Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

December 2009

Christmas after John Brown.—December 26th, 1859

December 26, 2009

Through Some Eventful Years by Susan Bradford Eppes

We had a very happy Christmas; just as good as if John Brown had never stirred up so much that was terrible. The scene on the back porch was just as merry; the presents were as joyfully received, the drinks as eagerly quaffed and the good wishes, which, with the negroes, correspond to toasts, were as heartily spoken. I do not believe it will be easy to turn our dear black folks against us though no doubt the abolitionists will keep on trying.

Inside the house we had a lovely time; the day was bright and beautiful. Father is well again; Uncle Richard and Aunt Nancy and all the boys took dinner with us; Cousin Bettie is at school in New York City; she is studying music under Francis H. Brown, the composer. Cousin Rob and I had such a good time. Christmas night we spent the evening at Dr. Holland’s. I forgot to say that Sister Mag and Brother Amos, Cousin Sarah and Cousin William and sweet little Nannie, their pretty baby and Brother Junius, of course, were with us Christmas day. We all went together to Greenwood, we always have a delightful time when we go there and this Christmas Cousin Mag and Dr. Betton were there, too. Dr. Holland does not allow dancing but we played games and had music, both vocal and instrumental, and everything good you could think of to eat. It was a set supper, for this is the way we do things in our neighborhood; all the house-keepers vie with each other in entertaining and not one surpasses Mother, if I do say it myself.

Post image for Village Life in America.

Village Life in America.

December 23, 2009

Village Life in America, 1852 - 1872, by Caroline Cowles Richards

Sunday, December 8, 1859.—Mr E. M. Morse is our Sunday School teacher now and the Sunday School room is so crowded that we go up into the church for our class recitation. Abbie Clark, Fannie Gaylord and myself are the only scholars, and he calls us the three christian graces, faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity. I am the tallest, so he says I am charity. We recite in Mr Gibson’s pew, because it is farthest away and we do not disturb the other classes. He gave us some excellent advice to-day as to what was right and said if we ever had any doubts about anything we should never do it and should always be perfectly sure we are in the right before we act. He gave us two weeks ago a poem to learn by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is an apostrophe to God and very hard to learn. It is blank verse and has 85 lines in it. I have it committed at last and we are to recite it in concert. The last two lines are, “Tell thou the silent sky and tell the stars and tell yon rising sun, Earth with its thousand voices praises God.” Mr Morse delivered a lecture in Bemis Hall last Thursday night. The subject was, “You and I.” It was splendid and he lent me the manuscript afterwards to read. Dick Valentine lectured in the hall the other night too. His subject was “Prejudice.” There was some difference in the lectures and the lecturers. The latter was more highly colored.

Friday.—The older ladies of the town have formed a society for the relief of the poor and are going to have a course of lectures in Bemis Hall under their auspices to raise funds. The lecturers are to be from the village and are to be : Rev. O. E. Daggett, subject, “Ladies and Gentleman” Dr Harvey Jewett, “The House We Live in;” Prof. F. E. R. Chubbuck, “Progress;” Hon. H. W. Taylor, “The Empty Place;” Prof. E. G. Tyler, “Finance;” Mr N. T. Clark, “Chemistry;” E. M. Morse, “Graybeard and His Dogmas.” The young ladies have started a society, too, and we have great fun and fine suppers. We met at Jennie Howell’s to organise. We are to meet once in two weeks and are to present each member with an album bed quilt with all our names on when they are married. Susie Daggett says she is never going to be married, but we must make her a quilt just the same. Laura Chapin sang “Mary Lindsey, Dear,” and we got to laughing so that Susie Daggett and I lost our equilibrium entirely, but I found mine by the time I got home. Yesterday afternoon Grandfather asked us if we did not want to go to ride with him in the big two seated covered carriage which he does not get out very often. We said yes, and he stopped for Miss Hannah Upham and took her with us. She sat on the back seat with me and we rode clear to Farmington and kept up a brisk conversation all the way. She told us how she became lady principal of the Ontario Female Seminary in 1830. She was still telling us about it when we got back home.

December 23.—We have had a Christmas tree and many other attractions in Seminary chapel. The day scholars and townspeople were permitted to participate and we had a post office and received letters from our friends. Mr E. M. Morse wrote me a ficticious one, claiming to be written from the north pole, ten years hence. I will copy it in my journal for I may lose the letter. I had some gifts on the Christmas tree and gave some. I presented my teacher, Mr Chubbuck, with two large hemstitched handkerchiefs with his initials embroidered in a corner of each. As he is favored with the euphonious name of Frank Emery Robinson Chubbuck it was a work of art to make his initials look beautiful. I inclosed a stanza in rhyme :

Amid the changing scenes of life

If any storm should rise,

May you ever have a handkerchief

To wipe your weeping eyes.

