Letter from Jesse Halsey to Father Reardon

1937

"He . . . had his reason only at intervals."

C. H. Halsey to Samuel McCorkle

October 8^th, 1861

Southampton

Dear Sir

I now sit down to write you a few lines to inform you of my health which is good at this time, hoping this may find you enjoing the same great blessing. I received your last letters which was dated July 25^th in due time, and was glad to hear of your good health and that of your crew. I am now looking every day for a letter from you on your arrival at St Helena and hope you may have been successful in taking some of those large sperm Whales which are sometimes taken on that ground. I hope you may have received those letters which was sent by the way of England to St Helena, on your arrival at that port. I think we mailed them in February. It was but a short time after that my dear Brother Jesse was taken sick with Bilious Intermittent Fever, and died after a short illness of 8 days. He had taken a hard cold some too weeks before, but thought he was much better even the day before he was taken down to his bed. He was handled very severly [sic] and had his reason only at intervals. You Dear Sir can better imagine than I can describe our feelings as we stood around his dying bed and saw his eyes close in death, Methinks I see him now as he reaches out his hand and calls Mother Father. You to have lost Brothers and a dear Father and know by experience the feelings of those who mourn the loss of dear departed friends. I feel assured of your ready sympathy and it affords us much consolation to think he was with us and that all was done for him that could be both in Medical attendance and nursing to save life. God has in his Providence seen fit to sumon [sic] him, perhaps from the end to come, and we hope although his body lies moulding in the dust his spirit is now singing the praises above. He was indeed a lovely youth, beloved by all who knew him and I need not tell you how much we miss him, at the family alter, at the table, on the farm there is an empty seat, a vacant place. God has said he does not afflict willingly but that it is for our good that we may profit thereby.

Our hearts were made glad by the safe return again of our dear Brother Willie on the 18^th of August last. He is very well and thinks to go up to N. York with uncle Edward tomorrow. Father’s health is somewhat better than it was last spring, when he was very unwell and I was afraid [sic] he would never be much better.

Your Brother Robert has gone out to Pikes Peak and I have not heard from him since he left. I am very anxious to hear how he stood the journey and of his health. I hope it may have improved but it seems like a great undertaking for one to go so far and that to with a team. Father and Mother wrote to your Mother a few days ago and informed them of this opportunity to send letters. I received one last eve directed to you and shall send it in care Mr. S. P. Reeves. Mr. Phillips still occupies the House—and has been punctual in paying the rent. He was making enquiries a few days ago what you intended to do when you go home. I told him I could not tell until I had heard from you. I have fenced off six acres in the east Lot joining the pasture Lot in Sabboick Lane and hired it out on Town Meeting day for pasture for $21.50, West Lot $16.25, Barn Lot $8.25. The mowing grass which was sold 25^th of June last amounts to the sum of $57.18. I am in hopes to have some money to send to your Mother this Fall if Mr Lincoln does not take it all to carry on the war. The taxes will probably be very high this fall on account of the $150,000,000 loan which you and I have got to dig and delve to pay. There is a certain class who love or whose object it is to free the Blacks South only to make slaves of us, for I consider that slavery enough to be burdened to death with taxation and this question has been the sole cause of the present state of things. I hold to maintaining the Government but I want it done on Constitutional grounds, that is—give the South her rights as they are under the constituion. There is now about 400,000 men drawn up against each other, in nearly equal numbers in and around Washington and it is said that a struggle between these immence [sic] armies cannot long be postponed. James Post has joined a regiment and expects to go on to Washington when called for. He has been home to bid his friends Good bye. Charley Bishop is agoing [sic] in one of the Gun Boats on the Mississippi. I recieved [sic] a letter from Charley Fowler dated St Helena July 25^th I thought to have recieved [sic] one from you but I supose [sic] you have anumber [sic] to write and could not get time. I hope you will write however before you leave port and let me know when you expect to be home and what you wish me to do about hireing [sic] out the pasture land &c. If you should get home by the first of April you could attend to that your self; if you do not I shall not hire out the Barn Lot as you may wan tto use it your self. Good Luck Much Love Good Bye

Yours as Ever

Chas H Halsey

P. S. Your secret is safe as is my slave as yet.

From Incident on the Bark Columbia: Being Letters Received & Sent by Captain McCorkle and the Crew of his Whaler, 1860-1862; ed. Helen Halsey, New Haven, April 27, 1941; The Cummington Press, Cummington, MA. 

