xt7n028pcv2s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7n028pcv2s/data/mets.xml Wilson, Samuel M. (Samuel Mackay), 1871-1946. 1923 books b92-62-27078431 English [s.n.], : Lexington, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Shelby, Susan Goodloe Hart, 1839-1923. Hart family. Selby family. Shelby, Isaac, 1750-1826.Shelby, William Kinkead, 1861-1900. Wilson, Mary Bullock (Shelby), 1876-1959. Susan Hart Shelby / a memoir by S.M.W. text Susan Hart Shelby / a memoir by S.M.W. 1923 2002 true xt7n028pcv2s section xt7n028pcv2s
SUSAN HART SHELBY,
Aet. 20.
SUSAN HART SHELBY
A MEMOIR
BY
S. M. W.
ounix 1rawr mu'.. ,c198
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY
1923
To M. S. WV.
Praestantissima, puiche-rbria, atque optima
oinniuim femininarum.
For who that feel this burden and this strain,
This wide vacuity of hope and heart,
Would bring their cherished well-beloved again;
To bleed with them and wince beneath the smart,
To have with stinted bliss such lavish bane,
To hold in lieu of all so poor a part
CHRISTINA G. ROSETTI.
Let us invent a new term for the taking leave
of the body by the spirit. Let it be one to which
no faintest touch of sadness clings. The mystery
and the loveliness in death overshadow its sad-
ness. Until we know what death is,
we do not know what life is; until we know what
loss is, we do not know what love is.
ANNE MANNING ROBBINS.
Life is not gone
When it passes from us. It but passes on.
In this, as in all worlds, nothing is lost:
Least of all is that lost which we prize the most.
Uplift your heart; and look o'er-head!
For those you have lost be comforted.
Believe it with all your soul and will,-
They are able to love and be loved by you still.
CLIFFORD HARRISON.
Will you seek afar off You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good
as the best,
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest,
lovingest;
Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place-
not for another hour, but this hour;
Man in the first you see or touch-always in friend,
brother, nighest neighbor,-
Woman in mother, lover, wife.
WALT WHITMAN.
SUSAN HART SHELBY
"Ma ny daughters have done worthily, but thou
excellest them all."
Susan Hart Shelby, widow of the late Edmund
Pendleton Shelby, who passed away at her residence on
Walnut Street, in Lexington, Kentucky, on the morning
of April 1, 1923, just as she was entering upon her 85th
year, was born on the 15th day of March, 1839, in Madi-
son County, Kentucky, at the country place of her grand-
father Goodloe, located about four miles from Richmond,
on the waters of Muddy Creek, a tributary of the Ken-
tucky River. Within the family circle and among her
most intimate friends, the subject of this sketch, in her
girlhood and during her school days, was generally known
as "Sue Hart," instead of by her full baptismal name of
Susannah Goodloe Hart.
On or shortly after the marriage of her mother, Lucy
Anne Goodloe, to her father, David Perry Hart, her
grandfather, William Clinton Goodloe, gave to her
mother a farm of about two hundred acres, adjacent to
or, perhaps, constituting a part of the home farm of the
Goodloes. The marriage of Lucy Anne Goodloe (born
March 28, 1819) to David Perry Hart, a younger son
of John Hart and his wife, Mary Irvine, took place in
Madison County on the 7th day of June, 1838. Lucy
(Goodloe) Hart survived the birth of her daughter,
4
Susan, a little less than four years, dying at the early age
of twenty-four, on January 7, 1843. There was only one
other child by this marriage, a daughter, Fannie, who
died in infancy. This child was named for an aunt,
Fannie Hart, who had intermarried with William Irvine
and whose descendants live in Berkeley, California, and
vicinity.
About a year after the death of his wife, Lucy (Good-
loe) Hart, David Perry Hart gave up the Madison County
farm, which constituted the major portion of his wife's
dowry, and moved to Fayette to live. Here he made his
home for a while with Mrs. Sophia (Hart) Curle, his
widowed sister. He later married, as his second wife,
his first cousin, Sarah Simpson Hart, a daughter of Cum-
berland Hart (who had been killed by the Indians), and
his wife, formerly Fannie Hughes, of Madison County.
Upon the happening of these two events-the second
marriage and the removal from Madison to Fayette-
David P. Hart insisted on restoring to his father-in-law,
William Clinton Goodloe, the farm which his first wife
had received on her marriage, but upon the express con-
dition that it should be held in trust for the benefit of his
daughter, Susan. This very honorable and provident
arrangement insured the education of his daughter, but,
as she once remarked to the writer, by the time she had
finished school "her inheritance was pretty well used
up. "
Because of his betrothal to his first cousin, David P.
Hart was disinherited by his father, who opposed and
disapproved this second marriage. He accordingly re-
5
ceived no part of the father's estate by way of patrimony,
but his mother, who was deeply attached to him, gave
him several thousand dollars, with which he went into
business.
William Clinton Goodloe and John Hart, grandpar-
ents of Susan Goodloe Hart, had thirteen children each,
large families being the order of the day, and of these
the former group included nine sons in all, the latter
eight.
William Clinton Goodloe, who was born in Granville
County, North Carolina, October 22, 1769, and who died
October 26, 1856, was a farmer and one of the wealthiest
and most influential men in Madison County. His wife
was Susannah Woods, a daughter of Captain Archibald
Woods, who fought in the Revolution, and who came from
Albemarle County, Virginia, and was one of the earliest
pioneers of that part of Kentucky which later became
known as Madison County. Succeeding Daniel Boone
and others of the primitive path-breakers of Kentucky,
he became one of the trustees of the town of Boones-
borough, under the amendatory Act of 1787, along with
Thomas Kennedy, Robert Rodes, Green Clay, Aaron
Lewis, William Irvine and others. Susannah (Woods)
Goodloe, who was born June 13, 1778, and died October 2,
1851, was a woman of strong character and vigorous men-
tality. Her marriage to Wim. C. Goodloe took place Feb-
ruary 23, 1796. Besides Lucy Anne Goodloe, and her twin
brother, George, who lived to be grown but died without
ever having married, other children of this union included
eight sons and three daughters, namely, Robert, William
C., John, Archibald, Harry, Thomas, Octavius, David S.,
and Sallie, Mourning, and Elizabeth.
Judge William C. Goodloe, the second son (born in
Madison County, October 7, 1805), served the judicial
district, of which the Fayette Circuit Court constituted
a part, for a period of seventeen years. He was the last
of the appointive and the first of the elective judges in
that district. Justice Samuel F. Miller, of the United
States Supreme Court, once said of Judge Goodloe that
he was "the ablest nisi prius judge in America." His
wife was Almira, a daughter of Governor William
Owsley. Among their children were Captain Archibald
Goodloe, of the United States Army, Owsley Goodloe,
and the late Mrs. William L. Neal, mother of Mrs. Louis
Bosworth, whose husband, Captain William L. Neal, was
an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.
David S. Goodloe, younger brother of Judge William C.
Goodloe, was the father of Colonel William Cassius Good-
loe, whose mother was a sister of General Cassius M.
Clay. Judge John D. Goodloe, the present County Judge
of Madison County, is of this family, being a descendant
of Oetavius Goodloe, a brother, as above stated. of Judge
William C. Goodloe and David S. Goodloe.
John Hart, the paternal grandfather of Susan Good-
loe Hart, was born February 5, 1773, in Caswell County,
North Carolina, and was a son of Captain Nathaniel
Hart (born May 8, 1734), a native of Hanover County,
Virginia. Susanna Rice, the mother of Captain Na-
thaniel Hart, was an aunt of "Father" David Rice, the
pioneer "Apostle" of Presbyterianism in Kentucky.
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7
Elizabeth Rice, wife of William Lacy, of Hanover and
Chesterfield Counties, Virginia, was a sister of Susanna
Rice Hart, and a lineal ancestor of Major Samuel M.
Wilson, of Lexington. In association with his brothers,
Colonel Thomas Hart (father-in-law of Henry Clay, Hon.
James Brown, and Dr. Richard Pindell) and David
Hart (the grandfather of Archibald Dixon), and sev-
eral other enterprising gentlemen, including Judge
Richard Henderson, of North Carolina, as legal ad-
viser, Captain Nathaniel Hart formed the " Transyl-
vania Company," which bought from the Cherokee In-
dians, at Watauga, in March, 1775, all that part of Ken-
tucky which lies south of Kentucky River. The wife of
Captain Nathaniel Hart was Sarah Simpson, of Fairfax
County, Virginia, who was born February 24, 1744. This
marriage was consummated in Virginia on December 25,
1760. Captain Nathaniel Hart arrived at Boonesborough
in April, 1775, with the vanguard of the Transylvania
party, and from this time on spent most of his time in
Kentucky, although he did not attempt to bring his family
out till the fall of 1779. It was in this year that Captain
Hart built and settled his own fort at the White Oak
Spring, situated about a mile above Boonesborough and
in the same bottom of the river. The White Oak Spring
Fort was occupied chiefly by families from York County,
Pennsylvania. Like Boonesborough, it was frequently a
target for Indian attack, and not long after Captain
Hart's death was entirely depopulated.
Nathaniel Hart, Jr. (born September 30, 1770, at his
father's country seat, the Red House, Caswell County,
8
North Carolina, the eldest surviving son of Captain Na-
thaniel Hart), whose handsome estate in Woodford
County (now the property of Senator Camden), was
known as Spring Hill, wrote to Governor James T. More-
head, in 1840, a long and interesting letter, from which
the following extracts are taken:
"It is impossible at this day to make a just im-
pression of the sufferings of the pioneers about the
period spoken of. The White Oak Spring fort in
1782, with perhaps one hundred souls in it, was re-
duced in August to three fighting white men-and I
can say with truth, that for two or three weeks, my
mother's family never unclothed themselves to sleep,
nor were all of them, within the time, at their meals
together, nor was any household business attempted.
Food was prepared and placed where those who chose
could eat. It was the period when Bryant's Station
was besieged, and for many days before and after
that gloomy event, we were in constant expectation
of being made prisoners. We made application to
Col. Logan for a guard, and obtained one, but not
until the danger was measurably over. It then con-
sisted of two men only. Col. Logan did everything
in his power, as County Lieutenant, to sustain the
different forts-but it was not a very easy matter
to order a married man from a fort, where his family
was, to defend some other-when his own was in im-
minent danger.
"I went with my mother in January, 1783, to Lo-
gan's Station to prove my father's will. He had
fallen in the preceding July. Twenty armed men
were of the party. Twenty-three widows were in
attendance upon the court, to obtain letters of ad-
ministration on the estates of their husbands who
had been killed during the past year. My mother
went to Col. Logan's, who received and treated her
like a sister."
9
Captain Nathaniel Hart was killed by a small party
of Indians in July, 1782, while he was riding between the
fort at White Oak Spring and Boonesborough. Besides
his widow, he left nine children surviving him. The
widow, Sarah Simpson Hart, died in the end of March,
1785.
The Hart family, with its extensive and powerful con-
nections, bears the same relation to the early social and
official life of Kentucky that the Lee, Randolph, and
Harrison families, for example, bear to the colonial life of
Virginia, or that the Schuyler, Livingston, and Van
Rennselaer families bear to the early history of New
York; or, as a recent biographer has expressed it, in ref-
erence to Lucretia Hart, the wife of Henry Clay: "She
was a Hart, and in that section (i. e., Central Kentucky),
a Hart had relatively much the position of the Vanderbilts
in New York today." "A three-fold cord is not quickly
broken," and not only by intermarriage with the Clays,
the Browns, and the Shelbys, but by matrimonial alliances
with other families no less prominent and influential, the
position and prestige of the Harts was strongly in-
trenched at the very inception of the Commonwealth.
Captain Nathaniel Gray Hart, a brother of Mrs. Clay,
who had formerly commanded the "Lexington Light In-
fantry," forfeited his valorous life as a sacrifice to Brit-
ish perfidy and Indian savagery in the dread encounter
at the River Raisin, in January, 1813; and for long years
Archibald Dixon, of Kentucky, Thomas Hart Benton, of
Missouri, and Jessie Benton Fremont, the gifted and am-
bitious daughter of Missouri's lion-like Senator, were
10
names to conjure with throughout the nation. It was
Benton, with his far-ranging vision, who, a century ago,
instinctively divined the course of empire and, with arm
upraised and finger pointing Westward, dramatically de-
clared: "There lies the way to India!" This truly Co-
lumbian conception was first enunciated by Benton as
early as 1819. With clear apprehension of its truth, the
poet-prophet, Walt Whitman, seized upon the sagacious
utterance and used it as the motif of one of his most
thrilling poems, "Passage to India," first published in
1870. The brilliant and lamented humanitarian and pro-
tagonist of social and civic betterment, Madeline Mc-
Dowell Breckinridge, was endowed with a double portion
of the masterly qualities which have been regnant in
the Hart family. In truth, it is no exaggeration to say
that the Hart blood is still a prepotent strain in not a
few branches of the historic families of Kentucky and
other States; and those who seek a biological basis for
the ethical, intellectual, and spiritual phenomena in hu-
man life will find ample confirmation of their theory that
"blood will tell" in the spacious and impressive history
of the House of Hart. "Nature inborn," sang the poet
Pindar, twenty-five centuries ago, "none shall prevail to
hide. "
A letter bearing date March 14, 1807, written by
Thomas Hart Benton, from Franklin, Tennessee, to his
great-uncle, Colonel Thomas Hart, "one of the earliest
and most important citizens of Lexington, " which
is now in the possession of the Missouri Historical So-
ciety, and is here reproduced by the courtesy of that so-
.11
ciety, is of interest not only because of its comparatively
early date and because Benton's epistolary remains are
none too abundant, but also because of the humorous
though rather subtle allusion it contains to the hostility
toward Britain which at that time agitated the minds of
Kentuckians and made them keenly averse to the importa-
tion or use of English fabrics. Evidence of this resent-
ful feeling may be seen in the contemporary speeches and
writings of Henry Clay and other statesmen of the pe-
riod. Colonel Thomas Hart was doubtless a zealous
champion of the policy of non-importation and exclusive
dependence on goods of domestic manufacture as advo-
cated by his distinguished son-in-law, who once boasted in
the Kentucky Legislature that his suit of home-spun jeans
was every bit as good as the finest English broadcloth.
At the date of this letter, Benton was twenty-five
years of age and it happens to have been written on his
birthday. His marriage to Elizabeth McDowell, daugh-
ter of Colonel James McDowell and his wife, Sarah,
daughter of Colonel William Preston, of Virginia, did
not occur until March 20, 1821, after Benton had entered
the United States Senate. James McDowell, his wife's
brother, was Governor of Virginia from 1843 to 1846,
an office he surrendered, strange to relate, to accept a
seat in the Lower House of Congress, made vacant by
the death of his brother in-law, William Taylor. The
letter in question reads:
"Dear Sir-My brother, Mr. Jesse Benton, car-
ries you this letter. You will find him an unformed
lad, but made of good elements.
12
"I wrote you some time ago by mail, and enclosed
a copy of old Pastie's entry and survey. Have you
received that letter If not, let me know, and I will
write again.
"I shall be glad to hear that you incur the ex-
pence of a new suit of clothes this April!
"Give my compliments to the ladies of your
house, and receive for yourself the first offerings of
my friendship. THoms H. BENTON."
Archibald Dixon, the only son of Captain Wynn Dixon
and his second wife, Rebecca Hart, was born in Caswell
County, North Carolina, April 2, 1802. The second wife
of Archibald Dixon was Susan Bullitt, a sister of Colonel
Thomas W. Bullitt, of Louisville, and Hon. John C. Bul-
litt, of Philadelphia. Late in life Mrs. Dixon wrote and
published "The True History of the Missouri Compro-
mise and Its Repeal," in which transaction Archibald
Dixon, while Senator from Kentucky, played a conspicu-
ous part, and in this book she incorporated brief bio-
graphical data concerning her husband. The reference
to his boyhood is all that the limits of space will admit
here. "In 1805," says Mrs. Dixon, "they (the Dixons)
removed to Kentucky, where they selected for their home
one of the loveliest spots in all this lovely Kentucky of
ours, about six miles out from the city of Henderson,
or 'Red Banks,' as it was then called. And here, under
the shadow of the primeval forest, listening to the songs
of the wonderful birds pictured by Audubon, to the howl
of the wolf and the scream of the wild cat by night, skat-
ing for miles over the frozen flats which then extended,
covered with water during the winter from four to six
THOMAS HART SHELBY,
1789-1869.
This page in the original text is blank.
13
feet deep, as far as Sebree, and were supposed to have
been once the bed of the Ohio; or wading up to his waist
in the water in these same flats after wild ducks; hunt-
ing the deer and wild turkeys through the grand old
woods, riding races with his young companions and join-
ing in all their games, grew to manhood the lad who was
to ' achieve for himself fame and fortune, by native force,
honor, and pluck.' " Archibald Dixon's first wife was a
daughter of Col. Joseph Cabell, of Henderson, and their
eldest daughter, Rebecca, became the wife of Governor
John Young Brown.
Of Henry Clay, the "Great Commoner," volumes
would have to be requisitioned to recount the deathless
deeds, but such volumes any library of respectable pro-
portions may be relied on to supply. It is enough, in
passing, to say of him what was once said of Lord Byron,
that "his very dregs were better than the first sprightly
runnings of other men;" and, as his old friend, Aria
Throckmorton, used to declare: No matter where Henry
Clay happened to be or what the character or complexion
of the society he was in, he was "always Captain." In
the memorable oration delivered at Louisville, in 1867,
by Judge William Fontaine Bullock at the unveiling of
the Hart statue of Henry Clay, this same thought finds
eloquent and ornate expression. "For nothing" (in the
words of the eminent jurist), "was Mr. Clay more re-
markable than his personal bearing. In all his inter-
course with men, whether public or private, his presence
was the assertion of his claim to pre-eminence. This was
not arrogance or assumption; it was the natural exhibi-
14
tion of his real character. He did not invoke, but he com-
manded attention; he did not solicit, but he extorted rec-
ognition and respect; and this despotic claim was asserted
without reference to station or influence or power. If he
was haughty, he was at the same time conciliatory; if he
was overbearing, he was also generous; if he was exact-
ing, he was ever ready to make concessions."I
It certainly argues something more than a mere casual
coincidence that colossal figures such as Clay, Shelby,
Brown, Benton, Dixon, McDowell, Fremont, and their
compeers should have been thus intimately identified,
by blood and marriage, with the Harts; and whatever
else may be thought of this extraordinary collocation
of "personalities and parts," it can hardly be explained
as naught but "the accident of an accident."
Susanna Hart, a sister of John Hart, likewise born
in Caswell County, North Carolina, on February 18, 1764,
became the wife of Colonel Isaac Shelby (afterwards the
first Governor of Kentucky), to whom she was married
in the fort at Boonesborough, on the Kentucky River, on
April 19, 1783. She died at Travelers' Rest, in Lincoln
County, Ky., June 19, 1833. Hence Susan Goodloe Hart
and her husband, Edmund Pendleton Shelby, were second
cousins, through the Harts.
The wife of John Hart was Mary Irvine, born in Mad-
ison County, Ky., on March 4, 1784. She lived to be
nearly eighty-six years of age and was active and alert
to the very last. To this grandmother, Susan (Hart)
Shelby was always deeply devoted and she never tired
of extolling her virtues and singing her praise. Friends
15
of the family can never forget with what enthusiastic
pride the picture of Mary (Irvine) Hart was invariably
pointed out by Mrs. Shelby to visitors to the Shelby
home. It is said that Mrs. Hart was riding horseback,
wrapped in a heavy cloak, from her own farm to that of
one of her sons and, in some manner, became entangled
in her cloak or riding-habit and fell from her horse. The
shock she sustained from the fall shortly thereafter ter-
minated in her death. This happened on September 14,
1869, about eleven years after Susan G. Hart's marriage.
Her husband, John Hart, had passed away many years
before, on April 20, 1846. Mary Irvine was a daughter
of Captain Christopher Irvine and his wife, Lydia Cal-
laway, the latter being a daughter of Colonel Richard
Callaway and his wife, Frances Walton. Colonel Calla-
way and Captain Irvine both lost their lives at the hands
of hostile Indians.
John and Mary (Irvine) Hart, whose wedding oc-
curred on October 26, 1802, had eight sons and five daugh-
ters, namely, Nathaniel, John, Christopher, Isaac, David
Perry, Edwin, Thomas, and Irvine, and Sophia, Fannie,
Lydia, Mary, and Sarah. Sophia Hart married Clayton
Curle. John Hart settled his five sons who grew to man-
hood near him, giving to each (except David Perry, whose
second marriage had displeased him) about five hundred
acres of land.
