April 10, 2010
I take scads of photos in my research. I’m trying to keep a quick pace, taking pictures of everything important, rather than stop to read everything now, but the middle of the 1840s were a busy time for RJB.
1844
December — his wife, Sophonisba Preston, dies
1845
He resigns from 2nd Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, in the spring in order to accept the presidency of Jefferson College in western Pennsylvania. He spends the summer in Kentucky with his children, but since there is no house large enough for his eight children, he only takes Robert (11) and Willy (8) with him to Pennsylvania, and sends his 13 year old daughter, Sally, with her Aunt Eliza (Sophy’s sister) in Richmond, Virginia (where she runs a boarding school), and sends his 9 year old daughter, Marie, to stay with her mother’s cousin, Louisiana Hart Gibson near New Orleans. Her sister, Sarah Hart Thompson, takes 6-year-old Sophy and 3-year-old Joseph, and the other sister, Virginia Hart Shelby, takes 17-year-old Mary and 1-year-old Charles.
1846
Long-distance courtship with Virginia Hart Shelby
Long-distance correspondence with his daughter Mary about the children (and about her various potential marriages)
1847
Resigns from Jefferson College and engages in lengthy correspondence with a couple different churches in Kentucky that want to call him
(Can you see why there just might be a lot of correspondence those years?)
Two items for those who are following this so far:
1) Do you remember the story of the near duel in 1821/22? On March 12 I told you that he was at the theatre in Louisville with two Prestons. As it turns out, the theatre was in Frankfort, and he was there with Sophy Preston (later his wife), and her Hart cousins (probably Sarah and Louisiana — since Virginia was only 12 or 13 at the time). Now, 23 years later, the other two cousins who were present that night in Frankfort offer to take their cousin’s children for a time!
2) Also in 1845, RJB falls in love with their younger sister, Virginia Hart Shelby, reputed to be the most beautiful widow in all of Kentucky — and the daughter-in-law of Governor Isaac Shelby. Their correspondence includes some incredibly beautiful love letters, but also not a few hints of what would come in the future. Virginia broke off their first engagement, but insisted that she wanted to continue their correspondence and indicated that if she ever married, she would probably marry him. She also told him on one occasion that she preferred to end the relationship by letter — since she was unable to resist him when he was present! (Any guess what he did?)
So from the summer of 1845 (when he begins to fall for Virginia) through the spring of 1847 (when they get married), there are usually two letters from Virginia each week. I had worked through his letters in Kentucky. Now I’ve worked through her letters (or in some cases, just photographed them, since I know how important they are from his responses!).
In addition, there are Mary’s letters. She was 16 when her mother died, and 19 when he married Virginia. When she was 16 — and living with Virginia, she told her father to press his cause with “cousin Virginia” and was delighted at the prospect of having her as her stepmother. But by 1847, after the wedding, she will tell her father to give her love to “Susan and Isaac and Alfred” (Virginia’s teenage children), but will “forget” to mention Virginia. In her last letter to her father before his marriage, she tells him that five-year old Josey wants “no mother but sister.”
And of course, Mary Breckinridge herself was going through the joys and woes of courtship. When she was 16, she fell in love with Samuel Miller Breckinridge (her first cousin — who was living with them in Baltimore). It was all RJB could do to pry them apart. Then cousin Virginia took her on a trip to New Orleans to visit relatives there — and on the steam boat back up the Mississippi, she fell head over heels for George Forman, a 35 year old bachelor. This romance lasted for six months, with the now 18-year old Mary pleading with her father to let her marry Mr. Forman. The final conversations between father and daughter happened face-to-face in the summer of 1846. All we have recorded is the first draft of a letter from Mary to Mr. Forman stating that he need not make another trip to Kentucky, because she has changed her mind and is going with her father to Pennsylvania. (There are also veiled references in Mary’s later letters to her father that suggest that she traded her happiness for his in that decision!)
But in the winter of 1846-47, RJB had his whole family back together. And in the summer of 1847, he added his new wife and her 17-year old daughter Susan (who, at least at first, was fast friends with Mary).
But in the middle of the family matters, RJB is frequently called upon to advise the session of his former congregation in Baltimore (they try calling James Henley Thornwell — who agrees to come, but the South Carolina College refuses to let him go — and Benjamin Morgan Palmer, whose Presbytery will not release him!). RJB tries to stay out of the pastoral search, but they won’t let him! Further, there are pastoral care issues — in one case a feud starts between two elders, and they beg him to come and help them resolve it — which he does, with excellent results.
What’s more, in 1846, when the Senior Class of Jefferson College revolts (a rebellion that diverts attention in Kentucky from the Mexican War!), it was RJB’s wise and patient handling of the young men that restored order and honor to the college.
I honestly did not expect to find out that RJB would be praised as a peacemaker who was able to restore harmony and tranquility. He has always seemed to me so combative, that I did not think he would be so gracious and humble as he was in convincing the faculty not to expel the students who had insulted him (in the end, only two were expelled — and that was for continued defiance after the rest of the senior class had been pacified).
But needless to say, all of these events required reams of paper (since the parties lived hundreds of miles away from each other!). This is good for me — since most pastoral difficulties are handled in person, not by letter — and most father/daughter interactions over suitors are likewise handled face-to-face. And RJB was kind enough to live so much of his life on the road that even when he had his family at home, he was frequently traveling to General Assembly, or taking business trips to deal with estate matters (or being called to testify in Maryland against Governor Thomas!!).
Finally, in August of 1847, RJB accepted the call of the First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky.