Cumulative Kodakery c. 1934

Places and events to be enjoyed on the annual trip from Cincinnati to Southampton . . .

by Jesse Halsey

Both business necessity and vacation pleasure take me back and forth between the Middle West and the Eastern seaboard. So many times we have gone and come that most routes are thoroughly familiar. The decimal numbers 20, 30, 40, 50 seem to be the FEDERAL Highways that run from ocean to ocean. Route 30 is the Lincoln; the first transcontinental road that was developed. Rt. 40 is the National, which Thomas Jefferson projected to St. Louis and built as far as Cumberland.

Anyone who is interested in history or geography ought now and then to record his impressions. Ten minutes; stop refreshes the driver and a picture here and there years after refreshes the memory. Twenty years ago, when we began these trips, the notable things were the places where the engine broke down or there was a change of tires. The boys, who have come to their maturity, often point out a tree where once upon a time we patched a blowout. Of course, in these days, blowouts seldom happen, which gives one time for extra pictures.

Let us be more specific. As we go east on Federal Rt. 22, which leads from our door to the Holland Tunnel, we pass through the village of Somerset, Ohio, where General Phil Sheridan was born. In the public square is a bronze equestrian statue of this dashing Federal Cavalry leader. A little inquiry will reveal that a block and a half away is the modest one-story cottage where he was born. It may be the holly hock season. If so, you will find it a most interesting subject. A mile away, out on one of the country roads, is the more pretentious house where he later lived. This, with its pine trees, is worth a picture. The, of course, you will snap the Norseman in the square. And these three negatives will go into an envelope in your file. On this trip, or more likely some other, it may be several years after—you will plan to drive up or down the Shenandoah Valley. A picture of Winchester, a road sign likely, where Sheridan’s name appears. These pictures will go into your “Sheridan Envelope.”

Sometime when you are down town in Cincinnati, you will snap the house on Eigth Street where Thomas Buchanan Reed lived; he who wrote “Sheridan’s Ride.”

Winchester twenty miles away.

On a picnic some springtime you will be in Murdoch. You will be at Bethel Church near Loveland, Ohio, where Murdoch lived, the actor who first declaimed Reed’s poem to a war-weary Cincinnati audience.

This has likely started a Civil War train in your mind. Certainly, as you pass through Lancaster, only twenty miles from Somerset, you will snap the house where General Sherman was born and the house next door where Senator John Sherman lived . . .

Or, as they get a little older and have other interests, you will tell them how Senator Sherman, who had extensive farm interests, went home from Washington one spring, telling his friends that he must go out to Ohio “to fix his fences.” From that day on the phrase has always had a political complexion. Out of an experience like this, made to register in the mind largely because it was definitely registered on a Kodak file, you will find that both you and members of your household will be reading say—the Life of Sherman? This is not only cumulative photography but cumulative education.

The next summer we planned our trip to include as many spots as possible connected with General Jackson’s life. So I found a steel engraving of Jackson and his wife and little girl, and ever since it has hung in my study, ‘though I am of New England extraction born and bred.’ We never visited Jackson’s birthplace, but have a picture of the house at Guiney Station where he died, and have gone to the spot in the woods on the Orange Pike where he had his last conference with General Lee, went to the monument on the same road in the Wilderness where he was accidentally shot by his own men. This we found surrounded by tar barrels and gravel used in road repair. A letter to the Richmond Times Dispatch and one to the Daughters of the Confederacy, signed by a Yankee and protesting against the desecration, lead to a cleanup, and the next year we found the place sodded and mowed.

Gettysburg we have visited time and time again; the first time under the guidance of a friend who spent his college years there and twice with Official guides (one thought we were Northerners and the other was sure we were of Southern extraction, and their interpretations of the battle varied to suit).

