Autograph Letter Signed, Philadelphia, February 26, 1835, to his son, William Young McAllister, care of Nathan Miller, Charleston, South Carolina

Quarto, three pages, plus stampless address leaf, formerly folded, in very good, clean and legible condition.

1835 America's first professional Optometrists – the McAllisters of Philadelphia.

"…you have indeed had severe weather at St. A. [Saint Augustine] A few more such winters would affect the character of the place as a refuge from cold weather – or they must adapt their [Humor?] to the severity of the season.

I called in Mr. Craig this morning to tell him of the state of the Thermometer…

You say you will leave St. A…for Charleston…it may be as well that you adopt the land route. I calculate on your receiving a great deal of information which may be of service to you in after life from the tour you are now about commencing. …I will send you some letters by one of the vessel for New Orleans now about sailing…You mention Mr. Elliot's calling to enquire if you will join in a party to Cuba and that you both declined…"

The Alexander Barclay just arrived from Liverpool…The merchants at Liverpool enclose to us the bill of lading as usual….

You speak of our sending Canes etc. for you to sell at New Orleans. We have all talked it over but think it would drive away the Customers we now have. They would not like it. Indeed we have no overstock of mounted canes and we think we will be short in our allotment for the spring sales. You might however look about you rat New Orleans and at every other place.

We have been making up more Silver Spectacles than our sales required…"

The famed McAllister firm of Philadelphia, distinguished historically as America's first practicing optometrists, had been launched a half-century earlier by John McAllister Sr. after he immigrated from Scotland to America on the eve of the Revolutionary War. After settling in Philadelphia, he began successfully manufacturing hickory walking canes and riding whips. In 1796, he bought a stock of spectacles to launch an unusual sideline of his business, though as this letter suggests, by 1830, when John Sr. died and John Jr. took over the firm with his 18 year-old son, William, as junior partner, walking canes had not been abandoned, even if the firm's specialty - manufacturing eyeglass frames, fitting with custom-made lenses. for such notables as Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson – was slowly becoming dominant.

John Jr.'s comment in the letter about the "great Florida freeze" of 1835 – the most severe of all historically significant freezes in that state – reflects his personal interest in scientific instruments, especially those used for weather reporting, symbolized by the thermometer hung near the front door of the McAllister shop which for twenty years recorded the daily Philadelphia temperature, published, together with other weather observations, in local newspapers.

When 23-year-old William received this letter from his father, he was on a Southern tour which was probably a rite of passage before he returned to take over the family business on his father's retirement the following year, by which time the McAllister firm had become world-famous.