Here is Mr Morse’s letter :

“North Pole, 10 January 1869

” Miss Carrie Richards,

” My Dear Young Fr1end.—It is very cold here and the pole is covered with ice. I climbed it yesterday to take an observation and arrange our flag, the Stars and Stripes, which I hoisted immediately on my arrival here, ten years ago. I thought I should freeze and the pole was so slippery that I was in great danger of coming down faster than was comfortable. Although this pole has been used for more than 6,000 years it is still as good as new. The works of the Great Architect do not wear out. It is now ten years since I have seen you and my other two Christian Graces and I have no doubt of your present position among the most brilliant, noble and excellent women in all America. I always knew and recognised your great abilities. Nature was very generous to you all and you were enjoying fine advantages at the time I last knew you. I thought your residence with your Grandparents an admirable school for you, and you and your sister were most evidently the best joy of their old age. You certainly owe much to them. At the time that I left my three Christian Graces, Mrs Grundy was sometimes malicious enough to say that they were injuring themselves by flirting. I always told the old lady that I had the utmost confidence in the judgment and discretion of my pupils and that they would be very careful and prudent in all their conduct. I confessed that flirting was wrong and very injurious to any one who was guilty of it, but I was very sure that you were not. I could not believe that you would disappoint us all and become only ordinary women, but that you would become the most exalted characters, scorning all things unworthy of ladies and Christians and I was right and Mrs Grundy was wrong. When the ice around the pole thaws out I shall make a flying visit to Canandaigua. I send you a tame polar bear for a playfellow. This letter will be conveyed to you by Esquimaux express.—Most truly yours, E. M. MORSE.”

I think some one must have shown some verses that we girls wrote, to Mrs Grundy and made her think that our minds were more upon the young men than they were upon our studies, but if people knew how much time we spent on Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity” and Butler’s Analogy and Karnes’ Elements of Criticism and Tytler’s Ancient History and Olmstead’s Mathematical Astronomy and our French and Latin and arithmetic and algebra and geometry and trigonometry and bookkeeping, they would know we had very little time to think of the masculine gender.

John Brown – December, 1859

December 18, 2009

Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

Abby’s heart was full of the thought of the slave market when, six months later, John Brown put his belief into action and attempted to bring about the forcible liberation of the slaves, acting as he thought and said “ by the authority of God Almighty.” Death by hanging was his reward. He left the jail at Charlestown and met his fate “ with a radiant countenance and the step of a conqueror.”

At the hour appointed for the execution, December 2d, 1859, thousands of Northern hearts were with him, and in Dr. Cheever’s church, New York, prayers were offered.

Abby writes to her sister-in-law, Eliza Woolsey Howland:

8 Brevoort Place, Dec. 5, 1859.

My dear Eliza: I went round to Dr. Cheever’s lecture room for half an hour. I found it crowded with men and women —as many of one as the other—hard-featured men, rugged faces, thoughtful faces, some few Chadband faces; plain, quiet women; none that looked like gay, idle, trifling people. I entered just as some one suggested five minutes of silent prayer, which I have no doubt every soul of us made the most of, and then Dr. Cheever, who had the chair, gave out that hymn, “Oh, glorious hour! Oh, blest abode! I shall be near and like my God,” etc. Mr. Brace made a fervent prayer for John Brown. Then a Methodist brother made a few remarks—said “it did him good to cry Amen. It proved you to be on the right side and that you were not afraid to make it known, and it didn’t need a polished education to help you do that much for truth.” Then they sang, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” everybody singing with a will, and, indeed, throughout the meeting there was much feeling—some sobs and many hearty Amens.

The public feverish excitement constantly increased and carried our family along in its stream.

Dear Eliza – December 17, 1859

December 17, 2009

Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

(Letters of a Family during the War for the Union)

Abby writes to her sister-in-law, Eliza Woolsey Howland:

8 Brevoort Place, Dec. 17, 1859.

Dear Eliza: Georgy has gone to Professor Smith’s class on church history and Jane has been out for a little air and exercise, to see if her head would feel better. She is in a highly nervous state, and says she feels as if she had brain fever, the over-excitement being the result of last night’s meeting at the Cooper Institute, with speeches from Dr. Cheever and Wendell Phillips. She and Georgy went with Charley, and they say that the moment Dr. Cheever opened his mouth, Pandemonium broke loose. There seemed to be a thousand mad devils charging up and down the aisles with awful noises, and one of the rowdies near them plucked Charley and tried to draw him into a quarrel. This frightened Jane, but though Charley grew very white with rage he stood firm, and then Mr. Rowse joined them, and, as they couldn’t get out, by degrees they worked their way to the platform, over the backs of the seats, and were high and dry and safe, and heard Phillips through. He was not so ornate in style as they expected, but a charming speaker.

All this had such an exciting effect on Jane that in her sleep last night she walked about; went into the little room next to ours and locked herself in; barricaded the door with baskets and chairs, throwing one of the latter over and breaking it. She had previously closed the doors between our room and Mother’s, so that Mother only heard the sounds indistinctly. Jane lay down on the little bed, without covering, and toward morning the cold waked her, to her great bewilderment.

Hanging day.—December 2nd, 1859

December 2, 2009

Through Some Eventful Years by Susan Bradford Eppes

This is the day John Brown is to be hung. We are not going to school today for Miss Platt is sick in bed with a headache. When Fanny took her breakfast upstairs to her she would not open the door, just said she did not wish any. I took her dinner to her but she answered me through the half-opened door that she was too ill to eat. I asked if I could send the doctor to her but she did not want him; said she often had such attacks and she would be well in the morning; said she did not wish to be disturbed at supper time.