Album leaf with Rogers and Barker family records — middle envelope opened
Book 1, Page 46 ·1749–1891
Transcription
The same album page as scan 045, photographed with the middle envelope opened to reveal a folded letter inside. The opened envelope partially exposes the bottom-of-leaf handwritten text — Abigail Rogers Barker’s gravestone inscription — that was hidden in scan 045.
Middle envelope (open)
The flap is unfolded and a folded letter rests inside. The label across the front of the envelope reads:
Letter from Samuel Bark[er]
[The letter inside is not unfolded; its text is not visible.]
Bottom-of-leaf handwritten text now visible
Below the middle envelope and previously hidden by the closed flap on page 045, in cursive ink:
The following inscription is on the tomb stone of [Abi]gail Rogers Barker.
"Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Abigail Barker.
Relict of Richard R. Barker —
[Daught]er of William M. & Sarah Rogers of Newport
and Mother of J. Sanford Barker of this city.
She was born in R.I. — July 18th 1749 & died of
yellow fever in Charleston Sept 27th 1799.
Her manners [were] most amiable — her virtues many,
Her piety unaffected, fervent, and refined —
Filial affection has erected this stone."
AI Notes
A second photograph of the same album leaf shown on page 045, with the middle envelope now opened to reveal a folded letter inside. With the envelope flap unfolded, the bottom-of-leaf handwritten text — the Abigail Rogers Barker gravestone inscription — becomes legible. The surname reads ‘Barker’ throughout (matching the page 045 transcription and the gravestone visible at the bottom of this scan); the middle envelope label is ‘Letter from Samuel Bark[er]’ (consistent with the bottom envelope on page 045 also being to/from Barkers). The gravestone inscription identifies Abigail Rogers Barker (b. R.I. 18 July 1749, d. Charleston yellow fever 27 Sept. 1799), wife of Richard R. Barker and mother of Joseph Sanford Barker — the same Joseph Sanford Barker whose family-record column is at upper left.
Additional handwritten text on the leaf — the Rogers/Barker column, the Henrietta Catherine Gaillard slip, the Nathalie Ferguson photograph annotations, and the bottom envelope label — is recorded on the page-045 transcription.
The newly-visible gravestone inscription places Abigail Rogers Barker (b. Newport R.I. 18 July 1749, d. Charleston 27 Sept 1799) among the casualties of the 1799 Charleston yellow-fever epidemic — one of the recurring late-summer outbreaks that struck the Lowcountry through the 18th and 19th centuries. She is the Barker matriarch through whom the Newport Rogers line entered the Charleston family; her great-great-grandson Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons is the compiler Amy’s father.