The Last Days of George W.E. Row

George Washington Estes Row

April 1883...
     The last eight years had been good ones for George Row. With the ardor of a younger man he had successfully courted Lizzie Houston of Rockbridge County and had married her in December 1875 (George was eleven years older than his bride). He brought her back to Greenfield, the old Row plantation in Spotsylvania, and there they lived with George's unmarried sister Nan for the next four years. George's and Lizzie's first two children were born at Greenfield: Houston in 1877 and Mabel in 1879. In 1880 George built a house for his growing family at Sunshine, the section of Greenfield deeded to him by his mother in 1869. The first child born there was Robert Alexander Row in 1881. (Little Robert died that same year. Lizzie Row cut a lock of his blond hair and sewed it to a piece of paper and put it in her trunk. It is still there.) The youngest child, Horace--my grandfather--was born in July 1882.
     During these years he lived with Lizzie, George also prospered in his business affairs. George was successfully farming both Greenfield and Sunshine. He built a saw mill and shook factory on Joseph Talley's farm near Finchville. His customers included both versions of the railroad that extended from Fredericksburg to Orange; the many merchants in Fredericksburg with whom he did business; and a good number of friends and neighbors in Spotsylvania and Orange. The ledger books of his businesses include the names of many local citizens who were noteworthy in those days. In these enterprises George employed dozens of workers, most of them freedmen.
     George Row was a minor participant in local Democratic party politics. He had worked with X.X. Chartters in establishing the Wilderness Grange. He was a member of the Masonic lodge in Fredericksburg.
     But it had not always been as good as this. There were dark times, as well, as there are for us all. His father died when George was twelve. His education was cut short at age seventeen when he enlisted in the Confederate service, spending four years in the saddle first with the Ninth Cavalry and then the Sixth Cavalry. While he survived the war unscarred and uncaptured, he had witnessed death and devastation on a scale difficult for us to imagine today. His emotional and mental resilience was sorely tested a second time during the period from November 1871 to January 1873 when his first wife Annie, his daughter and his mother died.
     But by now, in early April 1883, George had been able to set aside the melancholy that followed him for years and he was hitting his stride as an entrepreneur and as a husband and father. You could not fault him if he were to look into the far blue distance and see more good fortune awaiting him in the years to come.
     But in that first week of April something was going wrong. Terribly wrong. George had fallen ill and instead of improving his condition rapidly declined. The doctors said it was typhoid pneumonia. George took to his bed and remained there for the short time remaining to him.

Sunshine, 1957

     This was the house that George W.E. Row built in 1880. Come, look:
     This house, built on the farm he named Sunshine, stood for over one hundred years. He had added front and back sections to an existing log structure, the door to which is seen on the right of the house. The front door faced north, and upon entering you came into the parlor with a fireplace on the east wall. I remember a painting on the north wall depicting a doctor attending a sick child. There was a framed piece that read "The Lord will provide." On the right, as you passed through the parlor, was the beaded board wall that enclosed the steep, narrow steps that led to the garret where the children slept. Just before you reached the log section of the house was the bedroom in which George Row now lay dying. You see the bedroom window on the right side of the house. In this same room my mother would be born forty five years later. The rear section of the house included the kitchen and another attic space.
     Perhaps because of his experiences during the Civil War, or maybe it was just his nature, George always had a certain ambivalence about religion and he never joined a church. This would be a source of worry to his sisters. But for some reason during the last months of his life he decided to teach a Bible study class for the men's Sunday school at Shady Grove Methodist Church. In appreciation the men of the church gave him a mustache cup for Christmas in 1882.

George Row's notes for Bible study class

Mustache cup given to George Row

     Two doctors attended George during his sickness. They did what they could for him, which was not much, and they did their best to calm Lizzie's fears. Doctors Addison Lewis Durrett and Thomas W. Finney both served in the 9th Cavalry with my great grandfather. In 1881 Dr. Finney had been unable to save Robert Row. In 1872 Dr. Finney, together with Dr. John D. Pulliam, also unsuccessfully treated George's mother Nancy during her final crisis. (Dr. Pulliam was a son of Richard Pulliam, who lived next to Greenfield. The 1860 census shows that Dr. Thomas W. Finney was living in the Pulliam household. John Pulliam was a medical student that year).

