Louisa Daniel Rutledge Comes Home
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Louisa Daniel Rutledge Comes Home |
This month (March 2004), Mr. John Rutledge of Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, donated to the Gore Center a small collection of materials of
his ancestor Louisa Daniel Rutledge (ca. 1830-1925). Louisa Daniel Rutledge was the sister of Jack Daniel of
“whiskey” fame. This collection
dates from the 1890s to the 1920s and consists of Louisa’s memoir, handwritten
in 1899, several letters, copies of her husband’s and brother’s wills, and
some miscellaneous documents. Mr.
John Rutledge kindly provided transcriptions of most of the documents, as well
as copies of two family photographs.
While small, this collection has much historical
significance. Louisa recorded her
memories of growing up and raising a family in middle Tennessee during the
nineteenth century. Her memoir and
letters also offer poignant insight into the plight of an aging widowed woman in
the early twentieth century.