D. TRANSCRIBED AND ANNOTATED LETTER WRITEN BY CATHERINE “KITTY” SPENCE PITTS IN 1848
(Kitty was the mother of Ellen Nancy Pitts Allen, my great grandmother.)
Twenty years had passed since Kitty left Westmoreland, Virginia with her husband Dr. George Richardson Pitts and their three oldest sons for St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Pitts had purchased land in Dardenne Prairie in St. Charles County, Missouri in 1831 where Kitty still lived. Eight more children were born to them in Missouri, including my great grandmother Ellen Nancy. Three years prior to the writing of this letter Dr. Pitts had died. He would have been about 51 and may have died unexpectedly as I can find no Last Will and Testament for him. Regardless, on 24 October 1845 his oldest son Benjamin (23 at the time) became the principal administrator of his father’s estate. Then on 1 March 1847 his second son Oliver (23 at the time) and George’s wife Catherine (Kitty, 46) were added as securities.
The following was transcribed in 1954 by Ethel Briggs Cook (the same cousin who transcribed the 1828 letter in section D. above) from the original hand-written letter:
Copy of letter written in 18481 by Catherine E. (Kitty) Pitts2 to her daughter, Virginia Pitts3
My dear Virginia,
I received your truly welcome and affectionate letter, dated the 19th of October (1848), which gave me, as well as the rest of the family, great pleasure. To hear that you and brother4 are well and getting along well is a source of pleasure, I can’t well describe in a letter.
It found us all well with the exception of William5, whom we were compelled to take home, as he was not able to attend to his business. We were compelled to employ Dr. Talley6 as your cousin George7 was about to leave here for Red River [I believe Red River Parish, Louisiana], and I very much fear he [William]will hardly recover. Dr. Talley thinks it is doubtful, but I live in hopes, and trust in my Supreme Maker for his recovery, and I assure you there shall be nothing lacking on Ben’s8and my part to accomplish his recovery. He would be a considerable loss to us, but so far we can’t complain of bad luck with our ——- but, my dear, don’t let it make you uneasy, as long as there is breath, there is hope.
Yes, my poor little Cousin George7 is gone to live down south on one of his uncle’s farms, and if he will be steady he can do very well as his uncle wrote him a very affectionate letter and made him a good offer. He showed me the letter, poor little fellow, he came up last Sunday and ate his last dinner with me, and started Monday morning. You must know, I felt like I had just parted from one of my own sons, as you know what obligation I was under to him as a physician9, and what a fine hearted man I always thought him to be. But, it was best for him to go as he was doing worse than nothing about here.
Sister Fanny10 and the girls11 had left before I received your letter, and Mary12 is looking for their return every week. Mr. Randolph’s13 father14 is now on a visit to his son, and your cousin, Mary12. I understand through Phillip15 and Ben8, he is a fine looking old gentleman, and talks of buying a farm here. He says he is very much pleased with the country. He has been looking at the old Isaac Kethlen farm16, and your brother, Ben, has just got home, and says, he will, he thinks, buy it and that he has to go down in the morning to draw up instrument of writing. Are you surprised at his purchasing such a place, and in such a neighborhood? But I expect the old gentleman is very poor as he gets the farm for nine hundred dollars. I suspect that’s the reason. His family will come out next spring, and, he will remain in the army.
Ben dined at Mr. Randolph’s13 today and your cousin Mary12 told him she has received a letter from our Cousin Fanny10 saying she and the girls11 are in Cincinnati, and she would have been on before this but for the water down the Ohio, but ere this reaches you they will probably be with us.
Your brother Ben8 wrote to brother Alec4 this week before I received your last letter, and mentioned that Mr. Walton35 said in regard to Needwood, that his price was two thousand five hundred till spring and after that time he would ask three thousand as he should go on to build another kitchen and some more outhouses, and he wishes brother to let him know immediately so he may know how to proceed. Dr. Talley6 says it’s the best and cheapest and prettiest farm of any in Larden [Dardenne] County prairie17. He has built a fine house near Preston’s Lane and he says he hopes we will be neighbors as it will be just a pretty ride from his home. He seems to be very friendly.
What do you think when I tell you, your brother Ben8 and Mr. William Randolph13 joining the Presbyterian Church. Will wonders never cease, but Thank God, it does not prevent him from playing fiddle, for the very day he returned he played many reels and cotillions for the children to dance. He says the Presbyterians do not prohibit dancing in little private circles, or playing a game of whist with relatives or friends. But I told him I had rather he would not have joined that he could have been good and moral without ——–
We are all here together, and get along very well, there seems to be as much room now as there was before they came up. We all eat together, and Roberta18 and myself get along very well with our work, as I bought the boys coats already made from St. Louis [around 9 miles from St. Charles], and Martha Sims19, a good little soul like run the tucks, and stitched the risbands [wristbands?]of the boys’ fine shirts for me, and helped me a good deal in other sewing. I want you to give her some present when you return, for I really esteem her higher than any other girl I am acquainted with, she is truly the true grit in principal. She has stayed a good deal with me since Roberta moved up, and she is worth as many of the Pulliams, Allens, and Walkers20 as can stand from here to St. Charles [the distance from Dardenne Prairie to St Charles is about 17 miles].
