Jerusha Hall Peacock Papers

Series I: Correspondence and Will, 1860-1882, 1914, contains correspondence between Jerusha and her family and one friend. A vast number of the letters were written by Jerusha, but a few exceptions to that were noted. The letters are generally organized chronologically and divisions were made by addressee. The letters are in good condition but should be handled carefully to avoid tearing them along their old fold lines. A transcription of each letter follows the original letter in the folders. In the first file there are four letters all written by Jerusha to her parents, Jacob and Charlotte Peacock. The first three letters were all written in August of 1861 from Chester, New York, where Jerusha was visiting. The fourth letter was also written from Chester but in July of 1862. These letters were legible, complete, and mentioned a number of friends, family members, and events. These were some of the earliest letters written by Jerusha Peacock.

File two contains letters that were also written by Jerusha but were addressed exclusively to her mother. The bulk of these letters were written while Jerusha was in Yellow Springs, but there were some which were written from places that she visited during her summers off. These letters were more sporadic than those written while Jerusha was in Yellow Springs. The places she visited included Chester and Freehold, New York; Bristol, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts. The most puzzling was the letter from Bristol because she was vague as to whom she was visiting. No other letters in the collection mention that she visited there again. The most interesting of her travel letters were the ones from Boston due to their descriptions of Boston sites and of her visit to the home of William Lloyd Garrison.

File two contains one letter from July 1862, but the rest span the period between August 1865 and August 1867. They were almost weekly accounts of Jerusha’s activities at Antioch in the Preparatory Department and at the place she boarded (North Hall). Included is one fragment in this file that may or may not have been written to Charlotte, but because information in a letter to Charlotte permitted the fragment to be dated, it was included in this file. It was an account of a baseball game played in Yellow Springs which Jerusha apparently enjoyed.

File three contains only one letter. It was the only letter written by Jerusha’s mother, Charlotte, to Jerusha. There were no other letters by her to Jerusha in the collection, only little notes written on the letters of Jerusha to Anna and Laura, Jerusha’s sisters. This single letter was dated February 9, 1866 and addressed from where Charlotte probably lived at the time, Albany, New York. It contained a few lines of poetry that may have been composed by Charlotte herself and it mentioned a number of family friends and Yellow Springs.

File four contains letters Jerusha wrote to her youngest sister Laura. The oldest letters in this file were written from Chester in August of 1861 and in July of 1862. The rest of the letters covered the period between November 1865 and June 1867. Most of these letters were also written from Yellow Springs. They discussed the people she met at Yellow Springs and the activities she engaged in there. These letters described the mealtime conversations that took place at the place she stayed while working in the Preparatory Department. They also mentioned some of the gentlemen with whom she ‘spent time’ and described some of the places around Yellow Springs and beyond that she went with them.

File five contains letters by Jerusha to her younger sister Anna. The oldest letter of the entire collection was the first letter of this file. It was written by Jerusha to Anna in 1860 but contained a short note written by Charlotte. There were no clues to decide from where it was written. There was a letter in this file from Charlotte to Anna, another from Edward Orton to Anna, and another from Libbie Carey to Anna. The majority of the letters were written by Jerusha to Anna although there were a number of these that contained short notes from Charlotte as well. These letters were written by Jerusha between June 1865 and June 1867, then one in August 1870, two in 1871, four in 1872, and one each in 1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878. The gaps may have been due to the fact that Anna stayed in Yellow Springs most of the time in those years and Jerusha only wrote to her when she was visiting for extended periods.

File six consists of only two of the many letters Jerusha wrote to her good friend, Maria Carey. In letters to her sisters and her mother, Jerusha often mentioned that she had written to Maria. The two letters in this file reveal Jerusha’s thoughts about the educational system at Antioch and her frustration with the system of education for women in other places. She was pleased that Antioch offered women the opportunity to compete with men at the academic level. Her tirade against the practice of giving women inferior educations was exciting and interesting. These comments contained the only mention of the school where she had received her previous education, Albany Female Academy.

One of these letters also contained the first mention of James Madison Harris, Jerusha’s husband. His name and a brief description of him were included in a letter which also discussed a number of her beaus. He was not among them, but a gentleman she had just met was and she did not seem all that interested in him.

File seven contains a single letter from Jerusha’s sister, Anna, to Jerusha’s son (Anna’s nephew), George, dated Christmas, 1914. In the letter, Anna is sending George his mother’s sketch book, which is in file 12.

File eight contains the will of Charlotte Peacock, who bequeathed all her possessions to her only surviving daughter, Anna.

Series II: Literacy Endeavors, 1861-1867, consists of some of Jerusha’s own literature. Jerusha often mentioned that she read books in her letters. File 9 of this series contains two essays, one of which she only translated from the French titled ‘Poor Dick,’ a humorous French essay. Jerusha authored the other essay titled ‘My Dear Mr. Union’. This essay was written much as a letter might have been, and contains a colorful description of what was probably the area surrounding Bristol, Rhode Island.

Files ten and eleven contain dated poems written from 1861-1867 and signed by Jerusha, and undated poems, mainly about nature and the changing of the seasons. One of the dated poems, ‘For Anna’ was particularly touching because it was probably written by Jerusha to comfort Anna just after Jerusha arrived at Antioch in September 1865. Anna and Jerusha were very close and the sisters must have missed each other quite a bit.

In the ‘Undated Poems’ file there is an interesting poem called ‘The Wizard’ which is different from any of the other poems in either of the poem files. It is about a fantasy subject rather than some aspect of nature. ‘Kitty and I’ is one of the most amusing of her poems. ‘Calling the Children’ reveals many of her feelings about children.

Series III: Artistic Endeavors, 1865-1869, contains two items: a sketch book with dated sketches of landscapes, and portraits. Some sketches were unfinished but all revealed marvelous talent. She taught drawing in the Preparatory Department and often mentioned in letters that during her excursions she drew. These sketches were probably the ones which she mentioned in passing to her mother and sisters. They were drawn in pencil, and the paper on which they were drawn is deteriorating so this book should be handled with much care. Please refer to Series I, File 7 containing a letter from Anna to her nephew George, in 1914, in which Anna sends this sketch book and the book of poetry for George. In addition, in the last file there’s a reproduction of an original photograph of Jerusha dating to circa 1866.