Receipt given by Thomas Finney to Lizzie Row

     A year after her husband's death, Lizzie Row wrote a letter--intended to be read by her children when they were older--in which she describes this time:

     During his sickness before he was unconscious we were alone. I asked if he still loved me and he said "Yes" and put his arms around my neck and said "I love you the house full, the barn full and all out of doors." This is what he used to teach you all to tell him. Your father was not a church member but I think a Christian. His motto was "Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God." He was not sick quite two weeks, was not conscious when he died, but breathed quietly. Mabel was at Greenfield, Horace asleep and Houston by me on the bedside. I hope you will all meet him "on that beautiful shore..."

     George Row, age thirty nine, died in the early hours of April 18, 1883. Great grandmother Lizzie took her scissors in hand and cut three locks of hair "from his dear forehead" and sewed them to sheets of his business stationery.

     Lizzie engaged the services of Frederickburg undertaker William Nossett, who was in business with his son George. My great grandfather's burial case and box cost fourteen dollars and seventy five cents.

The Free Lance 25 January 1889

     Two dollars was paid to have the grave dug at the family burying ground at Greenfield. Lizzie Row wore this mourning cloak to the funeral.

Mourning cloak of Lizzie Row

     Shown below are three notices of George Row's death published in the Fredericksburg newspapers. The first two are pasted in the Row family Bible.

Obituaries of George Row

Obituary of George Row

     ...Mabel your father loved you dearly, and I thought your little heart would break when we came back from the burial. You went through the house calling "Father" and asked "Why didn't God let Father stay until tomorrow when I come. I wanted to see him so bad." Dear children you are all bright and happy now. You don't know your loss while I am so sad and lonely. Dear "little Hossie" [Horace] as Father used to call you can't remember sitting on my lap and holding Father's hand while he was sick in bed.

George T. Downing's receipt to Lizzie Row

     For the next several years Lizzie struggled to raise her children, manage Sunshine and settle the accounts of her late husband's estate. Six years after his death she was at last able to hire Fredericksburg stone cutter and marble salesman George Titus Downing to craft a headstone for George. (Photo by Margie McCowan)

Recipies from old Spotsylvania

For the more daring among my readers, I offer  four recipes from my family's kitchen, written in the 1800s.

Hard soap

Alum yeast

Dried apple cake

Buttermilk pudding

You Can't Go Home Again

Old Plank Road in Spotsylvania, 1863

     During the summer of 1961, my father and my uncle Rolf built the house on Old Plank Road my family would live in for the next nine years (the house is still there, though much changed). My father would sometimes bring me along to "help" him. I do not remember doing much in the way of helping, of course. What I do remember is watching Rolf, from time to time, take out of  his pocket what I presumed to be candy, slice off a piece with his pocket knife and put it in his mouth. Oh, how I coveted that presumed treat and I worried him endlessly to share some with me until he at last consented to cut off a small portion for me. He did not call it candy; he called it "chaw," but I was too young to heed this subtle warning. Without a moment's hesitation I popped it in my mouth. More than half a century later, the ensuing thirty seconds remain among the most harrowing of my life.
     But this is not about Rolf or chewing tobacco. It is about ghosts, in a manner of speaking.

Broadside for Hopewell Nurseries

     Growing up on that stretch of Old Plank Road, about a half mile west of Harrison Road, I had no inkling then that we lived on what was once Hopewell Nursery, owned by Henry R. Robey. Robey's first advertisement appeared in 1832 in the Virginia Herald and he ran the nursery until his death in 1876. In the map above, Hopewell Nursery appears in the middle of the image between Plank Road and the unfinished railroad. In the handbill shown below, Robey's name appears as a candidate for justice of the peace. William A. Stephens, a friend of my great grandfather, ran for the board of supervisors. This handbill was kept with my great grandfather's papers.

List of candidates

     During the time leading up to and including the Chancellorsville battle, Robey's property was used, according to testimony given in his claim for damages, as a camp for Cobb's legion and for the Fourth Virginia Cavalry. A field hospital was set up there. Ordnance wagons and troop baggage trains were parked there. "For want of axes" needed to cut firewood, Confederate soldiers instead helped themselves to Robey's fencing in order to build fires. Hundreds of horses grazed freely on his land, eating up half the grass he would have otherwise cut for hay that year. One hundred years later my father and I roamed these fields and woods with a metal detector and brought home many buttons, bullets, bridle bits and similar camp detritus.
     But today I am not writing about relics or Henry Robey's troubles during the Civil War.
     In the years after the war, the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad was completed to the town of Orange. My great grandfather's saw mill supplied some of the railroad ties and fencing used for this effort. The trains used to make daily runs on these tracks until the 1930's.

1927 ticket for the PF&P Railroad

     In 1927 my great grandmother used this ticket to begin her trip to Georgia to attend a niece's graduation at Agnes Scott College. As you can see, "Robey" was the third stop after it left Fredericksburg on its way to Orange. The next stop was Screamersville (which was the old Chancellorsville post office and general store of my youth, where my sister and I obtained, at great personal expense, fireballs and wax lips and bubble gum and other needed supplies). From there the train proceeded to Alrich's corner, passed Welford furnace, Brock Road and then to the depot at the farm which had belonged to William A. Stephens. Great grandmother Row boarded the train there.
     As a boy growing up on what had been Henry Robey's land I remember being puzzled by the existence of train tracks which ran through the woods behind our house. I could not fathom how a train could have made its way through the second growth pine and oak trees, the blackberry bushes, the vines and the poison ivy.
     But, truly, I do not mean to wander down the old train tracks today. It is October and it is ghosts we are discussing, in a way.

Judy Sullivan

     In this picture taken of my mother in 1970 you see behind her what would have been Hopewell Nursery one hundred years earlier. Because it was still a working farm in 1970 it does not require much imagination to envision the previous existence of the nursery. Today, of course, it would be infinitely more difficult to see Hopewell in your mind's eye, as this landscape is now thickly dotted with the houses of Smoketree subdivision.
     But still there, among those houses and perhaps seen only by me, flit the ghosts of a distant past that remains close to my heart.
     Fifty years ago that land was farmed by Tommy and Ethel Byrne and their grandson Steve Kibler (now long departed from this life), who was my age. Steve and I and the Carver boys used to play in that field in summer and build snow forts in winter. We used to build dams in the creek in the shade of the sycamore by Old Plank Road. We shot broom straw arrows with home made bows. We built a club house among the hay bales in the barn.
     Gone, now. All gone.
     Between Route 3 and Old Plank Road, adjacent to Zoan Church, is a place known to most modern residents of Spotsylvania only as Royal Oaks subdivision. To this day, however, when I drive by there it is not those houses I see, but the spectral image of O.C. Zechiel's farm. Until his death in 1957 Mr. Zechiel raised beef cattle here and ran the W-Z Market in Fredericksburg. After he died his wife Hazel (a lovely woman) remained on the farm, which she rented out to Andrew Seay to graze cattle and to cut hay. In the summers we fished for perch and bass in her pond. In winter we hauled our sleds up the rise and then careened toward, and sometimes into, the creek. We boys used to clamber on the roof of the old slaughter house and play. I still have the scar where I gashed my leg on the rusted tin roof. Mrs. Zechiel used to pay me a dollar to sit in her orchard on Saturdays and shoot blue jays and other shoplifters out of her beloved cherry trees. I never told her that I would have gladly paid her the dollar for the privilege.
     Over the past several years, as I have researched and written about my people in Spotsylvania, I have had ample opportunity to contemplate the seismic changes that have occurred in my home county during my lifetime. These changes were inevitable and unavoidable, I suppose, and progress in its manifold forms is often irresistible. Within my limited ability, what I have tried to accomplish is to preserve in words and pictures that which has been swept away by change and progress. It may be as futile as trying to capture lightning in a bottle. But the now vanished people and places of old Spotsylvania deserve to be remembered. We are much the poorer if we do not make the attempt.
     A tree nursery occupied by the Confederate army. Abandoned railroad tracks deep in the woods near home. Boys playing in the creek in the shade of a sycamore. It is difficult for me to find the words to say what it means to me, so today I turn to one of the literary heroes of my youth, Thomas Wolfe:

     O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane end unto heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
    
    

The Letter from Maria Dobyns

Oakley, 1935 (Frances Benjamin Johnston)

Maria Lindsey Dobyns (Wesley Pippenger)

     Oakley is one of the very few antebellum houses in Spotsylvania to survive the Civil War and many years of neglect afterwards. Built almost two hundred years ago, it still stands today as part of a beautiful and thriving farm. It's continued existence is due mainly to the care given it by the family who has owned Oakley since 1926, and to a bit of good fortune it had one day in May 1864. [Please note that all images in my blog may be clicked on for enlarged viewing]
     The land upon which Oakley sits was once part of a 7, 777 acre land grant given to Gawain Corbin by the King of England. In 1816 Samuel Alsop, Jr. bought 849 acres of this tract, and in 1826 he built the house as a wedding present for his daughter Clementina and son in law Thomas C. Chandler [1].
The property was sold to Enoch Gridley in 1839 who in turn sold it to Leroy Dobyns in 1854.

Map detail of western Spotsylvania, 1863

     In the upper center of the map shown above, Greenfield--my family's home for 110 years--is shown as "Mrs. Rowe" (Nancy Estes Row, my great great grandmother). Adjacent to Greenfield to the southeast is Oakley ("Dobyns"), located on Catharpin Road at Corbin's bridge. Shady Grove Church is just to the south, and the intersection of Brock and Catharpin roads is north at the upper right of the image.
     The Row and Dobyns families were close friends and the name of Leroy Dobyns appears in the old ledger books of Greenfield. Leroy was one of the appraisers of the estate of Absalom Row, my great great grandfather who died in 1855. Like Absalom, Leroy Dobyns was a justice of the peace and was serving as such during the Civil War.
     In May 1863 my Row ancestors saw the war up close and personal when Stonewall Jackson led his troops through Greenfield (via modern Jackson Trail West) on their way to his planned ambush of General Hooker's right flank. The following year it became increasingly apparent that Generals Grant and Meade planned to use some of the same river fords to shoot their way into Spotsylvania a second time. The Rows had little appetite for tempting fate again. In addition, Benjamin Cason Rawlings--the brother of Nancy Estes Row's son in law Zachary Rawlings--had written a letter from a federal prison to his mother, warning his family to "fall back" and not to have contact with the Union army during its expected advance through Spotsylvania in the spring of 1864.
     Before the fighting began the Rows buried the family's valuables and the horses were hidden in the woods.  Wagons were loaded with what belongings they could carry with them on their flight south. Nancy Row and her unmarried daughter Nan, Zachary and Bettie Row Rawlings and their infant daughter Estelle and Zachary's parents traveled south to the crossroads village of Hadensville in Goochland County. Accompanying them were the handful of slaves who had not already escaped to freedom inside Union lines. The Row and Rawlings families lived as refugees in Hadensville for much of the last year of the war. In the photograph below, Nancy Estes Row is seated with her daughter Martha Row Williams, and Bettie and Nan stand behind them.

The Rows

     The inevitable collision of the armies of Lee and Grant occurred on May 4, 1864. During the battle of the Wilderness Greenfield--abandoned and desolate--escaped destruction, although Stuart's Horse Artillery parked there overnight. Union forces made their way southeast down Brock Road toward Spotsylvania Court House. Lee's army shadowed them as they moved in the same direction south of Oakley. A sharp little fight occurred at Todd's Tavern, but fortunately for Oakley and its inhabitants a pitched battle on the farm was avoided.

