"I will give you the details. Joel went to the soil (or toil) of James Baker in the company of his nephew James Cooper. They both landed there safe and spent the day enjoying theirselves on the best jokes of the day. Until the evening then they was coming home in the lane of Hamricks (this was near Poston's Mill, later Baker's Mill at North River). His horse throad him off on his head and ingered his neck bone which paralyzed him. They took him down to Elias McCauley and there he lay down til Friday on tell (she meant until) a week following and then he died. He boar his aliction with the fortitude of Job. His suffering was more than pen and ink can tell. He kept his senses until the evening before he died then he got flyty. He was blessed to settle his bisness in this world and prepare for another he died in the faith of Christ. I have no doubt but what his election was shure (that's Calvinistic so they were probably Primitive Baptists). His pore old mother I thought would grieve herself to death and Margaaret when he was brot home I thought I never witnessed such grief. I thought that his old mother and sister would go to the grave with him. (She described a large funeral and lots of tears)"
Source: Wilmer L. Kerns,"1858 Letter from Hampshire County", listserve message to WVHampsh-L, 16 Apr 2001. URL: <
Recently updated
|