth in his own hard bunk, I on a straw-made one in adjoining room, where I lay listening to wind howling without, and thinking fitfully. Talking a little, the door of communication being open. Among other things quoth Barth suddenly. ?ǣI wonder whether Mary Bilton is married ?ǣI wonder! ? echoed I ?ǣShe was a handsome, pleasant girl. ? I wish her name was Mary Barth, and she was here beside me Title: Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries: Volume 1, page 60, March 8-9, 1851 . 8 March 1851. Gunn,
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