On the day last mentioned, having heard that a Miss Bass---I had not heard her Christian name---and several other young ladies, who were staying at Maj. Bennett Smith's, with his daughter Margaret, (afterwards married to Uriah Cummings and since dead) and attending a sacramental meeting at the place mentioned, I went to hear preaching there on the day under consideration, getting there late, in company with Daniel Barnes and others we could not get into the House, so great was the crowd. We stood out by the door and could hear and see in the House. Near the conclusion of the service, with Miss Smith, and in a pew near the door standing up during the concluding prayer, Miss Bass was pointed out to me. She had her face towards me, so that I had a full view of her contenance and person. She was dressed in white, and stood resting on the staff of a folded parasol. Her contenance was meek, modest, very youthful, and her whole attention seemed engrossed by the prayer which I think was made by the Rev. Mr. Alexander before mentioned. I was greatly struck by her appearance. From having heard Dr. Clarke, then a physician in Murfreesboro (a Virginian and cousin of her father) mention Miss Bass, and having heard Daniel Barnes, then a clerk in Estills Store, and Wm H. Smith, now General Smith speak of her, I had gone to the meeting, not being well at the time, more with a desire to see her than any other person---and more from that desire than to hear preaching. When I saw her, all I had favorable to her person and merits, fell far short of what I at once conceived to be her due. Although I had not seen her move, except to turn round and take her set at the conclusion of the prayer, and had never heard her speak, and although I withdrew and went home to Mitchells Tavern without seeing any more of her, I had from that hour a sentiment that she was at some time to become my wife. I was young and poor, but full of ardent ambition, and never feared but what I could make my way in the world if I should continue in health. I had no view or purpose, however of marrying. I had formed no such resolution or wish. I had only wishes to see Miss Bass from no other motive than the natural desire of youth of either sex to see persons of the other sex whom they have heard praised. But from the moment I saw her, I determined to see her again and learn more about her face to face. I knew Dr. Clarke visited at her father's, six miles West of Murfreesboro, where he lived on a large farm on the old road from Nashville to Shelbyville.

Three or four days I think , as well as I can remember after the foregoing adventure---I should perhaps say incident---Dr. Clarke got into one of his occasional fits or sprees of drinking. He was an old batchelor, of great skill in his profession, and was universally esteemed. He had become very friendly to me. His friends were on this occasion, persuading him to take a ride into the country for exercise, and ride back and he would be over his frolic. He said he would do so if I would go with him. I told him at once I would. I never thought, nor did he, of the place we would go to, or how far. We ordered our horses, and Col. Mitchell gave the Doctor, at his earnest entreaty, a gulp of toddy to start on. We mounted our horses, the Doctor taking the lead. When he started off out of town down the old Nashville road by Wilsons Shoals, which led down on the north and northwest of Squire David Dickerson's plantation. He kept on ahead, with but little to say for some miles, when he commenced telling of his adventures in Virginia (in Brunswick and Petersburg, I think) of his being crossed in love--of his extravagance by which he had spent a good patrimony all occasioned by his disappointment in love. He spoke of a friend of his, Mr. Ambrose House, who had lately removed from Virginia to Rutherford County in the neighborhood of Murfreesborough, near his kinsman Capt. James Bass, and said we would turn back, and come home by the house of his friend Ambrose after we got as far down the Nashville road as he wished to go. We dashed on until we got to old Mr. Hartwell Marables', another old Virginia friend of his. Here we stopped and went into the house, he introducing me to the old people. He had gotten nearly sober. He did not ask for any thing to drink, but went out and up the road a short distance where we had seen a blacksmith shop, where he got some whiskey, and presently was so much intoxicated again, as to set his tongue to running. He refused when he went back to the House to stay for dinner, pretending he was in a hurry to get home, and had to go by Mr. House's and Capt. Bass'. We set off and took the Shelbyville road which turned off at the corner of Mr. Marable's fence to the south, and crossed the creek (Stewart's) through what was since Searcy's now Whitson's mill dam. We rode on to Mr. House's, where I hoped he would stop, as I did not wish to go to Capt. Bass' with him when he was drinking. We found Mr. House and his Negroes out clearing new ground, the land where I think his orchard now is, and he invited us to his house to stop and stay till next morning. The Doctor refused to light from his horse or stop, saying he must go home and call at Capt. Bass' on his way. So off we went again, he still showing the effects of his drink and soon got to Capt. Bass', it being only about a mile.

