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THE PEACE -
Thanks to a Confederate miller, we know exactly how Quakers celebrated the signing of the peace. Four days after Appamatox, Moses Pascal Watson wrote a short, bitter note and slipped it into the pages of his mill record book:
"There is great rejoicing with the Union people in regard to the fall of Richmond and the surrender of General Lee.
"It is said Samuel M. Janney had the old gobbler killed and invited many of his Union friends to eat and be merry. William Tate shut himself up in a room and laughed his fill. Joseph Nichols has been riding, hunting hands to go to his house to drink cider get drunk and be merry. Bill Lemmon and Lot Tavener have gone fishing to day: they say the work is done. Thorton Witacer says the backbone of the Confederacy is broken and the war is about over. It is the prevailing opinion that the South can fight no longer."
War hadn't altered Lida, Lizzie and Sarah's resolve, so it should come as no surprise that when peace came they kept right on doing life justice. While Lida and Lizzie continued to write editorials for local papers, Sarah Steer applied to the Freedmen's Bureau and the Philadelphia Meeting and to local Quakers for the funds to open a school for the children of freedmen.[20] The school was built in 1867, the first of five in the County, but Sarah didn't wait for the walls to go up around her. She began teaching from her side yard in1865 and so became the "first teacher of black children" in Loudoun County.[21]
The school building, an historic property now known as "The Second Street School," is owned by The Waterford Foundation and is the site of a unique living history program. As part of Loudoun County's Public School curricula, children are able to spend a morning in the one-room school house, taking on the identities and responsibilities of the African-American children who attended in 1880.
An excellent summation of the trials and tribulations of Waterford Quakers is detailed in The Waterford Foundation publication, To Talk is Treason, by John Souders, Bronwen Souders and John Divine. Most of the story of Lida and Lizzie Dutton and Sarah Steer is contained therein. It is abundantly clear from their histories that any one of these women were capable of being that Editor referred to in the newspaper as "bent on having her own way."
As for Lizzie, there had been a fleeting correspondence between herself and a Lieut. James Dunlop of the 7th Indiana. Dunlop was a friend to her fallen fiancé and the very man who'd written her with news of his death. But, after the war, Lieut. Dunlop had gone home to Indiana to marry his childhood sweetheart.
Fate decreed Dunlop's wife would die within two years of the marriage. He never remarried. In 1881, he came to Washington on business and used the excuse to send a card out to the Dutton home.
When he received a pleasant reply from "Miss Lizzie Dutton," he took the next train out of Washington to Waterford.
A newspaper account of the event reads that as the two renewed their acquaintance, "...matters flowed on so easily, smoothly, and naturally, that in a few weeks Mr. Dunlop found himself at his Indiana home busily engaged in preparing for the reception of a new mistress, and soon the little town of Waterford was all a blaze of light and a scene of general rejoicing, for the lady was popular and beloved by all." Joseph Dunlop and Lizzie Dutton were married on January 22, 1882.[21]
Last, but not in the least least, there was the story of Lida and that Union Lieutenant.
When young Barbara Black was on her grandpa's knee listening to the tale, there would always come a point where her grandmother would interrupt the telling. That part about the promise. When her Grandfather would say Lida promised that Union Lieutenant she'd love him if he were a Northerner, her grandmother, often blushing, would protest in her soft Virginia drawl that she'd said like and not love.
Despite this, in the dozen times Barbara heard the story, her grandfather, John William Hutchinson, never felt the need to change the facts of how he met his Quaker bride. He also never felt the need to hold his grand-daughter with both hands; his other hand would almost always be holding Lida's.
Like him or love him, when William came back for her after the war, she married him. He joined the Quaker church and moved his bride north to New York where they continued to hold that cheerful argument in front of their children, then their grandchildren, and, eventually, their great-grandchildren. William and Lida were man and wife for 53 years before he passed away. [23]
Heroes are created when people choose to do life justice in the midst of crisis. Thanks to the preservation of women's history, we're able to celebrate the heart of three amazing heroes - editors Sarah, Lizzie and Lida who were happily bent on having their own way.
- The Waterford News, July 2, 1864
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Letter of Barbara Dutton Conrow Black to Ladies Home Journal dated Feb. 4, 1962 (copy in Waterford Foundation Archives, Waterford, VA)
[2] Waterford Perspectives, Education Committee of The Waterford Foundation, Waterford Foundation Archives
[3] To Talk is Treason, Bronwen and John Souders and John Divine, The Waterford Foundation, Waterford, VA (1997) p. 56
[4] The Waterford News, Vol. 1, No.'s 1-8 (copies in "Civil War File" of The Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA and The Waterford Foundation Archives)
[5] ibid, Vol. I, No. 2 (Nov. 6, 1864)
[6] "Robert Todd Lincoln" papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (referred to in Oct. 6, 1955 article from The Blue Ridge Herald, "Lincoln Papers Reveal Waterford Had Newspaper During Civil War;" copy in "Civil War File," Thomas Balch Library).
[7] To Talk is Treason, et al
[8] The Transformation of American Quakerism, by Thomas D. Hamm, Indiana Univ. Press (1988), p. 52
[9] "Girls Published Civil War Newspaper," by Emma H. Conrow, Baltimore American newspaper, February 5 1922, p. C-3 (copy in "Civil War File" at the Thomas Balch Library and The Waterford Foundation archives).
[10] The Waterford News, Vol. I, No. 6 (Nov. 26, 1864)
[11] ibid, Vol. I, No.1 (May 28, 1864)
[12] Essays of Friends Literary Society, Waterford, 1857-60, Rare Manuscripts - Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA
[13] To Talk is Treason, p. 87
[14] The Waterford News, Vol. I, No. 1 (May 28, 1864)
[15] The Waterford News, Vol. I, No. 3 (July 2, 1864)
[16] Waterford Perspectives
[17] Hillsboro: Memories of a Mill Town, Hillsboro Bicentennial History Committee, Pub'd by the Hillsboro Community Association, p. 25 (The Thomas Balch Library)
[18] To Talk is Treason, p. 92
[19] Ye Meetg Hous Smal, Werner and Asa Moore Janney published by Werner and Asa Moore Janney (The Thomas Balch Library) p. 42 - insert
[20] Friends Intelligencer, vol. XX, pp 250-251 (copies in Waterford Foundation Archives)
[21] The County of Loudoun, by Nan Donnelly-Shay and Griffin Shay, The Donning Co. (1988) p. 53
[22] Camp & Field, Sketches of Army Life, by Wilbur F. Hinman (Cleveland, 1892) (Ref., The Thomas Balch Library) pp 422-423
[23] "Commonplace Book" by Mary Frances Dutton Steer (collection of letters and memoirs), Waterford Foundation Archives, p. 15
OTHER RESOURCES:
A Two-act play, The Waterford News
30-minute living history presentation: Waterford's War
For more information, contact McMath:
