LETTER FROM
MILDRED ARRINGTON HUCKSTEP GILLUM
TO MRS. CHRISTIANA JONES
1839

The following are excerpts of a letter from Mildred Arrington Huckstep Gillum to Mrs. Christiana Jones written in Lincoln Co. June 4, 1839, about the wedding of Patience Kemper Bryant to Nathan Smith Gillum on February 21st, 1839.

 

I now intend to tell you about Nathan and his wedding. All his brothers and wives were invited by Mr. Bryant. He was married on Thursday, February 21st. They had two rooms to house and they were not large. I went from home to Uncle's, 4 miles by myself with Melville behind. We had 16 in our gang and got there about 1 o'clock. They were married twenty minutes after, then ate dinner. They had the finest looking table I ever saw. Two very large cakes, shape of sugar loaf, iced over with plums stuck about and cedar in it. They had nice sweet crackers laid in plate iced over with plums. The snowballs were iced and plums on them. Rice turned out in cups and plums over them, pieces of sweet crackers cut 5 or 6 inches long, wide as my finger, baked and iced over set in a tumbler with a plum on the end. No meat on the table but chipped beef, bacon, shote, turkeys, beef tongue, broiled beef. They had two pens on the table like Mary Wren's, cedar bushes stuck in it. Two other plates of printed butter on the table to eat. Had tea, coffee, light bread, biscuits and waffles. They had a very large teaboard in the middle of the table with large bowls on it. One they called custard, the other float with two or three goblets on it and tumblers had sweet biscuits cut out with a thimble. One had sweet plums on it. They cut a great show on everything as everything was so white and plums stuck on them. Sliced cake on plates, four glass dishes with preserves in them, peach and whortleberry. Two large silver ladles on the teaboard, large silver spoons on table. More silver than I ever saw before, some of it was borrowed but most of it belonged to them. He was like some others in the world, the other ware didn't suit his silver. He is quite a friendly man, came into the room and invited all of us to eat, said, "Let the strangers eat first:".

Her sister and a cousin of hers waited on her. They all went into dinner. The preacher sat at the head of the table, Nathan's wife next, the girls next to her. Nathan sat on the other side, faced his wife, the other two men faced the girls. Other men came in and waited on the table, helped the married couple first, kept on til they helped all. Not one commenced eating till they were all helped and no one got up till all were through. This is the Kentucky fashion.

Now I will tell you how she was dressed, married in a pale yellow flowered silk, with white edging around the neck and sleeves, yellow silk gloves with red flowers on the back, white handkerchief on her neck, black shoes, white ribbon tied around her head twice, a riticule as large as my hand just sewed up and hemmed with a white ribbon string in it nearly two yards long hung on her arm. Her cousin was dressed as she was, her sister wore a black flowered silk with a riticule on her arm. I was all eyes that day, I wanted to see how people in Missouri did.

I must tell you of one more feast. I've been to a quilting and sewing match. There were 28 women and babies. There were 70 with the family that dined and supped. They finished 2 quilts, made 6 pairs of breeches, nearly 6 shirts, 3 waistcoats. They had dinner about 12 and supper by sun. It was at Mr. Wells. The Kentuckians think as much about having tea and coffee for dinner as a drunkard would his Dram. They had pies, you could see a little fruit cake, a little dark, made with home-made sugar. They talk about the Virginians having tea and coffee half sugar. They ate pickles for supper and such pickles, they were so salty could hardly eat them. They drank tea and coffee with pie and cake. Vinegar is scare, people make their own--take sugar, water and a little whiskey. The Kentuckians don't know how the Virginians live. There is as much difference in them as poor and rich.

 

Note:

They would get a cedar bush wrap it with strips of paper, tie it around with bows of cotton and curl and hang the paper on it.