Here we got down, and went in. Capt. Bass was not at home or at the House. He introduced me to Mrs. Bass, to her daughter Temperance Smith, then the wife of Thomas B. Smith, a son of Bennett Smith, who was then a merchant in Fayetteville, Lincoln County, and to Miss Mary Clarke Bass, her sister, who afterwards, in less than a year became my wife; and whom I here first saw at home, in a fine plain dress of neat homespun, which had been made by some of the relations of the family, and sent to her as a present, and which, as I afterwards learned she and her sister had just finished making (that is in the needle work, the spinning and weaving been done by the family who presented it) and which she had just put on. If my first impressions at the first sight in Murfreesboro were favorably, those I now received were more so. I had an opportunity of exchanging a few words with her and her sister. I told them while Dr. Clarke had gone into another to beg Mrs. Bass for some toddy, that I was riding out with the Doctor, whom I much esteemed as a stranger, to try to get him sober, and by arrangement to myself and his friends---that I hoped to succeed. He had previously told me, that when he first came to the country, and when he had stopped to practice medicine I think at old Godfrey Shelton's, thirteen miles East of Nashville, and even after he had gone to Murfreesboro, that he had been in the habit of going to Capt. Bass and staying for weeks to rest, and to sober off from his sprees. I therefore knew that the ladies knew his habits, and Mary's middle name had been given in honor of the Doctor's father, and her first name for his mother.---They expressed a hope that I might succeed. From the moment I heard her speak, some strange, sentimental emotions arose in my mind and heart in regard to Mary. I was dressed in my everyday office clothes---a lead colored suit of lead colored gray coat and pantaloons---a brown frock coat, and long fairtopped boots, buff cassimere vest, and black hat. I remember it well now, though probably I did not in those days or a week afterwards. I remember it, because Mary, afterwards, and all her after days my most affectionate wife, often repeated to me, after our marriage the precise garments which I wore.---It would almost seem that our meeting was providential and preordained, for she has expressed me a thousand times, that the moment she saw me, on being introduced and before she knew who I was except by the name by which I was introduced, she was strangely struck with a strong sentiment that I was to become her husband. Miss Susan House, the eldest daughter of Mr. Ambrose House, then grown, who afterwards married Turner B. Henley and is now dead, was at Mrs. Bass', or came in while Dr. Clarke and myself were there. After we left, and during the same evening, Mary told Miss House, as they both afterwards often told me, that she was perfectly satisfied I would pay my attentions to her, and that I would become her future husband.---These are facts. I am not superstitious---but I have a firm belief in these unexplained and inexplicable sentiments which all persons I believe sometimes have, whether they notice them or not, of coming events.---I state the facts exactly as they occurred---and must be pardoned for entertaining my own honest opinion of them.

The Doctor and myself went home that evening after he got a gulp of toddy from Mrs. Bass, refusing to stay all night as we were invited to do, and in a few days he got sober.

About this time I was in the habit of going to Beasley's Baptist meeting House, two miles south of Capt. Bass,' on the Shelbyville road in company with sundry young gentlemen and ladies from town. It was a pleasant Sabbath ride, being six miles from town and a good road. I had been introduced in town --by Dr. Clarke to Capt. Bass after our call. The old man, who held old Virginia, open housed hospitality as part of his moral creed, was in the habit, with his whole family, when there was no Methodist preaching in the neighborhood, of attending preaching at Beasley's on Sundays. The first time I met him there, after our introduction, he invited myself and two or three other young men from town, after sermon, to go home with him to dinner. I most cheerfully did so, for of all things such an invitation was what I most wanted. In going to his home, and after we got there, although I did not ride with her, I had opportunities of seeing much more of Mary than I had seen before. Again, I had the same invitation and accepted it. On leaving in the evening on the second time for home, I had a general invitation from Capt Bass, and his son James---James being nearly as old as myself---to visit his home for country recreation, whenever it suited my convenience, and I thankfully promised to avail myself of the permission and I considered it. I had been perfectly distant, but respectful in my intercourse with Mary---I admired her modest, timid, yet dignified and becoming deportment more and more at each interview.

I was intimate in town with a young man named Argyle Campbell, a nephew of old George Washington Campbell, who had just completed his course at the Bradley Academy under the late Samuel P. Black, who was preparing to study law under the patronage of his uncle. He had a sister named Eliza at some school in Rutherford who had become intimate with Miss Bass---she afterwards married the Honorable David Hubbard of Alabama and is dead. Argyle wished to pay his attentions to Miss Bass, and was in the habit of going there with his sister as an excuse for his frequent visits. He told me all his secrets. He had commenced his courtship, but had met no encouragement---but no absolute ejection, as he had made no direct definite proposal. I went out to Capt. Bass' with him one Saturday evening, in March 1816, I think to stay all night, and go to Beasley's the next day.

