Friday aft.
My darling,
Your long good letter reached me today & truly I was glad to learn you were not sick.
Darling you love long letters & I love you so I will try to write long ones.
If though you only knew how tired I was you’d say write a short one this time.
We have had a fine trade today. Largest order amounted to $133.35 so it warmed us up a little while.
I thought of uncle Paxton all the time & did wish I didn’t have to work so hard as you know he pitied me so for having to do so much.
I think Guy will come up late this aft & I hope he will. I sent word to Mrs. E’s I’d be out.
Guy said he wanted to learn to waltz & I wish he knew now.
I am glad you think enough of my promise to my God to not resist on my coming to see you however I don’t think there is very much danger do you for I always keep my promises.
No dear, I never fear that we will quarrel & break up. I don’t think there is any danger at all unless you prove to me that you are only flirting with me & don’t realy love me.
I am so sorry for you in regard to how you suffered with your teeth. I know how to sympathise with you however I’ve never had any filled. My teeth are all like dogs teeth (sound & round) & not a hollow tooth in my mouth.
I think Mrs. McDonald is right about your photo & send me one as soon as you have it taken so I can look at it now & then. I’l not [illegible] until after we are ---- Well you know.
I thought sure I’d get an invitation today but you didn’t send one. Maybe you haven’t any yet.
Darling Mother doesn’t even know where you are so how could she write. You must write to her every week after we are married.
Nelly when I was young I didn’t worry over business & money working like I do now & I sometimes I wish I didn’t now. As to the drive out & selling the cows you say. Were you a Gould you’d send me $45 for such a letter. Now darling I am glad you prize the letter but $45 would be no inducement for me to write another or not so much as you think. You refer to my letter. I didn’t allude that the worry was the whole cause of my feeling so well but it was knowing I had gone to make a trade & had succeeded.
Success is the whole of it & had I failed to make the trade then I would have know I had failed & then the question would be show if I had done my part & where ever there is failure this is hard to do & where you succeed it isn’t.
Darling money isn’t all to me. I prize you higher than all the money on earth & for the love I have for you inc writing you several (long) letters & not because I think you’l pay me.
It’s hard for me to write long letters because I never practice it but for your sake I try.
A few lines always seem to me a plenty. Just enough so I’l know Nelly is ok & let them come after, though if I write you long letters you write me long ones for I am happy when I am reading your letters & it takes me longer to read long one[s] so I’m happy more.
S is ok he left soon after I got there last Sunday & stayed all day. Went to see her Lucas.
My mother doesn’t even know your address or I guess she would write to you.
When we marry you must write her every week.
I write about twice a week & only a few lines.
Write long letters to your poor boy.
Glass
Have letters every day from people waiting rooms in Old Globe & guess will let them have them as I don’t want it to stand empty all summer. But if you come home we can get rooms some where else until they leave.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Felder Lang
The following is an account of the life of Felder Lang, Nellie Lang's father, as told by Nellie's sister Kate Lang Dane in 1963. It is from the publication Miami of the Pioneers: A Picture History by Marjorie Meggs Gowin and Peter Thomas Skaggs Gowin, copyright 1976.
This is the story of Felder Lang written by his youngest daughter, Kate Lang Dane (Mrs. Seymour Dane) in 1963, just prior to her death.
Felder Lang was the son of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson. Caroline Atkinson was the daughter of Burwell Atkinson and Anne Felder. Burwell Atkinson was the son of John Atkinson, Revolutionary soldier, and Elizabeth Gardner. Anne Felder was the granddaughter of Henry Felder, of Orangeburg, SC. Henry Felder was a member of the Continental Congress from St. Matthews Parrish, Orangeburg Township, for effectually carrying into execution the Continental Association during the revolution. He was a Captain in the Revolution and his seven sons were in his company. Henry Felder cast arms for the Americans during the war, had two dwellings burned by Tories, and was killed in the burning of the last one. One of his cannons is on the square at Orangeburg on display. His oldest son, John Felder, took over the company, and was killed trying to escape from capture by the British. (Salley’s History of Orangeburg County, SC)
Felder Lang was born August 13, 1842, near Brunswick, and the Old Town of Jefferson at Langsbury, GA. This was the home of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson.
He was married to Martha Mizell of Charlton County, Georgia, on the 6th day of February, 1867, at the home of her father, Joshua Everett Mizell, six miles from Old Center Village, later Folkston, Georgia. Officiating was Rev. Mallette, who had been his teacher in boyhood, and who also married Felder’s sister, Susan Lang to Gideon Mallette.
