Joseph Eggleston Johnston to Roger Jones, March 25, 1837

[Joseph Eggleston Johnston at Gary's Ferry, Florida, to Roger Jones at Washington, D.C., March 25, 1837. Source: War Department. The Adjutant General's Office, Series: Letters Received, 1805 - 1889, Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1762 - 1984, US National Archives

[Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Sue Davis for their ongoing research collaboration].

                                                                          Gary's Ferry
                                                                                       March 25th 1837

Sir,

I have the honor to report that the detachment of recruits under my command (138) sailed from New York in the ship Angelique on the 1st Inst., reached Savannah on the morning of the 6th; & without landing, set out on the same day for Gary's Ferry, in the Steamer Free Trade. Arriving on the 10th.

On landing, it was directed by the Com'g off'r of the Post, Lt. Col. Crane, whose Instructions I was required to receive, to await here the orders of Gen'l Jesup in regard to its destination.

There has been neither death nor desertion since the detachment sailed from New York. One man, John Appleton, claimed as a deserter from the Marine corps, was sent from this post on the 15th to his company -- then at Fort Armstrong.

I am required to rejoin my company, after performing the service upon which I now am. I was promoted into Comp'y G 4th Art'y - there are now two 1st Lieuts with that company, & I cannot ascertain in Florida whether I have been removed from it by proper authority.

I beg leave to ask that information from you.

                                                                         With high respect
                                                                            your ob't serv't
                                                                               J. E. Johnston
                                                                                   1st Lieut. 4th Art'y

Brig. Gen'l R. Jones
Ad. Gen'l U.S. Army

[Joseph Eggleston Johnston (1807-1891).
Gary's Ferry, Florida. Fort Heilman and Black Creek Arsenal. Presently Middleburg, Florida.
Lt. Col. Crane = Ichabod Bennet Crane (1787-1857), First Artillery. The namesake for Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820). 
Gen'l Jesup = Quartermaster General Thomas Sidney Jesup (1788-1860).
Fort Armstrong = now Bushnell, Florida.
R. Jones = Adjutant General Roger ap Catesby Jones (1789-1852). 

Beverly Randolph Johnston to John Preston Johnston, December 4, 1837

[Beverly Randolph Johnston at Abingdon, Virginia, to John Preston Johnston at Halifax, Virginia, or Greensboro, North Carolina, December 4, 1837.  Box 26, Folder 11, Robert Morton Hughes Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library, Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA 23529. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading.]

My Dear Boy,

I am delighted at receiving your letter a few days ago from Gen’l. Carrington’s. I am highly satisfied my dear Preston with your accounts which I hear of your attention to your studies, and your progress in them. Continue to deserve the praises which I hear of your good conduct, and you will realize my best hopes.

Your sister, I have just heard, is returned from the West, to your Aunt Floyd’s. She will, in a few days, go to Liberty, to your Aunt Jane’s, where I intend she shall stay for some time. It is my wish that you shall spend your next vacation, with her. I hear she is very much grown, and is very forward in her studies.

Take care that she does not outstrip you, my dear Pres – write to me frequently after the next two months, because I shall be absent on a journey to Tennessee & Alabama for that length of time. I set out tomorrow. Write to me hear about the first of February,

Tell me particularly what studies you are engaged in, how you like them, and which you like best?

I send the written note for pocket money, I hope it will not be unwelcome.

It is very late & I must set out early in the morning, so I must close my letter. I remain

                                     Most affectionately

                                            Your uncle

                                      Beverly R. Johnston

[Beverly Randolph Johnston (1803-1876)

John Preston Johnston (1824-1847)

Gen’l Carrington = Edward Codrington Carrington (1790-1855)

Eliza Henry Preston Carrington (1796-1877)

Your sister = Eliza Mary Johnston (1825-1909)

Aunt Floyd’s = Sarah “Sally” Buchanan Preston Floyd (1802-1879)

Aunt Jane’s = Jane Mary Wood Johnston (1811-1892)

Tennessee and Alabama = not sure what Beverly was up to with these journeys.]

[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]   

Eliza Henry Preston Carrington to Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, March 1837

[Eliza Henry Preston Carrington at Halifax Courthouse, Virginia, to Sarah "Sally" Buchanan Campbell Preston at Abingdon, Virginia, containing also John Preston Johnston at Greensboro, North Carolina, to Eliza Henry Preston Carrington at Halifax Courthouse, Virginia, March 15, 1837. Box 26, Folder 9, Robert Morton Hughes Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library, Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA 23529. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading.]

