Adden Nicholson writes James of the death of their father, and of the recent sickness and distress of their mother (Frances Witter Nicholson, 1744-1832). Speaks of the possibility of renting out the Nicholson property in Greenwich (the area was still rural, and a summer refuge for many residents of New York City), to live more permanently in town. Notes that Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, with his wife Hannah Nicholson Gallatin and children, has departed for Washington; they had evidently spent much of the summer at Greenwich. Urges her brother to write, "as I am the only one of your sisters that has not received a letter from you since you left us."