At the age of about eighteen, he and his brothers Nat, Neuton, and Richard joined the volunteers to fight for State’s Rights in the Confederate Army. He rode horseback (his own horse, Prince) to Jonesburry, Georgia, where he was enlisted as a member of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry under command of Captain Clinch. He became a scout and was in Atlanta when the city was burned by Sherman’s Army. He related that the Confederate soldiers were almost without food or clothing when he saw a warehouse as large as a two story store go up in smoke. This was the supply of the Confederate Army. He saw destruction of farms, homes, cities and villages within a radius of one mile wide from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman ordered his men to destroy the food supply. He did, only sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas were left, with some corn and cattle. He was somewhere along the St. Mary’s River when the Confederate Soldiers fired upon the Union gun boats that sailed up the river to Traders Hill (truly a trading post for cotton, corn and cane grown even as far South as Kissimmee, Florida). The gun boats did little damage, returning to St. Mary’s without knowing that the defense was made by a small number of men.
Felder Lang was at the battle of Olustee, Florida, where he did his part in defense there. At the close of the war he was a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a Company of Cavalry known as Company D of the 4th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry, elected May 4th, 1863. In late years he moved to Florida and the State of Florida gave him a pension for having done his duty in what he believed was right for the South.
The Lang home was near Folkston. Reconstruction days found him a surveyor of land and timber. He surveyed the little town of Folkston for Dr. Folks who established the town about 1873. At Burnfort on the Satilla River he became the favorite surveyor of lumber men who brought rafts from Darien, Georgia, to be sold to the mills at Bailey’s Mills near Brunswick. Here his children were born, Letticia Caroline Lang (6/27/1868), Louis Everett Lang (8/24/1870), Julia Eleanor Lang (Nellie – 6/14/1876), Lucia Bernice Lang (11/27/1873), Guy Carlton Lang (1/11/1879), Kate May Lang (5/12/1881). All are now deceased except Nellie Lang Meggs (Mrs. W.G. Meggs) of Miami, Florida.
During the presidency of Grover Cleveland, Felder Lang served two terms in the Georgia State Legislature as representative from Charlton County, Georgia. At this time, the first Railroad in the County was from Savannah to Jacksonville. This was about 1873. The road is now a part of the Atlantic Coastline.
In 1894 he sold the farm and cattle and became a turpentine operator at Uptonville, Georgia. In 1898 he sold the place and moved to a place near Citra, Florida, where he and his son Louis operated another turpentine farm. At this time he accumulated 17,000 acres of pine land on which were many cool sandy bottomed lakes. The Post Office was Ft. McCoy, but he soon established a village post office named Dexter, Florida, with himself as postmaster.
In 1904 he bought the home of Mr. C.M. Brown in Ocala. This place of twenty acres had been up to 1896 a fine orange grove. The great freeze of 1896 had killed all the fruit trees, so it was only a farm. In December of that year Mr. Brown invited him to see Miami before he went to Ft. Myers or Inverness, either of which might have pleased him as a place of retirement. After seeing Miami in December of 1904 he said he had never seen a place so beautiful and full of promise. So he bought from H. Price Williams, overseer of the Lawrence Place next door, a citrus grove on the Miami River, consisting of a bungalow, a boathouse and a barn. He named it Incachee, like the Atkinson home in Georgia, which was the home where he lived when he was first married.
The Williams family had a flower business and sold roses to the Royal Palm Hotel at the mouth of the Miami River. Fruit which had been selling at $7.00 per box dropped so low that the grove was no longer profitable. Also, Felder’s sight was failing and he anticipated the blindness he suffered the last years of his life. He sold the grove in 1913 and moved to 675 W. Flagler Street, Miami, where he died of a hernia at the age of 76 (March 8th, 1919). He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, Florida.
Felder Lang was a man with a great sense of humor, integrity and honor. He loved people and loved to have them around him. He was an Elk, both in Ocala and Miami. Some of his Miami friends were R.E. Hall, W.W. Farris, Edward Lummus, E.B. Romph, J.H. Tatam, C.T. McCrimmon, J.W. Girtman, Dr. James M. Jackson, Captain Marsh, Captain J.C. Kuney, Captain Ross, W.A. Marsh, H.G. Copinger, Mr. John Ellis and H.H. Kilpatrick.
This is the story of Felder Lang written by his youngest daughter, Kate Lang Dane (Mrs. Seymour Dane) in 1963, just prior to her death.