Well I have gotten my winter supply. I got [material for] three dresses apiece for the girls, but shant make up but two apiece for them, and will make the other up in the spring. I think it will push Roberta18 and myself even with the assistance of the little girls21,22,23 to get through the winter work as Roberta has got her children’s24 clothes and hers, and Ben’s to do, and Caroline25 has had a rising nearly all fall, on first one thumb and then the other [could she have had juvenile idiopathic arthritis?] which prevents her from doing hardly anything but knit. I have now 2 pair of stockings for Georgia23, 2 pair for Ellen22 and Annis and Maria26, is to knit now [this should probably read “and Ann’s and Maria’s to knit now” – thank you, Sharon], having only footed a pair for Maria, but by the time this reaches you, I will have Georgia’s23 and Ellen’s22 done. Carrie25 will knit a pair for Milly21, and she made her a present for them, and she is now knitting herself a pair. Emily21 is finishing the pair she was about, and had them dyed, and is smartly on the way of another pair. Your little Ellen22 has turned very industrious and sews very well for a child of her age, and we praise her, which makes her do still more, for you know she loves praise and flattery. The boys15,27 have not gone to school yet and I fear they will not have a chance till after Christmas as we have to keep three large and steady fires, and Ben8 has so much riding and business to attend to that he cannot help much, but they shall study hard this winter and after Christmas I will try and send them to Mr. Boswell who teaches at Mrs. Preston’s28 and she sent word to me by Dr. Tally6 she would take them any time.
Phil15 has just returned from St. Louis. He says Tom29 was well, and Tom says the boys had better not come down till spring, but Ben8 says they had better go the week after Christmas, but I shall write you what we shall do with the boys ————- and as soon as we get them in employment. Ned27 is the same thoughtless fellow, but Phil15 acts like a man now, and they say you can’t want to see them worse than they want to see you.
Sarah and Mary Pulliam30 just left here yesterday after staying nearly a week, and all they did was make one apron for Caroline25 and quilt a little on Roberta’s18 underskirt. Sarah loves Tom29 fit to kill any poor girl in this world, but, oh, it won’t do for now. Do write to Tom as he is very anxious to hear from you and his Uncle Alec4. I received a long letter from Walter31 since I wrote you last and he is in fine spirits, and I am looking for Oliver32 hourly. When you write to Brother Henry’s33 family, give my love to every member of the family and tell them to write to me.
Well, I must stop as my hand is about to give out, and all black and white have gone to bed and it’s 11 o’clock, and my fire is nearly burned down and my fingers are cold. I could write twice as much as I have written, but fear you and brother4 can’t make out this scroll. Do try to get this scopio roots [??] for Mr. Randolph13, as he buys ——— they know in North Carolina.
All your friends send their love to you, all of your brothers15,27 and Ben8 and Roberta18, and the little girls25,21,22,23 join in love to you and brother4. Do, my dear Lotte3, write the very moment you get this. Give my love to your cousin William34 and wife. Tell your Uncle Alec4 to write immediately also. Farewell, my dear daughter, and believe me your affectionate mother,
Catherine E. Pitts (Kitty)
Little Peyton24 is one of the prettiest and most interesting child I almost ever saw. Ben’s little George24 said tell Aunt Lotty3 to bring him some candy and a little Leghorn hat. Ellen22 is delighted at the idea of your having a present for her. My little Georgia23 has turned one of the best children in the world, and says she wants to see you very much, and says don’t forget Georgia Ann.
FOOTNOTES:
1Obviously after October 19, 1848, when Virginia had dated her letter, but before Christmas of 1848 as “the boys” weren’t returning to school until after Christmas.
2Kitty would have been about 47.
3Virginia, about 18 (circa 1830 – 1888), was Kitty’s oldest daughter. Kitty also refers to her as “Lotte” and “Lotty” in this letter. Virginia’s middle initial was “C” so perhaps it’s safe to assume the C stood for Charlotte. (In Kitty’s letter of 1828 she seems very taken by a display of a popular novel of the time in the Museum in Cincinnati of “poor Charlotte Temple and her little infant.” Two years later when her first daughter was born did she give her the middle name of Charlotte because of this?) Thirty-five years after this letter, in 1883, articles from various newspapers in Missouri refer to Virginia as Lottie and show that she became a teacher and never married. She taught for a while at the Rich Hill Female Seminary that her sister Ellen and husband Robert Allen (my great grandparents) helped establish in Rich Hill, Bates County, Missouri. At some point in her fifties she moved to Orlando, Florida. An article on August 3, 1888, in the Bates County Republican states, “Miss Virginia C. Pitts, of Orlanda [sic], Florida, came in Sunday and is visiting her sister, Mrs. R. A. Allen, of the Seminary.” Then just a few months later, on October 5th, the Bates County Republican reported, “Miss Virginia Pitts, sister of Mrs. R. A. Allen died at the residence of the latter on East Park Avenue last Saturday, of fever. The remains were taken to St. Louis for interment.”
