Chasing the Past

Locust Cottage Ark August 14^th 1882

Mr David J Allen

My dear cousin David you will

pleas pardon me for not writing sooner, and

I will promis to do better in the future. I

was glad to hear from you. I thought perhaps

you was married, and did not care to write

to your cousin any more. well this leavs us

all as well  as cousins. ma has not been in

good health for some time she is afflicted

with Rheumatism she is able to set up most

of the time, but cannot do much.

well crops are good, better than they have been

for two or three months years there will be

plenty of corn + cotton made this year

wheat and oats were fine.

I am going to school now.  Brother Gabe is

Teaching the school, he has 25 pupils a

bad set two, it keeps him busy to keep

us strait.  I wish you could be here some

Friday to hear us speak and spell (and help us play

Play Ball)  I think you could afford to come

+ see us one time.  I would be so glad to see

you I have heard so much about you

Well I am studying Grammar History

Geography + Philosophy.  I am to precent +

Precentage in Arithmetic. I will have to stop

As I want to send this off to the office

Write soon to your cousin

Lizzie McSwain

I’ll post the rest of this letter as well as the envelop tomorrow.  As the envelope is postmarked Toledo, Ark, I started looking around that area to help me figure out just what the word was before Cottage.  I’m still not convinced it says Locust, but there is a Locust Cottage just north of Toledo, Ark on an 1883 map.

I haven’t found much on the McSwain family of Arkansas and how they got there.  I believe Lizzie may be Martha Elizabeth McSwain who married a Charles E. Kendall and lived her life in Jefferson County, Arkansas.  If I’ve found the right person, she’s the daughter of M. & Lucy McSwain.  I haven’t researched the McSwain line at all and hope to find some of the McSwain family information in these Allen Papers as I continue moving through them.

This post is part of a series of transcriptions of letters, papers, receipts, and other ephemera that are held in the Smith Family Collection.  All originals are held in this collection, unless otherwise stated.