A Fair Floridian
Writes An Interesting Letter to the Courant American.
Thoughts of Things in Bartow County—Some Magnificent Florida Scenery—Some Interesting Relics.

[This is a long letter which includes the following excerpt:]

There is in my father-in-law’s family, Capt. S. E. Mays, a double woven coverlet, woven by Elizabeth Harrison in 1770, sister to Gen. Wade Hampton, of revolutionary memory, and granddaughter of Gen. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, who is a cousin of Capt. Mays’ mother, whose maiden name was Miriam Earle. In the same family there is also a stuffed quilt which is quite ancient made by my mother-in-law’s grandmother, Mary Moseley, nee Robertson. It is a white coverlid drawn in beautiful patterns and stuffed with soft cord, in imitation of the celebrated Marsailles coverlets. From the dates we can gather it is fully a hundred years old. There are also several fine linen sheets, that are fully as old as the last named coverlet. I was sitting in the yard by mother, who was swinging in the hammock (telling me of these interesting things, and I concluded to give them to the Courant American, who may have some readers as fond of antique things as I am.) By and by we came into tea and I noticed a beautiful cut glass decanter, which dispenses “Adams Ale” to us daily, and as we are strictly temperance folks never holds the red wine now. I asked as I took it up how old it was and found it to be all of 70 years old, and also has quite a history. It was buried under a mill dam in the Saluda river in South Carolina by an old family servant to keep the Yankees’ from getting it during the war.

When I get to scribbling I never know when to stop. I know I’ve tired you all out. But fare thee well, Dixie people, “and if forever still forever, fare thee well.”
Maud Walton Mays
Oakland, near Peru, Fla. April 1890.