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| Julia P. Cutler |
On April 12, 1861, Julia P. Cutler was 47 years old and living in Constitution, Ohio, six miles from Marietta. An avid reader, Julia Cutler was also an avid letter writer--and she kept journals. When news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached the Old Stone House in Ohio on April 13, 1861, Julia Cutler began a new journal. She wrote in it nearly every day throughout the duration of the Civil War, starting a new blank bound book as she filled the previous. Her entries record news about the politics and battles of the war, but also include family and domestic concerns.
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| Old Stone House in Constitution, Ohio |
Julia was the daughter of Ephraim Cutler and Sally Parker Cutler. She remained close to her siblings and their families, and she never married. For much of her life, she lived in Constitution, Ohio, in the Old Stone House which was built by her father, Ephraim Cutler. She continued to live there with her brother William and his family. She later moved into town and lived in Marietta, Ohio.
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| Rufus R. Dawes |
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| Mary Frances Dawes Beach |
Julia Cutler's own journals were preserved in the family and were of great interest to Mary Frances Dawes Beach, the daughter of Rufus R. Dawes (Rufus was a nephew of Julia Cutler). Mary Frances typed the entries and those typescripts were passed down in the family. They are the basis of this blog.
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| A page from Julia's journal |
The original journals were donated to the Special Collections Library at Marietta College in Ohio. The typed version was passed down to Mary Frances Dawes Beach’s older daughter, Alice Beach Murray, who gave them to her son David Murray. Near the end of his life, David passed them on to his first cousin, Richard Dempsey. (Rich’s mother Betsey Beach Dempsey was the youngest child of Mary Frances Dawes Beach.)
With an avid interest in history, and in particular, of primary source material, I am privileged, as Rich’s wife, to read and study the Dawes/Cutler family manuscripts. I believe that Julia Cutler’s Journal is of wide interest and that it is well worth sharing. Posting an entry a day, 150 years after she wrote them, seemed to be an appropriate and fascinating way to share the journal.
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| Peggy Dempsey |
