Life and Letters of John T. Smith 2

kssmith4sf
Oct 28, 2024
2 min read

Written to Miss Mary D. Anderson, before marriage

Clifton, VA, August 30th 1833

My Dear Mary,

I have nothing to write to you about, and my object is merely to prove to you, that you are yet as fresh in my remembrance as the day on which I parted from you. Time, which is continually wearing away the frail and dissoluble fabrics of earth, serves only to increase my devotion to you. I am counting the days constantly with arithmetical precision. Soon, will I commence counting the hours, then minutes, and then seconds.

Could I believe, my Mary, that you felt only half the warmth of feeling towards me, which I do towards you, I should enjoy a perfect Elysium on earth, but woman is called "uncertain, coy, and hard to please". Still however, I know her to be capable of the warmest attachment, constant in her affection, patient and persevering under the severest trials.

There is but little sickness in the country at this time, therefore I enjoy a state of almost perfect rest. I returned yesterday from a visit to Eliza, having spent only one day with her; she said the reason I would not stay longer was because I wished to have some person else to talk to me about that belle in Christiansburg.

The girls and myself were attending a two days meeting on last Sunday from Col. Bowen's, held by Mrss. M'Intyre and M'Kewen in Tazewell. The ____(blurred) was all smiles and graces, but she did not venture to joke me about you, although she knew what was in agitation, as every body else does. The report, I suppose, was first brought from Wythe to Tazewell, by the lawyers of that place.

I had a most distressing dream about you a few nights since. I thought you had proved perfidious tome, and had suffered yourself to be led away by some worthless character. I was not permitted to long suffer such a state of mental torture, the effect was so perturbing as to cause me to soon awake, and thus relieved me of the horrors of such a vision.

Mary, I want to see you very much, indeed, not for any reason in particular, but just to be in your society. But if I cannot enjoy that happiness now, the day is not far distant when I hope to experience the full fruition of what my most enthusiastic feelings have led me to anticipate.

I am as ever your affectionate lover,

John T. Smith

To this union, the following children were born:

First child, female, October 8, 1834 - dead

Second child, male, August 26, 1835 - dead

Third child, female, November 21, 1836 - stillborn

Fourth child, male, June 7, 1838 - stillborn

Fifth child, male, March 19, 1839 - stillborn

Sixth child, male, March 2, 1841 - stillborn

Seventh child, female, March 1842 - lived 12 hours

Eighth child, male, May 7, 1843 - stillborn

Ninth child, male, July 1, 1844 - stillborn