Felder Lang was the son of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson. Caroline Atkinson was the daughter of Burwell Atkinson and Anne Felder. Burwell Atkinson was the son of John Atkinson, Revolutionary soldier, and Elizabeth Gardner. Anne Felder was the granddaughter of Henry Felder, of Orangeburg, SC. Henry Felder was a member of the Continental Congress from St. Matthews Parrish, Orangeburg Township, for effectually carrying into execution the Continental Association during the revolution. He was a Captain in the Revolution and his seven sons were in his company. Henry Felder cast arms for the Americans during the war, had two dwellings burned by Tories, and was killed in the burning of the last one. One of his cannons is on the square at Orangeburg on display. His oldest son, John Felder, took over the company, and was killed trying to escape from capture by the British. (Salley’s History of Orangeburg County, SC)
Felder Lang was born August 13, 1842, near Brunswick, and the Old Town of Jefferson at Langsbury, GA. This was the home of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson.
He was married to Martha Mizell of Charlton County, Georgia, on the 6th day of February, 1867, at the home of her father, Joshua Everett Mizell, six miles from Old Center Village, later Folkston, Georgia. Officiating was Rev. Mallette, who had been his teacher in boyhood, and who also married Felder’s sister, Susan Lang to Gideon Mallette.
At the age of about eighteen, he and his brothers Nat, Neuton, and Richard joined the volunteers to fight for State’s Rights in the Confederate Army. He rode horseback (his own horse, Prince) to Jonesburry, Georgia, where he was enlisted as a member of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry under command of Captain Clinch. He became a scout and was in Atlanta when the city was burned by Sherman’s Army. He related that the Confederate soldiers were almost without food or clothing when he saw a warehouse as large as a two story store go up in smoke. This was the supply of the Confederate Army. He saw destruction of farms, homes, cities and villages within a radius of one mile wide from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman ordered his men to destroy the food supply. He did, only sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas were left, with some corn and cattle. He was somewhere along the St. Mary’s River when the Confederate Soldiers fired upon the Union gun boats that sailed up the river to Traders Hill (truly a trading post for cotton, corn and cane grown even as far South as Kissimmee, Florida). The gun boats did little damage, returning to St. Mary’s without knowing that the defense was made by a small number of men.
Felder Lang was at the battle of Olustee, Florida, where he did his part in defense there. At the close of the war he was a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a Company of Cavalry known as Company D of the 4th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry, elected May 4th, 1863. In late years he moved to Florida and the State of Florida gave him a pension for having done his duty in what he believed was right for the South.
The Lang home was near Folkston. Reconstruction days found him a surveyor of land and timber. He surveyed the little town of Folkston for Dr. Folks who established the town about 1873. At Burnfort on the Satilla River he became the favorite surveyor of lumber men who brought rafts from Darien, Georgia, to be sold to the mills at Bailey’s Mills near Brunswick. Here his children were born, Letticia Caroline Lang (6/27/1868), Louis Everett Lang (8/24/1870), Julia Eleanor Lang (Nellie – 6/14/1876), Lucia Bernice Lang (11/27/1873), Guy Carlton Lang (1/11/1879), Kate May Lang (5/12/1881). All are now deceased except Nellie Lang Meggs (Mrs. W.G. Meggs) of Miami, Florida.
During the presidency of Grover Cleveland, Felder Lang served two terms in the Georgia State Legislature as representative from Charlton County, Georgia. At this time, the first Railroad in the County was from Savannah to Jacksonville. This was about 1873. The road is now a part of the Atlantic Coastline.
In 1894 he sold the farm and cattle and became a turpentine operator at Uptonville, Georgia. In 1898 he sold the place and moved to a place near Citra, Florida, where he and his son Louis operated another turpentine farm. At this time he accumulated 17,000 acres of pine land on which were many cool sandy bottomed lakes. The Post Office was Ft. McCoy, but he soon established a village post office named Dexter, Florida, with himself as postmaster.
In 1904 he bought the home of Mr. C.M. Brown in Ocala. This place of twenty acres had been up to 1896 a fine orange grove. The great freeze of 1896 had killed all the fruit trees, so it was only a farm. In December of that year Mr. Brown invited him to see Miami before he went to Ft. Myers or Inverness, either of which might have pleased him as a place of retirement. After seeing Miami in December of 1904 he said he had never seen a place so beautiful and full of promise. So he bought from H. Price Williams, overseer of the Lawrence Place next door, a citrus grove on the Miami River, consisting of a bungalow, a boathouse and a barn. He named it Incachee, like the Atkinson home in Georgia, which was the home where he lived when he was first married.
The Williams family had a flower business and sold roses to the Royal Palm Hotel at the mouth of the Miami River. Fruit which had been selling at $7.00 per box dropped so low that the grove was no longer profitable. Also, Felder’s sight was failing and he anticipated the blindness he suffered the last years of his life. He sold the grove in 1913 and moved to 675 W. Flagler Street, Miami, where he died of a hernia at the age of 76 (March 8th, 1919). He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, Florida.
Felder Lang was a man with a great sense of humor, integrity and honor. He loved people and loved to have them around him. He was an Elk, both in Ocala and Miami. Some of his Miami friends were R.E. Hall, W.W. Farris, Edward Lummus, E.B. Romph, J.H. Tatam, C.T. McCrimmon, J.W. Girtman, Dr. James M. Jackson, Captain Marsh, Captain J.C. Kuney, Captain Ross, W.A. Marsh, H.G. Copinger, Mr. John Ellis and H.H. Kilpatrick.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Postmark April 22, 1899
L.L. Meggs
General Store and Real Estate
Marion County
Orange Springs, Fla., 4-21, 1899
My Dear Miss Nellie,
I enclose a puzzle which youl find a hard one if you’ve never seen it worked. Have it worked by Sunday if you have time.
My dear!! Why didn’t you come up this week? I wanted to see you real bad & do for heaven sake dear one never tell me again I worry you & am getting troublesome for I’ve had the blues near the whole week.
Be ready Sunday so we can get an early start to S.S. I have lots to tell you.
Lovingly your boy,
Glass
General Store and Real Estate
Marion County
Orange Springs, Fla., 4-21, 1899
My Dear Miss Nellie,
I enclose a puzzle which youl find a hard one if you’ve never seen it worked. Have it worked by Sunday if you have time.
My dear!! Why didn’t you come up this week? I wanted to see you real bad & do for heaven sake dear one never tell me again I worry you & am getting troublesome for I’ve had the blues near the whole week.
Be ready Sunday so we can get an early start to S.S. I have lots to tell you.
Lovingly your boy,
Glass
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Postmark April 18, 1899
Monday Eve 7:00
Miss Nellie Lang
Ft. McCoy
My Dear Miss Nellie,
An honest confession is good for the soul. Were I to write to you every day it would be a pleasure to me to confess my love for you. Without you life would be no pleasure. I feel that I could never get over any unkind thing you could say or do to me. It would hurt me to the heart.
You say you keep all my letters. Indeed you may. You seemed as though I was very careless with yours by tearing it to pieces and throwing it away. That my dear doesn’t show lack of affection. Every line of that dear letter is written plainly before my eyes consequently I can never forget even a line of it.
You made a vow before heaven did you; that you’d be true to me. I have been thinking of you the whole day & winding up my days toil. I can’t sleep until I write to my own dear Nellie & confess to her that too make the same vow before my God that I’l be true to you & love you to the end.
There is only one reason I dislike to approach your Father with this subject & that is I fear he’l think we are to hasty & rather insist that we wait awhile. Then you see we would wish we had waited longer however if you think it’s the thing to do I can & will make an attempt Sunday after we return from S.S. I am yours & you are my all. Then why not if you think best ask him. Just when you want me to. Miss Nellie it has worried me some about your asking me if I didn’t have an idea you had money as though you thought I’d be disappointed. Now my dear this wouldn’t be a disappointment at all. There is only one way I could be disappointed & that is were you to prove not to be a good true Christian girl. Now don’t think that I have a doubt in my mind but what you have a true & noble heart. I only write this to explain the one & only thing I could be disappointed in.
My dear girl I fear all the disappointment will be on your side. I am a poor hard working boy but I believe I can truthfully say that no man can ever love you better than your old Glass. I can’t promise you a better home than you have yet I’l love you & welcome you in the kind of home we may have. I know that I am n ot worthy of you yet I want you & must have you when the time comes. (before Sept)
While we may not have a fortune to begin with I feel that with your good influence love & help we can strive together and accumulate maybe enough to get along on.
