Old letters transcribed

Some historic letters that refer to
1. my great grandmother Zulieka Phillips Swasey
2. my grandmother's Uncle Chauncey Granger Sweet (see post about him yesterday HERE)
3. Uncle Chauncey Sweet's cousin Ada Phillips
4. their childhood during and after the Civil War in Texas.
And yes
5. mention of a piano owned by Zulieka and Ada Phillip's mother, Mary Granger Phillips.  So I am posting this under the theme (meme?) mentioned on Sepia Saturday this week, come over and see many more interesting stories HERE.

The following copies are transcribed below the photos.

Transcription of above copies of letter:

                Sabine Pass June 29, 1872

Dear Issy

        I am having a nice time all your cousins Aunt and Uncle are well.  Issy I will tell you something but you must not tell anyone that is if you have not walked a lone yet I want you to hurry up and walk.

        Minnie has got a Mockingbird & I expect you had it your would be playing with in and when there was no one looking you would eat the things out of its cage.

        You ough (sic) to see us play croquet we have a splendid time & have a little kitten to play with us & her name is Dolly

(page 2 of 2)

Vardin.

        Sister has learned Chauncey his keys on the piano. He also sends you a sweet kiss.

        Lucy says that she wants you to come over that she wants to see you.  I am sorry you have got the hoopin (sic) cough.

        We send love to all

                From  Ada

        (added in pencil) “now Mrs. C. G. Sweet”

Note: The author, Ada Pulsipher Phillips was born 9.15.1860, so she wrote this as an eleven year old. Her sister, Zulieka Granger Phillips, was born July 30, 1858, who is noted in this letter to have taught the piano to their cousin Chauncey G. Sweet b. 2.6.1865, whose sister Lucy A. Sweet was b. 1868.  And Ada, the young author, married Chauncey Sweet many years later.

I'm not sure yet who Issy might have been.  She didn't seem to live in the same home, but perhaps was in the same town, or maybe another one, but under whooping cough quaranteen.  

Ada and Zulieka Phillips mother was Mary Granger Phillips.  Her sister was Elizabeth Granger, Lizzie, in her frequent correspondence.    One such letter talked (pre Civil War) of receiving her piano in their home somewhere near Beaumont, Texas on Town Bluff.

 transcribed it reads:

Town Bluff June 10^th, 1860

Dear Lizzie:

        It is some time since your last letter but I waited to write about the Piano knowing you would be deeply interested to hear about it.  It was obliged to stay at Weisse’s Store a few weeks as the river was so low the Boats could not come up this far and William was so busy with all the mules he could not spare them to go for it.  William fixed up last Tuesday a team and himself and a black boy started to bring. It arrived Wed. night and all hands White and Black sat up till midnight so great was the excitement.  It is a splendid Piano and no mistake most-beautiful tone & action. 

(envelope depicted here, addressed to other sister, Lucy, but letter is to Elizabeth ie. Lizzie)

(Upper left corner:) Town Bluf, TX M (…? obscured by stamp of Three Cents)

(Middle of envelope:) Mrs. Lucy E. Granger.

                                Galveston,

                                        Texas.

(letter continued page 2)

It is one of Gales made  Rose Wood with a beautiful inlade (sic) front carved music rack Iron (?) frame and carving all around the moulding (sic) but not quite seven octaves two pedals the shape of the Pedal is the hansomist (sic) I ever saw very large and shiney.  The tone is brilliant and clear not at all muffled.  It is splendid and you will say so far superior to Margrit Sweets I think I am almost beside myself I am so satisfied with the choice Mr. Hinsbly (?) has been very kind seems to have exerted himself to the ultermost (sic) and I could not have done as well myself.  The Stool cost twelve dollars and it is Rose W. too has a screw top and plane and plush very much larger and prettier every way than yours. It was packed with in the most manner closely sealed over all the seams on the

(back of envelope pictured here, nothing written on it)

(letter contined page 3)

outside and right pretty (written above in margin) picture

in the bottom of the box all framed with a view of house in which it was manufactured in N. J.  I have hung it up it is so pretty.  Oh! I do so want to have you see it and try it.  I would enclose the money if I had it for you to come.  You can imagine me just as happy as a being ever gets to be. I believe I feel just as I did when Father first bought one for me. Just think our Piano was the first ever in Sabine Pass  The first ever in Beaumont  and now the first ever in Town Bluff and is causing equally as much excitement about the county up here as it had elsewhere.  I find I am in need of much practice but every day gain what I have lost.  I play a heap having nothing else to do  and who would not with so elegant

(letter continued page 4)

an instrument to play upon in such perfect tune and order.  It is this I regret – the detention I soon shall have and I have only three months more  I get very tired sitting at the Piano but William is so good  rubs my back until I am rested at night which keeps me up.  Zulie is very much pleased  calls it the big baby and says here is the little baby pointing to herself – she talks very cunning you would laugh to hear her  sleeps by herself now in a nice trundle bed all ready now you see for the next.  I must close  I wrote to Lucy sometime since.  Write me soon.  Love to Mother and all.

