Mary Hull Granger Phillips, a true pioneer woman

Happy (belated) birthday to Mary Phillips, Birth MAY 6, 1829 • Newburyport, Essex, Massachusetts, USA Death 5 NOV 1861 • Town Bluff, Tyler County Tex

grandmother of my paternal grandmother, Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers. Died at 32, within a year of birth of her second child, her husband, William Phillips died in Civil War.
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First to share my original post from...

Monday, May 20, 2013

Ancestors letters

Don't worry, you're not going blind.  This is a very faint copy of a copy of a letter that was faint to begin with.  I don't know where the original is now, but I just copied the 1980 Xerox onto the computer.  Unfortunately Blogger won't let me upload more than a smidgen of the size of the scanned photo.  But don't worry, I've transcribed it already.

I[ think I have determined where Grigsby's Bluff might be. I think near Beaumont TX] But my grandmother's grandfather owned a farm just before the Civil War there.  His wife Mary Granger Phillips died suddenly, and this letter is to her sister from her father, as he went to the house.  At that time the husband had been seen by someone in Houston, and there weren't any clear explanations given of her death (at least in the letter).

So this is a sad letter.  But it also tells a lot of the life that was being lived just before the Civil War in Texas, written in Dec. 1861.  Her husband, William Phillips, died as a soldier during the war just a few years later, leaving 2 young children to be raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles.

And I have many more letters that were written by my grandmother's grandmother (she who had died so young).  I'm slowly transcribing them.  And I've already scanned them into a drop box where they are no longer kept in memory on my own computer.  

And I've started adding the photo files to Ancestry.com for my ancestors to have their words attached to their vital statistics.  I'll add the transcriptions as soon as I finish typing them.  

Why?  Well, somehow these words from these people have survived over 150 years.  They were just regular people living their lives.  Now here I am and finally have a break in my own life with enough time to do this.  So it's a project a 70 year old woman can do for the rest of the descendants of these hard working, brave, sometimes anxious, sometimes sick people, many of whom died young. 

I recently watched the PBS story about Margaret Mitchell.  She was a few generations removed from the war, but depicted it in her romantic novel.  I can see the words of my ancestor sounding so like Scarlet in her naivete.  She goes on and on about a beautiful piano which has been shipped from the East to a Texas town which has no other piano in it.  Then a few years later she admits the 16 blacks and 6 whites on their farm have little to eat and is not sure what may happen next.  She is also sorry to not have shoes for her daughter.

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Here's another post of the correspondence, which explains the relationships and how the family moved, the Grangers, the Phillips, even the Pulsifers.

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Friday, August 9, 2013

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)

                                        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.

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(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 

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(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

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(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.

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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 [living in a one room house apparently.]  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 [my opinion based on nothing!] Oil was discovered at nearby Spindletop on 10 January 1901. So remaining landmarks are few and far between.  

  

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 W. 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. 

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I'll just give you the link to another post, which included the same letter, but has different comments about the relationships of the family.  HERE.

Again I'm submitting this post to Sepia Saturday, though it's mainly about correspondence, rather than sepia photos!