Memoir of John Howe Peyton Part 24

I am very much obliged for the pamphlet containing an account of the presentation and acceptance of your honored father's portrait. "Honor to whom honor is due," and I am always glad to see any indication that virtue and integrity and intellectual ability are held in high esteem, and brought prominently before the public. It is cause of deep regret, that in these days, so much of the reverse is prominent. If I had known it in time, and that ladies were to be present on the interesting occasion, I should have gone down to the Court House, but I do not take a daily paper and did not know of it.

I remember your father as an elegant and courtly gentleman, genial and kind to all, both old and young; and that he belonged to a n.o.ble set of such men belonging to Staunton in those days.

I have read the pamphlet through (I had read the account in the papers), and have mailed it to Sam and the boys.

Your old friend, LOUISA DUPUY.

Many other interesting letters have been received from distinguished persons in all parts of the State, from the South and West, but s.p.a.ce does not admit of their introduction. We feel the less difficulty in omitting them, though coming from such men as Gen. G. W. C. Lee, from judges of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio, Hon. R. Taylor Scott, Col. Jesse E. Peyton, of New Jersey, R. L. Parrish and other eminent men and lawyers, because they knew Mr. Peyton only by reputation, not personally.

MRS. JOHN H. PEYTON.

We have mentioned Mr. Peyton's second marriage, in 1821, to Anne Montgomery Lewis. The happiness derived from this auspicious union was such that it may be cla.s.sed among the matches "made in heaven."

As a becoming conclusion to this compilation the following sketch of Mrs. Peyton is appended:

Among the noteworthy women of Virginia during the early part of the present century--our comparatively unknown and entirely unsung Southern heroines--was the subject of this sketch. Remarkable for her practical ability and efficiency, her graceful and accomplished taste, the extent and variety of her literary attainments, the unselfish generosity of her heart, and her unostentatious charities, no one was more highly esteemed while living, or was more mourned when, in her bright and useful career, struck down by the hand of death. Nor is there one of those departed Matrons--the peerless women of Virginia,--whose memory is more cherished by those among whom she lived; for, it was her peculiar good fortune to be at once the life and joy of her family, the "bright particular star"

of the society in which she moved, and the pride and ornament of the community.

Anne Montgomery Peyton was born at the Sweet Springs Monroe County, Virginia, in the year 1802. Her father Major John Lewis, was a man of large fortune, having inherited this extensive and valuable estate from his father, Col. William Lewis, commonly called the "Civilizer of the border." Major Lewis was a distinguished officer of that branch of the military forces of the "Thirteen United Colonies," styled the "Continental line," and served under Washington until the close of the revolutionary war. A little more than two years after the surrender of the British Army at Yorktown, by Lord Cornwallis, October 17th--19th, 1781, namely, in the winter of 1783 when Washington relinquished the command of the army, Major Lewis returned to the Sweet Springs where he spent the rest of his life, improving his property and enjoying the society of his friends. He married, in 1795, Mary Preston, the fourth daughter of Col. William Preston of Smithfield, County of Montgomery.

Mary Preston Lewis is reported to have been a woman of great personal charms and of uncommon vivacity of intellect, and of varied accomplishments. As spirited as beautiful, she was one of the true type of that Virginia character which has made itself known and felt throughout the world.[28]

[28] When little Anne Lewis left the Sweet Springs for Mr. C's school, she bore the following letter from her mother to him.

Sweet Springs, July 23rd, 1811.

_Mr. Crutchfield_:

_Dear Sir_--With the sincerest pleasure I send my dear little Anne to you again. I hope nothing will happen, not even an indulgence of my affection for her, to cause her coming home again shortly, for to you, I confide with confidence her entire education, and I hope your labors will be crowned with success by Him above, who is able to give abundantly.

It has been with much persuasion and many difficulties I have succeeded in getting Mr. L's consent to Anne and Margaret Lynn being sent to you.