David Perry Hart was born in Fayette County, on the
5th day of January, 1814, on the " old John Hart place, "
located on the Tate's Creek Pike, about six miles from
Lexington. He died on his farm, near Germantown, in
16
Shelby County, Tennessee, May 15, 1886. As may be
seen from the fine oil portrait preserved of him, he was
an auburn-haired, good-looking, happy-tempered, attrac-
tive man, of a decidedly sociable disposition and with a
great fondness for music. He himself played well on
several musical instruments, and he was the life of every
company in which he happened to be thrown.
While a very young girl, living with her parents in
Lexington, Susan G. Hart, went to school to Jane Cham-
bers, a one-armed school teacher, who conducted a school
on High Street. Of her, the pupil once laughingly re-
marked: "She could slap harder with her one arm than
other women could with two sound arms."
Then, a short time later, this bright and beautiful
young girl was sent to Richmond, Ky., to be near her
Goodloe grandparents, with whom she was always a
prime favorite, and there lived for five years at "Elm-
wood," the home of her kinswoman, Mrs. Elizabeth
(Jones) Goodloe, who married John Miller, a merchant
of Richmond, who was afterwards a Union soldier and
lost his life in the Civil War. He is said to have been
short in stature "but military to a degree."
During this period of her residence in Richmond,
Susan G. Hart attended the "Richmond High School,"
at the head of which, at that time, was the Rev. Ezekiel
Forman, father of the Hon. T. T. Forman and grand-
father of M. Don Forman, Esq., of Lexington. One of the
teachers in this school was Miss Mary Franklin, who
afterwards became the wife of Major Robert S. Bullock
and was the mother of Judge Franklin Avery Bullock,
This page in the original text is blank.
EDMUND PENDLETON SHELBY,
1833-1917.
17
Dr. Thomas S. Bullock, and Mrs. Cary F. Moore. Dur-
ing their association as teacher and pupil in this school,
Susan Hart and Mary Franklin became fast friends and
this ardent reciprocal attachment lasted throughout life.
One of Mrs. Shelby's daughters (now Mrs. Samuel M.
Wilson), was named Mary Bullock Shelby in honor of
her paternal grandmother, Mary Bullock Shelby (b. 4th
March, 1800; d. 27th June, 1836), daughter of Hon. Ed-
mund Bullock and second wife of Major Thomas Hart
Shelby, to whom she was married March 1, 1821, and also
as a compliment to her mother's life-long friend, Mrs.
Robert S. Bullock.
From two Albums of Autographs, filled with senti-
ments in verse and prose, by devoted juvenile friends of
her school days in Richmond, during the years 1854-56,
the following selections have been made. These im-
promptu and unpretentious effusions are interesting, not
so much for their intrinsic merit as for the evidence they
afford of the fervent affection and glowing admiration
entertained by many of her youthful contemporaries for
the beautiful, attractive, and popular young school girl,
"Sue Hart. " As one, who had abundant opportunity to
know her and every reason to love her, has declared,
"She was a raving, tearing beauty, as smart as a whip,
and a favorite with all."
"No sweeter maid e 'er trod the moor,
No saint more fitly shrined."
One ardent admirer wrote:
18
"I can assure you that it is a source of the great-
est gratification to me to have the pleasure of writ-
ing in your Album. One on whom I have ever looked
as a friend, and one who has added as many charms
to the social circle as there are grains of sand on old
Ocean's shore, and one in whom all the qualities are
combined that are requisite to render her an orna-
ment to the brightest circle-I cannot but compare
you, in the social circle, to the rising of the morning
sun."
Another, in reminiscential mood, penned this:
" When looking back to days gone by, my thoughts
invariably turn to those happy school days, when
first I knew thee. It was my good fortune at that
early period of my life to have made your acquaint-
ance, of which I always have been and shall ever con-
tinue to be proud. Since I first knew you, it has
been to admire and respect you; and never can I for-
get you and the many happy days that I have spent in
your company; no, never, until I shall be called upon
to give the final account of myself at the bar of the
Great I AM."
A fond cousin contributed these lines:
"We have been acquainted long-have spent our
youth, the Spring-time of life, hand in hand, ever
enjoying to the fullest extent friendship's most
sacred blessings. According to the chronology of
man, we have yet many days to number, some of
which may meet us ladened with joys, some of which
must meet us clouded by misfortune 's thickest gloom.
