Mary Beckley Bristow
1859: An age seldom alloted to mortals
Pleasant Retreat, January 1st 1859.
This was a beautiful, sunshiney [sic] New Year’s morning, the first clear day we have had for a long time. Started off to our monthly meeting at Sardis more cheerfully than I have for many meetings. Intended wishing all my brethren & Sisters a Happy New Year. Found the roads pretty bad. When I got to Union, was informed Br Lassing would not be here on account of the bad state of the roads. I felt most miserably bad. My memory reverted today [to] many years ago when we met at Sardis when Br Hume was our Pastor. The weather was intensely cold, a billowing snowstorm darkened the heavens, the roads were in a much worse condition than they are today, and after the members met (a goodly number considering the weather), we concluded it would be almost impossible for Br Hume to get there, and for his sake we wished he would not turn out, as he was a very weakly man, but we had not been there long before we saw him plunging along through the mud. [He] said he knew the members would be there and he could not disappoint them. Ah, those were the halcyon days with us, and we were not grateful for them, and they are gone. . . .
January 9th 59.
Answered Susie’s1 letter today. Felt sorry for her; fear she will never be happy in Illinois again. She staid with us eighteen months. We miss her society very much as she is a dear, good girl.
January 11th 1859.
Wrote a long letter to my dear Kate Ellis today. [I] feel deeply for her in her lonely, desolate condition. Hope to pay a visit to her and her little children this spring if the Lord will. I greatly desire to take a trip to I’ll [sic] and Mo. to see my dear ones. Besides Kate and her children, I also wish to visit the spot that contains the ashes of my beloved Father who sleeps near Huntsville, I’ll.
January 24th 59.
Wrote (or rather finished) a letter to my beloved Cousin Caroline Ashburn today, two full sheets. The correspondence that I have with this dear relative and Sister in Christ has been a source of comfort and pleasure to me for many years. Hope it will continue as long as we both shall live.2
January 31st 59.
Wrote to my Cousin Mildred Jane Clarkson today.3 She got home safe from her visit of three months to her relatives in Ky. Found all well. Her and Susie Breckinridge went home together.
February 1st 59.
Answered my beloved nephew’s distressing letter (John O Bristow) today.4 Poor Jack, I do love to receive his letters, though they all ways [sic] bring distressing news of destitution in the midst of plenty and poor health. I wish he could turn some of [his] land into money, for I don’t think he will need anything long. I have no doubt consumption5 will ere long carry him to the grave. I never crave riches much but when I know a loved one is in need.
February 27th 1859.
Have in all probability spent my last Lord’s day in this house. Tomorrow I bid adieu to Pleasant Retreat. The endearing name of home has [-----] ever since I knew we would be obliged to leave it, and with that all the pleasures I had taken in its many beauties have also departed. For weeks past I have had but little enjoyment; a restlessness has pervaded my mind and I have in imagination been moving all the time. Because I have dreaded it so much, my worn out frame shrinks back from the trouble of fixing up and cleaning after so many sorts of people. Hope I shall find it not so bad; imagination generally exaggerates such troubles, particularly where there is so little strength of body to endure the fatigue. The aches and pains are felt are felt [sic] before we actually come [into] contact with the trouble.
Yesterday was a lovely day. I visited for the last time all my favorite haunts, even the graveyard where sleep in calm silence the former possessors of this really lovely Retreat, though I bestowed that very appropriate name, Pleasant Retreat, myself. Its owners would probably not like the name, but as we had possession for the past two years, I called it what I pleased. The name will doubtless die with our removal. I walked around and bade farewell to the shrubs and evergreens that have claimed my care and admiration for two years past. Except by accident or from a distance, according to the little knowledge possessed by me, I shall see them no more.
It will be much farther from our church and will no doubt be obliged to miss our meetings sometimes when the weather and roads are bad, as Mother is old and infirm and myself infirm from disease, but our Comforter is not confined to meeting-houses, he is everywhere and can visit us at home when it is his pleasure so to do, and although we are obliged to leave here tomorrow, and Mother quite poorly, Brother Julius but little if any better than she is, and we are intending to separate the most of our servants, hoping it will be for theirs as well as our good. Yet still it is painful to do so seeing how unhappy they are at the necessity of their separation. . . .6
Worst of all, except the stern necessity of having my beloved Mother moving to a new place, I dislike going so far from the members of Sardis Church. But I hope this too will be for the best.
