The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-10

stead Of Tennessee. He carried it to
nv cousin. Norman Urquhart. DR.
Byrd, of Atlanta, is my son. 8
| am Daniel Shaw's youngest daughti
,er. and married A. J. Byrd in 1843.
vour father married us. and you were
at the marriage, a boy just enterina
your teens never saw much OF
you, but knew your brother. Jeffer.
son. and his good wife, We'll Thev
lived with my parents the first year
of their marriage. / also
knew your brother Rom, as we'll az
your mother and sisters. 1t seems 10
me I knew your father from my earl.
lest recollections. J loved and rever.
enced thought lie was the
greatest preacher in the world I re.
member with pleasure how he used tn
look, sitting in that old-fashioned pull.
pit at Barclays chapel singing, 20
glorious hope Of perfect love" his
face radiant with joy. | thought it
was the sweetest music l ever heard
and indeed it was, and will be the
sweetest this side of heaven. / was
then an innocent child; my whole be.
ing. like virgin wax, ready to receive
impressions. And ! did receive Their,
from dear Uncle Tom" Gas we youn5.
people called him), and they hava
done me good all my life
You spoke Of Frank Page He YVES
another good man. I knew his wife
from infancy. A beautiful good VIC.
man. Frank Page stayed at father 1
two or three years and made it pleas.
ant to my parents whose childre 4
were all gone. Brother Ben was :
boy in his teens, an operator, al
Charleston, in the telegraph office
He received and prepared for the
press the first Presidents Message
that ever went over the wires Chat
of President Polk).
Frank Pages children don't know
anything of me; though some of the
oldest children were at my house
when they were small. They don't
know there is an old woman living
in the back woods, who always re-
members them in her prayers, and ls
glad when she hears they prosper
and do good.
/ don't know any of the Whitakers
but you. / keep up with you because
you are a preacher and a son Of dear
old Uncle Tom. If ever you come
through this country, call on me For
the sake of the loved ones who are
gone. My husband was Il great lover
Of your father, as well as myself. I
don't know whether you can read my
writing, L am so old, nearing seventy
nine.
MRS. M. c. BYRD"
O, what a troop of scenes the above
letter brings to memory! Sixty-one
years ago the hand that wrote it was
given i'm marriage to a young man
reared in Wake county. | was then {.
boy just entering my teens. Frank
Page, u young man, as well as my
brother, was just starting out in life,
Ben Shaw was a boy in the telegraph
office-James *. Polk was the Presl,
dent of the United States. John G
Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay
Thomas II. Benton, Silas Wright
James Buchanan. Martin VanBurer
William l.. Yancy were prominent
figures in politics: and no one, then
living. had the remotest idea that in
twenty years from that date, on:
country would be deluged in tho
blood of a fratricidal war. How few
there are alive today who remember
sixty years ago.
I witnessed an incident. not Ions
ago, that amused me no little at the
moment: and from il. ] drew a moral
The incident was simply the misun-
derstanding Of n single sentence ut
tered by ono person in conversation
with another; and the misunderstood.
ing grew out Of the fact that the first
words of the sentence were not heard (
without which the remark meant, OF
could have been made to mean, the