Manuscripts
Mathews, Isaac Newton, 1841-1923. Letter to John Mathews, Rhuama Mathews, Elizabeth Price, and Ellon Buntin
- Description
- This collection contains correspondence with Isaac Newton Mathews' parents, siblings, many cousins, aunts, uncles, and his future wife and her family, including friends and relatives who served in other Indiana regiments; correspondents include brother Ezekiel Mathews, sister Elizabeth Price and her husband James K. Price, John Harness Alkire, Elza W. Lister, Lucinda Chenoweth Boyles (1838-1918), and others. The letters discuss the life of an extended family of Indiana farmers; local news; schools; prayer meetings; festival; celebrations, and other diversions (which included visits to photographers); courtship; gossip, etc.; Civil War in Indiana, including local politics and the Copperhead movement; and war news (including an account of execution of Union prisoners of war, encounters with Unionists, Lincoln's assassination, etc.) This collection also includes Mathews' school compositions titled "Washington" and "Slavery," poems composed by him and a copy of the popular ballad "The Song of Creation" (William H. Bozarth, 1818), which was often attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
- Date
- [before 1863]
