As published by the Daily News Journal, Sunday, Sunday, April 21, 2012
By Greg Tucker, President of the Rutherford County Historical Society
Personal correspondence preserved through generations can provide an incomparable window to the past. Consider the “common” events reported to an absent spouse in the 1880s; a mother’s love and concern for her errant son in 1917; and tales of “savages,” harsh winters, droughts and cannibalism in the early American west:
Commonly Well
In 1887 Edmund Seals left his wife and sons to tend the farm and “shop” in Warren County while he sought employment in the more prosperous Rutherford and Bedford counties. Responding to Edmund’s inquiry as to whether she should join him, wife Martha declines and writes reassuringly that all are “well as common.”
Dear Husband,
We are all well as common. The boys are getting very well in the shop. Vip has been drunk ever since you left till last Sunday. George took one drunken spree of two or three days but has done very well ever since. Vip drunk till Saturday then he sobered up and was baptized Sunday and has joined the church.
I had that cow killed Monday and salted up. The rye is doing very well. The lot is as green as summer. You wrote if I wanted to come you would come after me. There is no need of me coming, as I don’t want to come. My health is good enough. I don’t want to come unless you are sick or something the matter.
Patterson’s baby died Sunday night. Carrol Clark’s brother Bill got his neck broke Saturday. The day after you left the train ran over Oriese Argo’s wife on the factory bridge and mashed her right leg all to pieces and broke her arm and cut her head.
They cut her leg off above her knee. She is still alive and doing very well.
There is a big meeting going on at the Campbellite’s church and thirty-five have joined, even Pierce Byas has joined them.
We have not bought any corn, shucks or fodder. George is going to the mountain Friday. I have nothing more to write—but write soon. We had not heard from you only by Mrs. McClarty. Write soon. I remain your truly
Martha Seals
McMinnville, TN
November 2, 1887
Scholastic Confinement
Edward “Pluck” Miller in his teens was easily distracted from his studies. In 1917 his prominent Murfreesboro family, perhaps in desperation, enrolled him as a boarding student in the strict domain of Sawney Webb — the Webb School in Bell Buckle. Anticipating his resistance, Mama wrote words of sympathetic encouragement. The virtues of a “quiet place … away from town” for study and contemplation were apparently lost on Pluck, however. According to his sons, Pluck did not stay long in Bell Buckle.
My dear son—
Your letter just received. You did not tell me how your finger was getting along. I’ve been wondering if it has been at all painful. If it don’t get along well, ask a doctor to examine it. Even if it begins to pain, soak it in hot water. It must have been getting along OK or you would have mentioned it in your card.
Edward, you have been free to have a good time so long that any kind of confinement goes hard with you. But it is best for you now while you are so young and excitable to be in a quiet place, so that you can study. Getting away from town so that you can keep your mind on your lessons. You can’t see it that way, but older people who have had experience can see and know what is best for you.
If I had my way, I never would have brought you to town until your education was completed. Your views about things will be so different when you are older, and you will look back on your boyhood days and say: “I wish I had taken Mama’s advice.”
Your childhood days have been free of care and full of joy. So now you must prepare for manhood. We can’t always do what is easy and pleasant, or what suits us best. It is the hard things that benefit us. No one’s life runs smooth and easy like a gentle river. There is bound to be hard places. If you will bear with the hard placesnow, life will be easier after you are a man.
If I could prevent it, I would not let your life have one shadow. But if it is sunshine now, shadows will be sure to come. So be thoughtful and try to improve every day. If you work, I am sure that you will like the school…
Well Grady made me a present of six gallons of beans and I canned them. I am going to can ten gallons more tomorrow. I am getting them from Roy Byrn. The weather is fine now and I feel more like working. Had a letter from Iramai. Said she thought of naming the baby Mai Frances. I don’t like that name much. I hope she won’t settle on that name.
I think your Papa wrote to you last night. You know he never says who he is writing to. Now be a good boy. Make a man of yourself, and there may be many happy days for you and Mama. My happiness is in seeing you progress and get ready for the future. Write as often as you can.
Your affectionate Mama,
Murfreesboro, TN
September 13, 1917
Not in the Papers
Hiram Carnahan, descendant of a Revolutionary War veteran, left his family home in the Kittrell/Cripple Creek/Bradyville region to head west in mid-19th century. From Oregon he writes of his travels and the hardships faced by himself and others. Despite some frightening details, he encourages others in his family to join him in “the most pleasant country that I ever seen.”
Dear uncle and aunt, relatives and friends in general,
I now take this opportunity of writing to you to let you know that I am fine at the present and hope this finds you all enjoying prosperity. I started my journey from Independence the fifteenth of May. We rode in front killing buffalo and antelopes. There was a party of Oregon citizens that met us and had explored a new road. We have had trouble with Indians. The savages killed a man I was with. Someone took all of my belongings and left me without anything so I have an even start. We had a hard time of it … 700 miles. We got through the twenty-fifth of October. Indians killed a great number of our cattle and two or three men. The citizens pack provisions to last them. The season was dry. The winter has been uncommonly hard. The thermometer stood at one time for two days at zero degrees. Many cattle died. There was not enough to feed the people. At times we could not feed the stock. The snow was seven feet deep.
Some of the emigrants that went to California took a new road and got caught out in the mountains in the winter and 16 of them undertook to go through the mountains and their provisions gave out and they traveled several days and was about to perish but one of them died and the rest ate him. Out of the 16 there was 5 females, the 5 all lived and one man perished. The women traveled on their feet till they reached the settlements in California. Some of the women was compelled to eat their fathers, sons, their brothers and some seen their husband’s heart cooked and a great many things, but I’m not sure you will see it in the papers.
I am well-pleased with the country. It is the most pleasant that I ever seen. I was told that a man could get ahead and I know that he can if he will use industry and economy. It is a desperate country with plenty of timber and good water. There is oak, spruce, hemlock, white cedar, older cottonwood, ash and the best water flow that you have ever seen. It is the best crop country in the world — wheat, potatoes, vegetables, and hogs do well the year round.
I will look for some of you to come here. Give my best to all of my relatives and friends. I hope that they will come to Independence so they can join me out here.
Your nephew,
Hiram Carnahan
Oregon City
(circa 1845)
A special thanks to Ebby Miller, Steve Cates and the descendants of Edmund and Martha Seals for sharing old family correspondence.
Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected].