Karen and Bryan, you might want to upload these articles to the Drew webpages. I have about 15 and will "slowly" send in sections. This particular one will be sent in part. Jann RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS by: Lance Hemingway (published in the Advance-Monticellonian April 11th and 18th, 1935) One often receives from an old citizen much interesting information about an older citizen. In the days before the written word and perhaps far into the years following perfection of the alphabet by Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented letters, incidents and legends of the previous generations were communicated by word of mouth to current and subsequent generations; and to this good hour we pass along verbal information from one to another. One balmy evening I was talking with Ashley M. Bell of the days when he first went to Monticello from Ashley county. We were both in a reminiscent mood, and talked far into the night. There were some disagreements, of course, but in the main we recalled the same people and the same events. The stock question was "Do you remember?" and usually both of us did. "When I moved from Hamburg to Monticello," said Mr. Bell, "Mrs. Bell and I drove through the country in a buggy. Somewhere on the road after we left Lacey we observed a man on a horse coming toward us from the opposite direction. I do not remember what sort of horse it was, but I do remember the man. He sat erect in his saddle with head up and eyes to the front. He had rather long black hair and an ample black beard, and he held the bridle reins in his right hand above the saddle horn. As we passed him on the road he changed the reins to his left hand, reached for his hat with his right, and made a courtly bow as he rode on toward Lacey. Mrs. Bell said to me as we drove on, 'I believe that is the politest (sic) man I ever saw. Later we both met him and respected him highly. He was Colonel Thomas M. Whittington. Without the least desire to delve into the ages of either Mr. or Mrs. Bell, I place the time at about 1876 or a little later, for I knew both the Bells and Colonel Whittington in the early eighties, and the Colonel was then suffering from rheumatism - as constantly, in fact, that he wore carpet slippers even when down town, and he also carried a cane. I judge from these facts that he was no longer able to sit a horse with his former grace, or to take such long horse-back journeys as that on which he passed Mr. and Mrs. Bell. Nevertheless he was the same courtly gentleman, and remained so until the summer day on which he died. I knew Colonel Whittington well, and liked nothing better than the privilege of listening on those rare occasions when he talked of himself and his young manhood. His command of words was remarkable, his diction as pure as Addison's and his rhetoric flawless. Unfortunately I never heard him make a speech although he was a lawyer - graduate of an eastern university (I think he was a Virginian) - and must have been a veritable tower of strength before a jury. In ordinary conversation he was always the cultured gentleman, but if the occasion required he could use a bit of highly ornamental profanity that was also convincing. It had no crudities; no rough edges; no vulgarity. He swore "By the living God" and "By the remotest fires of hell," and he would say "Damnation, sir," with such fire and verve that it sounded like the end of the argument. In all the years or so in which I knew Colonel Whittington he lived in the little cottage in the rear of the grove of magnificent oaks that bore his name. It was located on South Main Street, and the grove was utilized for the annual May dinners and other gatherings too large for accommodation in the court house or one of the four churches. Here the people for miles around gathered on the first day of May and partook of a tempting basket dinner, watched the Maypole dance, listened to an address by some rising young Monticellonian (Billy Hyatt was the last one I remember hearing), and had a general good time with their friends and neighbors. I wonder if the old custom is still kept alive. What a pity if it isn't! It was at one of these May dinners that I first met Louie Belser and Zach Hyatt. The three of us - all about the same age (thirteen or fourteen) - arrived at the Whittington well at the same time, each in quest of a drink of water. Colonel Whittington was sitting in the shade of his back porch, and we spoke to him, as boys were taught to do in those days. He said, "Good evening, young gentlemen, I hope you are having a pleasant time." One of them drew a bucket of water, and Louie, dipper in hand, said, "Will you have a drink, brother Tom." The offer was courteously declined; so we three drank our fill, got acquainted, and went back to the scene of merriment fast friends. We remained so until death claimed Zach in the first decade of the present century and Louie only a few years ago. I am the lone survivor of that trio of boys that met at the Whittington well in May, 1883-84. I learned later that Colonel Whittington, then a widower and living alone, was Louie's brother-in-law. He later married Miss Jennie Cordell, who became the mother of his children. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/