After we got there in the evening, in playing some game of forfeits, I obtained an opportunity, when the forfeit to be paid by me was to court some one of the girls, several being present, as on some such incident, when is seemed matter of course for me to speak aside to Miss Bass, and when no one dreamed of my purpose, or that I had such a wish to ask her with great earnestness, and in perfect sincerity---stating that it was the first opportunity, and the first time I had dared---though I had desired to do so from the first day of our acquaintance---for leave to pay my attentions to her as a professed admirer, and as one whose plain object and purpose was, if she should find me worthy, was to obtain her hand in marriage.

She at once comprehended me, gave me credit in her own mind for sincerity, and instantly, as accorded with what she ardently wished herself, as she afterwards informed me, gave me her full consent that I might pay my attentions to her and make proposals when I should find it proper or convenient. No one present ever dreamed that a serious word had passed between us. She was in her 16th year, and I would be twenty on the first day of May following. The next day I rode with some one else to Beasley's, but rode back to dinner with her---falling somewhat behind the company. Campbell rode with her to Beasley's. In that two mile ride, I poured out my whole heart, or its feelings plainly to her---told my age, situation, prospects, poverty---but hopes of rising in my profession in time through the patronage of friends of whom I had many, though a mere boy as it were among strangers. With perfect sincerity, for she was fully satisfied of my sincerity, she told me, on my direct proposal on marriage, that if no obstacle existed of which she was then advised, that she was perfectly willing, in accordance with the feelings and wishes of her heart to marry me, but desired some time to consider before she would make a definite engagement, which she hoped I would readily allow her, as she had met my plain candor, and direct proposal, with the same plain, direct candor with which I had made it. I readily agreed to it. We agreed in all our future intercourse to deal in plain, direct words---to always speak the plain direct truth---and to accord to each other full and entire confidence, whatever might be the final result. When we got home, to her father's, I was so happy, I could scarcely sit still, sit down to dinner, or conceal my excited feelings.

The next time I went to her father's, I again went with Argyle Campbell. It was on a Saturday again. We found the late Col. Jos. Burnes there with his daughter Betsy, now Mrs. Judge Sam Anderson, and his son Fayette. Betsy and Mary had been educated together at Mrs. Clayton's School on Fall Creek, Wilson County. Fayette, who afterwards married a Miss Ready, was a dull youth---the son of a rich old man, who had brought him to Capt. Bass as an expectant suitor to Miss Mary. He never came as such but once more. Mary told me what his business was. As I never seemed to ask her separate conversation---seldom rode or walked with her except by accident---no one dreamed that we had a full and perfectly confidential intercourse. She had informed her mother promptly of my proposals and her answer---she also told Susan House, a truly good and discreet girl everything. I afterwards met the late Samuel C. Rucker at Capt. Bass' on the same business. He came but once. I also met Benjamin Rucker, who afterwards married her elder sister Temperance some years later her divorce from the Bennett Smith who abandoned her for a vile prostitute with whom he connected himself, and after the death of Benjamin's first wife. I say I met Mr. B. Rucker there, a cousin of Samuel C. Rucker, and he being a good brother Methodist in the church with Mrs. Bass, and being rich, and having the old lady's good will, he came several times before he would be put off. I met him there twice---we slept in the same room---he told his business and hopes---I stayed at a distance, let him have all opportunities of talking, walking or riding with Mary---while at the same time, we had as full and perfect an understanding with each other of all Mr. Rucker said and did, as we ever had of her conversations and intercourse with persons after our marriage. I advised her to hear him fairly, patiently, and dispose of his suit kindly and respectfully. She did so, as she did with Burnes, S.C. Rucker, and Argyle Campbell, a gentleman named Anthony Robert Dickens of Fayetteville, Dr. Holmes, now of Mississippi, and several others, when I found such company at her father's, I kept at a distance---hardly approaching her, and never in separate conversation but when Miss House was there, which was almost constantly, it was my way to tell her any thing and every thing I wanted to say to Mary, and for Mary to do the same as to any thing she wished to say to me, and Susan instantly communicated it. In this way, in the course of an evening we frequently sent and received a dozen communications to each other, without a soul perceiving it, and had our own amusements, and often hearty laughs, no one knowing for what reasons, or always supposing a wrong one. My attentions were all supposed to be directed to Miss House. Those were pleasant days---their memory is full of sweet melancholy---and I pen these events here, knowing that no eyes but those of my children, grandchildren, or those who will hold my memory in equal respect, will ever see what I now write. I wish my father or grandfathers had written and left just such free, unreserved, and full memoirs, however badly or hastily written. I scribble this down (it is now 17 April, 1845) in the recess of office hours and business.

After Miss Bass and myself had agreed to be married in the course of the ensuing Fall, she having entered into a full engagement to me in the Spring, I asked the consent of her parents, which was readily given. But in a few weeks certain anonymous letters were written to Capt. Bass, postmarked at Huntsville, Alabama, which slandered me outrageously. I never learned who wrote the principal letter, which Capt. B. placed in my hands, but I always suspected Jonas I. Bell, and Fredrick Jones.---the latter the son of Rev. Edmond Jones who lived near Mr. Bass. Fredrick had a store in Huntsville, and Bell was his clerk. Fredrick had made proposals to Mary. My friends hearing of it from me, that I was thus slandered, Gen. Gibbs, Col. Mitchell, friends in Virginia, and others, wrote to Capt. Bass through me, giving direct contradiction to the slanders. The charges were chiefly, that I was poor, and owed money. The first was true---the latter false.

When the letters were received, Mary told me of it instantly as soon as she met me one day when I went out to her father's, meeting me at the door, her mother being out and sisters on the right hand side of the doors, in the old porch. She had given no credit to the letters and said she told me of it at once, because she had told her parents that such things could not shake her resolve or her confidence in me. I demanded the letter of Capt. Bass. I asked him to suspend any opinion until I could trace up the slanderer---that none but a slanderer or coward would write anonymously in such a case. He said he had not changed his opinion but I might take my own course. I told and wrote to some friends. They wrote to Capt. Bass, but neither myself or friends could ever trace up the true author. I kept the letter suspected to be both many years and then burned it.

At page 40 I have stated the ages and genealogies of my father and mother and my own birth. In the notes made in an old Diary, marked 1840-1842-1843-1844-1845, is contained a Family record of my own family, but which I have copied on a more permanent form, and better for preservation.

My father was born Nov. 4, 1766.

My mother was born Sept. 3, 1773.

I was born, Washington County, Virginia, May 1, 1796.

Mary Clarke Bass, daughter of James and Temperance Bass, was born in Brunswick County Virginia, June 19, 1801. Her father and mother were natives of Brunswick Co. Va. her maiden name having been Loundon, and were descended from old Colonial families of that state, and removed to Tennessee, first to Davidson County, and then to the place where he lived and died, in 1801, and 1807. He, Capt. Bass, died at his own house, after a lingering illness, brought on by a fall from his in the year 1824, in September. Mrs. Bass, his wife, afterwards died at her son Thomas Bass,' Athens, Limestone Co., Alabama, in the fall of 1839. They had a number of children, this Thomas being the oldest. The next son Loundon, died in Mississippi about 1843, and his widow and some of his children, she being a sister of the Rev. Peyton Smith, removed from Mississippi to Washington, Louisiana, or Arkansas, in 1844-5.

The next child of Capt. Bass was Temperance Weston, who first married Thomas B. Smith, and then Benjamin Rucker, and died of consumption in 1830---Nancy, the next daughter married the Rev. Peyton Smith, a Baptist Preacher, raised on Mill Creek, Davidson Co. Tenn. and now lives with his wife near Covington, Tipton Co. Tennessee. The next son is James Bass, who married a daughter of Dr. Ambrose House, and lives in Rutherford Co. Tennessee. The next child was Mary Clarke, my late wife. Hartwell Bass was the youngest son, and died of consumption in 1825 or 1826, having married a Miss Richardson. He left his wife and one child---both since dead.

After this genealogical repetition, I will here state, that Mary Clarke Bass and myself were married at her father's house, Rutherford County, Tennessee, by Rev. Edmond Jones, an old local Methodist preacher, on the 24th of October, 1816. My Waitors as they were call in those days, were the late Gen. Wm Brady, and Capt. Samuel Wilson, then late of the U.S. Army---Mary's waitors were Miss Susan House, afterwards Mrs Hensley, and Miss Caroline Ready, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Hancock. Gen. Brady died in 1835 of cholera, and Mrs. Hensley soon after her marriage in 1822 or 1823 of fever. Dr. Hancock the husband of Miss Ready is dead, but she is living. Wilson now lives in Mississippi.

