1883 Letter - William Reavis to Logan U. Reavis
Introduction
The late Captain William Reavis of Evansville, Indiana, a grandson, remembered Isham Reavis, and in sore correspondence with the late Logan U. Reavis told many Incidents of his grandfather and his sons. One of these letters has been preserved And is set out here as follows:Transcript or Summary
Evansville, Ind., March 11, 1883.Hon. L. U. Reavis,
St. Louis, Mo.
My Dear Sir: -
After a long silence I will today resume a correspondence which to me has been Very pleasant, but which it may seem to you was broken off very abruptly on my part.
Early in the month of December I had a severe fall by which my left ankle was so badley sprained that I have been lame all the winter. And this may explain what may seem to you neglect on my part.
I have the ages and dates of death of our ancestors which I know will be of much interest to you. And to begin--My grandfather Isham Reavis (your great-grandfather) was born in North Carolina (County is not known) Sept. 19, 1748. He died in Saline County, Mo., Sept 23, 1835, being 87 years and four days old at the time of his death. He was a most remarkable man. Somehow or other he managed to obtain a very fair English education, was an Old School Baptist preacher, and was noted for his sterling integrity, and for his general good deportment. He was a soldier in the patriot army in the war of the Revolution in 1776, removed to the neighborhood of Bowling Green, Kentucky in the latter part of the 18th century, accumulated some property here, and early in the 19th century he removed to Saline Co., Mo., established some salt works and accumulated some property here, manumitted all his slaves before his death, and now sleeps in an unknown grave near the Saline Spring where he established the salt works.
Edward Reavis, the oldest son of grandfather, was born in North Carolina (County not known) removed to Ky. With grandfather, from thence to Ind. And from thence to Saline co., Mo. He was born in the year 1767 and died Feb. 24, 1844, and was 77 years old at the time of his death. He too was remarkable for his many good qualities, was a very fair English scholar and held in high esteem by all who knew him. I saw what was perhaps his last letter to his brother Uncle William Reavis. In this letter he related a dream that was ominous, as it was construed by him to be a token of his death. He dreamed he saw a dark cloud above him. And after contemplating this cloud for a time, he saw in his dream a large flock of birds which were of various colors; and those birds kept on in their flight circling around and coming lower and lower, who lo! (?so low) each assumed the human form and turned out to be the spirits of the departed who had been dearest while here on earth, and they accosted him in the old familiar way, "How are you, brother Reavis?"
Mark Reavis, another son of my grandfather Reavis, was born in North Carolina some time in the year 1773. He died the same day that Grandfather Reavis died in Saline County, Missouri. [See note by this compiler at the close of this letter]. He too was a good man, very quiet. I think he and Uncle Edward were both mechanics. He and grandfather both had tokens of their death. Each seemed to know the very day when he should die, and so it turned out. Uncle Mark, like the rest, removed from N.C. with his father, and removed to Mo. by way of Indiana. My father Isham Reavis was born in N.C., and I am of the opinion that he, and perhaps all the rest of my uncles, were born in Rutherford County. I have heard him and my Uncle William mention that county so often, that I feel pretty sure that Grandfather Reavis must have lived there a part of his time. But of this I can not be certain. Have you anything more definite on that point?
My father was born March the 7th, 1781, and died July 20th, 1825. He died in the prime of his manhood by an accident. He had settled in the comparative wilderness, when Indiana was a Territory, had steadily increased in wealth until he was preparing to build a frame house, and for that purpose had stacked some lumber in order to dry it, but it fell on him and crushed him to death. He had an ordinary common school education, was fond of reading and was regarded as above the average for intelligence and sound judgement.
My uncle William Reavis, for whom I was named and whom I loved so much was born in N.C. July 13, 1786, and died in Gibson Co., Ind., Feb. 12, 1855. He could read print, but could not write his name! But his sound judgement and deep probity, and his unswerving integrity made him a man "who take his all in all, we ne'er shall see his like again" in this region. I have had occasion to speak to you concerning this great man before. I had such veneration, such love for him that I never tire of speaking of his noble qualities. He had the most expressive ace I ever saw. No one who ever saw his smile of welcome can every forget it. It conveyed not only a welcome but a benediction. He made his home in the wilderness of Gibson Co., Ind., when my father did, in the year 1813, and remained on the same spot up to the time of his death. He always had plenty, his home was the home of the stranger and the way farer, and his ears were ever open to the needy and oppressed.
