I have been a practicing dentist of Tarboro for twenty yrs until a few months ago my health become so bad that I had to retire from practice And I have been a Craig man about as long as I have a dentist and while I have never had the pleasure of meeting you I know so many of your warm friends I feel like I know you Senator Simmons Our beloved Aycock who I have spent many pleasant hours with at Morehead in summer My wife is a daughter of the late Burges Urquhart of Bertie Co Your county by the way and I believe she is a stronger "Craig man" than I am

I am asking your support in a little matter Senator Simmons has been working diligently for two yrs to get me a mail route by my farm out here but owing to the lack of my farm not being on the main county road only a miles differance so far we have failed I have petitioned to the county commissioners four differant times and get beat everytime owing to these Kitchins here in the county who are my sworn enemies and take a very great delight in defeating anyundertaking I start During my fathers lifetime this was a pretty farm but one or two dams has gone down here which caused a nice portion to be subject to overflow

Now Governor I want to know if you want assist me during the month of August in getting a squad of convicts out here to do this work for me its seems impossible to get any labor in this community to do anything but I would certainly appreciate this and with even a dozen I could do wonders in a short time I was advised by a friend of yours to write you about this matter and he tells me that after the crop is made up at the penitentiary farm that he was sure if I would write to you and st state the facts that I would succeed in getting them even for a short time You have never ran for anything in N.C. that I didnt support you and I think that partly accounts for these Kitchins having it in for me And I might say that during that Charlotte convention I lost enough money to make my friends give me a good laugh

I have a big farm out here and should I succeed in getting these convict I will take the best of care of them and every precaution & I have lots of warm friends there in Raleigh that I would gladly refer you to in regard to myself

With my kindest regards