4While this could be one of Virginia’s brothers, I believe it is more likely to be Kitty’s brother Alexander (Alec) Spence, about 43 (circa 1805 – 1858), with whom it appears Virginia had gone to Westmoreland, Virginia, for a visit with the relatives of her mother (Kitty), or perhaps (now that she was 18) to help her cousin William34 and his wife Cornelia with their four young children (Edward Evan – 8, Sarah Isabell – 6, William Amos – 3, and Evan Green – 1). This assumption is based on who Kitty sends greetings to at the end of this letter. (“Give my love to your cousin William and wife28. Tell your Uncle Alec to write immediately also.”).
5There are several possibilities for the identity of this William: 1) He was one of those enslaved by the family. The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t take effect until a little over 12 years later. In the 1840 U.S. Census the family has eight enslaved people including one male 10-23 years old. The 1850 slave census, two years after this letter, shows Kitty had five enslaved people, although no adult males, so William could have died. Possibly part of “his business” was to help keep the “large and steady fires” mentioned later in the letter that kept “the boys” from going to school. Kitty would have been concerned at the prospect of possibly losing the only adult male she had enslaved. 2) He was Kitty’s nephew, the son of Thomas H. Pitts and Frances Bernard Lambeth Pitts and brother to “Cousin George” and would have been about 39 in 1848. I find very few references to that William in the historical documents other than in the Last Will and Testament of his Uncle William Meredith Lambeth in section G. below. If it is Cousin William then he did not die from the illness in 1848 as his Uncle’s will was written in 1853. However, I lean more to the first theory because Kitty does not identify him as Virginia’s cousin or seem as distraught about the possibility of him dying as she does about William’s brother “Cousin George” simply moving to Louisiana. 3) While William might have been another son of George and Kitty, I have the least amount of leaning towards this theory, mostly for the same reason in theory 2). But also because of the the 1830 and 1840 U.S. Censuses. See footnote 31 for more detail on that.
6Dr. John Archer Talley, 35 (1813-1885). Interestingly, Dr. Talley had married Paulina Preston in 1845, three years prior to this letter. She was the older sister of Ouachita Preston who was with Oliver Pitts32 (Kitty’s son) in California for the gold rush in 1850 and who, in 1864, married Virginia and Oliver’s cousin Jane Pitts, youngest daughter of Thomas H. Pitts (brother of George Richardson Pitts) and Frances Bernard Lambeth Pitts10. So, Dr. Talley became family by marrying the sister-in-law of Kitty’s niece (see the family tree at the end of this section). The following biographical sketch about Dr. Talley is taken from A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri by William S. Bryan, published in 1876:
Dr. John A. Talley, although not one of the pioneers of Missouri, is so well known, and has been engaged for so many years in the practice of medicine and surgery in St. Charles county, that a sketch of his life will not be out of place in this connection. He was born in Cumberland Co., Va., June 5, 1813. At an early age he became well versed in the English classics and the principal Greek and Latin authors, having been thoroughly instructed in them by a private tutor at home; and at the age of seventeen he was sent to Randolph Macon College, where, after a rigid examination, he was at once placed in the advanced classes. He remained at this institution two years, when he entered the University of Virginia, and graduated in medicine and surgery in 1840. Soon after receiving his diploma, he was appointed assistant surgeon at the alms house [Almshouse] in Richmond, Va., where he learned the practical application of the theories which he had studied in college. He subsequently practiced a year and a half with his brother, Dr. Z. Talley, and in the fall of 1840 he started, on horseback, for Missouri, followed by his favorite pointer dog. He located in St. Charles county, and boarded at the house of Col. C. F. Woodson, who resided a few miles south of the present site of Wentzville. He soon gained a large and remunerative practice, and during the sickly season of 1844 he was kept so constantly in the saddle that he could not procure the requisite amount of rest, and came near sacrificing his own life in his efforts to save others. In 1845 he married Paulina C. Preston, a daughter of Col. W. R. Preston, of Botetourt Co., Va. The Preston family is one of the most distinguished and extensive in the United States, and from it have sprung statesmen, soldiers and scholars of the highest renown. Two sons resulted from this marriage, William P. and Edwin. The former graduated in medicine at the University of Virginia and is now practicing his profession at Wentzville. Dr Talley is advanced in years [he would have been 63 at the writing of this book] but retains his mental and physical vigor unimpaired, and faithfully attends to his extensive and laborious practice.
7George F. Pitts, 26 (1822- after 1860), cousin to Kitty’s children and son of George Richardson Pitts’ brother Thomas H. Pitts and Frances Bernard Lambeth Pitts10. His uncle William Meredith Lambeth (1800-1853) owned multiple farms or plantations (per his will written in 1851 which is presented in section G. below) and lived in New Orleans where George Pitts appears two years later in the 1850 Census. By 1860 George was married and, along with his wife Mollie, was living in Jackson, Texas with his brother-in-law O.P. (Ouachita) Preston, sister Jane Preston11, and his mother Fanny B. Pitts10. I have found no definitive information about him after the 1860 U.S. Census.
8Benjamin R. Pitts, 26 (1822-1854), Kitty’s oldest son, a lawyer who could also play the fiddle (like my sister, Sharon). From various articles from newspapers around Missouri, Benjamin was active in the political arena from at least 1846 until June of 1854 when he was a candidate for Senator. He was only 32 when he died in October of 1854.