I can not dismiss this short sketch of this great and good man without speaking of his moral and physical courage. He was always ready to face danger if he thought his duty lay in that direction. He was one of the sort of men who would at any time have gone to the stake or the cross rather than surrender any great principle which he thought it his duty to avow. He was a most positive man. He was strong and bold in the advocacy of the right as he understood it, politically and religiously, and bold and severe in denounceing the wrong.
He was an old line Whig in politics and an Old School Baptist religiously. But the church to which he belonged were largely democratic in politics and undertook to discipline him for some of his warm expression against the tendency of the then Dem. party, and he withdrew from the church many years previous to his death, an at the time of his death he was a member of no church, but he ha a heart and a charity that recognized the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
I have in a former communication given you an account of Joseph Logan Reavis, who was the eldest child of Uncle Wm. He was born some time in or about the year 1803, and died in or about the 1860. My uncle had two sons in the Federal Army, James R. and Wm. A. Reavis. Wm. A. died of starvation and neglect in Andersonville prison, and James R. died last fall of a disease contracted in the service. He left two daughters who still survive him.
I have not got the ages and dates of death of Uncle Daniel Reavis, Charles Reavis your Grandfather, and Solomon, who was the youngest child. But I knew each and all of those men personally. Uncle Daniel was a mechanic and a river trader, and a good citizen generally. He settled in Gibson Co., Ind., soon after my father and Uncle Wm. did, and died of Cholera on a steamer between New Orleans and Vicksburg some time in the year 1832. His children are all dead but one, Capt. Bedford Reavis, who lives some place in Texas. Uncle Daniel was a large raw-boned man and was possessed with extraordinary physical strength.
Uncle Solomon visited my father when I was a child. He was a man who possessed great physical strength, and I have been informed a little inclined to be quarrelsome, and got into several fighting scrapes. I do not know his age or the date or place of his death. I think he died some place in Quincy, Illinois.
There is a rumor as to him which is not a pleasant or creditable one. And that is that after Grandfather Reavis had manumitted all his slaves, and he had a good many, Uncle Sol took the slaves clandestinely and by force of arms run them to Texas and sold them again. This however is a rumor, and I hope it is not true.
I knew your grandfather well. He visited our people in Indiana twice, which I was a boy. He was a large and powerful man physically and he was a great terror to everybody when he had one of his crazy spells. He was very kind to me, I was but a child then. He was crazy on religious topics, and while at my father's house was in the habit of going out and preaching to the trees. I accompanied him on one of these occasions and I remember that he used many strange and incoherent expressions.
I saw him again later when he made his last trip to Indiana. I then saw Aunt Polly, your grandmother, whose maiden name was Ingram, not "Ingraham" as you once spelled it.
I remember well, to have seen your father James Reavis, who came to Indiana on horseback for a visit, in the autumn of 1837. He was, as I remember him, a heavy set man, about 5 feet 10 inches in height, weighing at that time about 175 or 180 pounds.
I will now close for the present with some allusion to my father's family. My mother had eight children, 4 boys and 4 girls. The boys are all dead now, but myself. I have two sisters who survive me, both of whom are older than myself. My sister Eliza Steel was 70 years old last Jan. 15th day, and her birthday was celebrated at the house of her son, James M. Steel, an acct. of which I have written for publication and sent you a copy.
I have a sister in Neb. with her son, who was born June 13, 1803. She will be 80 years old if she lives until next June, and her health was good at last accounts.
I have but one son living, in Ky., Wm. Lewis Reavis. He is married and has two children. I lost my oldest son at the battle of winchester, Va., in March, 1862. Hе was a brilliant young man, and his name is inscribed on the Roll of Honor among the fallen heroes of the war for the suppression of the rebellion.
This will conclude my notes as to my knowledge of the Reavis family at present.
Faithfully yours,
W. Reavis.