|
On
Sept. 18, 1828, Dr. Calvin Jones wrote a letter to a cousin, Pomeroy Jones, in
Lairdsville, Oneida County, N.Y., and gave it a postmark: “Free. Calvin Jones.
Postmaster.”
Late
last week the letter returned to the house where Jones wrote it.
It
may not be the only existing letter written by Jones in Wake Forest or the
earliest with a Wake Forest postmark, but as Ed Morris, the executive director
for the Wake Forest Museum, said, it is the only artifact directly from Jones
that the museum has aside from the house itself.
Morris
was alerted by a member of the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society that the
letter was offered on e-Bay. Morris authorized him to bid on the letter,
setting a ceiling of $350.
The
birthplace was the only bidder until the last hour, Morris said, when
apparently a number of collectors, tipped off that the letter contained
references to General Andrew Jackson, who was elected President later that
year. The birthplace bidder secured the letter for $346.
Jackson,
an Indian fighter, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and a man with a fiery
temper, had been defeated for President in 1824 by John Quincy Adams. Jackson
had more Electoral College votes, 99, against Adams’ 84, but two other
candidates split the vote sufficiently that the contest had to be decided in
the U.S. House, which chose Adams.
In
December of 1828, three months after the letter, Jackson would be elected
President over Adams with an overwhelming Electoral College vote.
Jones’
letter is largely devoted to comments about the presidential campaign. “You
seem the wary, and I hope and trust you are also the consistent and well
advised advocate of the election of General Jackson,” he wrote to his cousin
whom he had apparently not seen in years.
“I
know the General very well both personally, and by an intimate acquaintance
with many, very many, who have known him all his life and in every situation.”
Jones wrote that “I have heard him relate with graphic exactness and
picturesque colouring his indian (sic) campaigns, his Florida expedition, his
defense of New Orleans the battles and circumstances connected with and
following them.”
Jones
goes on to say he knows the general’s wife, one of her brothers, two of her
nephews and some of the family of her first husband.
The
letter will soon be on display at the birthplace and will be a focal point for
Sunday’s annual meeting of the society.
The
house which bears his name was built about 1820, Morris said, by Josiah Battle
although it is not clear whether Battle ever lived there. His Georgian house
still stands a short distance to the north.
Jones
married Temperance Boddie Williams, daughter of a wealthy Franklin County
planter and a widow, in 1819 and may have purchased the house and the 615-acre
plantation soon after.
Jones
at the time was one of the state’s leading citizens: a doctor, founder of the
North Carolina Medical Society, a former mayor of Raleigh, a state legislator,
a publisher of the Raleigh “Star,” a trustee of the University of North
Carolina, and an officer in the War of 1812, which would have been where he met
Jackson.
Jones
farmed and practiced medicine while his family lived in the two-story house.
Then
in 1832 he sold the property to the North Carolina Baptist Convention for
$2,000, and the family moved to 3,000 acres he had purchased in central
Tennessee. He died in 1846.
The
house became the first building for Wake Forest College, was moved to make way
for what became known as Old Main, served as a boarding house and was moved to
its present North Main location on what had been tennis courts and the college
athletic field after the college moved to Winston-Salem.
Morris does not know the provenance of the
letter except that it came from New York State. He said there may be other
letters from Jones that are still in the keeping of the Jones family.
The
letter is in very good condition. Jones wrote in a firm hand with readable
script on a single sheet of paper which he then folded to form a self-envelope
so the address remains with his letter.
|