9Does “what obligation I was under to him as a physician” seem to mean that George was acting as a physician? Kitty did say they were “compelled to employ Dr. Talley as your cousin George was about to leave here for Red River”. Or perhaps this was transcribed from the original handwritten letter incorrectly. Either way, if indeed “poor little Cousin George” is George F. Pitts in footnote 7 above, I do not find evidence that he was ever actually a physician.
10Frances Bernard Lambeth Pitts, 50 (1798-1882), Kitty’s sister-in-law and cousin by marriage, who had five children by Thomas H. Pitts, the brother of my second great grandfather George Richardson Pitts: Mary Pitts Randolph12, William Pitts, George F. Pitts7, Isabella Pitts11, and Jane Pitts11. Prior to the Civil War “Fanny” as she was called, moved to Jackson, Texas with her son George. After the Civil War she was living in Orange County, Florida with her nephew Walter Pitts. She died in Orlando in 1882 and is buried at the Greenwood Cemetery there.
11Isabella, 18 (1830 – circa 1858), and Jane, 17 (1831-1904), the youngest daughters of Thomas H. Pitts and Frances B. Lambeth Pitts10. In 1853 Isabella married Virginius Randolph. She died about five years later in 1858 and Virginius married again in 1859. In 1854 Jane married Ouachita Pushmataha “O.P.” Preston (1833-1901), the younger brother of Dr. Talley’s6 wife Paulina Preston. They had four children together. O.P died in 1901 and Jane in 1904, both in Orlando, Florida. (While I do not know why O.P. Preston’s parents gave him such an unusual name when the rest of his siblings had standard English names, I can report where his names may have originated. Ouachita was a Native American Tribe after whom is named a mountain range and National Forest in Arkansas and Oklahoma, a lake in Arkansas, a parish in Louisiana, and a Baptist University in Arkansas, among others. Pushmataha was a chief of the Choctaw Tribe who died in Washington D.C. on 24 December 1824.)
12 Mary Eleanor Pitts Randolph, 34 (1814 – 1886), the oldest daughter of Thomas H. Pitts and Frances B. Lambeth10, married to William Randolph13. In the 1850 U.S. Census Fanny10, Isabelle, and Jane11 were living in the same home as William and Mary Randolph and their two children in St. Charles, Missouri. Sometime after 1840 Fanny had left her husband Thomas H Pitts who was still residing in Virginia. More detail about this follows in section G. below.
13William Mayer Randolph, 33 (1815-1876), a lawyer and the husband of Mary Pitts12, Fanny’s10 oldest daughter.
14General Thomas Beverly Randolph, 56 (1792-1867), the father of William Mayer Randolph.13
15Phillip Pitts, 16 (1832-1909), was one of Kitty’s sons. I say this with confidence not only by the familiarity with which Kitty refers to him later, in the paragraph where she talks about “the boys” going back to school, but also by an article thirty-five years later on August 11, 1883, in The Lexington Intelligencer which stated, “Miss Lottie Pitts and Mr. Philip Pitts are visiting their sister, Mrs. R. A. Allen.” Philip married Jane Staly in 1855. They never had children. He died in Chicago in 1909 and is buried in St. Louis. His wife died ten years later in Waverly, Missouri. Philip Pitts, “16”, was enumerated with a bunch of other young tradesmen at the John F. Moore Boarding House in the 1850 U.S. Census as a blacksmith working in St. Louis. His trade in the 1880 U.S. Census and on his death certificate was that of machinist.
16Possibly incorrectly transcribed from the original letter. There is an Isaac Kiethly in Dardenne Prairie in the 1840 U.S. Census but no Kethlen.
17Probably originally incorrectly transcribed. I believe it is Dardenne County Prairie where the Pitts lived in St. Charles County according to the 1840 census. Two years later, in the 1850 Census, Ben, a lawyer, and his family were living with Alexander Spence, a single man and a farmer, in St. Charles, Missouri. But at that point it was enumerated as District 78, St. Charles County. Whether they purchased Needwood from Mr. Walton35, and who Mr. Walton was, is unclear.
18Susan Roberta Simms Pitts, 23 (1825-1905), wife of Kitty’s son Ben8. My great grandmother Ellen Nancy Pitts Allen named her second daughter Roberta, possibly after her brother Ben’s wife.
19Martha Sims (Simms) was probably Roberta Simms18Pitts’s sister and Ben’s8 sister-in-law.
20I believe at the time these were just neighbors, although Kitty’s then nine-year-old daughter Ellen Nancy would marry an Allen twelve years later. My original thought was “how rude” as it seemed she saw the Pulliams, Allens and Walkers as lazy. Which may be true given how she talks about Sarah and Mary Pulliam later in the letter. But I also noticed, in scouring for these names in the 1840 and 1850 censuses, that these families seemed to be fairly wealthy farmers and therefore, perhaps, influential in the area. So, her comment then could be quite a compliment to Martha if she’d rather have one Martha Sims to all the others. However, I think it was more the former, i.e., meant as an insult to the Pulliams, Allens and Walkers.