While I am & have been living an aimless life I feel were I to get a girl (Nellie I mean) with as much thought of life & as much energy as you, we together could make our lives a pleasure to each other & could by some means manage to live. Now my dear please don’t think I can’t trust you or that I am jealous is why I don’t want you to go to Ga. Just imagine how lonely I’d be without you. Its hard for me to live without seeing you from one Sunday until the next then why should I not get the blues and get lonely were you to leave me. I give you my heart & ever spare moment of my life. This I understood of you would make you happy now I beg of you my own dear girl to give me all & be mine & live for my pleasure & not leave me all alone.
While I can love you in your plain dress yet I’d much rather you’d buy your white silk with the Ga trip money.
You seemed to think you couldn’t give up your young [illegible] correspondence.
Well my dear it’s OK if you don’t want to, however I wrote the two fatal letters this a.m. that I told you of Sunday. Now I had several correspondents I got letters near every day. When I give these all up I’l get no letters only from you & these days are very lonely when I don’t get a letter so my dear I’l want you to write real much to your old white head boy. I will expect your first letter this week on Wednesday. Shall I live until that day in Suspense only to be disappointed!! I truly hope not.
Do try to answer this one in Thursdays mail & I’l get it Friday.
I [illegible] will be out Thursday aftnoon.
With much love I am your own boy
Glass
Miss Nellie Lang
Ft. McCoy
My Dear Miss Nellie,
An honest confession is good for the soul. Were I to write to you every day it would be a pleasure to me to confess my love for you. Without you life would be no pleasure. I feel that I could never get over any unkind thing you could say or do to me. It would hurt me to the heart.
You say you keep all my letters. Indeed you may. You seemed as though I was very careless with yours by tearing it to pieces and throwing it away. That my dear doesn’t show lack of affection. Every line of that dear letter is written plainly before my eyes consequently I can never forget even a line of it.
You made a vow before heaven did you; that you’d be true to me. I have been thinking of you the whole day & winding up my days toil. I can’t sleep until I write to my own dear Nellie & confess to her that too make the same vow before my God that I’l be true to you & love you to the end.
There is only one reason I dislike to approach your Father with this subject & that is I fear he’l think we are to hasty & rather insist that we wait awhile. Then you see we would wish we had waited longer however if you think it’s the thing to do I can & will make an attempt Sunday after we return from S.S. I am yours & you are my all. Then why not if you think best ask him. Just when you want me to. Miss Nellie it has worried me some about your asking me if I didn’t have an idea you had money as though you thought I’d be disappointed. Now my dear this wouldn’t be a disappointment at all. There is only one way I could be disappointed & that is were you to prove not to be a good true Christian girl. Now don’t think that I have a doubt in my mind but what you have a true & noble heart. I only write this to explain the one & only thing I could be disappointed in.
My dear girl I fear all the disappointment will be on your side. I am a poor hard working boy but I believe I can truthfully say that no man can ever love you better than your old Glass. I can’t promise you a better home than you have yet I’l love you & welcome you in the kind of home we may have. I know that I am n ot worthy of you yet I want you & must have you when the time comes. (before Sept)
While we may not have a fortune to begin with I feel that with your good influence love & help we can strive together and accumulate maybe enough to get along on.
While I am & have been living an aimless life I feel were I to get a girl (Nellie I mean) with as much thought of life & as much energy as you, we together could make our lives a pleasure to each other & could by some means manage to live. Now my dear please don’t think I can’t trust you or that I am jealous is why I don’t want you to go to Ga. Just imagine how lonely I’d be without you. Its hard for me to live without seeing you from one Sunday until the next then why should I not get the blues and get lonely were you to leave me. I give you my heart & ever spare moment of my life. This I understood of you would make you happy now I beg of you my own dear girl to give me all & be mine & live for my pleasure & not leave me all alone.
While I can love you in your plain dress yet I’d much rather you’d buy your white silk with the Ga trip money.
You seemed to think you couldn’t give up your young [illegible] correspondence.
Well my dear it’s OK if you don’t want to, however I wrote the two fatal letters this a.m. that I told you of Sunday. Now I had several correspondents I got letters near every day. When I give these all up I’l get no letters only from you & these days are very lonely when I don’t get a letter so my dear I’l want you to write real much to your old white head boy. I will expect your first letter this week on Wednesday. Shall I live until that day in Suspense only to be disappointed!! I truly hope not.
Do try to answer this one in Thursdays mail & I’l get it Friday.
I [illegible] will be out Thursday aftnoon.
With much love I am your own boy
Glass
Sunday, June 5, 2011
William Glass Meggs
William Glass Meggs as a child, about two years old.
(More letters are forthcoming. My regular computer crashed, and I am trying to recover the data from the hard drive.)
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