I need not say anything as to Anne's temper and disposition. I know your penetration is sufficient, and in your judgment and tenderness [to improve both] I have entire confidence. You can do more to improve her than I can and I know you will. I have many happy proofs of the great good, both in mind and manners, that have accompanied your exertions towards my family.

Heaven bless and prosper you, is the wish of your friend, MARY P. LEWIS.

P. S. My respects to Mrs. Crutchfield. I have sent a cot and bedding for Anne and Lynn.

Mary Preston Lewis died at an early age, leaving a large family of young children, and it devolved upon the subject of this sketch, as being one of the oldest, to act the part of mother and sister towards them--a duty which she n.o.bly performed, ever extending to them Christian care and true sympathy. The portals of Montgomery Hall were always open to receive them and her younger brothers. In fact it became the home of her sisters, three of whom were subsequently, at different periods, married from it: namely, Margaret Lynn, to John Cochran, of Charlottesville, Va., Sarah, to her cousin, Col. John Lewis, of Kanawha, and Polydora, to John Gosse, of Albemarle. Her two younger brothers, John Benjamin and Thomas Preston, also resided with her several years while attending school in Staunton.

Anne Lewis, the third child of Major John Lewis and Mary Preston, and according to contemporaneous accounts, the most favored of them all; was entered in her ninth year at the school--a school in great repute at that day--of Mr. Crutchfield, situated in the Falling Spring Valley near the Peytona Cascades, Alleghany County.[29]

[29] The following letter from John Preston, Treasurer of the State of Virginia, gives a brief account of the death of his sister, Mary Preston Lewis.

Greenfield, Botetourt County, Va., February 8th, 1824.

_Dear Sister_:

The painful duty of informing you of the death of our beloved Sister Lewis devolves on me. She expired on Wednesday the 4th, (Feb. 4th, 1824) at her home at the Sweet Springs. She had lingered for some time but no dangerous symptoms appeared in her complaint, nor was any alarm excited.

She, however, became suddenly worse, and sent for Mary Woodville, who set out instantly and took with her Doctor Patterson, of Fincastle, but before they arrived she was struggling with death. She died with all the firmness of a Christian hero, firmly relying on the merits and mediation of an all-sufficient Saviour, and declared that her hope and confidence were so great that death presented not one solitary terror to her, but rather that he appeared to her as a friend who was to conduct her out of this into a far better world that she had long looked forward to with ardor--and called on her relations and friends around her to witness with what composure a real Christian could die, and actually closed her eyes with her own hands.

The family are now dispersed, and the house locked up and the plantation forsaken for awhile.

Sarah, Lynn and Thomas are at Mr. Woodville's, Ben and Polly down at Mr.

Ma.s.sie's. What future disposition will be made of them or the property is not yet decided on. She did not make a will.

My wife is very sick and confined to her bed with something like the nettle-rash. Sarah is well and I am in my general health.

Your affectionate brother, JOHN PRESTON.

To Mrs. Elizabeth Madison, Montgomery Co.

The reader will probably excuse a brief reference to this valley which is so remarkable for its scenic charms, the cascade being the most striking point, that one cannot pa.s.s through it without feeling the truth of Cowper's beautiful line--"G.o.d made the Country and man made the Town." The variety, the perfection, and indeed everything about a lively country scene so eclipse the noise and bustle and turmoil of a large town that I have sometimes been so uncharitable as to think that those who did not love the country, could scarcely love their Maker; but to indulge such a thought would be illiberal, decidedly wrong. And yet the country has many, many charms, peculiar to itself and of a peculiar character; and although it is certain that a vicious mind will think of G.o.d nowhere, while a pious one will behold him in everything, it nevertheless cannot be doubted that there are natural tendencies in the bustle, parade, and business of large commercial towns, to turn away the soul from G.o.d; while innumerable objects are presented in the country which lead the mind of the reflective "through Nature up to Nature's G.o.d."

The general truth of these remarks has always been impressed on our mind when in the country, and more especially when rambling during the summer through the enchanting regions of western Virginia.