Lynd House, March 29th 18597
It is now four weeks since I /we/ bade adieu to Sweet Pleasant Retreat and took up abode in Lynd House. And I have had as sad a heart as ever had probably in my life. The first week after we moved Mother was afflicted with neuralgia of the head, her mind was greatly affected, and she was much dissatisfied with the change and was so much disturbed at the idea of having left our old neighbors and friends that she caused me to shed more tears than I have shed for a year past, and I don’t know, I might say years. How miserable I felt at the idea that we had probably brought her here somewhat against her will to die. But she had mended both in mind and body when Reuben sent for us (Statira was very ill) the 13th day of March. When we got there we found a newcomer, a little delicate babe,8 the Mother too weak to speak above a whisper, but the most thankful woman I ever saw. She said the Lord alone could have helped her. I hope I also felt some real emotions of real gratitude, for owing to the general bad health of my Dear Sister for more than a year I had suffered great uneasiness about her.
Mother and I stayed with her exactly one week, came home on the 20th. Left her and the babe doing better than we had expected, but either from loss of sleep or taking fresh cold the neuralgia returned on Mother as bad or worse than at first. Monday morning sent for Dr Corlis;9 he gave her medicine that relieved her head, but the information he gave her in regard to poor old Uncle Willis Clarkson10 (whom we thought was rapidly recovering from an attack of fever; he was taken sick before we moved) made her so unhappy I almost feared she would sink under it. Very happily Sister Wallace11 came in and staid all night with us, which was a great satisfaction to her. The next morning Br Julius went to stay with Uncle Willis, and my dear Niece Sarah Jane Dickerson and her girls, Jane and Nannie, staid with us.
Wednesday the 23rd Uncle Willis breathed his last; Thursday his mortal part was laid by the side of Uncle Reuben Clarkson.12 I loved my dear old Uncle but cannot regret him. He was old, poor, and greatly afflicted in body, and I can but hope that he has made a glorious exchange, left a world in sorrow and suffering for one of peace and eternal rest. Mother is much better reconciled than I expected. She feels /that/ hopes he is better off and their separation will be short, though her health has greatly improved. Many of our old friends and relatives have been to see us, and we are beginning to feel at home. Wrote to Caroline Ashburn today.
Sunday April 3rd 59. Lynd House.
Yesterday it rained incessantly. Anselm went to meeting, but I am too far to go in bad weather now. Thought I would go this morning, but it was too cold and windy, and I also feared the bad places in the roads. Sat down by a good warm fire with a pillow at my side and read the 7th No. of the Signs and the 6th No. of the Messenger13 through. . . .
Kate and Ben Franklin Bristow14 spent part of the day with us. Mother is still mending, seems to be well all to weakness [sic]. I hope she will soon be as happy here as she was in our old neighborhood.
Wednesday [April] 6th, Lynd House 1859.
Went to Volney’s early Monday morning to wash a carpet for Sarah Jane. After I got there, both of us having business at Union, concluded as we could that day get horses, to take dinner with Sister Wallace and to go to Union in the evening. Found when we got to Gen Wallace’s that she had gone to Union herself. We followed her to Sister Stansifer’s,15 staid there an hour, then went to Mr Baker’s.16 Missed my dear old Uncle Willis; found Aunty Polly much better, Sarah Jane17 and Millie18 well. Felt very sorry for them. Can’t tell what they will do, a poor, helpless family. After dinner went to the stores, made our purchases, called on Dr Corlis’s family19 . . . . Saw many of my old friends. And how glad they appeared to see me, and the pleasure was reciprocal. It really looked like we had been parted a year instead of one month. . . .
Took a look over at Pleasant Retreat; could not help a saddening feeling coming over my heart when I reflected it was home no more. Had a snowstorm on us all the way to Vol’s. Tuesday morning washed Sarah Jane’s carpet. Just as I was done, Sister Wallace came in; we spent a pleasant day. I started home in a snowstorm, but had not got a mile from Volney’s when the sunshine came out, warm and pleasant, and [it] continued to shine until I /was/ nearly arrived at home. Found Mother up at work and all getting along very well. . . .
