Transcription of
Letter from Virginia Catherine Todd Ware (Caty) to her Daughter-in-Law Elizabeth Alexander
Ware (Betsy) 1799
Researched
and written by Judith C. Ware, April 2008
©
Judy C. Ware
WRITTEN
ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE LETTER
Miss Betty Ware Frederick
County Virginia (Mr. Hannon)
FAYETTE
COUNTY September 1, 1799
My
Dear Betsy, (Elizabeth
Alexander Ware)
I am happy to hear, by a letter to Dr.
Scott from (my son)
James, that I may in the course of a few years have all my children near me, if agreeable
to you. And, more so, could you persuade your
Mama out with you – a lady I ever had the greatest regard for. Confident I am, dear Betsy, you would get pleased
with the country were you to come and see the society and many other agreeable things. Although I suppose Kentucky, in Frederick County,
is thought to be a place inhabited by wild people by those unacquainted with the country. As to that, I must refer you to James, who has
traveled often enough to know. I often laugh
at the girls and tell them when my dear little Sally (granddaughter Sarah E.T.Ware) comes, they will be
ashamed to find her so much handsomer than them. We
have all the greatest desire to see you. If
James would fix himself in this neighborhood, I should have my children here that are
married around me. Could I express the joy? No, tongue cannot utter the happiness it would give
me. Therefore, wish your Mama could come with
you although (I)
know she is so well fixed it would be almost impossible.
But the distance is not great; you might go over a year to see her. Perhaps I may take a ride with you sometime or
other and see all my old acquaintances again. I
am, my dear Betsy, your
Sincere
friend and JJ
Caty Ware (wife
of James Ware II)
Give
my best love to your Mama, James, and Sally
This was one of the
letters originally transcribed by Cornelia Ware Anker in 1945. As she wrote in a different letter,
“An
old package of letters was what first started my interest in our ancestors. My father, Rev. S.S. Ware, was given these letters
by a distant relative, Mrs. Bergland, of Baltimore, who said that she wanted someone in
the Ware family to have them who would value and preserve them. My father was deeply interested in his genealogy
and had a great veneration for his forebears. He
often showed these letters to me and cautioned me to treasure them after he was
gone.”
Cornelia did a wonderful
job of preserving and documenting these original letters, but even she admitted that it
was sometimes difficult to do.
“I
have copied these letters as well as I could; most of them are very hard to read. The penmanship is beautiful, but it is small and,
of course, dim with age.”
Cornelia thought that this letter
was
“evidently
from Catherine Ware to her granddaughter” but
she was not sure of this. It
is my feeling that this is actually written from Catherine Todd Ware to her daughter-in-law
–Elizabeth Alexander Ware. Elizabeth
was often referred to as Betsy and her daughter (Caty’s granddaughter) was
more often called Sally. This is who I believe
she is referring to when she mentions “my dear little Sally.” It would also make sense that Caty would refer to
her son (James) by his first name rather than call him Papa or Father as she probably
would have if she was writing to his daughter. It
would also seem logical that she would not have said “if agreeable with you” to
her two-year old granddaughter.
With that being established, the
person that Caty refers to as “your Mama” would have been Elizabeth’s
mother – Sarah Elizabeth Snickers Alexander (Mrs. Morgan Alexander,) and we know now
that James never did move to Kentucky. He and
his immediate family stayed in Berryville, Virginia where he built a beautiful home near
the Shenandoah River called Riverside. James was the only one of his siblings to not
move to Kentucky. His son, Josiah William
Ware, was born in 1802. His wife Elizabeth
passed away in 1806 and two years later, James married Harriet Taylor. They also stayed in Virginia. |
