"I have not chosen this title because I think my memories especially significant. Every person who has lived to be as old as I am has seen many changes and how few make any note of them!"
"I had a maternal uncle who was at school at what was later known as George Washington University (Columbia College) in the last 1830's, and he used to tell us what a wilderness some sections in the heart of the city of Washington were at that early period with Goose Creek spoken of by Hood in one of his poems. Through the city there were deep mud holes and scarcely a building between the Capitol and the White House."
"I was born on November 12, 1871, in Montross, the county seat of Westmoreland County. War clouds still hung heavy over the land. I was brought up on tales of the The War Between The States. I do not remember that my mother ever told me a fairytale. It was always stories of the war--not the grusome tales of the actual fighting. Our house was of brick, two and a half stories with a basement, built about 1800. We learn from old records that court was held in this house before the Court House was built at Montross. There was the inevitable office in the yard."
"My maternal grandmother was a inmate of our house a part of the time. Uncle William, her oldest son lived at Poplar Plain, and while that was still considered my grandmother's home, she made us a long visit every year. I understand now that my grandmother's life was so broken by the war and its effects on her family that she could never adjust her-self to changed conditions. Early in 1861, six of her sons had marched off together to join the Confederate Army. A few months later her husband was killed by being thrown from the single horse vehicle in which he was driving. One of her sons, Uncle Henry, was killed at the second battle of Manassas, another son, George contracted typhoid fever at camp. When he returned to the Army, he was desperately wounded two weeks after he rejoined his company. He lost a leg and never recovered from the wound. Her oldest son, a minister who never joined the army was taken prisoner and carried to Point Lookout where he was held for several months. A step-son-in-law, too delicate to join the army, was taken prisoner and carried to Point Lookout. The march there was too much and he died soon after reaching the prison. My grandfather had owned a hundred slaves. Grandmother saw them all go--some came back later and their decendents are still living on the old plantation."
"Granmother's ancestors were the first settlers of the Northern Neck. She was a direct decendent of Maj. John Motrom of Coan Hall, first member of the House of Burgess from that section in 1645. To have managed a household such as hers must have required a great deal of executive ability. She was a second wife, her husband being twenty years older than she, with children not much younger than the bride he borught home. She had nine children, all of whom lived to be grown. She must, like the thrifty woman of Proverbs, have 'looked well after the ways of her Household'."
"My mother, the youngest of the nine children of her family, was eighteen years old when the war began and she used to tell us such wonderful tales of riding the horses of Mosby's men, a company of whom was stationed in the Northern Neck one winter during the war. My father died when she was thirty-seven leaving her with four small children living. I was the eldest. The memory of my mother enveloped from head to her feet in crepe veil stands out. She wore this veil for two years and black clothes for the rest of her life. As the years have passed, I have learned to appreciate the great courage and self control that she displayed after my father's death. She had been president of the Memorial Association which formed to erect a Confederate monument, officer in the Good Templers Lodge, and member of the Grange. Later, she was president of the Washignton and Lee Westmoreland Chapter of the U.D.C.'s, president for many years of the Woman's Missionary Society and teacher in the Sunday School. If any were sick, she unfailingly visited them were it in her power to do so. I do not know that she was a good nurse but her very presence seemed to help. I remember once a cousin who lived in Washington was sick and said to her husband, 'I believe if I sould see Cousin Betty Walker in that door I'd get well,' She was "Cousin Betty" to a host of people some related and many only friends."
"My mother was a deeply religious woman. There was a time set apart each day for Bible reading and she knew the Scripture as few people except teaches and clergymen do. She not only prayed morning and evening, but at noon retired to her bedroom closet and shut the door. The prayers made there in secret, were rewarded by that calmness and courage with which she bore her many griefs and sorrows."
"Perhaps now would be a good time to describe the little village of Montross as I remember it. Very few people are living who remember it as it was in those days."
