I can’t be certain of the author or the date of this letter though I’m confident it was written in Belfast, Waldo county, Maine. I’m guessing the letter dates to about 1860 and I only know the author’s first name was Margaret. Whether the people described in her letter were relatives or simply acquaintances, I could not discern.
In her letter, Margaret describes a domestic abuse incident. The married couple was Lewis C. Smith (1823-1905) and Susannah C. Otheman (1831- Aft1910) who were married in Boston, Massachusetts, on 18 February 1849 by Rev. Edward Beecher of the Park Street Church. Lewis was a native of Belfast, Waldo county, Maine, but he came to the Boston area in the late 1840s to work in the meat business. By the mid 1850s, he had returned to Belfast, Maine, where he lived out his days. Susannah is enumerated with him in the 1870 US Census but appears to have left him not long after that date. I believe she relocated to Chelsea, Massachusetts and ran a boarding house as a “widowed” woman. Their daughter, Carro, was born in 1853. Another child named Edward Otheman Smith (1858-1929) who was born in Maine in 1858.
Also mentioned in the tale is Luther Mitchell Smith (1820-1908)—Lewis’ older brother. Luther and Lewis were the sons of Deacon Luther Smith (1783-1863) and Sally Page (1783-1846) of Belfast, Waldo county, Maine.
Transcription
Poors Mills
[Belfast, Waldo county, Maine]
May 4th [@1860]
Dear Uncle,
I now seat myself to write to you. Lewis started this morning. Mother went over to Mr. Limeberner’s 1 with him this afternoon. I went over after her. Something—we don’t know what—put it in to our heads to go up and see Mrs. Smith and we heard a story that makes me want to clinch my hands on Lewis’s throat so that I can hardly write. I will tell it to you as it was told to us.
Last Thursday night she asked him if the Pillsbury girl was coming soon. He said he did not know. She asked him what made him let the other one go if he did not know whether he could have the Pillsbury girl or not. He fetched a grunt and said he was not a going to pay a girl two dollars a week for her he had worked hard and hired a girl for her long enough. She told him if he did not hire her one, she should hire one herself for she was not able to do her work herself and another thing, the girl’s wages come out of her after all. Then he sprang up and began to walk the house. After awhile he went upstairs to bed and she went into the nursery and woke up Carro and told her she was afraid her father would kill her before morning, he was so mad, and she kept awake until most morning when she dropped to sleep. When she woke, it was daylight. She got up and got his breakfast ready [but] he did not get up and she felt faint & dizzy so she went into the parlor and laid down on the sofa.
She had not laid there but a few minutes before he came down and came directly in there & took the rocking chair and sat down and looked directly at her. She said she guessed she looked pale for she felt very faint. After he had watched her awhile, he got up & shut the doors and put down the curtains. When he dropped the one behind the sofa, he grabbed her & held his hand over her mouth and nose and began to swear at her. She tried to get away twice. She made out to get his hands off so that she caught her breath. She found that she was going. She told him that she should faint or die & not to kill her this time. He told her, “God damn you, die if you want to.” The next thing she knew she was out in the dining room staggering along towards the nursery door.
She called Carro and told her to get up for her father was trying to kill her. He told Carro to lie still and not ming anything her Mother said she was crazy and did not know what she was talking about. But Carro sprang up and come out & told him he had been doing something to her Mother, to look at the blood on her face, and see how black she is. “You have been hurting her some way.” Then he began to swear at Carro and Sue caught her bonnet and went out at the front door & locked the door after her. She thought she would run up to Georgie’s but when she locked the door he heard her. She had got to the corner of the fence when he came out at the other door, She knew that he would overtake her before she could get there and she looked up to see if she could see George & Miller’s folks was just turning up to their house with the load of goods. She said she clapped her hands & said, “The Lord has sent them. The Lord has sent them.” He turned & went back into the house & she stayed out a few moments & she went in. He put on his breakfast & sat down to eat it [while] her and Carro went into the parlor. She says he ate as hearty a breakfast as ever she knew him to.
Sometime in the forenoon, he went into the house & asked her is she wanted Mother. She told him she wanted some one & she should rather have her than any one she knew of. He said if she could hold her tongue and not go to blabbing everything that had been said or done since Gufts’s folks went away, he would come over and see if he could get Mother. She told him she should make no promises. He went out and in a few minutes he came back and said he was going and tried again to make her promise but she never answered him. He told her if her or the children went up to Georgie’s while he was gone, he would kill them when he got back. She did not dare to go nor let the children. At last George came from the mill and drove up into the dooryard with some lumber for Lewis. She went to the door. She asked him if he would go over to Luther’s for her. He said he would. She told him to go as quick as he could and tell Luther to come over as quick as he could. Luther wanted to start the next morning for Boston but Suse thought that he had better write. Lewis would miss him and mistrust something. He told her she should not stay there alone with Lewis another day. He would go & get Aunt Phebe.
He carried her up to his house and she went down across the field as though it was accident. Luther has been and talked with Philo Chase. 2 He says she can hold her children if she has the means to provide for them and is capable of bringing them up & Luther has wrote to her Uncle & told him to come as quick as he could for she was in danger of her life every minute. She looks for him Saturday. She does not want to be divorced if she can get along without it but she says she cannot live with him any longer. She has wrote to you & sent it by Lewis but she is afraid you will not come. She wants you should be sure and come as quick as you can. George is coming after Mother when her Uncle comes. — Margarett
There is much more but I have not space to write it, After she’s got out into the dining room, he shook her by the shoulder and said, “Damn you, I will kill you if you don’t mind me & do as I say.”
1 Robert Limeburner (1822-1884) was a shipmaster and Master Mariner who resided in Belfast, Waldo county, Maine.
2 Philo Chase (1829-1898) was also a native of Waldo county, Maine. He was married to Mary Elizabeth Davis (1838-1911) in 1857. In the 1860 US Census, he was enumerated in Belfast as an attorney. He practiced in Belfast from 1857 until 1868 and then moved to New York City.
Spared & Shared 23 