severe litigation and consequent loss of money and friendship:

"MARSHFIELD, Oct. 10, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I learn that there is likely to be a lawsuit between
Mr. Horace Noyes and his Mother respecting his father's will.

This gives me great pain. Mr. Parker Noyes and myself have been
fast friends for near a half century. I have known his wife also
from a time before her marriage, and have always felt a warm regard
for her, and much respect for her connexions in Newburyport. Mr.
Horace Noyes and his wife I have long known. Her grandfather, Major
Nathan Taylor, late of Sanbornton, was an especial friend of my
father, and I learned to love everybody upon whom he set his
_Stamp_.

These families during many years have been my most intimate friends
and neighbors whenever I have been in Franklin. It would wound me
exceedingly if any thing as a Lawsuit should now occur between
Mother and Son. It would very much destroy my interest in the
families, and whatever might be the result, it could not but cast
some degree of reflection upon the memory of Parker Noyes. I know
nothing of the circumstances except what I learn from Mr. John
Taylor, and I do not wish to express any judgement of my own as to
what ought to be done, at least without more full information, but
I do think it a case for Christian Intercession. And the particular
object of this Letter is to invite your attention, and that of the
members of the Church, to it in this aspect. Mr. Noyes is
understood to have left a very pretty property, but a controversy
about his Will would very likely absorb one half of it. My end is