Nan Row

     Six weeks later  twenty four year old Maria, a daughter of Leroy Dobyns, wrote a letter to Nan Row, who was still staying in Hadensville. Although photocopies of the letter exist in several archives, the fate of the original is unknown (unknown to me, at least). It was, of course, in the possession of my family for a long time and may still languish in the dark recesses of someone's attic. A transcription of the letter is presented here in its entirety.

First page of Maria Dobyns's letter to Nan Row

                                                                                                    Oakley
                                                                                                     June 17, 1864

My dear Friend:
                         A long, long time has elapsed since I heard from you, and no doubt you are anxious to hear from friends in Spotsylvania. Many changes have taken place since you left us, and I really think you should feel that it was an intervention of Providence which caused you leave when you did, for had you remained here no doubt you would be as most of us are now. When Grant first crossed the river, his cavalry force passed here on its way back after having met Gen. Rosser up near Craig's. You have no idea what our feelings were when we first saw them, but they were too much frightened to do much then. However they took William [2] and sent down for Papa. Mama went up just as as Gen. Wilson [3] ordered him on a horse. She begged him not to take Papa, and after a considerable time they concluded to leave him. We had no idea our forces were so near us until they rushed up the hill in front of the house. It was the first time I had ever been so near a fight and of course was frightened, but an all wise Providence saw fit to protect us through it all.
     Our artillery was planted by Aunt Harriet's [4] house and on that hill in front of our yard. We stood and watched the shelling during the evening from our windows and did not feel afraid, but had a shell been thrown from the enemy's guns I imagine we would not have been so composed.
     Two of our loved soldiers are buried in our garden, one only lived about an hour after he was brought here. We also had a Yankee major [5] here who was wounded just by our barn, sister saw him when he fell from his horse. He was moved to Mr. Buchanan's [6] the next day. Three weeks ago Captain Jordan was brought here from the hospital. Poor thing! The ball passed through his arm, completely shattering the arm and then into his side. His arm had been amputated just below the shoulder. I dressed his wounds twice every day and I never in all my life saw one who complained so little. Never did one murmur escape his lips. His suffering was very great and after having been here several days, he concluded to have the ball taken from his side. We sent for the surgeons, who came and took it out. It had become fastened in his rib. Extracting the ball made him very sick indeed. A few days after Dr. Daily came and brought his son, who had been shot through the lung, the ball passing through his body. He is now a little better, but still a great sufferer. Dr. Storry and Harrison are here every day and night with him. I fear he will never recover from his wounds.
     Last Tuesday we were very quiet, nursing the sick, when Mr. Dick Todd [7] called to me and said the yankees were advancing. Before we could get the horses off they came dashing up to the house. Papa fortunately made his escape to the woods. They came, searching the meat house, took all we had, including the flour. I started up to Mr. Buchanan's for a guard, but found it useless to go, as they were not sending out any. They broke open the house and searched it from top to bottom at least fifty times, broke open every door but the parlor, took every grain of corn and left us without one dust of flour. Nearly all of our meat, every fowl we had, both carriages, all of the horses, played destruction generally.
     Our cattle were in the field and I heard them bawling. I asked a yankee who had come of his own accord to try and protect us, to go with us. We started and I was driving the cows to the house when I met a whole regiment. I succeeded in getting them into the yard and I saw a few sheep they had not killed, so I went immediately with the same yankee and while driving them to the house several fired into them, but I knew they did not dare shoot me and I got them up in the dairy and succeeded in keeping them through the night. Several cussed us and in fact I believe they were the worst that ever lived. Dr. Daily who was here at the time says he knew that there was more than one thousand in the house. They got here Tuesday morning and did not leave till twelve o'clock Wednesday. They threatened to take the Captain off, but did not fortunately. He left yesterday. We hated so much to give him up. All became so much attached to him.
     Dr. Storry has been very kind indeed to us, he has provided us with all that we have had to eat since they left. They tore up the Chancellors' clothes, destroyed almost all they had and as far as we can tell nearly all have fared alike. I've not been able to hear from Mrs. Todd, presume she fared as we did. There is nothing before us now but starvation, but I trust a just God will protect us. 
     George [8] was here Wednesday. He was looking very well, his brigade was then at Waller's Tavern. Miss Nancy, when you write or speak to him about religion he seems very much concerned indeed, and from his conversation, I trust he is a converted boy. He gave me a pen knife he captured together with a watch from Gen. Custer's Adj. General.
     The yankees even tore off the plaster of Dr. Pulliam's [9] cellar, thinking something had been hid, took money off Lucie's [10] and his clothes, together with everything else. Lucie is with the Doctor. It is perfectly useless to try and tell what they have done, for we are constantly finding that they have taken things we did not miss at first, and left us only seven towels. Also robbed the servants of their provisions and clothing.
                                                                                                Fondly yours,
                                                                                                Maria Dobyns

