Letters and diary of Laura M. Towne

[Diary] Saturday, February 27,1864.

I was in the midst of baking to-day when Mr. Saxton and Louise Kellogg came in. Mr. Saxton came to make the welcome announcement that a homoeopathic physician had come down and is to be established on Ladies Island. I am too glad. No more such heavy responsibility for me, no more looking around for help and finding none, no more fear of getting poisoned if I get ill. It is happiness and safety combined.

St. Helenaville[1], S.C., February 25, 1864.

We had such a funny time in church to-day. There was no white minister, and two elders preached and one prayed. (We go to the village church now, of course.) The one who prayed — Uncle Jimmy — said that he asked the Lord to bless the brother “who had just preached to them from such a shallow judgment and untormenting understanding.” Whether he played upon the ignorance of the others or was ignorant himself we are inclined to question. In conclusion, he told the Lord he was his unworthy brother.

Did I tell you that our little girl Clarissa came to me to say, “De freeze tumble fas’,” when it was snowing?

[1] St. Helenaville, or St. Helena Village, was where Miss Towne and Miss Murray lived after leaving “The Oaks.” The village was situated near St. Helena Sound, and had one of the finest sites on the island.

[Diary] February 21.

Mr. French came up and preached. He told the people to hold on to their preempted lands and all might come out right yet, and when they wanted to plant crop, to take what they needed and defend it with their hoe handles. He said that Mr. Philbrick and Mr. Thorpe were honest, but were getting rich by the labor of the blacks, and while they were lining their pockets, their laborers were no richer at the end of the year than they were at the beginning. He urged them to plant for themselves rather than for others. Mr. Barrows qualified. After church Mr. French stayed a long time talking in the church with Ellen and me upon the land question. We condemned parts of his speech. He was patient and willing to heed our warnings.

[Diary] Saturday, February 13,1864.

Mr. Lynch came in to-night with the dreadful news that the privilege of exempting lands was not to be given to the people, and that the Tax Commissioners are to proceed with their former plan. This will create great ill-feeling towards the Northerners and be a fearful disappointment to the people. Elder Demas said to Mrs. Murray that he wishes all the white people would go to the white church and worship together and leave the black alone in their own brick church. They will wish for further isolation soon when the speculators buy the lands.

[Diary] February 8.

A busy day baking. I find our flour so miserable that the cakes, etc., were a failure. Sat up very late writing home. Walked out in the afternoon and bought an old lounge at the Smallpox Hospital. We gathered jonquils and saw the lovely view from the end of the village point — the wide St. Helena Sound, Morgan Island and Otter Island in the distance, and the Kingfisher[1] lying there.

We have very little fodder for our horses and do not know where to look for more. That is going to be a difficult question here. We hear that our poor, starving Jimsebub was shot by some of the people for trespass on the corn-patches. To-night Mr. Lynch came and we had a talk over Mr. Phillips, who has out-generaled everybody. He has come up here to see about the Baptist parsonage.

[1] The blockader.

Aunt Rachel’s Village,

St. Helena, February 7, 1864.

Your nice long letter reached me only to-day. That is the worst of our living here, letters are very long getting to us and come by very uncertain hands, and we never know when a mail is going out. I have to trust to chance for getting our mail to Beaufort. So do not be alarmed if a vessel sails with no word from me, the next one will probably bring double.

I see by your letter that you are quite dissatisfied about my decision to stay till next summer, but I am sure that if you were here you would think as I do and advise my waiting. First place, the voyage. If I go this spring, I cannot ask transportation again in the fall, for our dear, good General is now having perpetual trouble and annoyances by having his passes discredited, or disapproved or complained of because they are so numerous. Yet he is very careful to give furloughs and passes only once a year except in cases of necessity or urgency. Even if I asked and obtained the two leaves of absence, I dread four sea voyages in six months or so. I think I must go home during the next unhealthy season. I cannot stand the trial of it here another year. I am not afraid of being sick myself, but of having to nurse and doctor those who are. I am quite sure that if I go North this spring and am seasick, as I cannot help being, it will make me run the risk of the autumn rather than of the voyage, and so I want to make sure of being away from this place through another such season as the last was. Besides, if I go now, I must run North in a hurry and come back before I have half seen you, my whole time being taken up with preparations for coming back here. But in the summer I will stay three months, have a thorough change and renovation, and have some leisure with you.

I am really ashamed and sorry about writing home for boxes and giving you all so much trouble, taking your time which is so overcrowded. I shall need some dresses in the spring, but there were very pretty things in Beaufort last year, and Susannah can make them up. If they are old-fashioned, no matter, for I shall only see you in the mountains, and down here I shall probably see less company than we used to. I suppose you thought me unconscionable in sending for carpets and household things, but this is my home probably for the rest of my days, and I want to be comfortable in it. I have lived now for two years in the midst of makeshift and discomfort, and have often thought this winter that even servants at home were more nicely provided with domestic conveniences and things to save time and trouble. So I sent for a few things of my own; that is, I wanted them taken from our house, and in the sale or division of our household goods, charged to my account — such as the carpet. Our room is nearly as ill-built and open as a rough country stable. H. ‘s stable is a palace to it, and, our only bit of carpet being on our parlor floor, we have bare boards in our rooms with the air rushing through every crack, and sunlight along every board plainly, visible where the sun shines under the house. This is comfortless and cold as you cannot imagine, who have not had uncarpeted floors since you can remember. When we first came here, and for a time, these things were endurable, but year after year it is hard to live so. Besides, now that things are taking a more permanent form here, everybody’s style of living is improving and we must do as others do. You know what South Carolina fare is. We are just in the oyster hole again, and have nothing else till we are sick of the sight of them. I was going to send home for butter, for we have had neither butter nor milk for some time — so much less than last year; but Mr. Buggles says he will supply us. We had a cow sent to us and were happy, but she was a jumper — and our fence such as you might expect — and she jumped and ran, after our feeding her for three days and getting just one- quart of milk. Her feed, too, was a heartbreak — we are not sure of it from day to day — none to be begged, borrowed or bought, so her escape was a relief.