In one of the loveliest spots in this picturesque land, Mr. Crutchfield had wisely established his school--no doubt influenced in his choice by its central position in the State, its retired situation and the extreme healthfulness of the climate. Amidst these rural scenes in the "sweet sequestered vale," Anne Lewis spent her early youth, making much progress in learning and acquiring a fund of valuable information.

Studying with unexampled industry, she carried off the highest prizes.

But even in this, the school of highest grade at that period in Western Virginia, she was in a measure deprived of that thorough and liberal education which her ambition craved. When she completed the course and returned home it was with a painful consciousness on her part of how little she knew and how much she had yet to learn.

She often spoke in after years in a lively and amusing way of her life at this remote seminary, and of how the scholars had to rough it; of what would now be styled their hardships, but which did not seriously effect these light-hearted girls. She alluded to her own life at this season of her early joys, as smooth and pleasant, and to the valley of the Falling Spring as a kind of earthly paradise. Her opening years here and at her home at Sweet Springs, were eminently happy and this sunny morning betokened the short, but cloudless day that was coming.

Concerning their life at Mr. Crutchfield's generally she said it was not uncomfortable or unpleasant. His table was liberally supplied with whatever the country produced, such as beef, mutton, poultry, and now and again with game and fish furnished by the forests, and the mountain streams. Of foreign luxuries they saw little or nothing. Their coffee was generally roasted rye, or a mixture of rye and "Rio," and their evening drink was milk or Sa.s.safras tea. When they visited distant friends they rode on horseback, or were crowded into Mr. Crutchfield's cariole--a kind of covered spring cart.

In their intervals of toilsome labors, and Mr. C. was far from allowing his pupils to neglect their studies, they pa.s.sed much of their time gathering wild flowers in the green fields or on the mountain sides, visiting from time to time the cottages of the hearty mountaineers, whose good wives always welcomed them with a gla.s.s of sweet milk, some new laid eggs, or delicious fruit.

It must be remembered that these hours of leisure were not given to enjoyment only,--hours so favorable to improvement were better employed.

When they returned from the fields, their hands tinted with the rich purple and crimson of the flowers they had gathered, it was not the blood stain of murdered time. On the contrary they were only signs of the eagerness with which they pursued knowledge as well as pleasure, in some department of natural history, for they were always accompanied in their outdoor excursions by a teacher. Trees were waving, flowers blooming, birds singing, and insects revelling around them--the very pebbles in their pathway contained a history of the past within them; the stream flowing by them had its finny tribes, most wonderfully adapted to their element, and these lighter hours were given to an examination, almost a study, of these objects--animate and inanimate, as they came from the hands of our Creator. And it may be safely a.s.serted that few professional botanists were deeper versed at a little later period in the virtues of various herbs and plants, and how they might be made subservient to our uses, domestic and medicinal, than was Anne Lewis.

It was during her sojourn at this school, while spending a holiday with her sister, Mrs. Ma.s.sie, at the Valley Farm, that she first met John Howe Peyton, then in the zenith of his professional success and one of the handsomest and most accomplished men in Virginia. He had recently returned from active service with the army of 1812-15, of which he was a daring and enterprising officer. She was at this time in the flush of opening womanhood, at the romantic age, and listened with wrapt attention and delight to his eloquent conversation, his graphic and animated accounts of the camp and field. She was herself rich in what has been styled with poetic license the fatal dower of beauty and was as clever as pretty. The result may be as easily imagined as told--they were speedily betrothed and shortly after her return to the paternal roof, though her beauty drew suitors for her hand from far and near, were married (1821.)

It was a fortunate marriage and brought her all the happiness promised by a union with the chosen of her heart. Her home was thereafter in Staunton for a few years and subsequently till her death at Montgomery Hall. She thus returned to the original location of her great grandfather the "lord of the hills," to pa.s.s her life amidst the scenes rendered historic by his and his brave companions' long struggle with their savage enemies and almost within sight of the ruins of that Fort Lewis, under whose stout walls the colony grew, in time, strong enough to defy every foe.