Dear Cousin

For your last letter & what was therein contained (a five dollar note) I am very much obliged to you. I am glad that you are still in the notion of coming here to the examination; but I am wary that you have to come so far to see me disgraced. Every thing goes on here as usual; I have commenced the study of Algebra with which (although very hard) I am very much pleased. I can say without fear of contradiction that we have the best mathematical professor (Mr. Grettor of Richmond Va.) almost in the state. Mr. Wilson is beloved by the whole school; he also is a first-rate linguist.

I wish when you come you would bring with you a few pounds of first rate smoking tobacco for Mr. Wilson (who is a great smoker) which I know would please him very much.  He is a real Irishman, & a better man never lived, he is a very small man not much higher than I am a real Nullifier & very eccentric.

I really believe that I desire as much if not more good from attending the society as from going to school, for I have to speak & write composition & be criticized, but our business is private it is against the laws to disclose any thing that transpires in the society.

I would advise you if you come to stop at Mrs. Mosing’s tavern which is the only decent one in town. My respects to Mr. Gree & the rest of the boys.

                                          Your affectionate

                                                  Cousin

                                           John P. Johnston

My dear Mama

I have just got this letter from Preston and thought I would send it to you that you might see from himself how he is situated and shew it to his uncle. He writes regularly to me once a fortnight, which is what I require of him.

I had one of my bad headaches yesterday and suffered greatly all night. I am not well yet but can’t keep out of the garden [in] this charming weather, there are already a good many flowers blooming, and the air is perfumed by the violets. To our surprize yesterday when we looked out in the morning the ground was covered with snow, but a few hours of the powerful sun dissolved it and we were again enjoying warmth and work in the garden.

Yesterday evening I was lying down when I was disturbed by a bustle at my window, looking out I saw the long ladder which generally stays at the back of the house brought round to the front and all the men about of when fortunately there were a number collected around it, I wen[t] out and saw a light blaze on the roof of the house; however a few buckets of water put it out, and all was quiet in the course of a few minutes, for both the alarm and escape I am truly, thankful.

Tell Nana I wish she would come here and help me to persuade my old man to take us on to the general Assembly, where I hope we would meet Sophy. He has a scheme for Nana which I think he would take the trip to effect and tell her not like summer ones, but a real first rate pious man, an author of some celebrity, & widower with but two grown up sons, and with all very rich, a New Yorker with town & country house. I can answer for his manners which are those of a real gentleman. I beg her to come for I want to go dreadfully.

[$5 in 1837 = about $120 in early 2017.

Eliza Henry Preston Carrington (1796-1877), forty years old here, was married to Edward Codrington Carrington (1790-1855), "my old man."

John Preston Johnston (1824-1847), quite precocious at thirteen years old.

Mr. Grettor of Richmond = not sure who this is.

Mr. Wilson the "real Irishman" = not sure who this is.

Mama = Sarah "Sally" Buchanan Campbell Preston (1778-1846)

His uncle = Beverly Randolph Johnston (1803-1876)

Sophy = presumably Eliza's sister Ann Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (1803-1844).

Nana = possibly Eliza's sister Susanna Smith Preston McDowell (1800-1847).] 


[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]   

Edward William Johnston: 1837 Advertisement for Bedford Female Academy

[Richmond Enquirer, Volume XXXIV, Issue 56 (November 17, 1837), page 4. Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading.]

BEDFORD FEMALE ACADEMY.---The subscriber, late Librarian and Teacher of the Modern Languages in the State College of South Carolina, will, on the 15th day of November next, re-open the Institution, situated at Liberty, and endeavor to give it an organization and methods fit to revive for it the public favour, which it once enjoyed.

The plan, to which he will give effect, is, in its main outline, as follows:

1st. To go back to that plainer, less multifarious education, which formed the Virginia lady, some sixty years ago, before Northern improvements came in.

2dly. To banish whatever of pretended sciences, taught only in name, vitiates, instead of either strengthening or adorning, the female mind.

3dly. Teaching only what fits the character and the pursuits of woman, to teach it thoroughly.

4th. To make the first aim of Education, the securing of that sort of knowledge which trains the mind the best, and best fills it with things truly useful and graceful:

5th. To leave untaught all that is less worthy in itself, less fit for the sex, and less capable of being learnt with solidity:

6th. To do whatever is done upon methods which will leave the child the feelings, the opinions, the manners and the principles proper to Southern birth, and for it to be the basis of an Education purely Southern.

