Thomas Swagerty
c1783 - 1838 

Born in Tennessee, Thomas died in Benton County,
 Arkansas, the county he helped found as one of three commissioners two years before his death.

by Iris Teta Eubank Wagner, with research by
 descendant of Thomas Swagerty, Dr. Paul Thomas Miller

Transcribed below is a letter which was published on Page Two, of the
Friday, March 13, 1936, issue of the Fayetteville Daily Democrat, Fayetteville, Arkansas.  The letter had been written sixty-five years earlier, on March 12,1871.  It was submitted for publication to the newspaper by Alice Terhune,  a descendant of Thomas through the lineage of his son Thomas James Axley Swagerty.  T. J. A. Swagerty wrote to his son, Joseph Scripps Swagerty, a simply elegant note, in which he describes the new spring garden at home, the cold winter just past, and some about the family land, adding humor as well.   The letter follows :

Letter Written 65 Years Ago Yesterday  -  A letter written from here 65 years ago, March 12, 1871, by T. J. A. Swagerty and Mary Swagerty  to Joseph S. Swagerty and Sarah J. Swagerty, was provided the Democrat by a descendant, Mrs. Alice Terhune  of Highway 71, south.  The letter follows :

March the 12th, 1871
Dear son and daughter,  I now send you a few lines in answer to your letter of February the 23rd.  We were glad to hear from you once more.  We are all well and hearty and hope these lines will find you all well.  I wrote you a letter about a month ago.  You haven't got it I suppose before now.
       The winter has broke and everything is beginning to grow.  We have onions and lettuce and peas up almost large enough to hoe.  The old settlers say that the winter has been the coldest winter that has been for a long time.  There were two snows about shoe-mouth deep and lay ten or twelve days each, and several light skiffs, and there was not more than two weeks that was much cold.  The ground has not been froze deep enough to freeze potatoes in the patch- they kept well without digging at all.  There has been a great deal of rain all the time ever since we have been here.
       We have fine spring weather now, and are plowing. All in good health and in good spirits - in a land of peas and plenty.  Joseph, if you were to come here now, you would not know the place. It looks like somebody might live here than it did when you left here.
        Now about the land, I will send you all the tax receipts and want you to attend to it.  You will find that the one for that year has not got the amount on it.  I never knew it till now.  The rest is all right and if you find it to be my land, show all the receipts, and if that one should not be good, you tell Krull to redeem the land and I will make it all right when I come next summer, for I will be there the last of July.  You keep the receipts till I come.  If it be my land contend for the receipts of '68 and '69; if you have to pay for '67 the figures under tax is there, but not written before dollars in the receipt.
        So, no more.  I was glad to hear of your great prosperity in religion.  The Lord bless you more abundantly; there is not much interest here in religion, though regular preaching all the time.  Sally and family are well.  So, no more at present, but remember and pray for us, and if we never meet in this world, I hope that we will meet in heaven.
         Dick and Jany say their toenails are all right, and want to know if it did not freeze off your whiskers last winter.
         Write soon.  So, good-bye.
                        T. J. A. Swagerty and Mary Swagerty to
                       Joseph S. Swagerty and Sarah J. Swagerty

 NewspaperArchives.com., Fayetteville Daily Democrat, Fayetteville, Arkansas
 

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