Leroy Wonderful Dobyns and family (American Antiquarian Society)

[1] Chandler and his second wife Mary Frazier moved to Fairfield plantation in Caroline County. In 1863 the wounded Stonewall Jackson was brought there to recuperate from the amputation of his left arm. He stayed in the small building used as an office, where he died.
[2] A slave of Leroy Dobyns.
[3] General James H. Wilson, 3rd Cavalry Division.
[4]  A slave of Leroy Dobyns.
[5] Major William B. Darlington of the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry. He is believed to have been shot by Confederate sharpshooter John Cooper, who was sitting in a cherry tree on Keller's Hill. Darlington's leg was amputated and he was later freed by Sheridan's troopers while still recuperating at the home of William Shelton Buchanan.
[6] The Buchanans lived across Catharpin Road from Oakley.
[7] Richard Todd and his brother Oscar served in the 9th Virginia Cavalry. Their family owned Todd's Tavern.
[8] George Washington Estes Row, my great grandfather. More about his Civil War exploits can be read here. About the time Maria wrote her letter George also captured a memorandum book from a trooper of the 5th New York Cavalry.
[9] Dr. John D. Pulliam, a neighbor who served in the 9th Virginia Cavalry.
[10] Dr. Pulliam's wife.
    
    


    
    

The Furnace, the Rheumatism and the Yankees

Madora and Absalom Chewning

     It's one of those stories whose circumstances were not amusing to the participants at the time, but is very humorous in its retelling years later.
     In the far reaches of western Spotsylvania County, next to the sprawling plantation of Ellwood, was Mountain View. Built in 1825 by William V. Chewning (with substantial improvements and repairs made after the Civil War) the house stood until 1947, when it unfortunately burned shortly after it was sold by Irvin "Mack" Chewning, William's grandson.

Mountain View

     William V. Chewning (c.1790-1863) married Permelia Henderson in 1813 and over the next twenty three years she bore him eleven children, including Absalom Herndon Chewning, born September 3, 1833. In the photograph below, Permelia is seated next to her husband, William V. Chewning. The original photograph was shared with me by Chewning descendant and researcher Diane Gray, who generously gave me permission to feature it today. Diane was present with Absalom's granddaughter when the photograph was discovered in the Chewning family Bible forty years ago.

William V. and Permelia Henderson Chewning 

     William Chewning was killed in a freak accident at Herndon's mill on Wilderness Run in 1863. Permelia and Absolom continued to live at Mountain View. The Chewning family's story at Mountain View during the Civil War is one of high drama, including the near capture of a Confederate general and the single-handed capture of a group of Union soldiers by Marcus Chewning during the battle of the Wilderness. 
     Two circumstances prevented Absalom Chewning from serving in the Confederate army. Even as a young man Absalom suffered from rheumatism. So much so, in fact, that at times he could scarcely get around. Even had he not been so afflicted, Absalom would have been exempted from conscription by virtue of his skills as a master blacksmith. His knowledge and ability in forging iron was much too important an asset for the Confederacy to risk having him exposed to the dangers of battle.