Saturday, April the 10th 1859.
My Cousin Huldah Conn20 has been with us since Thursday. I think her visit has been of service to my Dear Mother, and I know it has to me. She went home this evening on the stage. Company does Mother a great deal of good and myself too, for I can never feel comfortable when I see her otherwise. I desire to spend a part of tomorrow in abridging a relation of my hope in Christ, written two years ago during a season of more than usual ill health, with the intention of sending it to the Editor of the Signs for publication. . . . It was written at times when I felt able, and when finished I found I had closely filed twelve sheets of foolscap.21 I have still had it on my mind to abridge and send it to Brother Beebe, but have never in reality set about it until last Saturday when I could not get to my church meeting. . . .22
Monday, May 30th 1859.
Our May meeting is over, and our beloved Brother Dudley23 has returned home. We shall probably not see him again for a long time, if ever. . . . Now what shall I say about the four sermons I heard Brother Dudley preach during our three days meeting. . . ?
June 13th 1859.
Came home yesterday from Reuben’s; was much pleased to find that my dear afflicted Sister Statira’s heart was very much revived under Br Dudley’s sermon on Friday. . . .
June 18th 1859.
Met with Sister Wallace yesterday at Lucien Stephens’.24 After dinner she and I walked out in the yard [and] sat for probably an hour in a sweet shade talking.
July 15th 1859.
Have a quilt in the frames25 that I fear will take up my time to the exclusion of reading or writing much when we have no company. I am very much pleased with quilting flowers; even when my side is hurts me badly, sometimes I can scarce take time to rest. But probably it may break me from reading so much fiction. If it does, it will be some good done, as I have been entirely too much addicted to novel reading for some time past.26
July 25th 1859.
This is a time of great drought. Naturally the vegetable kingdom is scorched and nearly withered. I walked around this evening and came to the conclusion to give up my flowers as there seems to be no hope of their ever doing any good, they are so dried up, their heads all drooping towards the dry, hot ground. But what do I know about it? I cannot tell what one hour may bring forth. A good, soaking rain would make a real change in the vegetable creation. . . .
Thursday, 6th Oct 1859.
Brethren Theobalds and Tomlinson27 left here this morning at ten o’clock. Mother and I were disappointed about accompanying them to Br Cumberland Wilson’s by the lameness of our buggy horse. We were very much disappointed. Spent all day quilting and putting up peaches.
Wednesday, 7th. Lynd Place.
Met brethren Theobalds and Tomlinson at Gen. Wallace’s today. Reuben & his family were also there. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves very much. There was not much religious conversation. In the evening repaired to Sardis. Brother Theobalds preached a short but good sermon [and] ordained a deacon.
October 14th [1859], Lynd Place.
For more than a week we have had such beautiful, pleasant weather. I have never in Boone County seen the forest drest in more gorgeous colors, every tint of green, yellow & red. The sun shines warmly. A pleasant breeze is stirring and scattering the leaves. What delightful weather for visiting one’s distant friends if it were convenient to do so. I can scarce stay indoors; it is so pleasant without. Yet I can say of a truth with the Poet, “I’m pleased and yet I’m sad.” Autumn has from my youthful days had that impression on my mind. I am reminded of death and the grave. This evening paid a visit to a neighboring graveyard where repose in calm silence the mortal or rather what was the mortal part of many of my fellow creatures. . . .
November 19th 1859.
Yesterday the 18th was my birth day. I was fifty-one years old. I celebrated it, without perceiving it however until this morning, by going (Mother, Ance, and I) to Sardis in a pretty hard rain to hear Brethren Humston and Shannon,28 who came a hundred miles or more to preach to us. . . . Heard as we went to meeting that Esau Cleek was dead.29 We will soon know now whether we shall move to his deceased father’s farm or not. O Lord, direct us in this matter; suffer us not to move unless it will be for the best.
* * * * *
Cleek Farm,30 Dec. 4th 1859.