Women are not destined to be Navigators, not Opticians, nor Almanac-makers, nor Practical Mechanics, nor Miners, nor Doctors in Medicine. Why give them a half or quarter-proficiency, in that of which a whole knowledge would be useless to them?

Of all futile things, half science is surely the paltriest, and in the worst taste. So, too, Metaphysics, Logic, Political Economy, belong to the Masculine offices and pursuits only, and cannot be brought into female education, without wasting the time and injuring the perceptions, which should be employed in feminine things.

Of History, and of whatever bright or singular examples it offers: of her own land and its fortunes: of her own tongue and its literature: of the cultivated Modern Dialects and their authors: of the Manners and Arts of all countries, a woman cannot know too much. She should understand Practical Arithmetic, though not Mathematics; and much more of cookery than of Chemistry. She should also learn to speak and write English with precision and purity -- but this out of the good authors, and a familiarity with them, not from systems of Rhetoric, that are mere rigamarole to such as are put at learning the Art of Composition, before they have read a book.

Books upon the method of set Question and Answer, and all illiterate compilations in general will be excluded from the school: with every other plan whatever of patent-right Teaching. So will the teaching of English Grammar. In its place French will be taught to every scholar -- a plan by which more English, as well as French, is learnt.

If women can only be stimulated to learn, by being set to exhibit themselves on the stage, they had better remain in ignorance.

The Pupils will be dressed in uniform; with every attention to a simple gracefulness of appearances; but plainly, cheaply, without jewelry, and with the strict prohibition of whatever might mark a difference of fortune. The morals and manners will receive all possible care. Parents will be expected to direct to what church their children shall be regularly taken.

PRICES.

Tuition in the English and French, $50 per annum, (these, every Pupil must learn; the remaining branches, voluntary,) Music, $40, Italian or Spanish, $40, Embroidering, $5. 

No extra charges for use of Piano, Plain Sewing, Fires, Desks, Entrance money, or the like.--- Clothes and Books the only expenses, besides Tuition. Board may be in good houses at $10 per month.---

The Academy buildings can be made to lodge 25 pupils in the best manner. Boarders placed there in the Principal's family, will have every possible care, the use of a good library, and the advantage of speaking French, (the habitual language of the household) and of practising either further tongue they may learn.

Boarders will provide each, a single mattress of hair or shucks; their own bed linen and towels; a silver table spoon, and a silver teaspoon. They will not go into public except to church; and neither visit nor receive visits, except by particular permission. The ordinary recitations will always be open to the attendance of parents, guardians, or recommended visitors.

     EDWARD WM. JOHNSTON.

Refer to His Excellency P. M. Butler, Governor of S. Carolina; Messrs. J. C. Calhoun and Wm. C. Preston, of the U.S. Senate; Generals Hamilton, Hayne, and McDuffie, late Governors of South Carolina. Dr. Thos. Cooper, L. L. D., President Barnwell and Professor Lieber, of the South Carolina College. 

In Virginia, President Dew and Professor Tucker, of William and Mary; Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Wyndham Robertson, and George W. Munford, of Richmond; Walter Jones, Postmaster, Norfolk; John and Winston Henry, Charlotte; Gen. Edward C. Carrington, Halifax; Valentine W. Southall, Charlottesville; Edw. Johnston and Dr. Wm. McDowell, Fincastle; Henry S. Langhorne, Dr. J. T. Royall, and Samuel Wyatt, Lynchburg; Col. James P. Preston, Montgomery; Gen. P. C. Johnston, Scott Court-house; Beverly R. Johnston, Abingdon.

Pupils will bring each two dresses of bottle green circassian, with two capes of the same, and a cane or straw bonnet, Nun's shape, trimmed with plain crimson ribbon.

N.B.--- The pleasant little town of Liberty, is situated near the Eastern base of the Blue Ridge, 10 miles from the Peaks of Otter, in a region exceedingly healthy, well cultivated, and of a population generally respectable and kindly. It is accessible by good public conveyances, three times a week, along the Piedmont route, from North and South; the Lewisburg and Kanawha route, from North-west; the Abingdon, Lynchburg and Richmond route, from East and West.

                                                          EDWARD W. JOHNSTON
Nov 3                                                              52-w4w

  
[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867)
$50 in 1837 equivalent to about $1200 in early 2017.
Other names fairly easy to identify, several of them relatives of Johnston by blood or marriage, especially useful for pinpointing where they were living at the time, and indicating social and communication networks.]

[Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Susan Davis for their ongoing research collaboration.]