Hearne History - Page 493

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five to seven times a day. Once, when I preached in Knoxville, a good brother, a doctor, said so I could hear him, that I ought to have a fine suit for towns, for I wore plain, home-made, round- breasted coats, and I said so he could hear it, that when he got his black man a broadcloth coat I would get one too. I have always regretted saying it, because it looked resentful, and shows we ought always to think before we speak.

He notes, Aug. 1874:

Sister Patsy Ellis departed this life in peace. Apr. 13, 1874. my daughter Mary departed this life in peace. and in June, 1874. Mary's sweet little babe, James Pitts, fell asleep in the arms of Jesus.

He notes the death of Purnell Hearne, Apr. 2. 1826. In one of his letters he speaks of stopping over night with a family where it was said the man had had six wives and sixty children. In one of his notes he says:

I think it a little strange that so many Methodists have become merchants, and it is also strange that so many of our Methodist men fix their hair in a new fashion, and the girls are killing themselves by wearing stays it puts them out of shape, swells their throats, and makes their eves popped and black under them, yellow or white all over their faces, unless rubbed by something rough ; this we sometimes catch them doing one might think them weeping. They can deceive us with their flopped Leghorn bonnets. A decen, prudent, plain, good woman is the prettiest sight that I ever saw. I think there are more good women than men, but some of them are very deceitful. Not long since I saw one prevent another from sitting where there was room, both professors, and it at a meeting; it seemed so strange to me. I saw the same trick, a few days since, with two wicked girls at meeting. I thought I had never seen the like among the men.

From what I gather in the old man's notes, he was a conscientious believer in emancipating the negroes; in one place I note this expression:

My Lord put it into the heart of mv father and all others who own slaves to let them go free. I suppose it was said by a Baptist preacher not far from here, when he was going to dip a black person, that Presbyterians got the rich, the Methodists the

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Notes:


Copyright (c) 1999, 2007 Brian Cragun.