Autograph Letter Signed from the Alabama writer Octavia Walton LeVert [Le Vert], 'the Pride of Mobile', to an unnamed 'valued friend', describing the Carrollton Hotel, Baltimore, and a 'disagreeable' journey featuring an exploding locomotive engine.

4pp., 12mo. On bifolium of lined paper. Good, on lightl-aged paper. Addressed to 'Dearly valued friend', the letter begins 'Faithful to my promise, I write to tell you of our safe arrival in Augusta, after one of the most disagreeable journeys I ever made in all my wanderings, either in Europe, or America'. The journey began well, with the party passing 'four days in Baltimore, as the guests of our excellent friend Capt Coleman who had recently opened the 'Carrollton", a Palace like Hotel with grandly spacious Corridors, superb drawing rooms and luxuriously arranged chambers.' In North Carolina 'the Engine of the train, worn out with hard usage, and old age, gave up the Ghost, and burst into fragments [...] We remained in the woods for more than fourteen hours, expecting constantly to be "smashed up" between the down coming, and up going freight trains which were to pass that road before the dawn. However the slowness which characterizes that benighted region availed us favorably, and we escaped as both trains "were behind time".' They reached Augusta 'exhausted with fatigue'. The second half of the letter discusses personal news, with references to 'our darling Cara Netta' [her daughter Henrietta Caroline], 'Octavia' [another daughter] and 'our faithful Betty'. Also present is a newspaper cutting concerning LeVert.