The water has begun to fall. A great deal of valuable lumber (from head waters probably) has been carried down with the drift. Our neighbors have made a good business of catching it and are busy today with their teams securing it. The rise was unprecedented at this tie of year, rising from 18 to 20 feet in 24 hours. Kate and Lucy went to town today on the morning train. They wish to prepare Ephraim's things for his prospective campaign. May God bless and keep him.
Yesterday Mr. Burgess came down here quite alarmed. He had a visit from a Virginia secessionist named Creel, who pretended to be a Union man and asked impertinent questions &c. Lieut. Miller sent two of his soldiers to sleep there last night.
William has been riding a good deal today. The weather is fine and he enjoys it very much.
Lucy and Kate came home on train. Ephraim with them. Brought me a nice blanket shawl costing nine dollars, which William very kindly gave me.
Will M'Clure told the girls that he knew this Creel who was at Mr. Burgess yesterday. His relatives are all secessionists but this man himself is an abolitionist and a union man, but very odd which accounts for his asking so many questions. So . . . . . . [the next two lines have been scrubbed out with pencil.]
Old Mrs. Reppert died suddenly this morning in Harmar. I sent Mrs. Graves a bouquet by Lucy today which she liked much, and a basket of grapes to Sarah.
Peggy's comments:
Family members helped prepare items useful to soldiers as they headed off for service. Ephraim Dawes, much loved by his sisters Kate and Lucy, was no doubt well supplied.
Mr. Burgess was a retired Presbyterian minister, a rather flamboyant seventy-seven year old man who was the step-father of Lizzie Cutler (William's wife). Mr. Burgess and Lizzie's mother lived on property that bordered the Cutler land.
Once again, something has been obliterated in Julia's original journal. I speculate that she might have written something about families who still lived in the area decades later and someone who had access to the journal (her niece Sarah Cutler?) may not have wanted Julia's comments to be made public.
According to an article by Kathy Dahlie on Civil War fashions, blanket shawls were the first women't fashions to be mass produced. Plain or checked were popular for travel.
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