Autograph letter signed by Samuel Boardman Churchill (1831-1882), to his aunt Lucy Churchill (1801-1883). Bastrop County, Texas, 24 August 1855. 2 pages, 4to, on blue paper.

An interesting letter written by a young pioneer, Samuel Churchill, in Bastrop County, Texas shortly before his wedding. He writes to his aunt Lucy, filling her in on his harvest of cotton: "our Crops is very good I am picken from 200 to four hundred pounds of cotton a day to the ...I got a bout 50 bales in the gin house." He also relates a gruesome story involving slaves: "There is a man here that lives one the farm by the name of Ship that had a [negro] killed last week by lightning…the negro that was killed was mashed all to pieces."

Much of the letter, however, is in regard to Samuel’s upcoming nuptials to a local young woman, Sarah Eggleston. He notes “I went to town today and bought my wedding suit." Samuel goes into detail about his sweetheart and the circumstances of her prominent family: "Miss Sarah gives $60.00 dollars for her second day’s dress. She is the Baby and her mother is going to give her a big supper, she is an old Texan, she lives in Bastrop, she was raised there her father was killed in his own house by the Indians 18 years ago. Miss Sarah is 18 years old has Black hair and Black eyes and fair skin she was a 115 pounds she is a stout healthy girl she knows how to do any kind of house work... she has no slaves she has a league of land 4444 acres she has three pine houses and lots in town and a good deal of stock and her Land is a portion her Land is worth $40,000 dollars + I am not marrying for property I am marrying her because I love her if she had her weight in gold I wouldn't marry her without love + she is a pretty girl she is the bell of Bastrop so ever[y] person says and what ever[y] person says must be so[.] I think she is pretty."

Samuel and Sarah married on 5 September 1855 and continued to live in Bastrop, where they had seven children together. Samuel died in 1882 and Sarah remarried 5 years later, to James Coleman Walker (1826-1894). Sarah's father, mentioned in this letter, was Stephen Eggleston (1796-1939). Eggleston served as a private in the Mina Volunteers of the Texas Army, fighting in the Texas Revolution in Captain R.M. Coleman's Company. During the war, he saw action at the Battles of Brush Creek, Guadalupe, and San Jacinto. As mentioned here, he was killed in 1839 by Native Americans who raided his home in Balstrop.

Condition: some staining.

[Texas, Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, African Americana, African American History, Letters, Manuscripts, Ephemera, Documents, Texas Revolution, Texas Rangers, Republic of Texas, Mexican-American War, Texas Revolution, Sam Houston, Western Expansion]