On one occasion we camped overnight in “The Devil’s Den.” A terrific thunderstorm in the night blew down the tent and nearly washed us out. In the morning, which was beautiful and clear, the little girl of eight looking up through the trees and seeing General Vincent’s statue, said, “Dad, I think that soldier must have been watching over us last night.” Of course, a picture of that soldier went into our “Gettysburg Envelope” and eventually into the “Civil War Scrap Book.” A print with the story, brought pleasure to our neighbor and friend, Bishop Boyd Vincent, brother of the General who was killed at Gettysburg (the Bishop is very much alive at eighty-seven).

Or take a Revolutionary trail. My great great grandfather, whose name I happen to bear, fought in the American Revolution. Our family has visited every place where he is known to have fought, and many others. Hearing of the Battle of Lexington, he and his brother, with other men, crossed Long Island Sound, walked from New London to Boston and engaged in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was present at Cambridge when Washington took command of the Continental Army, at times was on Washington’s staff, spent the winter in Morristown (at Valley Forge we are not certain). At Monmouth he heard Washington rebuke General Charles Lee. So, in the “Grandfather Envelope” we have pictures of the spot where his house stood on the east end of Long Island, one of the monument at Groton, Connecticut, where his brother, Captain Henry, was killed when Benedict Arnold made his raid on New London, Bunker Hill Monument, Cambridge Square, the headquarters in Morristown, Molly Pitcher’s well at Monmouth (with a member of our own family standing by), the old tenant Church where grandfather, who was wounded in the battle, may have been carried, Yorktown, where likely he was present, and his grave in the old cemetery at Water Mill, where his D.A.R. great great granddaughter has erected a suitable marker.

Some of our leads have yet to be followed. For instance, in passing through Brandon, Vermont, last summer, we discovered a monument to Stephen A. Douglas, who was born there. Sometime, when we are in Illinois, we will add to the collection. In the meantime we will, some of us, do some reading and become a little better informed about Lincoln’s protagonist.

“Molly Pitcher Envelope” contains not only the well at Monmouth, but the monument in the cemetery at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which would just be a name on the map to us except for our interest in Molly.

Some of these pictures have made slides and we have inflected on our friends some accounts of our summer travels. The Kodak has gone twice to Europe, but never has it given as great satisfaction as when the family, with an over-loaded Ford and wet tent, has worked its way across the mountains.

During the Bicentenary there appeared in Maryland on some of the highways a marker, “G. Washington Went This Way.” That year we tried to follow his trails, visiting Fort Necessity, where for the first and last time he was defeated in military engagement. Not many miles away is Braddock’s grave. Down on the peninsula we found Westover, his birthplace, that had just been restored (it was too late in the day to get a picture, even with panchromatic film, and the supersensitive film had not then appeared). That same itinerary included Yorktown and, of course, Mt. Vernon. The capital city, named for him, his headquarters at Morristown were revisited, his crossing on the Delaware north of Trenton, the battlefield at Princeton, and, on the return trip, West Point and the headquarters at Newburgh.

This is a painless method of teaching history, a great incentive to large reading, a method of making a necessary trip into a pleasurable memory and an inexpensive way of keeping an illuminated diary. It involves long distances and, more to the point, a succession of years, with different areas visited. It is, however, an inexpensive adjunct to a vacation or a necessary business trip.

Distance is not absolutely necessary, but points in local history can be correlated by this picture method. For example, the writer lives in Cincinnati. The law office of Solomon P. Chase, Lincoln’s secretary of the treasury and chief justice is marked and worthy of a picture. The home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, where part of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was written, stands on one of our hills. The observatory dedicated by John Quincy Adams, and Mt. Adams, named for him, where stands a convent almost European in its setting. The place where Eliza crossed the river on the ice is not many miles up the river. An old church and several houses in the neighborhood, which were stations of the underground railway, are to be found. The old hostelry where Grant and Sherman planned the “March to the Sea” was just recently demolished. One of the battles “in General Morgan’s audacious raid into Ohio” is less than twenty miles away.

One passes Princeton, turns aside to the cemetery; America’s Westminster. Here, with the other college presidents, lies Jonathan Edwards, who died of smallpox in the village where he had just come to take the college leadership. Two days or a week later you are in Stockbridge, remembering Edwards lived there for a decade. You find a sundial on the side of his old house and in the public library, hidden away upstairs, the hexagonal revolving table on which he wrote his “Freedom of the Will.” At Northampton a church is named for him and on another corner stands a church where his church stood. In the Princeton cemetery, again on a back street, ‘though one with a famous name (Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration), you will find the grave of Grover Cleveland with its simple monument.

