September 20, 2012
Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871) was a very lonely old man. He was committed to rebuilding Danville Theological Seminary after the Civil War — but his circle of friends was getting smaller and smaller. Nearly 3/4 of the members of the Synod of Kentucky wound up rejecting his attempt to keep the Synod in the Old School — as radicals and moderates joined together in uniting with the southern Presbyterian Church in 1869. Throughout the north he was respected and admired as the man who had kept Kentucky in the Union — but in Kentucky he was increasingly irrelevant. The only men who would come teach at his seminary were a handful of devoted followers whose career depended on him. But he had driven away most of Danville’s natural constituency, alienating most of Kentucky by his strong pro-Lincoln, pro-Union stance during the War (one of his many colorful nicknames was “the Reverend Maligner” — one that hurt the most was “the Political Parson” — since he was famous for *never* bringing politics into the pulpit — though he would spend the other six days of the week on the political stump!).
Further, Danville is around 40 miles from Lexington (where his daughter Mary, and his son William, lived). His eldest son, Robert, lived only a few miles away at Chilhowie, and practiced law in Danville — but besides crazy Anny (a demented former slave who simply wouldn’t leave) and an unreliable series of Irish and African servants, few of whom lasted more than a few weeks, his housekeeping was, as he put it, “rather an uphill business; and is likely to continue so – until the ‘darkies’ relent, or we get good enough to take ‘no thought what we shall eat, or what we shall drink.’”
Besides the eldest three, the rest of his children were spread around the country (reminding us that having family spread all over the country is as old as America). He had a daughter in New York, and a daughter in Maryland, as well as two sons in the army in Alabama and San Francisco and a son at Princeton college.
And then, in August of 1867, 23 year old Charles, the youngest son of his first wife, died of Yellow Fever, while serving in the army in Alabama. Charley was the one of Sophy’s children who had no memories of his mother (he was 6 months old when she died). His older sister, Mary, wet-nursed him when she was only sixteen, and then served as a surrogate mother for him.
Once again death had struck RJB. Two wives. Seven children. At least three grandchildren. Seven of his eight siblings by his 42nd birthday.
And now, at the age of 67, he was alone.