21Kitty’s daughter Mary Emily, 11 (1837- after 1880), also, I believe, referred to as “Milly” in this letter. Eighteen years after this letter, in 1866, she married John Francis Quisenberry whose first wife Susannah had died in 1865 after giving birth to her 9th child. At least six of those children had died before their mother. Mary Emily, at 29, became a stepmother to John’s three surviving children: Lucy (14, who would five years later marry Mary Emily’s brother Edward), Fannie (7), and William (4). Mary Emily and John Quisenberry had three children of their own before he died in 1873. John and Mary’s daughter Amanda died in 1881 when she was about 10. Emily, as she was called, 49 at the time, and her boys Oliver Pitts Quisenberry (19, obviously named after her brother) and John Francis Quisenberry (17, named after his father) all died when their house in Fulton, Missouri caught fire in the early hours of March 1, 1886. The full story of this fire was reported in The Fulton Gazette and is included in my chapter “The Story of My Great Grandparents Robert Alexander Allen and Ellen Nancy Pitts”. Mary Emily was 49, Oliver was 19, and John was 17. The boys had both been students at Westminster College in Fulton. Mary Emily and her children as well as two of her stepchildren are listed in the 1880 U.S. Census for Saint Ferdinand, St. Louis County, Missouri. (In section K. below the 1867 murder of her cousin, also named Mary Emily Pitts, is covered.)
22Kitty’s daughter Ellen Nancy, 9 (1839-1939), my great grandmother.
23Kitty’s youngest daughter Georgia Ann, 5 (1843-1927), probably did not help with the sewing. Georgia Ann married John Mallory in 1869 and had seven children together, only three of whom survived past infancy. We are matched to her descendants through Ancestry DNA. She died in 1927 in Hardin, Missouri.
24George, 2 (1846- before 1900), and Peyton, about 6 months (1848-1929), the two sons of Benjamin8 and Roberta18 Pitts, Kitty’s grandsons, and Virginia’s nephews.
25Kitty’s second daughter Caroline Pitts, 12 (1836 – 1911), also referred to in this letter as Carrie. In the 1870 U.S. Census for Lexington, Lafayette, Missouri she is living with my great grandparents Robert and Ellen (her sister) Allen and their three oldest living daughters. Her last name looks to be Bedy or Beily (although the census taker wrote Roberta Allen’s name as “Burden” so Caroline’s last name, which was still Pitts at the time, was obviously incorrectly written). In 1878, when she was 43, at the home of her sister, Ellen, she married a widow named Thomas P. Thompson. He was fifteen years her senior and raising his grandson who would have been about ten when they married. Her husband died probably before 1909 as an article on June 4, 1909, in The Delta Independent gives her name as Mrs. Carrie Thompson who, along with her niece Mrs. F. A. Briggs (Roberta) “departed Tuesday for Lexington, Mo., where they will remain a short time and the latter will then go on to her home in Florida and Mrs. Briggs will return”. In the 1910 U.S. Census for Fort Pierce, St. Lucie, Florida she is listed as a widow. By 1911 she must have been quite sick as in January her sister, Ellen, my great grandmother, came to visit her in Fort Pierce and just a few days later the February 3rd edition of the St. Lucie News Tribune reported the following: “Mrs. Carrie Thompson, one of the oldest residents of St. Lucie county, died at midnight Monday. The deceased was seventy-eight years of age … Death resulted from the infirmitives [sic] of old age.”
26I do not know who Ann and Maria are, if indeed the portion transcribed as “and Annis and Maria, is to knit now” (which doesn’t make sense) should read “and Ann’s and Maria’s to knit now.” Ann and Maria may have been young enslaved girls as on the 1850 slave schedule, which does not include their names, Kitty claimed a 24-year-old female and an eight-year-old and five-year-old female as well as two young boys who were three and two. But I don’t know that she would have knitted stockings for the two little girls who would have been 6 and 3 in 1848.
27“The boys”- I’m making an educated assumption that they are Phillip15 (16) and Edward (Ned, 14 or 15 – 1833-1907), Kitty’s youngest sons. Two years later in the 1850 U.S. Census Edward is said to be 16 and is listed with his mother and sisters in St. Charles County, Missouri. In the 1860 U.S. Census Edward J. Pitts, 27, a teacher in Jackson, Texas, was living next to his Aunt Fanny B. Pitts10 and cousin Jane Pitts Preston11 and family. By 1880 he was back in St. Louis County, Missouri. He and his wife Lucy Quisenberry (who was the stepdaughter of his sister Mary Emily Pitts Quisenberry) had three small children and he was still teaching school. In 1883 he was the Deputy National President of the National American Association and gave a lecture in Lexington, Missouri on its behalf. (I’m not sure what sort of association that was). In July of 1885 The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo reported that his sister, Virginia, “left Tuesday for a three weeks’ visit with her brother, Prof. E. J. Pitts, principal of the Pattonsville, St. Louis county, high school.” In January of 1891, according to the St. Charles Weekly Cosmos, he was canvassing “in the county for Farm Field and Stockman, a most excellent Agricultural and farmers Alliance paper”. In November of that year, according to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, he “gave a very creditable summary of Sir Walter Scott’s works” for the Florissant Valley Literary Society. In September of 1893, at the St. Louis County Fair, according to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “The old men’s race was won by Prof. Edward J. Pitts, of Bridgeton, aged 60.” Again in 1894 the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported “The 100-yard dash for men over 50 years of age was won hands down by Prof. E. J. Pitts, of Bridgeton. Time — :13.” In October and November of 1894 two articles, were printed in the Daily Cosmos-Monitor of St. Charles, Missouri that had originally appeared in the St. Louis County Watchman which described Edward as “a learned, educated man, a former Democrat and a talented writer” and in which, he declared he had been “betrayed by my old party … in the most perfidious manner” and that “there is nothing left me but affiliating with a party that has always carried out the spirit of its convictions” He had left the Democratic party (which had been on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War) and become a Republican (which had been on the side of the Union). His older brother Oliver had died fighting on the side of the Confederacy. I have yet to find a record of Edward’s involvement in the Civil War, who would have been about twenty eight at the start of the war. In July of 1895 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported he had arranged
A Joust for Love and Beauty. A novel charitable entertainment … in imitation of the ‘jousts’ of knight errantry of the middle ages. Forty mystic knights, selected from the most prominent young men of the county, will take part in the tournament. The victorious knight will select a young lady, who will be crowned the queen of love and beauty.