This day two weeks ago I was sitting in my pleasant room upstairs at the Lynd Place, where I had spent so many calm pleasant hours during the Spring, Summer & Autumn in reading, writing to distant friends, quilting and reflecting on the past, present, and future. It was a quite pleasant room; indeed, long will memory cling to it, and a sadness creeps over my spirit when I reflect that it will be mine no more. I could from my windows see all over the neighborhood. When we moved there last March we thought probably we might stay there for years. We were satisfied with our landlord, the house with a little repair would have been very comfortable, better neighbors no one ever had. I have many, very many, acts of kindness received from them deeply recorded in my memory. But my brothers thought it best, as we had an opportunity of getting this farm with what grass and tillable land we wished. . . .
We moved here a week ago last Friday, are now fixed up, but do not yet feel at home. It has been but so short a time since I saw the former owner of this place in perfect health that I cannot realize his death, though the little mound that hides his body from the world is plainly to be seen from our windows. Still I feel like an interloper. It is true we are much better situated, have many conveniences that we lacked at Lynd House, yet there are things associated with our nine months sojourn there I shall look back to with pleasure as long as I live.
December 17th 1859.
This day my beloved mother is eighty-three years old, an age that is seldom allotted to mortals. Doubtless if asked she would say with Jacob of old, “few and evil have the days of thy servant been.”31 How many changes has she witnessed both in church and state and in her own family. She has been the mother of thirteen children; nine of them she has seen laid in the silent grave nearly twenty-six years ago, leaving only four, and they still survive. How many sore trials of heart, how many afflictions of body, how many temptations have been hers, none but the God who has brought her safely through can tell, and thanks be to his matchless name without a spot on her garments. She has realized the truth of Jehovah’s promises that the flood should not drown, the fire should but consume the dross & tin and refine the pure gold.32 He has not left nor forsaken her. Although she may have often thought when sorely beset with trials within & without that her heavenly Father had forgotten her, yet has she again been brought to feel and confess that the eternal God was her refuge and underneath were the everlasting arms.
My Mother was born December the 17th, seventeen hundred and seventy-six (I have often heard her laughingly remark that she was born free after independence was declared) in Albemarle Co., Virginia, near Charlottesville. My grandfather Julius Clarkson33 moved to Bourbon Co., Ky. in seventeen hundred and eighty-nine when she was in her thirteenth year. I have heard her say she had spent many sleepless nights in aiding to prepare clothing and provisions for companies of our men to follow the merciless Savages who would come over to massacre families, steal horses, and then again make for the Ohio River. The Kentuckians would prepare with all speed and follow. Often were they overtaken and destroyed, and many of the best blood of the land lost their lives in these expeditions. Though as she remarks the Indians were greatly subdued before her Father came to Bourbon Co., Ky , where she was married to my Father James Bristow and lived until the fall of eighteen hundred and thirty-one when my Father removed to Boone Co., Ky , where we still reside. My Mother received a hope in Christ early in life before she left Virginia. . . .
Notwithstanding my Mother realized a hope in Christ so early in life, she did not join a Church until the Great Revival in eighteen hundred and one.34 She was baptized by Elder Ambrose Dudley at Bryants Station, remained a member of that Church for many years. Stoney Point being much nearer to them, my Parents (both of them at that time baptist) thought it best to take letters from Bryants and join at Stoney Point, a sad move for them, for after Elder Lewis Corban became old and infirm, another preacher, knowing it was a good, rich nest, was desirous to creep in, got a goodly number of the members on his side. My Father was devotedly attached to Elder Corban35 and would not agree to give him up. Therefore the members found it expedient to get my Father out of the way, followed him around, got him to talk, paid great deference to his opinions, watching all the time to catch him in their well laid schemes. He, not dreaming of evil, used some wrong expressions on the subject of Absolute Predestination for which he was excluded.36 The whole Church at the same time acknowledged him to be a model of piety. Old Father Corban was soon thrown aside for the younger preacher. My Mother took a letter,37 joined at Elizabeth Church,38 remained there until we moved to Boone, was in the constitution of Sardis where she still remains, has ever been a firm old baptist, and has again and again proven the good old song, “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord.”
Sunday, December 25th 1859.