Autumn, the Fall of life, will soon steal upon us,
bearing upon its zephyrs cares unavoidable. In pre-
paring yourself for the duties, obligations, and re-
sponsibilities which may then devolve upon you, per-
mit me to say you have attained much. Your efforts
to acquire wisdom have been crowned with bountiful
19
success; you have made acquisitions to your stores
of knowledge, the value of which is more priceless
than earth's richest jewels. Continue then to culti-
vate the faculties with which your Maker has en-
dowed you, for although it may increase your re-
sponsibilities, rest assured it will increase in a ten-
fold greater degree your satisfaction, your content-
ment, your enjoyment, your all. That your future
days may be as calm as the bosom of a summer's
lake, and that ' Old Age' may steal your shining locks
with his most gentle touch, is the sincere wish of your
affectionate cousin."
Another cousin inscribed the following:
"Farewell, Sue, my gentle cousin,
Ever be thy young heart free;
Happiness thy boon companion,
Aye burgeoning in festal glee."
The Age of the Album (distinctively Mid-Victorian)
is long since past but, for that very reason, it may be that
the airy, light-hearted sentimentalities and austere amen-
ities, here assembled, will excite a gleam of interest and
evoke a sympathetic smile at the youthful pastimes and
phantasies of the long ago. Even Whittier deigned to
dignify the album with his limpid verse, for once he
wrote:
"Our lives are Albums written through
With good or ill, with false or true:
And, as the blessed angels turn
The pages of our years,
God grant they meet the good with smiles,
And blot the ill with tears."
Among other lasting friendships formed during these
girlhood days in Madison County may be mentioned those
20
with Mrs. Mary Clay, sister of Miss Laura Clay, of Lex-
ington, who married Hon. Myron T. Herrick, the present
Ambassador to France; Anne Russell; Irene and Sallie
Miller, the last named later becoming Mrs. Herr, of Lex-
ington; Mrs. Betty Miller Hinton, Mrs. Mary Miller
Stephens, and Miss Lucy Miller, of Paris, Ky., all three
daughters of Mrs. Shelby's aunt, Mrs. Betsy Miller, of
Richmond; Mrs. Jennie Adams Hitchcock, of Irvine, Ky.,
an older sister of Mrs. Kate W. Milward, of Lexington,
who married Dr. Hitchcock, a noted teacher; Mrs. Caro
Simpson Mills, of Winchester; Mrs. Lizzie Irvine and
her husband, William Irvine; Col. James B. Caperton;
Caroline Goodloe (afterwards Mrs. Wm. L. Neal), and
Mrs. Sallie Goodloe Smith, sister of Mrs. Neal; and Mrs.
Sallie Ann (Clay) Goodloe, wife of David S. Goodloe,
and mother of Col. Wm. Cassius Goodloe, Dr. David S.
Goodloe, and General Green Clay Goodloe. Later inti-
mate friendships included Mrs. Rebecca Tevis Hart,
mother of Mrs. J. N. Camden, of Spring Hill, Woodford
County, and Mrs. Sara G. Humphreys and Miss Sarah
Hanson, of Lexington. A host of others, both among the
living and the dead, might easily be enumerated, did space
permit.
While Susan G. Hart was attending school in Rich-
mond, her father, David P. Hart, moved from Lexington,
Ky., where he had taken up his residence when his
daughter, Susan, was about five years old, and where he
had for some years been engaged in business, to near
St. Joseph, Missouri. After Susan had finished her
course in school, at Richmond, which was "as good an
21
education as the times afforded," she went out to Mis-
souri to live with her father and step-mother. Speaking
of this journey to what was then considered a remote
section in the sparsely peopled West, Mrs. Shelby once
said that she came from Richmond to Lexington by stage
coach or in a private horse-drawn conveyance, rode from
Lexington to Louisville on a passenger train of the old
Lexington Ohio Railroad, and traveled thence by boat
down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers all the way from Louisville to St. Joseph, Mis-
souri, in the famous "Platte Purchase."
After a time, she came back to Kentucky on a visit to
her relatives, whose number was "legion," and while
here, was courted and became engaged to Edmund Pen-
dleton Shelby, the handsome and accomplished youngest
son of Major Thomas Hart Shelby, Master of "Grass-
land," and of Mary Fontaine Bullock, his second wife.
Soon afterw