In the previous post I introduced John Pratt Nugent, my husband's great-great-great grandfather who came to America from Rathdowney, Ireland, and who eventually settled in Louisiana. After the death of his first wife, he met Anne Lavinia Lewis, daughter of Seth Lewis, "chief justice of Mississippi Territory and later a notable judge" in Louisiana. In going through the family papers (an enterprise not anywhere near completed; I have hundreds of letters yet to read), I have discovered thus far one letter from Anne Lewis Nugent to her son Perry, my husband's great-great grandfather. Of John's and Anne's nine children, Perry became a wealthy businessman in New Orleans and served at one time as the president of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. William Lewis Nugent became a well-respected lawyer in Mississippi; Thomas Lewis Nugent moved to Texas, where he practiced law and eventually ran for governor as a populist candidate of the People's Party in 1894. But the successes (and, for Perry, devastating setbacks, as well) of these three of her sons were still in the future when Anne wrote the following letter to Perry (I have regularized some of the punctuation. Click on each image for a larger version.):
Atchafalaya, March 8, 1857
My Dear Son
Having been disappointed in a letter written to you on last Sunday reaching its destination I have concluded to try it again and perhaps better luck may attend my effort this time.
Why is it that so few letters pass between us now. I seldom get a line from my dear son and sometimes almost conclude that other ties occupy all your spare time from business. Well I suppose that it is all right and while I feel satisfied that you are happy and content I am thankful for I feel sure that your old mother still holds a place in your warm heart that is ever sacred to her alone. I sent you a box last week containing 20 dozen eggs but I suppose they all went to the bottom of the river with the boat so I will try to send you another but it will not contain quite so many eggs as I disposed of a good many before I knew that the others were lost.
Our rivers are all full and the swamp is nearly so in consequence of the great rains we have had. We have the water nearly all around us and I suppose a few inches more will bring it very near us in the back part of our enclosure but still I am quite satisfied with our home and I do not feel disposed to break up again. I conclude from your last letter that your Father had said something about selling out and moving off again. The honest truth is I am tired of trotting round and feel like setting down and staying in one place. Our little house is beginning to look comfortable and we have many comforts around us in our woods home that I would not like to give up but if we leave here I do not think I will ever consent to live on a farm again. However, this is all in the future and we will meet it as it presents itself.
After all the blustering that came from the captain of the A. W. Glaze he was finally compelled to come here and take wood and actually engaged all we had on the bank. I suppose he feared some other boat would call and take it before he returned and he would not get any below us.
I am beginning to feel the want of Amelia's company a good deal as you will readily immagine (sic) when I tell you that I have not had a lady visitor but once in two months, still I am not so selfish as to wish her to return and live as secluded as I have to do. We are all as well as usual. The children learn a little and play a great deal for in truth it is such a task to me to teach that I cannot do much of it. Give my love to Amanda and kiss the dear little babies for grandma. When will they come up to visit us. Give my respects to Mr. Cook and now my dear son may the choice blessing of our heavenly Father ever rest upon you is the prayer of your fond mother
A L Nugent
The voice of a strong-minded woman comes through in this letter, and we get further glimpses of the character of Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent from sources outside the family. In a search on the web, I found the text of Soldiers of the Cross: Confederate Soldier-Christians and the Impact of War, by Kent T. Dollar, in which William Lewis Nugent gets a hagiographic section. His mother Anne comes in for some high praise, too:
Nugent's mother, Anne, was also a devout Methodist. Anne's public role in the local church, like that of most evangelical women of the antebellum South, probably amounted to holding women's Bible's studies, praying, and exhorting those seeking Christ, particularly during camp meetings. Her role within her own family, however, was another matter altogether. Anne devoted much time to instructing her children in religious matters. According to one of the Nugent brothers, when it came to religion, "she gave it to us all." Anne Nugent continued to instruct her children after they were grown. In 1859, after William had moved east to Greenville, Mississippi, his pious mother entreated him to remember the Lord's promises: "O what a privilege to feel that we are the children of God and can claim his blessing at any time and in any place and yet how often our faith is too weak to reach out and take the cup of blessing that is ever ready for us."
Obviously, a book with such a religious focus is going to emphasize the good mother's piety and focus on her works in the home. Another book, published much later, provides us with a slightly different complimentary picture of Anne Lewis Nugent. In Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, edited by Martha H. Swain, Elizabeth Anne Payne, and Marjorie Julian Spruill, the focus is on the strength of a woman's intellect. In this book, William Lewis Nugent's daughter Nellie Nugent Somerville is one of those Mississippi Women who "played a major role in Mississippi history as a reformer, suffragist, and politician," and both her maternal grandmother (S. Myra Smith) and paternal grandmother (Anne Lewis Nugent) receive some credit for Nellie's success in public life:
...the Smith/Nugent family was accustomed to strong, capable women as well as men, and the women of the family received more opportunities for education than most women of the era. Both of [Nellie] Nugent's grandmothers studied at academies: Myra Smith attended Nazareth Academy in Bardston, Kentucky, the first boarding school for girls west of the Appalachian Mountains, and Anne Lavinia Lewis graduated from Elizabeth Female Academy in Washington, Mississippi, in 1827. Nellie Nugent's father, William Lewis Nugent, was influenced in favor of women's education by his mother, who was a woman of great intellectual power with a "great feeling for learning" and was often compared to Queen Victoria." (40-41)
These passages and the family letter provide us with as clear a picture--minus a photographic image--as one can hope to have of a great-great-great grandmother who was not famous but whose influence extended far beyond her own children. A great-granddaughter of Anne Lewis Nugent, Lucy Somerville Howorth, was to be admitted to the bar before the U. S. Supreme Court in 1934, and to become a member of the Mississippi state legislature in 1932-1936.
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