Wrecking Master

by Jesse Halsey

Deep ruts in the grass mark the effort of heavy wagons in avoiding the muddy highway. Cap’n Harry had laid out fence rails in front of his place. He took great pride in the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. But, when the unpaved and almost ungraded highway became “sticky as a Mortar bed,” as he expressed it, why then he always relented and took up the rails. Then some adventurous farm boy would leave the muddy tracks and, while the old man fussed a good deal about it, he never did anything.

“Why don’t you keep your rails down one spring and keep folks off?” This was Squire Jim’s advice.

“How’d you feel if some fella’s horse got scratched and got lockjaw ‘cause he drove over my rails some dark night? I always manage to patch up the front and scratch in a little grass see and get things lookin’ ship-shape by Decoration Day. Someday we’l have a good road. There’s pebbles enough on Sebonac Beach to build a stone highway all the way from the railroad to the church! Then everybody would have a grass plot along front. Strange we can’t get that appropriation through the town meetin.’”

The half-formed leaves cast their sufficient shadow over the village street. Cap’n Harry, with wheelbarrow and rake and shovel, was filling in the ruts and scratching in the seed. The street had been plowed and crudely honed to an indefinite crown. Frost had been gone for two months but Cap’n Harry had been so busy with his spring planting that his “front” had been neglected. This was not unusual, however. He always calculated to have it repaired and seeded and the sidewalk neatly edgetd by Decoration Day.

“Mornin’, Cap’n,” called a boy from horseback as he bought his animal to a walk. “Looks like it was goin’ to rain.”

“Yes, reckon it will. Never seen it fail yet. Fine sunset Friday night, sure to rain before Monday mornin’! But the rain’ll do things good—getting’ a little dry. Rain’ll help the corn.”

As if to reinforce the old man’s statement of fact, a little trail of dust followed the heels of Jimmy’s horse down the street.

“Now, Sis, you run fetch that pail of red top settin’ inside the woodhouse door. I”ll show you how to sow grass seed.”

Little Eliza turned into the “gap,” sped across the deep yard and presently returned with a wooden bucket half filled with the feathery stuff. The Cap’n bent his rheumatic back, scattered the seed along the ruts and over the bare spots that interspersed the green that already covered the greater part of the ground.

“Let me try, Gramp!” And with that the child began to ladle out small handfuls of the seed.

“Not that way, Lizzie, spread it ‘round like this—this. Don’t take much if you put it in the right place.”

Quickly following the old man’s example, the child took over the sowing while the old gentleman, straightening his back with a half-suppressed grunt, began to rake in the seed after the child.

“Yes, it’s goin’ to rain. Rheumatism in my back tells me that.” And with that he glanced up toward the weather vane on his old barn. “Swingin’ into the east’ard,” he mumbled to himself.

The big weather vane, fashioned to simulate a sperm whale, hung lazily with its upturned tail toward the south. The angular square knob of a head and the open jaw with sawtooth edges pointed dead north.

“Won’t stay there long,” thought the old man. “Always goes to the east-ard when it comes ‘round backwards.”

Several neighbors came along the street, passed the time of day with Cap’n Harry, and went about their business.

Miss Deborah came out of the big house across the street, chatted for a moment and out from the folds of her apron, brought a couple of molasses cookies for little Liza.

“Didn’t hear you say, ‘Thank you, Lizzie.’ But then I don’t hear too good. I know you would.”

Like Dr. Johnson, his model, Cap’n Harry had found that most people responded to a hint better than a reprimand. Likely this had been the secret of his popularity and efficiency. Who can say?

The old man and the little girl dragged the heavy stone roller up and down over the new sown grass and the old lawn, exhausting most of their surplus energy.

Jimmy Bishop, coming back from his long errand, dismounted, took a turn of the bridle reins around the hitching post and, with a boy’s enthusiasm, ran the roller back and forth two or three times, finishing the area, then dragged it back to its place in the yard under the sour apple tree. Little ‘Liza seated herself in the wheelbarrow, holding the rake and shovel, and the Cap’n pushed the girl and the barrow into the yard and out by the woodpile.