By 1900 he and Lucy were living in the city of St. Louis with six of their seven still-living children (three had died). In 1906, when he was 73, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed Edwards opinion against the Roosevelt reformed spelling changes in which he wrote,
It will cost more than it comes to. Not only all the dictionaries, but all the grammars will have to be revised. The roots of many words will be destroyed and cannot be traced to their origin. If more words are gradually to be added to the list, grammars and dictionaries will be continually changing and there is no telling where it will end, and chaos and confusion will be the consequence. I give it my veto in toto.
Nearly eight months later the Post-Dispatch reported his death “suddenly on Wednesday April 24, 1907, at 11:30 a.m.”
28Could this Mrs. Preston be the mother-in-law of Dr. Talley6 and Jane Pitt’s future mother-in-law?
29Tom, perhaps 20, was probably another son of Kitty and Dr. Pitts. Thomas was the name of both George’s and Kitty’s fathers, so it seems logical they would have named one of their sons Thomas. The 1830 U.S. Census reports they had 2 boys under 5 so there is room for him there as well as in the 1840 US Census where there is one male 10-14. However, since names other than the head of house were not listed until the 1850 U.S. Census, we can only use those censuses as hints. I can find no other Thomas Pitts in the 1850 census or beyond that perfectly fits the bill. Yet, from the way Kitty references Tom with Philip and Edward in this letter, as well as saying Tom is anxious to hear from Virginia “and his Uncle Alec”, it seems more than likely that he was another son of Kitty and brother to Virginia, regardless of what happened to him after 1848. There is a Thomas Pitts who was of the same age who fought on the side of the Union as a Wagoner in the 5th Regiment of the Michigan Infantry. However, there is no proof that this is the same Thomas Pitts and as it was the Michigan Infantry, not Missouri or Virginia, it’s highly unlikely, unless he left Missouri because he was on the side of the Union not the Confederacy as most of the rest of his family was.
30Sarah Pulliam, 16, and Mary Pulliam, 14, appear with their mother and brother in the 1850 U.S. Census for St Charles County. I believe they were just neighbors and friends.
31Originally, I did not believe Walter was one of the children of George and Kitty. He never married so there were no descendants to follow his line on Ancestry. At first the only other mention I found of a Walter in the family began with Walter Pitts who was 45 in the 1870 US Census for Orange, Florida with Frances Bernard Lambeth Pitts10, who was 74, living with him. It would make sense if he was Fanny’s son (as some family trees on Ancestry show) as there are other family members living nearby (her youngest daughter Jennie and family; her grandson William Randolph; her grandson-in-law William Harney and her one-year-old great grandson William Harney [her granddaughter Mary having died earlier that year]), however, in the Last Will and Testament of Fanny’s brother William Meredith Lambeth, he leaves a bequeath to the five children of his sister Fanny. Adding Walter would make six, unless William and Walter are the same person, which seems unlikely. When he was 20 Walter S. Pitts enlisted in the Army on 10 October 1845, and served until October 1850 when he was discharged as a Corporal from Dona Ana, New Mexico. Per his enlistment records he was 5’10”, had auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a dark complexion, was born in Westmoreland, Virginia, but was a farmer and enlisted in St. Louis Missouri. His tomb stone says “Capt. W.S. Pitts, Mex. War Vet.” The “Mexican War” was from April 25, 1846 – February 3, 1848. Kitty’s son Oliver Pitts32 also served in this war and perhaps Oliver had just been discharged and was heading home at the time of this letter. From these references and how Kitty refers to Walter in her letter while speaking of her other children, I am quite confident that Walter was one of her sons. He was born in Westmoreland per his enlistment record prior to the time George and Kitty moved, and he enlisted in St Louis, Missouri in 1845 where they lived. Fanny living with him in 1870 would not have been odd as he was her nephew and they had lived close by when he was growing up. Moreover, in looking closer at the 1830 and 1840 U.S. Censuses, which unfortunately only name the head of household, in 1830 George Richardson Pitts had 5 children under the age of 9 living with him (Ben, 8, Oliver, 7, Walter, 4, Thomas, 1, and Virginia, newborn). In 1840 George Richardson Pitts had 9 children aged 19 and under living with him. If Ben, 18, had already gone off to law school, which is likely; and Georgia Ann wasn’t born until 1843, then all eleven children are accounted for: Oliver, 17, Walter, 15, Thomas, 11, Virginia, 9, Philip, 8, Edward, 6, Caroline, 4, Mary Emily, 3, and Ellen, 1. (This gets a bit confusing, but the 1840 census lists two males less than 5, and 3 females less than 5, which would be 5 children under 5 in the