Another Christmas has gone into the irrevocable past. The Christmas 1859 will never, no never, return again. How many scenes of sorrow and distress have rung [sic] the hearts of thousands of our fellow creatures since this day last year. How much of joy and gladness has been enjoyed by others I have no way of computing. But this I do know, from the beneficent hand of our kind heavenly father I have received blessings more than I can count. My Mother had one bad spell of sickness, but it was the pleasure of the Lord to spare her to us. Much pain of body I have suffered, but yet have — certainly take the whole year together — have enjoyed better health than for many previous years. . . .
Monday [December] 26th 1859.
I have spent a quiet day; that is, have had no company. Mother, Brother Julius, and I have been alone nearly all day; have read a little, wrote a little, but a feeling of restless sadness has clung to me all day. Had but a small company of relations to take their Christmas dinner with us, [compared] to what we have had heretofore. Volney, Sarah Jane, and their children, & Sallie Breckinridge, were all that dined with us. I missed my two old Uncles, Mother’s Brothers. They have eat their dinner with her for years past. Uncle Willis is gone to the spirit world; Uncle Anselm moved too far to be here.39 How many of us will be missing this day next year, none of us can tell.
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Notes:
[Click on footnote number to return to text.]
1 Susan Breckinridge. (See above, 20 Jan 1858.)
2 A daughter of her uncle Archibald Bristow, who had married Doctor Hiram Ashburn. (See above, 27 Mar 1855.)
3 Daughter of her uncle James Minor Clarkson. She lived in or near Quincy, Illinois, not far from the Breckinridges. (See above, 27 Mar 1855.)
4 Son of her eldest brother, John Sandidge Bristow. He was probably still in Arkansas at this time. (See above, 7 Jan 1858.)
5 The common name for tuberculosis, an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, usually affecting the lungs, rendering breathing difficult and inducing lassitude. Some of those afflicted lingered for years, gradually growing weaker, while others succumbed within a few months of symptoms becoming apparent. The disease once accounted for up to a quarter of the death rate. Several of Mary’s relatives died of consumption, including her mother. The infection had claimed John’s teenage half-sister, Mary Louise Colcord, six years before (26 Jul 1852), but John survived until 1876.
6 It is not clear whether Mary means that they will be hired out and boarded at their new jobs, or sold. Although two of her uncles, John and Archibald Bristow, made provision in their wills to emancipate their slaves, Mary gives no indication that she ever considered such an action.
7 Location not identified.
8 Statira Benning Bristow (1859-1952), Reuben and Statira’s youngest child. She inherited many family keepsakes, including her Aunt Polly’s Record, which have been passed down to her daughter and granddaughter.
9 John Corlis (1797-1867), an uncle of Georgia Ann Conde Corlis (Julius Lucien Bristow’s first wife) and of William Corlis Respess (who married Kate “Bit" Bristow). (See below, 16 Sep 1863, and 11 Oct 1861.)
10 Julius Willis Clarkson was recorded in 1850 as being a carpenter, age 69. (See below, 6 Apr 1859.)
11 Mrs Artemesia Wallace (b abt 1809), the wife of General John Wallace. She was a cousin of Statira.(See above, 13 Jan 1858.)
12 Reuben had died in 1849. The location of their graves is not known. (See above, letter to Polly White, 1840.)
13 Mary was a devoted reader of these religious papers. (See above, 2 Mar 1856.)
14 Reuben and Statira’s fifth and sixth children, ages 15 and 12.
15 Most likely Abraham and Mary Stansifer, although there were other families of that name in Boone County. (See below, 6 Aug 1861.)
16 Noah A. Baker (1823?- ?), who had married 9 Dec 1852, Mildred Goodman Clarkson (1831-1919). She was the youngest daughter of Uncle Willis and Polly.
17 An elder Clarkson daughter (1822?-1874). She did not marry.
18 Mildred Goodman Clarkson, Noah Baker’s wife (not Millie Clarkson, the widow of Manoah, who appears frequently in the Record).
19 The 1860 census found the good doctor (1797-1867) in Boone County with his wife, Maria Rice (1817-1861), and ten of their twelve children. His niece, Georgia Ann Conde Corlis (1840-1867), married Statira’s and Reuben’s eldest son, Julius Lucien Bristow (1836-1893) in March of 1857.