Reaching the pump, both of them vigorously washed their hands and faces and came through the back door into the kitchen.

“Dinner is not quite ready, Father. Why don’t you go in and lie down.”

Crossing the dining room, the pair reached the Cap’n’s cubby hole. In later times it would be called a “den” or “study” but the agglomeration of all sorts and conditions of things made it a place wonderful to behold. In a prominent place on the wall just over the deal table, which served as a desk, but just visible above the piled disorder, hung a framed certificate signed by the Governor of the Commonwealth and granting Cap’n Harry the authority of “Wrecking Master” for ten miles of the Atlantic shore.

“Tell me a story, Gramp,” whispered the little girl as she climbed on the old man’s knee.

“Not now, child, I’m too tired, but this evening after supper . . .”

As grandfather fell off into a quiet snooze the little girl stated out of the back door, only to find that it was beginning to rain. “Gramp is right,” she thought, “he said it was going to rain. He’s always right.”

True to his promise, when the evening lamp was lighted and the supper things had been cleared away and little Eliza had helped to dry the dishes, grandfather began one of his tales of the sea.

“Twenty years ago, just before the war, there was a big ship came ashore off Flying Point in a snowstorm. Old Cap’s Bill White, who had been wrecking master for a good many years, got a crew together and managed to launch a whaling boat. For some reason or other he gave me the leading oar and, after a rough time of it, we managed to get out under the lea side of the ship and took off the passengers and the crew. Two or three days later, on a high tide, the vessel was floated and I went with Cap’n White and the crew that sailed ‘er into New London.

“The owners and the insurance company between them paid Cap’n Bill the two thousand dollars for his part in salvaging the ship. This he divided among the crew, and I got one hundred dollars, which was a good deal of money in those days but a good deal more before the war was over.

“Some years later when Cap’n White had retired, Governor Thompkins made me wrecking master. That’s my old certificate hanging over my desk.”

The storm was howling outside, and the rain could be heard in torrents on the low shingle roof, but a bright fire burned in the fireplace. The warm spring day had reverted to the wild March and an easterly storm swept the coast. The state of the elements seemed to be reflected in the old man’s mind and, while it was no uncommon thing for the family circle to hear the round of stories that the old man’s experience had accumulated with the years, that night he was “wound up,” according to neighbor Clark, who had dropped in for an hour.

The next morning little Eliza, venturing out before breakfast, discovered with dismay that the heavy rain had washed grass seed and ground alike down into the gutter and carried it away. The strip between the great trees and the road was washed clean and the old ruts had reappeared. But by afternoon, when the sun had come out and the mud had dried up, the energetic pair, Gramp and ‘Liza, were making the same repairs and scattering more seek. This time no neighboring boy came by to help with the roller and, though the afternoon sun was out bright and warm, the last few turns up and own thoroughly exhausted the old captain and his helper; and that evening there were no stories.

Years afterwards I asked my [sister], Eliza, now a middle-aged woman with children of her own, what most impressed her in her youth, and she answered, “My grandfather’s perseverance. He was wrecking master of the shore before the days of lifeguard and lighthouse. It was his business to organize the volunteer crews from the village to help a vessel in distress, and then to salvage the vessel, or its cargo if the vessel was hopelessly wrecked. This endangered life and limb, but no matter what the conditions of the weather my grandfather could always command the help for the villagers. Everyone fit to row and oar was a volunteer if he said the attempt should be made. Everyone knew that if it were humanly possible he would meet the situation—nothing would turn him back.”

I knew something about my [sister]’s life –ill health, financial reverse, disappointment; none of these had ever baffled her. I felt that the old man had had an apt pupil in his granddaughter.

Another decade passed and I visited the old village again. In front of Cap’n Harry’s place from the church to the beach stretched a smooth macadam road. Most of its way, beginning in the north end, it is shaded by great elm trees, but in front of Cap’n Harry’s place, where his descendents still live, there are two giant trees, called the “trees of heaven” by the Chinese. These were little saplings when Cap’n Harry planted them, now eighty years or more ago, saved from a French freighter whose crew he salvaged. His was not always an easy or popular job. When this boat, the Lavalley, had stranded to meet the necessity of casing a tide, he ordered his crew to board and cast offboard the cargo, or part of it. Now, the captain of a ship, it is well known, is supreme lord of his own vessel—when she is afloat. But this boat was aground and Cap’n Harry had authority to salvage as much as possible.

