Overton Letter, 26 Jan 1868, Smith Co, TX - Maury Co, TN ***************************************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm Permission has been granted from Howard Bramlette of Nashville, TN, owner of the letter, for submission to the Smith County TXGenWeb Archives by Joel Patrick Childress - londonwildcat@earthlink.net 19 September 2000 ***************************************************************** LETTER FROM E.C. OVERTON TO JOHN F. OVERTON IN TEXAS Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee December 26, 1868 Dear Brother, I am at leisure at present and will write you a few lines to let you know that I am well. My Wife is up again after six or eight weeks confinement to bed. She had the misfortune to miscarry and the child never breathed. It was a boy. My wife suffered very much. My children are well. Jim and family were well ten days ago. Jim is nearly blind and gets worse. He has taken the benefit of the bankrupt law. I called to see him ten days ago. He had been out in his orchard greasing his apple trees with bacon to keep the rabbits from them. He came and about two in the evening wet. He had eaten no dinner and he appeared to lament his condition and says he is almost miserable at times. He desires to pay his debts but fears that he had never will be able, he does not drink any spirits and I think he is lower spirited than I ever saw him. He says the Yankees took all his stock and the government his Negroes and the men who he was security for have taken the bankrupt and he has been forced to do the same in self defense so as to enable him to raise his children. West and Harvey and Bill Lockridge, his Brothers in Law, are all broke. I sent you a check for $200 a few days ago and thought I would have sent you some more by this time but William Jameson begs a little time and I can't say when he will be ready. Thomas Jameson is John Jameson’s administrator and Joe Jacobs is executor to the will of Mrs. Peggy Jameson. I called on Tom for a settlement, he told me that Judge Martin said you had no right to any part of John Jameson’s property and he did not think if you had a right, that you ought to have it. He knew he would not under the circumstances. I counseled with my lawyer and he says you have a right and advised me to file a Bill. I will do so after I see him again. I do not know at what time John Jameson died. He died in Atlanta, Georgia in 1865 but the exact date I can't learn. I am told that Jacobs has some Tennessee money that he received as executor and it is worth only 30 cents to the dollar. My lawyer tells me not to receive it until I learn the circumstances are under which he received. He has never made a tender of it to me. I have a common crop of wheat and a good crop of corn and one third of a crop of cotton. I sold cotton and it 20.25 cents. I will have corn and wheat and meat to do me. I have fifty acres sowed in wheat and will hire some hands another year and make corn and some cotton. I have 20 head of cattle, all cows and heifers calves except two. I have thirty goats and some pigs. I will inform you that I have to settle up the Campbell estate in March and I shall fall behind some owing to $400 that I collected in Confederate money. I will pay out this year if nothing happens. I bought at a sale of mine as administrator of Campbell's, 180 acres of land (the old Flem Simmons place). I bid my debt and as administrator of Campbell, deceased, which was $1,000. I may have to pay the money and take the land. If I do it will, I fear, press me to raise the money. I will know by the first of March. I think the land could be sold for $1,500. I will have to borrow the money until I can sell the land. I may be pestered to raise that amount, but I can’t tell what I can do until I try. We have had some very cold weather. We had a snow one inch deep to fall last night; the ground is frozen two or three inches. It came from the east, the clouds are now at 2:00 o’clock coming in from the southwest and occasionally spitting snow and fine rain and sleet. I would not be at all surprised if we had a deep snow before it clears up. I say I am well now. I have a deadness or numbness in my left thigh four inches above my knee and down to my knee and occasionally it pains me slightly. It seems that the cramped commences and the bottom of my foot and a runs up through the muscles of my leg and thigh. In the February last it struck me between the point of my hip and backbone and my left knee. It jerked me down and I had difficulty to get up and to the House. It seemed that something tore about four inches above my knee. I was not able to walk at a common gait for two months or more without limping. I now can walk and run with ease. Yet the dead or numb feeling remains. It affected the left testicle for two hours at the time I was first attacked, so that I thought I was ruptured. It was the most painful thing I've ever felt. The cold sweat ran off me for two hours, I turned over on my belly and get easy in ten minutes. I have had no pain in my testicle since. I am persuaded it was cramps and some of these leaders were strained and arteries or veins were broke. I will file a Bill against Thomas Jameson in a few days. Yours, E.C. Overton (Use "back button" to return to the Overton Letters Table of Contents.)