20 Huldah Jane Dickerson (1812?- ), Volney’s sister. She had married Hezekiah K. Conn in Bourbon County 26 Aug 1830. At this time she was probably a widow, living in Covington with her daughter, Oberia, and son-in-law, Judge James O’Hara.
21 Writing paper of indeterminate size, so called from the watermark of a jester’s head applied as a trademark by the original manufacturer.
22 A Relation of My Experience, above. I do not know if she did submit it for publication.
23 Thomas Parker Dudley.
24 Statira’s younger brother, Lucien Bonaparte Stephens (1819-1899). He married in 1849 Harriet A. Riddell (1826-1888). They lived near Walton, not far from Union.
25 None of Mary’s needlework survives.
26 The novels of Sir Walter Scott had been best sellers on both sides of the Atlantic for decades. John Fenimore Cooper had been writing since the 1820s; Nathaniel Hawthorne had enjoyed recent success with The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Popular American authors included such now-obscure figures as Mrs E. D. E. N. Southworth and Mary Jane Holmes, whose gothick tales carried titles such as The Curse of Clifton and Tempest and Sunshine. The spirit of uplift and reform was typified by Timothy Shay Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-Room. One best-seller Mary would not have enjoyed, had she read it, was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
27 See above, letter Nov 1850 re John M. Theobald. Brother Tonlimson remains unidentified.
28 Not identified.
29 Esau Cleek (1835-1859) was the son of John Jacobs Cleek (1800-1859), who had died ten weeks before, 28 August. (See below, 4 Dec 1859.)
30 Since Esau’s mother, Martha Finnell Cleek (1805-1854), had died five years earlier, the family apparently divided the property and broke up. Another son, Benjamin W. Cleek, lived on the farm next to that rented by the Bristows. (See below, 22 Nov 1864.) A daughter, Lamira Jane (1830-1876), had married Statira’s cousin, Benjamin Stephens (1831-1920), less than two years before, 16 Mar 1858.
31 See Genesis 47: 9.
32 A recurrent image. See for example Isaiah 1: 25.
33 Julius Clarkson (1749-1831), his relationship to the other Clarksons of Albemarle County has been the subject of much speculation, but it is now clear that he was the youngest son of Anselm Clarkson of Louisa County. His first wife, Elizabeth Sandidge (1754-1798), died after bearing nine children, several of whom figure in their granddaughter’s journals. His second wife, Peggy, was the widow of James Bell. She bore Julius two more children. His unusual classical name of Julius has been repeated among his descendants down to the twentieth century. See my Notes on the Clarkson Family.
34 Barton W. Stone, then a Presbyterian minister, later a leader in the reform movement, describes the most famous gathering of the Great Revival, which was held at Cane Ridge in southern Bourbon County:
-
This memorable meeting came on Thursday and Friday before the third Lord’s day in August, 1801. The roads were literally covered with wagons, carriages, horsemen and footmen, moving to the solemn camp. The sight was affecting. It was judged by military men on the ground that there were between twenty and thirty thousand collected. Four or five preachers were frequently speaking at the same time at different parts of the encampment, without confusion. (William Dudley Nowlin, Kentucky Baptist History, 83.)
Twenty thousand people was ten times the population of Lexington, at that period the largest city in Kentucky. Stone and his congregation later broke with the Presbyterians and joined with the Campbellites.
35 Lewis Corbin (1754-1840). Ordained in Virginia in 1786, he moved “over the Blue Ridge" and later to Kentucky, where he baptized 127 people during the Great Revival. He “took charge of Stony Point" about 1804, serving as pastor “till old age necessitated his resignation.” (See Spencer, History of Kentucky Baptists, 2:25-26.)
36 How soon James Bristow identified himself with the Campbellites is not clear, but the stiff-necked, doctrinaire attitude of the Particular Baptists at Stony Point Church no doubt hastened the process.
37 A document verifying that the individual was a member in good standing of the congregation.
38 In Bourbon County, not otherwise identified. (See Spencer, 2:248)
39 The 1860 census found him in Grant County, at the home of his daughter, Emily S. (1813- ?) and her husband, Doctor Opie John Lindsay (1811?-1864).
