Let me first set the stage for this letter. I am starting to transcribe the 79 pages of my 4th great grandmother Sarah Busick Bright’s application for her widow’s share of her husband James Bright’s Revolutionary War Service Pension. This is going to be a long tedious job as file is all hand written, at times not in the best penmanship. Currently I’m trying to translate this letter that’s in response to Andrew Johnson’s letter of September 1848. At the time he was her representative in the House of Representatives and apparently her lawyer had asked him to help in securing the pension. Yes Andrew would become Lincoln’s Vice-President and President upon Lincoln’s assassination but that was in the future for these letters. Mr. Johnson writes
Will Cal Edwards please inform me what has been done in this case – these papers were left with the comm. before I left the city.
A Johnson
This letter appears next in the file as if to reply (I think)
Here’s what I got so far with blanks for what I can’t make out.
Blountville Sept 7 1848
Dear Sir
I sent you about 2 mo. ago old Mrs Bright’s old P certificate with her application to be continued on the role. – I have not heard from it – Will you please drop me a lin and inform me what you did with it ________ What think you? Is not the election between Cap & Van Buren It seems to me that this old Hero of Buena Vista & Regular(?) after 40 years out do well ___ ____ on the roll of the army. Is it not a strange thing _____ the _______ a party should take a regular _____ ____ and that only of the army and offer him as a candidate for an office of ________ magnitude I tremble for the President
How A Johnson
Yours truly
Saul Rhea
a line by next mail will much oblige
I’m not quite sure how that ending goes with the big pen scribble in the middle there. I don’t get exactly what he’s saying either about the election or what it has to do with Mrs Bright’s application for the widow’s pension.
Any way give the original a look over and see if you can help fill in any blanks or divine the meaning of this reply.
As always love comments, ratings, and likes. You know where to find me until next time!
So why did genealogy become my hobby? I hate people who wear their ancestors as a badge. I’m not a dog that need a documented breeding bloodline. Does it matter who my 4th great grandpappy was? I want to be taken for my merit not the merit or misdeeds of people I didn’t know and couldn’t influence due to linear aspects of time. Yet, genealogy is one of my favorite hobbies. Why?
Thomas Fain Bright ( the chair front row on left) is my great grandfather on left. His wife next to him Molly I remember her funeral. Her father is James Madison McCravey at the end on the right (my great great grandfather) fought in the Civil War as a Confederate. Leslie Bright the boy in the back row in about the middle of the photo is my grandfather.
I’ve always loved history. I’ve liked tales of the past as long as I can remember. I don’t know why but it’s always made me feel better to think humans have experienced the same feelings I have for thousands of years. I loved historical romances when I was a young girl. In high school I had a teacher, Liz Morrell, who challenged me to look at real history through real people’s eyes. I loved it even more. If you want a good mystery – read history there’s plenty of them. Want a good scare – read history there’s plenty of them. Want the feel good story of the year – read history there’s plenty of them. Want steamy romance – read history there’s plenty of them. I think you get my point. I found all I wanted in real true tales. History isn’t just dates and military movement to me but people living life!
Genealogy was a way to get the everyday person’s view of history, their world at that time. Depression job loss – my grandfather’s time with Singer Sewing Machine Company I posted about. How it is to come of age – my other grandfather’s clothes progression to long breeches. Horrors of Andersonville, Sultana, explosion and what happened to the families that endure such painful loss – I’ve found them in my family tree.
The father Pleasant M Rogers is my 2nd great grandfather. Next to him is his wife Margaret Clark. He’s holding Minnie Christine. She’s holding Josie M. Sitting on the ground is William Victor. Standing behind is Ida Alberta my great grandmother. Photo taken about 1891
Honestly it doesn’t HAVE to be my family tree. I’ve helped friends intrigued by stories I’ve found in my tree find some stories in theirs. The child left to be raised by an aunt & uncle grew up thinking they were the parents but noo, life changed when all was flipped. What happened to the lost child of someone? Find their life and tell it – who knew he’d wind up out west panning for gold then have a hand in the railroad dying a rich man?
For me it’s looking into the faces of the pictures I discovered and seeing a person. A person who had feelings like me, who lived events I’ve only read about, and who is now gone but not forgotten. Maybe shelved for years and rediscovered but not forgotten. Now when I eat a Cracker Barrel I wonder who those faces are in those old pictures, what genealogist out there is trying desperately to find a face to put with the story?
My grandmother, Winnie Bradford, is the girl behind the one hold the flowers standing between her parents Joe Berry Bradford & Pansy Brown Bradford.
Another thing I’ve learned is we’re all connected. If not literally in the 14 generations I’ve gotten so far then through experiences. To me all of it is ours, our story as humans. How we made it through good times and difficult times. It’s inspiration.
It’s all about citation and documentation. I LOVE to document things and fit them together. It’s the old auditor in me. Want to be put in my family tree program? You gotta have documentation otherwise you wind up in my notes to investigate or in my family lore files. My tree is one that’s well reinforced with documentation – marriage certificates, death certificates, birth certificates, censuses, wills, land deeds, dairies, letters, photos, newspaper articles, and on and on. All to be deliciously filed and scanned and attached to the facts they document. See my penchant for neat files in previous posts.
In the middle back row the woman in the dark dress is my great grandmother Ollie Belle Hicks Rolen. In front of her are her parents my 2nd great grandparents Margaret Jane Denton and David Crockett (aka Crockett) Hicks.
This is a job that’s never finished. Every answered question seems to raise ten more questions to answer. I’ll never run out of things to do in my hobby. Every year more are born and more die. You want to fall into my realm of investigation you have to die. I do paper research, grave yard research, book research… I leave the living to my mother. I’m happier in the stacks with that musty smell thinking “AHHH THERE you are! I’ve been looking for you!” Than I am over tea trying to get people to lay their lives open warts and all.
John Bright and Mary Jane Browder Bright my 2nd great grandparents
Genealogy has given me a topic to discuss with my parents. My mother and I share the same hobby so we can build on what the other finds. My father is a treasure trove of family lore, stories I’ve heard all my life but never wrote down. Now I’m hearing them again and encouraging him to write them down. Oh the lovely hours in stacks that will lead to investigating! It gives us something to share, to talk about, to do together beyond comparing medical visits.
My 2nd great grandfather. He was a sheriff in the mountains of East Tennessee. His son became a revenuer. Looks the part of a lawman doesn’t he?
Finally it gives me something to pass on to my son. Here is who we are. This is how we fit into those stuffy history books. It makes the past live for him because he can say he has a connection to it. I hope it keeps me remembered by my 4th great grandchild. She cared, she cared enough to send these stories down to me so I too would share something with her – our connection to life future and past.
For me it combined my love of history, my love of stories, my love of office supplies (files!), my love of order and documentation, my always needing something to do, and gave me another connection with my parents. I can’t think of a better hobby.
As always I’d love to hear from you. You can comment here (it’ll show up when I get it). You can catch me on twitter as @marylouiseeklund or on Google+ as +Mary Louise Eklund. I don’t go to Facebook any more though there’s an old profile still there. BUT you can email me at marylouiseeklund at either yahoo.com or gmail.com.
Yesterday’s post was about my maternal grandfather, this one is about my paternal grandfather, Leslie Newland Bright. During the depression he sold Singer sewing machines to homes in the coal mining villages of Virginia. Here’s a photo from a company picnic in 1928.
Singer Sewing Company Picnic 1928
That’s Grandpa standing just above the C in Co. here’s a an enlarged cut out of him from the picture.
Leslie N. Bright
As the family lore goes, he started working for Singer as a S&C Man. That was sales and collections. He didn’t have a car then so he’d get on the train at a flag stop and ride up to a small mining village. This was mostly in the Virginia and Tennessee area. He’d go selling and collecting in the village. If he sold a sewing machine he’d ride the train back get the machine and then ride the train again to deliver it.
Eventually he became a manager for them and got a car allowance. He bought a new car every 90 days. Why? He said he trashed the cars driving those old mining roads in the Appalachians. The ruts were so bad that one time he set the car to drive then climbed in the back seat to help hold the sewing machine.
One of the tales he told was repossessing a sewing machine in an old mining village shack. He went in to get the machine and the family wouldn’t give it back. He shot through the floor of the shack making the chickens rooting under it fly. Then he got the machine and put it on his back. He then walked out and up over a small bridge. The father of the family shot at him but he kept going. Supposedly grandpa said he figured the man was a bad shot and if he didn’t hit him the first time he wasn’t gonna.
Now Dad heard this story growing up and put it down to the tall tale his father told. Then one day when they had a farm of their own a man came in to do business. As they were talking the visitor told of a Singer Sewing Machine man that came to his uncle’s house to repossess a sewing machine sold on credit. The man shot up the house killing some chickens, took the machine and calmly walked out as the visitor’s uncle shot at him. Grandpa sit there nodding at the story. He never said it was him. He never let on he knew any more than the man said. However, MY dad was stunned. It wasn’t a tall tale after all.
Grandpa left Singer Sewing Company during the depression. He said he didn’t realize how hard it was until he’d left the job. He went from that to pulling steel tracks from old mines. He had work down on his knees in the old mines pulling up the mine car tracks. Very hard work, really hard work compared to the Singer job.
As always I’d like to hear from you. You can comment here (your comment will show when I get it) or reach me on Twitter (@marylouiseklund) on Flickr or over on Google+. You can e-mail me at marylouiseeklund at either yahoo.com or gmail.com.
Mary Louise Eklund 