house. Now, it’s possible the George Pitts’ were caring for someone’s young child or children, but as the 1840 census does not list any males 5-10 [and Edward and Philip would have been 6 and 8] one might conclude that the census taker erroneously put the “2” in the “males less than 5” line instead of the “males 5-10” line. This would clear up the aggravating discrepancy between the 1830 and 1840 censuses and give everyone a neat place in the family. Until there is further proof otherwise, I will go with this theory.) In 1885 I believe Walter is in Pine Castle, Florida, working as a gardener. In July of 1896 the St. Charles Weekly Cosmos-Monitor reported that “Walter S. Pitts, of Fort Pierce, Florida, has been visiting friends and relatives here. Mr. Pitts was, years ago, a resident of this city [Wentzville, Missouri].” Walter’s sister, Ellen (my great grandmother), and her husband also lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, from 1896 – 1898, and their sister Caroline (Carrie) Pitts Thompson lived there the last years of her life as well. In my section about my great grandparents Robert Alexander Allen and Ellen Nancy Pitts Allen I have included pictures from the Facebook page “Fort Pierce Connection” which show Walter and the tent he lived in with “all his dogs”. According to Find-A-Grave, he died in 1904 and is buried in Fort Pierce, Florida.
32There is also much to be said about Oliver Pitts, 25 (1823-1864), Kitty’s second son. (See section C. above for an account of the Slicker Wars from A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri which relates events from about 1841-1845 involving not only Oliver and his brother Benjamin8 Pitts, but also four of my Allen first cousins four times removed, grandsons of my fourth great grandfather William Allen [1724-1789] who lived in St. Charles County at the time.) Oliver had fought in the “Mexican” war (25 April 1846 – 3 Feb 1848) which ended ten or so months before this letter was written. I have yet to find his enlistment records for that time, but his service record from the Civil War states “served in Mexican War”. In the 1850 U.S. Census he was gold mining in Placerville, El Dorado County, California with Landon and Ouachita Preston, the younger brothers of Dr. John Archer Talley’s6 wife, Paulina. (Six years later, in 1854, Ouachita Preston would marry Oliver’s cousin, Jane Eliza Pitts11, the youngest daughter of Thomas H. Pitts and Frances B. Lambeth Pitts10.) Gold had been discovered in Coloma, Eldorado County, California on the 24th of January 1848. In the 1860 U.S. Census Oliver, 37 and unmarried, was farming in Beaver Creek, Montgomery County, Missouri. Kitty, his mother, must have died because his five unmarried sisters Virginia3(30), Caroline25(25), Mary Emily21(23), Ellen Nancy22(20), and Georgia Ann23(16) were all living with him. (My great grandmother Ellen would marry Robert Alexander Allen of Truxton, Missouri a few months later in December of 1860.) On the 4th of December of 1861, seven months after the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, Oliver enlisted on the side of the Confederacy in Company C of the 2nd Missouri Infantry in St Claire County Missouri. Per the “Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers who Served in Organizations from the State of Missouri” in the National Archives, he listed that he was a native of Westmoreland, Virginia and the town or Post Office where he resided was Truxton, Missouri. Per the remarks on his Confederate Historic Roll Record written at the time, he was engaged in the battles of Lexington in Kentucky and Elk Horn in Arkansas where he “left sick and captured but escaped, recaptured in 1863 and exchanged.” He was then involved in the Georgia campaign of 1864, Allatoona and finally “Franklin Tenn where he was killed dead in the field in 20 steps of the 2nd line of enemy works on the 30th of November 1864, buried on field.” He would have been about 41 years old. The following was copied from mcgavockcemetery.org:
After the Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, the Union Army withdrew into Nashville leaving casualties of over 8,000 soldiers. Confederate General John Bell Hood left a burial detail in Franklin for two days. Confederate soldiers were buried near the Carter House breastworks with the graves arranged in plots according to the states from which the soldiers came. As winter wore on, many of the headboards were fading or were used for firewood by the poor. Seeing the great need, Colonel John McGavock and family donated two acres of land adjoining the family graveyard, to be used for a final resting place for the soldiers … Two years later, as the markers became increasingly difficult to read, the citizens of Franklin began raising funds to exhume and re-inter 1,480 soldiers on property donated by the McGavock family of Carnton. Veterans assisted in maintaining the graves, and in 1911 the deed to the cemetery and right-of-way from Lewisburg Pike was presented to the newly chartered McGavock Confederate Cemetery Corporation. The corporation continues to maintain and oversee the burial ground today.