Civil life, as we know it, hardly existed in those days in Virginia; all that was powerful, all that was honored, was connected with war; the ideas of the time more or less insensibly took a military color; men's callings and necessity were in one way or the other to fight; and to fight with effect needed combination, endurance, and practice, and the rude forts of the frontier were camps or barracks where there was continual drill and exercise, fixed times, appointed task, hard fare, incessant watchfulness, an absolute obedience to officers. Armed men, with sentinels posted to give warning of an enemy's approach, tilled the fields. Cattle were herded at night around the strong places; patrols scoured the country day and night, and, in fact, all the precautions were taken which are necessary to intruders in an enemy's country. Many a dark tale of ma.s.sacre has been connected with the settlement of West Augusta; and the story of the Lewises and other pioneers, forms a romantic and memorable feature in the history of those turbulent times.

Fort Lewis was the only place of security west of the Blue Ridge and south of Winchester. It was a fortress of little architectural extent or pretension, but in its a.s.sociations one of the most popular and interesting of our historical places.

In her new home Anne Peyton soon developed more fully the n.o.ble qualities which so much endeared her to a numerous circle of friends and the intellectual parts by which she was afterwards so widely known.

There was no object of a humane and laudable kind to which she did not devote her time and attention, but particularly was her active philanthropy displayed in connexion with the large slave population on her husband's estates. She made herself intimately acquainted with the real condition of the negroes on these plantations and set on foot remedies for the evils necessarily incident to their condition. Her labors were attended with success, and not only the physical but the intellectual and moral condition of these unfortunate beings was improved and advanced.

Happily the prosperity of Virginia was in her day so exuberant, that there was little poverty of any kind. There are, however, always cases of want to be found in every community, and these she sought out and relieved when and where the world was not cognizant. In a word she offered bread to the famishing and hope to the desperate. Her tender sympathy extended even to the brute creation. She could not patiently endure to see dumb creatures suffering from cruelty or want of proper care, and the very animals instinctively regarded her as their thoughtful friend.

Anne Montgomery Peyton became the mother of ten children, all of whom reached years of maturity, and with two exceptions married and have families of their own, and all now survive but her second daughter, Anne Montgomery, who died unmarried in 1870, and her son Yelverton. She was, as we shall see, a most careful mother and affectionate wife, looking up to her husband as a superior being, and took upon herself the heavy burden of care in connection with the rearing and education of this numerous family, to which her husband could give little attention from the absorbing pursuit of his profession and the overwhelming character of his engagements.

It was truly in the domestic sphere that she most shone, and her children owe so much to her teachings and example, to her maternal tenderness and training, that the recollection of their days at the Hall is the most precious remembrance they carry with them through life.

Her mind was always active in devising means for the benefit of her children. Nor would she allow any personal inconvenience of discomfort to interfere with her plans for carrying them out. She often entered into their juvenile games and amus.e.m.e.nts with all the vivacity of her nature. Nor did it lessen the deference and respect they felt for her.

She knew when to be little and when to be great. When to exercise her authority, how to enhance her influence, and the value of example in enforcing both. Thus obedience became so easy that her children soon combined the pleasure of antic.i.p.ating her wishes with the duty of compliance. Of course in every family there are to be found wrong tempers, feverish ailments, and perverseness of disposition, and willing obedience cannot be, at all times and on all occasions, obtained however consistently authority may be maintained. But as far a child however helpless, ignorant, and inexperienced could be brought into habits of obedience by a judicious exercise of parental authority, without an approach to undue severity, it was accomplished by her tact and discretion.

Some one has called the boy the "father of the man," but the mother is more especially the parent of the child, forming, directing and educating its mind and heart. The very pulses of its life throb responsively with hers, from heart it springs into being and her heart should be its natural shelter and resting place while life lasts. A Christian mother she was who made the well-being for her children, spiritual and physical next to her duty to G.o.d and her husband, the object of her most watchful attention, and whether in the nursery, the play grounds or school rooms, or the household bestowed upon them the utmost care, instructing them at one time and romping with them at another.