With his crew he went aboard and told the French captain, through a poor interpreter, that in order to meet the next tide and save the vessel the cargo must go overboard. The captain objected vociferously in his Gallic fashion, but Cap’n Harry’s blunt New England manner and word had its way and overboard went the cargo. Great bundles of fruit and shade trees were first jettisoned. These drifted up on shore and were being appropriated by the native population when Cap’n Harry, knowing it was his business to save as much as possible for the owners, went ashore and forbade his neighbors to take the trees away. He was a deputy sheriff and, knowing that he had authority back of his determination, most of the people desisted. But, with his ready ability to meet a situation, he sent for local squire, who was always the auctioneer, and on the beach the trees were sold. Many orchards in the section were planted or replenished from this stock.

On either side of his front gate, Cap’n Harry planted a couple of ailanthus trees, a novelty in those days. He said he was tired of nothing but elms. But he lived to regret his choice. In his later days his chief pride in the village street was the overarching of elms planted by an earlier generation than his. But today his great grandchildren go in and out between the old ailanthus sentinals.

He had been not only the master of his vessel and the master of his shore, but, I have gleaned from the reminiscences of his contemporaries that he was mater of most situations.

He was the oldest of a family of five. His father, the owner of the local water mill, died when he was nine. Energetically he set himself, under his mother’s direction, to help about the farm and assist his uncle at the mill. When they were old enough, his mother, to give them an education, moved to New York, kept a boarding house and put the children in school.

This was unusual. In that neighborhood most boys, as soon as they were able, went to sea and engaged in the whaling trade. Harry and his brother, after a couple of years’ schooling, began to learn a trade and became expert builders. Then, after a couple of voyages whaling, they settled down in New York and began building operations.

During the early 30s of the last [19th] century they amassed a considerable fortune, only to lose it through a crooked partner in a "depression" in 1840. Cap’n Jim, the younger brother, went back to the sea and made an enviable reputation and snug fortune from the whaling industry.

Cap’n Harry, however, with his young wife and child, went back to the old farm. The mill had been sold to pay for his sisters’ schooling. Rebuilding the old farmhouse and introducing some of the refinements that he had built into city developments, he settled down to work the farm and carry on his mason’s trade.

Dozens of fireplaces in that now-fashionable community burn to this day and no one that he fabricated was ever known to smoke. He was short and stocky, broad shouldered and rather portly, but quick on his feet, and his grandchildren remember how he could out-run them and, at eighty years of age, hold a broomstick in his hands and jump over it.

He saved the wreck of his New York fortune and rehabilitated it. When the Civil War broke out, though far from a young man, he volunteered his services, but was rejected. His heart was not sound, they said. Forthwith he organized a company, drilled it on the village green and sent it away to the war, feeling that he had done his bit, saving from the wreck of his own disappointment his patriotic usefulness.

When the railroad first came through that rural community it cut his farm in two. He negotiated a trade with a neighbor so that the two dismembered farms were made units, but both became triangular, as the railroad caught them on the bias. In the trade, Cap’n Harry acquired a big street frontage, but this was poor compensation for the rich upland as the hill ran out into a sand bank and five acres of useless land were his and five acres of the best upland went to the neighbor. But, always resourceful, the old wrecking master, at the protest of his son, but with the help of his rugged grandson, turned this sandy area into a productive asparagus bed, the first in the community. Even in his last days rheumatism did not prevent him from going into the woods for berries in the their season and, though he couldn’t bend his back, he would put a pail under the huckleberry bushes and knock the berries off with his cane and then take them home and pick them over.

He was fat enough to be good-natured, was a regular Yankee Jack-of-all-trades, and good at most. Very expert and painstaking was he in the construction of a building. Some of his houses still stand in Greenwich Village in the metropolis and many of his plastered walls have outlasted newer ones in the island village where he lived in his later years. One of his grandchildren still has the old framed certificate signed by the Governor: “To whom these presents may come be it known . . . Harry Halsey Wrecking Master.”