I will here make a record of the children and offspring of my marriage:

Ellen Tempe Laughlin, born Rutherford Co. Tennessee, July 18, 1817.

Sarah Louisa Laughlin born, Rutherford, April 3, 1819.

Mary Virginia Laughlin, born Rutherford May 13th 1821.

A son born, surviving but a few hours, Rutherford, Murfreesboro, May 4, 1823.

Isabella Smith Laughlin, born Rutherford, Murfreesboro, May 3, 1824.

Samuel Houston Laughlin, born Rutherford, Murfreesboro, December 12, 1826.

John James Laughlin, born Rutherford, at Mrs. (late Mr. Bass,' place) Bass,' Rutherford,
March 8, 1832.

Andrew Jackson Laughlin, born at Nashville, Tenn. June 25, 1834.

A female child born dead a Runnemede, Cannon Co. Oct. 15, 1837.

A male child born at McMinnville, Tennessee, which survived a few minutes, August 19th 1838.

Cora Kezer Laughlin, born at Hickory Hill (my present residence though I am now writing in Washington City) Warren Co. Tenn. Sept. 3, 1839.

Deaths

Mary Clarke Laughlin, my wife, died a Hickory Hill, Nov. 11, 1840, and is buried,with a plain monument and suitable inscriptions at Liberty Meeting House near McMinnville. My excellent mother died at Hickory Hill, while I was absent, serving in the State Senate, at Nashville, on the 5th day of November, 1843, having just entered upon her 71st year. Soon after she removed to Tennessee, in Oct. 1829, having been almost helpless for many previous years, she lost the use of even her hands, from the effects of rheumatism, so as to disable her from using a needle, or even from knitting as I have elsewhere remarked. The distortion of the joints of her knees, her wrists, hands, fingers, ankles, and feet were the effect, I presume, of an improper use of mercury, under a prescription of the late Dr. Elkanah R. Dulaney of Blountsville, as well as rheumatism. She lies interred beside my wife at Liberty Meeting House burial ground (Cumberland Presbyterian) two miles south of McMinnville. She died in the full faith of a happy resurrection, having long been an humble believer in the gospel of truth and salvation to all who believe.

My dear wife died with myself, Dr. Smartt, my daughter Isabella, all my sons, standing around her bed. Her disease was congestive fever. My father and mother were at my house, but not in the room. On the slab covering tomb, the plain monument having been made at Nashville, under my direction, is inscribed the following:

Sacred

to the memory of

Mary Clarke Laughlin

wife of

Samuel Hervey Laughlin

Born

Brunswick County, Virginia

June 14th 1801

Died

Warren County, Tennessee

November 11th 1840

Requiescat in peace

A day or two after her death, as soon as I was sufficiently composed to write, I wrote the following obituary notice, being unwilling to entrust the commemoration of her virtues to any other hand. It was published in the McMINNVILLE CENTRAL GAZETTE of the 16th of Nov. 1840:

Obituary

It is an awful thing to die;

Yet the dread path once trod,

Heaven opes its everlasting portals high,

And bids the pure in heart approach their God.

Died, at Hickory, the residence of her husband in this county, on the llth inst., after a painful illness of ten days, Mrs. Mary C. Laughlin, wife of Col. Samuel H. Laughlin, in the 39th year of her age. A life devoted to the faithful performance on every conjugal, maternal, filial, and social duty, was cloud in perfect resignation to the will of God, with every bright hope that gilds the evening of a Christian's day, unobscuredly the smallest doubt In the promises of her Redeemer.

The vanities of the world, its idle ceremonies, and its insincerity, she avoided as well in youth as in mature years, with a uniformity and consistency which were the result of moral and religious principles. Her affections were neither vitiated nor wasted by a general intercourse with the world---her benevolence, kindness and good will were extended to all, and none within her ability to relieve or comfort ever asked her favor or charity in vain. Without pride, she moved through life with humility in the sight of Creator. She would not have deviated from sincerity and truth to have gained the applause of the whole world.

She felt for her husband, her children, and family that deep, generous, self-devoted affection, which, in retirement, springs amid mutual charities, mutual pursuits, and mutual feelings, and connects itself with every interest of life, and twines itself with the hope of heaven. She was a wife twenty-four years. To the tenderest sensibility of soul, in her were united the purest and warmest heart, a sound judgement, a disposition kind and placid, a firm, constant, self-devoting attachment, pure delicacy of sentiment and feeling, an enthusiastic love of domestic life, a deep and solemn sense of her obligations to God and her neighbor, and a soul intent upon their faithful performance. If all these qualities combined could render the conjugal state happy, her husband and family were peculiarly blest. They were so blessed, and fully reciprocated her constant affection and fully appreciated all her virtues. May God support the mourners in their affliction, and convert this severe temporal chastisement to their eternal good.

