| Madison County Letters©
- 8Apr1849 Copyright 2000 Fredi Perry In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data and images may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or for other presentation without express permission by the contributor(s) Troy, Madison Co., Illinois, Apl 8, 1849 Dear Caroline, I was at Kingston Bluff three weeks ago. Your father and Adeline and Henry Clay and other more distant relatives were well. William Wesley Kingston died some time in the winter: so that Samson will be the sole heir of the Kingston estate - if he lives and he is a puny little fellow. I found stuck in a crack of the log mansion at the Bluff your husband's letter to your father, written last spring. We have had a long, dreary, uncomfortable and very unhealthy winter. Since the 1st Nov. last, the following named persons have died in this vicinity: John Purviance, son of Wm. F. Purviance Lieut. Thomas McDowell, late of the U.S. Army in New Mexico Calvin McCray. He leaves a wife and one child, Angelina Horatio McGray. He left no wife, but several daughters, three of them married - one to a Mr. Stacy of Connecticut. Mrs. Posey, wife of Jubilee Posey Capt. Eli Cornwell Mrs. Caroline Curtis Allington Mrs. Caroline N. Berkey Dewey, wife of Dr. John S. Dewey Mrs. Phebe Benson, widow of Rev. John H. Benson. Old Samuel Wood and wife are still alive, and he still loves a dram (?). Squire Small and wife have separated; and Mrs. Small teaches a school at Collinsville. Troy has become a smart town with 3 meeting houses, 3 stores, 3 doggeries, 1 tavern, and any quantity of black mittens, carpenters and wagon makers. Sundry people are going to California after gold. A daily mail each way from St. Louis through Troy to the Eastern cities. Lydia Ann Scott has become Macdonough Gates' second wife, and has a boy named Cyrus Scott Gates. They live in Troy where Mac keeps a school. Old Dctor Gates also lives in Troy. J. R. Willoughby, who married Jane Scott, has bought the Scott farm. James Taylor has bought the Silvanus Gaskill farm and Albert Wilson, husband to Hannah Seybold, has bought the David Gaskill farm. Old Aunt Sally and her family have moved to Alton not Middleton, but Semple-town. Mary Ann happened to have an heir without a husband: a thing which sometimes takes place in this fertile country. Jackson Pelham is paid to be the father: a married man. In the Skeamborough or Gilead settlement, Jep Renfro and Benj. J. Hagle still remain, and so does Andrew Black. The rest of the population are in a great measure changed. John D. McMahan has been to Morgan County and taken a divorced woman to wife. She is a sister of his brother-in-law, Israel Turner, and has one son. Knox Co. - I visited Knox Co. in Nov. last. Jenny Perrigo and Wm. W. Weeks (on NW 18, 9N, 42) were doing well. They had got a fence around the entire quarter, which, by the bye, was the best land I saw in my travels being rich and dry, and high and rolling. Wm. W. had a Buckeye wife named Ruth Vaughan, aged about 17, and I have recently heard that they have a daughter. Hannah is likely to have plenty of children. At Galesburg: Emily Amelia Churchill teaches the Female Department of Knox College - about 75 pupils. John L. Weeks, it is said, is "courting like smoke." "Boardy Bo" wants to go to California, but can't get off this spring. Doctor Felix Oflyng (?) wife, and children, visited this region last summer. They live at Oxford, Henry Co., Ill. Candace Scybold married James R. Moore, stepston of Dr. Gates, and went with him to the St. Croix Pinery last year. Our season is more backward than usual. Peach and cherry trees are in full bloom, and some apple blossoms are seen. Prospect for plenty of fruit. Suppose you and your husband step on a steamboat and come down about peach time to St. Louis, and ride out to your father's on Gov. Casey's Rail Road, the win-work of which is already done. It is to come almost to your father's. Please write your father a good long letter, and tell him to be sure to stick it in the right crack so that I can read it when I get to the Bluff. Levi remains about as formerly. I like Old Lac's Inaugural, and his Cabinet, and his administration, and himself, better and better. How is he liked in Wisconsin? It is said Gen. Cass has again altered his mind since 7th Nov., and now repudiates the Nicholson Letter and the Baltimore Platform. Yours George Churchill. PS: Your father has got up an addition to his house. |