May 16 – Early Effects of Civil War

On March 8, 1862, Sarah Smith Horr in Castleton, Vermont wrote to her daughter Angelette Blakely in Pawlet, Vermont, and made some remarks about how the American Civil War was affecting her family & neighbors, about a year after the war had started.

“I am feeling great anxiety  …  I have expected a letter ere this.  I do not know as Congress has forbid any communication from Pawlet to Castleton? …"

Sarah frequently admonishes her daughter for not writing, but in this passage, for the first time, she makes mention of Congress and an oblique reference to wartime restrictions.  A jesting way to provoke her daughter into writing.

Sarah’s second son Richard lives in Wayland, Massachusetts, where he has been struggling to establish a shoemaking business.

A year earlier, on March 14, 1861, she had written:  "... nothing from Richard since January.               When this political commotion subsides I hope he will feel better.  I expect shoemakers have felt the subject sensibly, and who has not felt the subject?"

Now, in this 1862 letter, she says:  

“We received a letter from Richard … Richard was planning business away from home at that time.  His shoemaking continued dull.  I do regret the great overturn in the nation, where honest industry is so much frustrated, but I yet hope great good will come out of great evil.”

Sarah has described before how slow business has been in Wayland, and how much of a struggle it has become for that town.  (May 7 – Living in Interesting Times)  Here she is drawing a connection between the business failures and the war, but she does not state clearly what she thinks that connection is.  I wonder why shoemakers, in particular, should be affected.

Castleton Medical College, 1855

“The Castleton Medical College is come down, no Lectures or session is to begin this year.  Professor Allen has resigned, is going to Middlebury to locate, and will be connected with Professor Perkins at Burlington.  It is a matter of regret with some to have it so.”

What is her opinion?  It is unclear whether she knows these professors personally, or whether their plans are just general talk around town.

               

“You know there are some who wish to take boarders.  They will be disappointed.  Here at Judge Warners, Mrs. Rathbone’s health is so feeble they do not wish to.”

It seems clear that some people in Castleton have already been taking boarders in their homes, particularly teachers and students at the Seminary or the Medical College.  But now that the Medical College is disbanding, more people are considering it.  Apparently this would be a new source of income to replace income they had been receiving indirectly from the presence of the Medical College.  Why would there be more boarders available now, without it?  And she is quite clear, immediately, that they will be disappointed.  Has she already been taking in boarders?  Has she been trying to get some?  We have later letters in which she describes experiences with boarders, so it would be interesting to learn how that started.

              

“Angelette if any of the stockings I have knit for the children have become too small, let me have them and ravel them out, and knit over.  Yarn is quite an important article, cotton or woolen… Do not let any be wasted.” 

This, indeed, sounds like severe economic hardship, if yarn is so precious that hand-knit children’s stockings should be unraveled to make new ones!