        Yours with love,

                Mary

(another hand writing now)

The Baby beats her mother talking.

                W. P.

(this letter was not written to her other sister, Lucy, but mentions that she had written her, so perhaps that is why the envelope was copied on the same sheet.  Lizzie was her sister Elizabeth Granger)

This was east Texas life on the frontier just before a war which changed everyone's lives from what they imagined their futures would be.

The baby that Mary was to deliver that September, 1860, was Ada Phillips, who wrote the first note above when she was 12.
 

Before the war started - 1856 Texas

Of course tensions were high.  Wars don't start in a vacuum.  The Civil War had lots of things leading up to it.  I don't know most of them.

I will look at what my ancestors were saying in their correspondence however.

It is of note that Lizzie is the younger sister of Mary Granger Phillips, her name being Elizabeth Granger at the time of these letters.  It is even more precious when I know what will become of Mary, and how her children will go to her sisters, Lucy and Lizzie to grow up in their care.  My grandmother's mother was one of those children.

As noted before, I make comments in the document within parentheses and in italics.
(First look at photos of the original documents, then my transcriptions, then my "other notes")

(Note on layout, one page folded, with writing starting on right front fold, going inside for 2^nd and 3^rd pages, then back to front left for 4^th page, then along margins, MaryPhillipsEliz24Sept1856.001 and 002)

                                        Beaumont Sept 24, 1856

Dear Lizzie

        You must excuse a short note this week as I cannot write more.  Willie (her husband William Phillips) wished me to write you a few lines for him as he thinks  he can better explain why you may not teach, he says the gist of the matter is this you are going to marry and you wish to teach but Mr. Reed does not, so you are waiting for him if he says marry good bye to school.

****************************************

(next page of letter)

Now he says you need not deny it – for you know it is true.  I saw Helen all the Coulda (?) family called upon me yesterday Mrs. Catilda (?) is getting Helen ready to come.  Mrs. Louck (?) is about to go to housekeeping.  Mr. H. is building down below Mrs. Lewis’s (?) thing and are delighted at the idea.

        I wonder if it is  cold at the Pass (Sabine Pass, Texas) as here .  I am sitting by the stove this morning.  Mornings have been so cold I sit in the house now I think the room looks so pretty since changing the furniture I have taken out the (scratched out 2 letters) Bowl & Pitcher 

****************************************

(next page of letter)

and put the table under the glass with several little things upon it.  The beaureau (sic) is where the table stood and the bed in the farther corner of the room my little table I have recovered with the same having a plenty.  Mr. P  is making a much larger one.   I see no prospect for us to come down until Christmas so have become quite reconciled to wait.

        I am much obliged for the dish.  I do find it very convenient nearly every meal I use it.  I have potatoes and they keep nice and warm in it.  Noah and his wife I have not

*****************************************

(next page of letter)

seen as yet.  I called upon them and they upon me but always miss each other.  Her family are bitter as ever she went to church and her brother never spoke to her but she said she did not care a darn.

        I have hardly been out since you left.  I am sewing. Just made a shirt entire yesterday for (General?)

        Mrs. W. Harring (?) has fiterd (?) some business and has been in two or three times she is making her a black silk dress off the piece your apron was bought – how does it wear?  I am looking this week to hear from Mother.

        Your, Mary

(then to margins of letter)

Love to Lucy  I suppose she is too busy with Mr. (Bendley?) to write unless I write her.

I don’t expect to be able to play one tune.  When I come home the piano will be so bad  Cannot you get it tuned I tell you this winter will ruin it if you do not.

****************************

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Granger later married Sidney Sweet, and their other sister Lucy Granger married Agustus Wakeley, who was the clerk of Galveston County.

From the jumps of information in Census records, I am able to piece together that these families continued moving, having originally lived in Massachusetts, then Sabine Pass, Texas.  From there Mary Granger Phillips and her husband William apparently moved to Beaumont, and started a plantation nearby.  In later letters she talks about the cotton crops.
And the Granger unmarried daughters moved to Galveston, where later they married.  Their brother George also lived there, as well as their parents, who later moved to Tyler, Texas.

All this was before oil was discovered which basically raped the landscape of any beauty that Beaumont might have had. Oil was discovered at nearby Spindletop on 10 January 1901. So remaining landmarks are few and far between.  

(I'm sending this post to Sepia Saturday this week, because without this black gold, automobiles would not have existed.  Now isn't that a thought!)

  
Wikipedia has a good article about the history of Beaumont, Texas, mentioning Joseph Pulsifer, whose sister Lucy was married to George Tyler Granger (as mentioned in my post here.) and was the mother of Mary, Lucy, George and Elizabeth who are involved in these letters that I'm transcribing

I will post more information about the Pulsifer family later.  And as I do more research into early Texas history, I'll share what I learn too, for those of you who don't yet know about it's short time as a republic and so on.  My ancestors were some of the brave pioneers who worked through some years of extraordinary changes there.