33“Brother Henry” was most likely Henry Hungerford (60, 1788-1866), the husband of Kitty’s sister Amelia who had died in 1831. In the 1850 U.S. Census “Brother Henry” (whose second wife died in January 1850) was living with his children (Virginia’s cousins Philip, 21, and Amanda, 20, and also the three children from Henry’s second marriage) and he and his son Philip were working as grocers in Washington D.C. I think it’s probably safe to assume that they were living in D.C. in 1848 as well. Although stated above in a footnote of section B., it bears repeating that Henry’s mother, Anne Catherine Washington Hungerford, was the second cousin once removed of President George Washington; they shared the same second great grandfather, Col. John Washington (born in 1632 in Essex, England and died in 1677 in Westmoreland, Virginia).
34I firmly believe this was William Spence, 32 (1816-1893, a medical doctor), Virginia’s cousin and Kitty’s nephew, the son of her brother Edward Spence who had died the previous year. William and Cornelia and their four young children were still in Westmoreland County, Virginia in the 1850 U.S. Census. The following excerpts are transcribed from Biographical Souvenir of the States of Georgia and Florida, published in 1889 by FA Battey and Company.William was still alive at the time of publication. It is a bit long for a footnote. However, I feel this is an appropriate place for this biographical sketch because, as he is not a direct ancestor, I would not include his story elsewhere, yet I feel his story adds depth to the context of Kitty’s letter.
Dr. W.A. Spence was born on the Potomac river, in Westmoreland County, VA., November 29, 1811 [his grave marker has the date of 1816]. He comes of one of the first families of that old and historic locality, and traces his ancestry back to the Cavalier settlers [supporters of King Charles I during the English Civil War which took place from about 1642-1651] who located there during the seventeenth century … Edward Spence [my second great granduncle] was the father of our subject. He [Edward] was educated for a surgeon, but, possessing ample means, he never devoted himself to his profession, but gave his time rather to the management of his large estate and the enjoyments which he found in a planter’s life. He was a good liver, fond of company, liberal, hospitable, and withal a great hunter … Dr. [William] Spence received his primary education in the private schools near the old family seat. He entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1836, and graduated from that institution in 1839. He located in Westmoreland County and was actively engaged in the practice of his profession till the breaking out of the civil war. Although too old [49, according to this, or 44 by his grave marker] to be required to do military service, he nevertheless went to the front [on the side of the Confederacy] on the call to arms, along with three sons*, his intention being to offer his service as a private soldier. But he was needed in other capacities. He was made surgeon of the Forty-seventh Virginia regiment, being afterward promoted to the position of chief surgeon of the first division of the Third army corps … and in this capacity he served through to the close in 1865. The war left him penniless and he was forced even to the painful extreme of pawning his watch to obtain money to get home on. He located immediately in Baltimore, where his merits as a physician were soon recognized, and it was not long before he was in the enjoyment of a splendid practice. But greater misfortunes awaited him still. He lost his excellent wife in 1866. This, added to the loss of two sons, who gave up their lives on the battle-field**, had an unsettling effect on the doctor. He gave up his practice, sold out and started West, hoping to find ‘surcease of sorrow’ in travel. He traveled for years till, in 1872 [in the 1870 U.S. Census Archie Gaines is already listed with the last name of Spence], while in Arkansas, he met and married a daughter of General Gaines of that State. He moved to Florida with the intention of going into orange culture quite extensively, and did so, but was unfortunate in his ventures and lost money. He again entered his profession at Jacksonville, has a fair practice, and is the surgeon in charge of the marine hospital of that place. He lost his three boys—two in the war, and one since [He also had a daughter Mary Cynthia Spence who died in 1871 in Savannah, Georgia per her tombstone.], and has only one child now living, Isabella, wife of J.N. Liggett, a prominent attorney of Jacksonville. Dr. Spence has been a member of the Episcopal Church for forty years, a Mason fully that long also, and a Jeffersonian Democrat since his birth.
*As shown below, the 1850 and 1860 U.S. Censuses and History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker do not indicate that William would have had three sons who fought in the Civil War. Edward Evan was 21 when the war started in 1861 and William Amos was 20 when it ended in 1865. His other two sons had died in 1854 and 1857.
In the 1850 U.S. Census William (33) and Cornelia (21, sic, she would have been 31) have a daughter Sallie I (Sarah Isabella, 7), and three sons, Edward E (9), William A (5), and Evan G (2).
In the 1860 U.S. Census W. Spence (43) and C. Spence (41) have son EE (Edward Evan, 19), daughter IS (Sarah or Sallie Isabella, 17), son WA (William Amos, 15), and daughter MC (Mary Cynthia, 8). According to U.S. Find a Grave and History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker (Cornelia’s mother’s maiden name was Slaymaker), their son Evan Green Spence had died 4 September 1854 when he was about six years old. They also, according to History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker, had a son Jasper Green Spence who was born in 1856 and died in 1857.
**Edward Evan Spence, per his tombstone, died in 1874 in Savanah, Georgia. According to History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker his son William Amos Spence died in 1877, so I’m not sure to what “battlefield” this article refers. His two other sons died young as noted above.
35I have found no Walton in the U.S. Censuses for this area either in 1840 or 1850, but he obviously was the owner of “Needwood” if perhaps only long enough to make improvements and resell it. If it was a transcription error and the name was Watson, the pastor of the Dardenne Presbyterian Church was Thomas Watson, according to A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri.
familyties3.com 