Living is frightfully high and difficult. Butter — as rancid as possible, when it is to be had at all — is forty-five cents a pound; chickens not to be bought at any price generally, but now and then a tiny specimen for fifty cents; eggs, fifty cents a dozen. But even our rations are hard to get now that we have no gentleman in the house. As for safety, we do not need one. If you remember the village at all, you know Dr. Lukins and the church. Our house is the next one, and a call from our house would be heard even with windows down, by Mr. Lynch and Dr. Hunting. We never were so well protected by neighbors and helpers as now. We have an old man in the yard, to tend our horses and cow, cut our wood, etc., for four dollars a month; then Rina to do our cooking, washing, and housework for five dollars a month, and a girl for scrubbing, waiting on table, errands, fires, etc., for two dollars. This is much higher than before, but low as wages are going. Cooks get here enormous wages — from eight to forty dollars a month. The place is growing fast, and I suppose we shall soon come to Northern rates. It is amusing to see how the able-bodied workers are being coaxed and courted by the leasers of places, like Mr. Fairfield. There are not enough to cultivate the leased places, for it is to be hoped that every family will have its own land and find work enough on that. Except in Mr. Philbrick’s case,[1] white ownership or large owners proved unfortunate for the people last year.

We are getting very much interested in the villagers, particularly in the minister, a certain black or brown man who is certain to make his mark in the world. He is very eloquent and ambitious and makes a great stir in the department by his public speaking. He lives near us and his sister teaches in the school here. He often comes in of an evening, and the other day he found out to his intense horror that I was a Unitarian. But, though he says he expected better things of me, and various other things like that, he is really wonderfully liberal, and, as he will probably fall in with the right kind of people by reason of his eloquence and genius, he will one day perhaps be a Unitarian himself. There are a great many interesting people among these negroes, who are of a higher order than the plantation people.

To-day I have attempted yeast! We have had buckwheat cakes about three times this winter. Think of that, you who eat Mrs. Furness’ breakfasts, which make my mouth and eyes water every time I think of them. Buckwheat cakes spurred me on to the necessary effort, and I have a pot of yeast by the fire, which looks and smells as unlike Kitty’s as possible. Do ask her to tell me just how to make it. I have hops and can get potatoes by paying enormously. Are they necessary? — and does she put in molasses? I wish I had muffin rings and knew how Mrs. Furness makes muffins. How I want some of hers! You will think I am demented about eating, but so is everybody who does not know where to get the next meal. Pork and beans — our ration meats, I do not like, and all other kinds are very precarious.

I am sitting up past ten o’clock and so is Ellen — wicked ones that we are! Good night.

General Saxton is one of our best and truest-hearted men — great in his goodness. I am glad to get my General back.

[1] Mr. Philbrick was at first charged with trying to make a fortune out of the cotton raised by the freed negroes. The event proved that his business ability was of great service to the negroes, and his intentions philanthropic in the best sense.

[Diary] February 2.

Our little house looks really pretty — as such a barn of a place can. Rina brings out from her store one pretty thing after another to furnish the table and house. She will not sell these things, but lends them. To-night Hastings brought our rations. Such a to-do to get them put away. It is so pleasant to have the river just before us reflecting the stars, and to-night reflecting the lightning which is incessant, and to hear the bell, and the singing in church.

[Diary] January 12.

As I rode to “The Oaks” I met John Driver, who is lame, and told him he might get into the buggy. As we rode along he asked me whether he was obliged by law to plant cotton on Mr. Fairfield’s land, and was forbidden by law to plant on the land he had purchased. All of “The Oaks” is now divided into lots of from five to ten acres, and our people have paid for them to the Tax Commissioners, receiving deeds. John tells me that Mr. Fairfield forbids the people’s planting cotton on their own land, upon pain of ejection from their houses, which are not on their own land, but on the schoolfarm. He says they must plant all the cotton for him and he will hire them; that they must raise on their own land only corn and potatoes enough for their own subsistence. I told him the law did not compel him to work for Mr. Fairfield, but that he had better do it for the sake of the wages, but on no account to delay planting cotton on his own land too, for it would be profitable. He said Mr. Fairfield told him he could never sell his cotton, for white men would not buy it of him, or he might be cheated if they did. He said he had asked Mr. Soule about this, and that Mr. Soule had promised that Mr. Philbrick would buy all the cotton he could raise for himself and had given him the same advice I did.

The people welcomed me with great appearance of gladness.

[Diary] January 7.

We have no milk, and at times no wood. There is nobody, not a single hand — not one man up and well enough to get these things. All the boys are getting sick also. It is a tight time. I am nearly ill too. Every evening I fold powders and every afternoon I take my way down street and stop at every house, giving medicine at the door, but lately not going in as I used to, for they keep their rooms so dark I cannot see the patients, and if I order a window opened, I find it nailed up the next time I come. The people are beginning to follow a practice which I dislike. They will wash the patients with strong pokeroot, and vinegar and salt.