Augusta County: John Marshall McCue to Nannie
Briscoe, January 12, 1854
Summary:
J. Marshall McCue writes to Nannie Briscoe with news of his cousin Evaline
McCue's death, asking Nannie to convey the news to the rest of her family. He
mentions Evaline's spiritual state upon her death, praises her conduct in life,
and tells Nannie that she spoke often of her meeting with Nannie on the Ohio
River.
Miss Nannie Briscoe
Jan'y 12th 1854
Long Meadows, Augusta County, Virginia
My dear friend
Your will pardon, I feel well assured any feeling of what under other
circumstances you might think an undue liberty in my thus addressing you, when
the reasons for it are expressed, altho' independent of those reasons, I feel
almost impelled to claim the privilege by reasons of acquaintance and the always
to me pleasant associations connected with our brief intercourse. A most
melancholy duty devolves upon me, to have to communicate to you and thro' you to our other friends whether now in
Arkansas or elsewhere, the death of your much esteemed young friend and my much
loved cousin Miss Evaline McCue after a brief illness
on yesterday evening (Wed) at twenty minutes past two oclock, of typhoid fever,
at this her home, surrounded by her loving friends,
consisting of Father, step- mother and three brothers & five sisters and
other relations and connexions. Living as I do some what remote, over twenty
miles in an opposite end of our county, I was summoned by business to our county
seat, when I heard of her illness, and immediately came to see her and
Providentially as I can but regard it, for I do not know how I could have born
the idea of her death without the opportunity of a personal knowledge of the
cir
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cumstances attending it. I arrived here on Tuesday evening
when I found her in that situation despaired of by her physicians and suffering
no doubt extravagantly at then as throughout her entire ilness without a murmur, or complaint. 'Twas difficult for her to
speak, yet she communicated her feelings by intellibible [illeg.] to the
interrogatores of her friends when she
could not speak and her conciousness remained
to the last moment. Tho' not a professor of
religion, yet her whole walk through life had been an example even a reproof to
many Christians, and during her illness in the interviews a neighbouring
minister had with her, her expressions of acquiescence in the will of her
heavenly father and resignation gave every reason to believe that she is now
enjoying the smiles of a merciful redeemer--To one of the interrogatories
propounded to her by the minister as it regarded her hope for the future she
replied "I know there is no hope except in the Lord Jesus".
A more lovely character than that possessed by our young friend it has never been
my good fortune to meet with. She possessed a well balanced mind, firm, decided
and prudent steadfast in her friendship when she formed the object or which the
feeling of friendship bestowed was worthy of it. She had improved very much in
the interval elapsed since your acquaintance with her, and independent of the
advantages she enjoyed by an intercourse with her friends in Ohio, and a very
agreeable and interesting journey from Ohio, home by the way of the Lakes, the Falls, and the Eastern
cities, she had employed her time at home, except that portion assigned to
the
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Society of her friends to reading, and the most of this of a
solid and judicious character--Few possessed a more refined caste, and sensitive
modest and retiring, yet with a native dignity and reserve that kept at a
distance those with whom she had no desire to form an intimacy but yet
appreciated so fully, her position as a lady, as treating one with becoming
respect. She made friends every where she went. She endeared those who had known
her longest to her by hooks of steel.
Beautiful as she was when you saw her, she was even more so at the time of her death and now while her cold and inanimate form is lying in state in an adjoining apartment, it would be difficult to picture to yourself a more beautiful immage--Why my fair Friend, the loveliest picture of that [illeg.] ideal of pictures the "Madonna" it does seem to me does not possess more symetry of proportion or beauty and expression of features than does her lovely face--Last evening as the last rays of the departing sun shown across her face, and added to the angelic expression which it bore, it would have been no stretch of immagination to have conjectured her a seraph from a bright world.
It is an inscrutable Providence that has removed this bright, this pure and
spotless being from us to that Heavens she was so fitted to enjoy, just entering
as she was in the thresh- hold of life, and
possessing all those elements in so remarkable a degree that blended in her
life, constituted her almost a perfect character.
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She alluded often to
our trip to Ohio and the meeting with your party on the Ohio river and the
pleasure enjoyed in the intercourse with you--'Twas only a few nights before she
became ill, that she entertained her two sisters until quite a late hour in
detailing the incidents that occurred on the Ohio river and during our stay at
the Burnet house. She was deeply attached to you spoke of you frequently and
nothing but a sort of antipathy to writing, prevented her from commencing a
correspondence with you.
Miss Nannie, I have after a brief interval been in with some friends to night (Thursday) to look again at the lovely Oh most lovely form of my dearest cousin and one of those friends was Mrs. Van Lear who came up this evening a distance of nearly twenty five miles thro' a pelting storm to look for the last time on the much loved form of her attached relative. She also speaks of you all often and would be much gratified to hear of your welfare.
Will you please to communicate to the rest of your family this mournful intelligence, as well also to Miss Hough and Miss Buckner and be assured of my sincere regard and respect--and convey to each of your friends my kindest wishes for their welfare.
With sincere esteem your friend
J. Marshall McCue