I feel conscious at this hour that there is not a word of eulogy in the foregoing obituary sketch which was not fully deserved. My heart---my undying affection for her memory---which I cherish in the blessed hope of again meeting in a better state of existence than this world of sorrow affords---approves fully of every sentiment I have expressed in regard to her excellence. All my affections and feelings---my sorrow for her loss---are as fresh and poignant at this moment, though sobered by reason, religion and philosophy, as they were in the hour of bereavement. May heaven keep and preserve me in a condition to insure my meeting with her and my departed little ones in the Kingdom of God in Christ. Amen.

My beloved daughter Isabella Smith Laughlin, who was named for Mrs. Isabella Smith, the wife of Maj. Bennett Smith of Murfreesboro, who was a daughter of the late Gen. Joseph Dickson of Rutherford, once a member of Congress from North Carolina in 1800-1, and once Speaker of the House in the Tennessee legislature, perhaps in 1811-12---I continue, my dear daughter was living in the Spring and Summer of 1841, and in Spring of 1842, with her sister Ellen and Mr. Kezer in Nashville. She had lived with them almost altogether after the death of her mother. She had a tumor on her neck, resembling a small wen which continued to grow. In May, 1842, it was thought advisable to have it removed by a surgical operation. A Doctor Walter, a physician of much pretension and popularity, was employed to perform it. He did so with seeming success. This was done about 23rd or 24th of May. I arrived at Nashville a day or two after it was performed. She seemed to be doing well. I remained three or four days, and returned home. Little did I apprehend what the sad results would be. About the 1st of June, the wound made by the operation became inflamed. She was feeble, delicate and nervous. It grew worse and worse. She was alarmed, fearful, and her kind brother-in-law Kezer, at her constant entreaty, sat day and night by her bedside, holding her hand. He afterwards told me that whenever he would move, she would entreat him not to leave her while she could speak. Symptoms of gangrene or mortification appeared. All remedies failed. To quiet the poor sufferer, opiates were given. I was sent for post haste whenever she was deemed to be in danger. I hastened to Nashville, riding all night, getting there too late even to see her remains. She died on the 5th of June, and was interred on the 6th at the Public burying ground, south East of the city on the afternoon of the 6th. I arrived soon after dark at Mr. Kezer's on the same evening. My feelings I cannot, will not endeavor to describe. She was a sweet tempered, affectionate child. I remember when her mother died, Mrs. Rowan (since dead herself) forced Isabella to retire to a room where I was, and lie down, that after Mrs. Rowan retired, she prayed most earnestly for her mother and herself---prayed and besought God, as I had heard her do in secret the day before her mother died, that if death must visit our house, that he would be pleased to take her---to let her die, and spare her mother to take care of her little brothers and her infant sister. Her whole soul was offered up with tears, earnestness, and deep devotion in these petitions. From the moment I heard this, I seemed, without knowing whince it came, to love the dear child with a new and increased affection. She now, I doubt not, rests in heaven with her dear mother and dear little sister Cora Kezer, who only survived her three months.

The last evening I saw my beloved Isabella in life, she was able to sit up, have her wound dressed, and played the plaintive air of "Long Time Ago" for me (repeating the pathetic words of the little song) on the piano.

On the 4th of September, 1842, my dear Cora, then the adopted child of Mr. Kezer and Ellen, died of congestive fever at Mr. Kezer's house, in the McNairy Range of lots, in the same room where her sister Isabella had died so shortly before. I was sent for to Hickory Hill to see her, and arrived twenty four hours before the little angel---for she was the sweetest most precious child I ever knew, was called home to heaven---being one of those precious souls, pronounced by our blessed redeemer himself to be a fit subject for the "Kingdom of Heaven." These two heavy visitations of a chastising but blessed providence, falling on me so near the same time---and in less than two little years after the death of my beloved wife, were almost more than I could bear. They for a time prostrated all my energies---and, but for the love of the surviving remainder of my family---my children and aged parents, then inmates of my house, I believe I should have wholly lost my reason; for then I had not learned to repose my sorrows and afflictions, through prayer, on my father in heaven, whose name be ever hallowed.

The death of my mother and brothers are herein before stated. See pages 40, 41, etc. and pages 152, 153.

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