Intro: Charles Carroll Bates (called “Carroll”) was Roswell’s son. They were both doctors and wrote to each other about medical cases as well as general life. Carroll lived in Potsdam, New York and then moved to Auburn, New York. Roswell stayed in Fort Covington, New York.
How they relate to me:
Roswell (1788–1869) and Mary Williamson (1792–1828) —> Carroll (1828–1882), who married Charlotte Clarke —> Mary Bates, who married Charles Elbert Rhodes —> Ruth Rhodes, who married John Hempstead Gratiot —> my mother —> me.
The letters:
Here’s a lengthy collection of letters from Carroll to Roswell written between 1855 and 1864.
This letter from 1860 talks about politics of the era, including Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln, and also an interesting balloon ascent — as well as some juicy town gossip.
Carroll wrote to Roswell about some medical cases (which you may find a bit gross!).
The Civil War has just begun. Carroll writes to his father about the reaction in Potsdam, Carroll’s pro-Union Republican politics, competition to become the lead surgeon for the local regiment, a bad measles outbreak, and plenty of gory medical details that will make you very glad to be living now and not then. (He also mentions Louisa and Frank Flanders, his sister and brother-in-law. Frank had founded and edited the Franklin Gazette newspaper in Malone, New York, which took an anti-Union, anti-Lincoln, pro-secession stance during the war, to Carroll’s horror. You can read more about Frank here, under “Francis D. Flanders”: https://franklin.nygenweb.net/bios/1918bios.html).