Saturday, April 5, 1862

We have been planting out our roses, &c.: two or three years hence, I think, our place will be beautiful.  We are having a walk made all around the enclosure, which is to be gravelled.  William has been going over the farm looking into his affairs.
Mr. Burgess, Mrs. Bailey &c. called.  Also Wm. Scott who [writing is crossed and smudged out] free pass over the railroad.  He is generally thought to be a contemptible traitor, he owns the Marietta Republican, a Democratic paper of the meanest stamp.  Now edited by S. S. Miller, a triffling puppy who visits at Mr. Scott's it is reported with a view to matrimonial connection with one of the daughters.  Mr. Scott himself is strongly suspected of being a member of the treasonable conspiracy [coleus ?] Knights of Golden Circle.  He is an unscrupulous, false-hearted man ready for "treason, strategems and crimes."  [unreadable] from Virginia and are none of them very reliable patriots.  Harvey Deming & the Coles are also a little doubtful--but the record of the truly loyal citizens of our place takes most of our neighbors.  McTaggart, Harvey, McClure, D. B. Calder, Briggs, Burgess, Hart, all the Baileys, Joel Deming, Greenwood, Dickey, &c.




Peggy's comments:
Parts of today's original journal entry have been erased and smudged so as to make them difficult to read.  I don't know if Julia did this herself, or if some later owner of the journal did not want to share Julia's impressions of her neighbors.  She seems unusually angry at the "traitors" in this entry.

The Marietta Republican  was a weekly paper of Democratic leanings (remember that the political parties have altered since then.  At the time, Lincoln was a Republican.  Democrats were pro-south).  The paper ceased publication in November 1863.

The Old Stone House where Julia Cutler lived.