"Beginning at the mill hill on the road going toward Montross, there was on the left the Evans home and blacksmith shop. A little farther down on the right was the home that Uncle Adolphus Spence built after he sold Alma. Farther down on the right there was at the intersection of the road going to Richmond County(Peach Groove Lane), the storehouse and home of a Mr. Johnson. He died of smallpox when I was a child. The home burned not long afterward. The next house on the ride side was the Jackson place where George D. Chandler (lived). It is the one house that has not changed through the years. Nothing has been added and nothing taken away. On the left side of the road and back from it some distance, the Tates, a respectable colored family of which the women were expert laundresses lived. Farther down and adjoining our home was the Barnard place, then our house. There was no house on the right between the Jackson place and the old brick house(home of the Yeatmans today). It had been the old Lyell home, but was vacant when I can first remember. One year Miss Lizzie Baker taught private school in the front roon to the right as you entered. One or two sessions the public school was taught in the larger room of the basement. Another year Cousin Nellie Sanford taught public school in the large room to the right as you entred the hall. The Furlongs bought this place and remodeled it in the early 1880's. A brick house in the yard, one room below and one above was used for a schoolhouse after this. Crossing over from the old brick house a little farther down was the Robertson place, a white-washed clapboard house, with a kitchen in the yard. Nearly opposite was where Mr. C. Robertson lived. Across from this was a very old building even then.
A Mrs. Jackson and her daughter lived there in the early days, and here too some public school classes were taught, even after the school house was built down by the church(Andrew Chapel today). Next, on the left side was the storehouse kept for so many years by Mr. J.P. Jenkins and his son. Then came the old clerk's office(where Wakefield Furniture is today) which I suppose was built in the 1800's when the Court House was built. The Court House sat in the middle of an open space surrounded by a rough road on four sides. Facing the side of the Clerks office was a house used sometimes for a residence, store, or as a bar room. The "Old Hotel" at this time belonged to my father. Up the lane from the hotel was the Baker home and directly across from the hotel stood an old house where the Jenkinses lived before they moved to Atwilton. On the north side of the Court House grounds was the jail. Behind it was a steep hill and an old tanyard. Somehow this was a most fearsome place to me because I was told that it was down here that the men found guilty of murder were hanged. During the years between 1871 and 1900, when I lived at Montross, no one was executed in the county, but one or two were hanged there early in the twentieth century before the law requiring executions to take place in Richmond. Not far from the jail was the old Episcopal Church(now the Westmoreland newspaper office location), a high pitched boxlike building-windows with green blinds in two sections. Clinging to those blinds and plainly seen from the inside of the church were literally hundreds of bats. I remember no other rector except Rev. D. M. Wharton. When I was in my teens, this building was sold to the Baptists and a new church begun. Down from the church was Mr. Harvey's store, almost directly in from of the road leading from the mill. Here it turned to the east.
I have digressed as is my wont so to return to the houses on the right hand side coming from the mill. I had mentioned Mr. C. Robertson's house and next was the Chamberlayne place, a little store close to the road and furtherback a small home. In the store the Robertson's later had their harness shop(at the present site of the Bank of Lancaster). Next was the Goodridge home (between the Bank of Lanaster and todays Montross Library). (Later in time this house was the boyhood home of Manny Smallwood). Mr. Goodridge kept the P.O. in a little one room house in the corner of the yard. He also kept on hand some drugs such as claomile, blue moss, quinine and camphor. This was the nearest approach to a drug store that we had. There was one building between the P.O. and the turn in the road used as a store, but one time a hotel was kept there for a while. Then, until the Episcopal Church there was no building on the right until the Harvey home. This house was built after I was born but before I can remember. Here Mr. John Washington Harvey took his second wife, Miss Kate Gatewood Chandler when they were married early in 1875. The next building on the right was Andrew Chapel Church(this was the wooden Church). Here I attended Sunday School since before the dawn of memory until I was married. In 1881, a one room schoolhouse was built in the corner of the Windsor field and school was opened here that Fall. The Windsor house(Chandler home), supposed to have been built in 1880 was burned in 1933 and rebuilt on the same site. There was no other house on the right side of the road between Windsor and East End.
Now, I'll return you to Mr. Harvey's store. Where the Washington and Lee Inn is now kept, was a log cabin, a house was built there in the early 1880's which has been added to at various times. Next on that side, was the Hutt house, one of the four old brick houses in the village when I remember. Here the Hutt's have lived for several generations. Then there was a story and a half house where the Butler's lived and had a shop in front. The McKenney's bought this later and built the house that now stands there. Where "Overlook" is located was an old house where school was taught in the early nineteenth century. Where Carverdale now stands was the fourth of the old brick houses. This was Dr. McKenney's home. He died before I was born but his widow and family lived there until I was in my teens. There was not another house on this left side until Woodberry was reached. The road between Andrew Chapel and East End was called Windsor Lane. It was lined with cedars on both sides and here the robins came in great flocks during the winter and robin pie was frequently served on the table. Down this long straight strech of road the young people of the community enjoyed horeback riding and buggy riding. It was a fine place for racing.
