If only all the letters written and received by our
ancestors were still in existence, think of all the information, stories, and
character traits we would have at our finger tips. I am fortunate to have
transcripts and, in some cases, originals of a few such treasured items. The
one I address today was transcribed in 1941 by Irene Persons Westling,
great-granddaughter of the writer. Without the information in this letter, I
would never have known how close we came to having a totally different family
tree.
The Joe referenced in the story is my husband’s
great-grandfather, Joseph Davey[i],
about 12 years before my husband’s grandfather was born. The story also
mentions Joe’s brother, John. Both of these men were miners and tended to
travel wherever they could find work or to wherever they thought they might
find the next great lode. They were from Cornwall, England, having come to
America with their father, John Dyer Davey. In 1863, Joe married Mary Louise
Stephens[ii]
the daughter of the Elizabeth (Letcher Nankivel) Stephens, the writer of the
letter.
A portion of the letter written from Elizabeth Stephens to
Thomas Stephens[iii]
[her husband] on 9 July 1865 from Platteville, Wisconsin to St. Clare Mine,
Eagle River, Michigan:
“Tim[iv]
is home from the lake and he have ben down seeing me and Jo is home from oragan
and he have ben very sick and Jo’s brother he haven’t ben down yet but he is
coming down as soon as he gets better. He come home a weak last Friday. They
had a lot of truble coming home with the endians. Jo and another man and Jo’s
brother sleep three quarters of a mile wore there was three men kild with the
endiens and they dident know it and they got up and went on a little further
and meet with some teams and they hasked them awhere they was agoing and they
said they wore on they way home and those men that wore in the wigons beg them
not to go eny futher for if they went eny futher they would be killed and here
was a wagon standing by and they told Jo and Jony to go and look in the wagon
and they went and looked in the wagon and they saw three men killed and they heads
scalped and to of them was tooleable young looking fellows and the other was an
old man. He dident have a tooth in his mouth and they put a walking stick in
his mouth and pished it down in his throat and before they bored him it tooked
to men to pull it out of his mouth and after that they went on a little futher
and meet to endines and they stopped Jo and them and wanted some tobacco and Jo
give them som and they told them they had no more and Jo told them they could
have what they wanted wen the teams come so they pointed. And wen Jo and them
started to walk they would follow them and they had now sooner said that before
the teams come in sight and the endines left them and went in the woods and they
never seen them eny more. They said if the teams hadent came in sight so soon
they would have ben killed.
Times is very dull here…”
So there it is…if the wagons hadn’t shown up when they did
and had Joe and John Davey been killed on their way home, my husband’s
grandfather would not have been born, nor my husband. What that would have
meant to my life, I don’t know but I’m happy things turned out the way they
did.
Too bad things were so dull in PlattevilleJ
[i] John Dyer Davey Bible, Iowa County
Historial Society, Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Joseph Davey, born April 25, 1843.
[ii] Wisconsin
Marriage Records, Wisconsin Historical Society Library, Madison, Wisconsin,
Iowa County, volume 1, page 373. Davey, Joseph Son of John Dyer Davey and Mary
Ann Davey, miner of Dodgeville, born in Cornwall, England and May louise Stephens,
dau of Thomas and Elizabeth Stephens.
[iii] William
Stephens, Manuscript and Journals of William Stephens Cornwall 1807-Wisconsin
1893 (written 1853-1883, printed by S. Neely March 1992), Wisconsin Room,
University of Wisconsin, Platteville, Wisconsin, page 8. "Thomas his
eldest son married a widow woman called Elizabeth Nankivel against the consent
of his friends, this woman having three sons by her former husband, caused some
unpleasant dissentions between them however, she with her family went to
America with him in 1842 and I believe is now at the Lake Superior Copper
mines.
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