Catharine Furnace

     This depiction of how Catharine Furnace may have looked, by artist Stuart M. Barnette, was generously shared with me by my friends at the National Park Service in Fredericksburg. Built in the 1830s, the iron works here had fallen into disuse before the Civil War. Once Virginia seceded it became immediately apparent that facilities such as this one would be vital to the war effort. During the war high quality iron was made at Catherine Furnace and shipped to the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Cannonballs were also manufactured in Spotsylvania. Absalom Chewning was the chief blacksmith there.

From the story on Absolom Chewning, 1932

     The August 17, 1932 edition of The Free Lance Star featured a story about Absalom at Catherine Furnace which was reprinted from The Infantry Journal, USA. Local resident Jeter Talley told this story of Ab Chewning's dramatic experience during the battle of Chancellorsville to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Battlefields Memorial Commission:
     "Ab was not allowed to enlist in the Confederate army, first because he was needed at the Furnace to help turn out iron; second, because he had such a bad case of rheumatism they had to carry him in some of his spells and hoist him to places in a sling so he could check up on jobs.
     "One of Ab's chief helpers was Sprig Dempsey, who was a good-hearted big fellow and a great friend of Ab's. Well, Sprig told me himself Ab got cured of his rheumatism in a way that seemed to everybody at the time nothing short of a miracle. They were fitting a ventilator, or something, on the roof of a low building connected with the foundry. Jackson's men went marching by, but everybody was used to seeing troops moving, so they kept right on with their work. But hardly had Jackson's men gone and the wagons were passing at Welford's when here came a Georgia regiment [the 23rd Georgia Infantry], left by Jackson to guard the road up toward Hazel Grove, moving back to the foundry and moving fast. The woods were full of Yankees, they said, and they couldn't stand them off much longer. Well, that didn't phase anybody, because they were used to scares; and, anyhow, Ab and Sprig and the rest of the iron men had no doubt for a minute those Georgia boys could whip a woods full of Yankees anytime. So they just went on with their tinkering while the Georgians got into the foundry and spread out on both sides of it and fixed everything for a fight. A chance of them were on the bluff above the foundry, others were in those low-ground woods skirmishing like Indians.
      "All of a sudden up on the bluff there broke out such a racket of shooting and yelling that Sprig and Ab got uneasy and then--Whooee! Georgians began to pour over the bluff like a waterfall and the sky behind them clouded up and rained Yankees down into the Furnace hollow. Sprig and the rest of the iron men took out for Scott's Run yonder, the other side of which Posey's brigade was fortifying. The Georgians outside the foundry drifted back towards the railroad, jumping from tree to tree and shooting at the Yankees surrounding the soldiers in the foundry.
     "Sprig said he reached the bank of Scott's Run in what seemed three bounds and was just about to plunge across when he remembered poor Ab Chewning back there on the roof. He stopped short and was studying what he could do to help Ab get away when a man shot by him like a bat out of a barn and made a leap that carried him clear across Scott's Run, which was more than Sprig could do or had thought of doing.
     "It was Ab.
     "Ab had been completely cured of his rheumatism; and if you don't believe it you can go down to Scott's Run and look at the place, which is there just like in 1863.
     "Well, sir, Sprig Dempsey was so astonished he couldn't believe what he was looking at with his own eyes. He just couldn't. And as he stood gazing where Ab had vanished through the forest a parcel of Yankees that thought they were chasing Ab came running up and captured Dempsey.
     "To his dying day Sprig Dempsey said he had never seen anything like it in his life how those Yankees had cured Ab Chewning of that rheumatism, which even bee-stinging had failed to cure."

     Absalom Chewning survived the war and his near capture by Union soldiers. He married Madora Ann Spicer in 1869 and together they raised ten children at Mountain View. Absalom died on February 23, 1923 and is buried at New Hope Baptist Church in Orange County.

Absalom Chewning, about 1920

    
    

John Edgar Willson

John Edgar Willson

     J. Edgar Willson, one of my great-grandmother's uncles, was born in Rockbridge County at the Willson farm "Mount Pleasant" on April 30, 1833. He was the oldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Poague Willson. In 1858 Edgar married Elvira Brooks and about that time bought a farm near Mount Pleasant where their seven children were born 1859-1872.

