Wedding letter to Kate, page 4 (left); and start of a second letter to Mary, Thursday Nov.
Book 1, Page 191
Transcription
An open-book scan showing two facing leaves of a handwritten letter in brown ink on lined paper. The left leaf is paginated 4 at the top centre and is the continuation of the previous letter; the right leaf opens a fresh letter dated Charleston / Thursday Nov. and addressed My dear Mary.
Left column (letter page 4 — continuation of wedding letter)
under Dr Forest — To return / to the “orginal Evening.” / After hats had been / taken off, they returned / to the dining Room to / tea, when Mr McMillan / & Miss Susie came in, then / Mrs Williman & Susie, So there / was quite a company ^around / the table — After tea they / went up Stairs to See / the drawing Room — / while there, Mary & Hennie / & Mr Bryan — Mrs Huger, Margaret / & Arthur came So there / was a lot of people & laughing / & talking going on — / they all went, & we returned / to the dining Room, when / Tho. Smoked, & Louisa / Sat by him & they looked / Married! — He breakfasted / at about ten o’Clock on / Sunday, [1] King came
Right column — new letter (Thursday Nov.)
Charleston
Thursday Nov.
My dear Mary
Your dear / lovely letter came today / & thanks for it. Nell & / I were very happy over / it. We had meant to / write So you could / have letters at the time / of all the things going / on but we were too / busy — well — they went / to Mulberry & had a / very happy time. fancy / it, they never were / down until near / Eleven o’Clock to breakfast. / Can you imagine T.G.B. / & L.P.K. So reckless of / proprieties?! Of course / they had the Meal all / to themselves at that hour
when ↩︎
AI Notes
An open-book scan showing two leaves. The left leaf is paginated 4 at top centre and is the continuation of the wedding letter to Kate (running 189(2/3) → 191L(4) → 193R(5) → 194L(6) → 194R(7) → 193L(8) → 190L(9?) → 190R(10) → 192L(11) → 192R(12) → 195 → 196 → 187/188 Friday). The right leaf opens an ENTIRELY SEPARATE letter dated Charleston / Thursday Nov. addressed My dear Mary, which discusses the same recently-married couple but is a different letter to a different recipient. The initials T.G.B. + L.P.K. appear explicitly toward the bottom of the right column — confirming the bride and groom of the wedding letter as Theodore Gaillard Barker (‘Tody’) and Louisa Preston King, daughter of Judge Mitchell King. The Huger family party named in the left column (‘Mrs Huger, Margaret & Arthur’) matches the pencil annotation on page 190L.
Letter continues on next page. The initials T.G.B. (Theodore Gaillard Barker) and L.P.K. (Louisa Preston King) are the load-bearing identification for this entire wedding/reception cluster — the newlyweds are sleeping in at his family’s Mulberry Plantation in St John’s Berkeley. Both letters in the cluster are by the same hand and address the same family event (the Barker–King wedding), but to different recipients: the larger letter, on pp187–196, is to Kate; this shorter one, beginning here, is to Mary.