Edgar Willson home, Rockbridge County

     Edgar Willson is believed to have served in the Fourteenth Virginia Cavalry with his brothers Matthew, Thomas and William. He evidently "lost the use of his arms" temporarily and was mustered out. On October 23, 1864 he enlisted in Company I of the Fourth Virginia Infantry in Lexington.
     Private Willson was badly wounded on April 2, 1865 when Union forces breached the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. He was taken to Chimborazo Hospital and was captured there the next day. Two weeks later he was sent to Jackson Hospital in Richmond and by the end of the month he was under the jurisdiction of the provost marshal. Edgar still appears on a roll of prisoners of war at Jackson Hospital on May 28, 1865.
     But he eventually recovered and came back home to Rockbridge. He worked as a farmer for the rest of his life and four of his seven children were born after his return from the war.

Edgar and Elvira Willson and family, 1870s

     The year after the Civil War ended saw the beginning of a long train of sadness and misery for most of the Willson children. In 1866 his first born, Elizabeth, died at age seven. Eighteen year old Mary died of tuberculosis on Christmas Day 1879. His daughter Elvira passed away in 1894 at twenty years of age. After Edgar's death two of his three surviving daughters were declared insane and were committed to what was then called the Western State Lunatic Asylum in Staunton. Harriet was sent there in 1888 at the age of twenty two. She died while still an inmate there some time after 1910. Her younger sister Lucy was institutionalized on January 1, 1898 and died in November of the same year.

Lucy Willson

     Fortunately, the stories of his other two children have much happier endings. Ann married Finley Willson McClure and they inherited her father's farm which was still in their family fifty years later. All four of the McClure children lived long and apparently normal lives.
     Edgar's only son, James William Willson, graduated from VMI and became superintendent of the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he served until his death in 1922.

James William Willson

James William Willson

     J.E. Willson's first wife, Elvira, died in 1877. Two years later he married Martha Brooks Dold, a widow from Augusta County. Her first husband was killed while fighting at Bethesda Church near Richmond, just ninety days after their wedding in February 1864.
     John Edgar Willson died on April 22, 1887, leaving behind an estate heavily burdened by debt. He is buried at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Rockbridge.

Maria Newton Marshall

Maria Marshall (standing, second from right) and family, 1898

     In my previous post I mentioned in passing that my great grandmother, Elizabeth Houston Row, engaged the services of Maria Newton Marshall of Orange County to teach at Sunshine, our old home place in Spotsylvania. One of my alert readers picked up on my reference to the fact that Maria was a great granddaughter of John Marshall, who had been Chief Justice of the United States.
      Indeed, she was. Maria was the daughter of Fielding Lewis Marshall, grandson of the Chief Justice. Fielding was the father of nineteen children by two wives. Maria was born in 1869 of Fielding's second wife. The family was closely affiliated with St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Orange and they were very active as teachers and missionaries. Maria herself worked as a missionary in the mountain communities of Virginia. The photograph above comes from an article in the June 2007 number of the newsletter of the Orange Historical Society, written by Frank Walker, Jr. It is a short and interesting read and can be found here.
     I am not certain how my great grandmother linked up with Maria. The Marshalls were well known in the area because of their missionary work. Also, Maria's father served in the Sixth Virginia Cavalry with my great grandfather during the Civil War. Based on the ages of Lizzie Row's children, I would guess that Maria taught at Sunshine sometime during the late 1880s to early 1890s.
     In June 1899 my great grandmother lost both her mother and her oldest son, Houston Row, within nine days of each other. This double tragedy triggered an outpouring of grief from many friends and family members who wrote letters of condolence to my great grandmother. Among them was one from Maria Marshall. The first page of that letter is shown below, followed by my transcription.

Maria Marshall to Lizzie Row, 16 June 1899

Transcription of Maria Marshall's letter

     Maria Newton Marshall lived until 1934 and is buried in Graham cemetery in Orange County.