Diary of Laura M. Towne: Sunday, June 8, 1862

Before church we all, superintendents and the few ladies, stood under the oaks and talked of our dangers, and then Mr. Horton led us in to service. After service we talked long again, till the coming rain made our party from the Oaks hasten home, Park and others going to the Episcopal church to try the organ. Mr. Pierce had gone to Hilton Head, as a steamer was expected. I had reached home before the rain and was lying down, when Rina rushed into my room with a haste and noise so strange to her, calling out, “Miss Murray has come!” I got up suddenly, but felt so faint that I had to lie down again. Jerry and his boat's crew had arrived with her trunk, but she did not come for an hour. The men had told Mr. Pierce that they would row up sooner than he could ride up to tell the news, but he did not believe them, and galloped all the way from Land's End to be the first to make the announcement to me. He came in about a quarter of an hour after they did, and as I was then upstairs, heard from Nelly the arrival of the men. When I came down he greeted me with “So you fainted at the news?” “No,” I said, “not at the news, but I have not been well for a week and was startled by Rina, and getting up so suddenly made me faint.” He was determined to see a scene if possible, but when Ellen came and I stood on the porch as she came up the steps from the carriage, we shook hands very quietly and walked into the parlor in the ordinary manner of acquaintances. It was not till we were upstairs that we cut any capers of joy. She had been detained by the rain, the whole party stopping in the Episcopal church where they played on the organ and sang, Mr. McKim and Lucy being highly delighted at the ride, the romantic church, and the meeting with some of the superintendents.

In the evening we went to a praise meeting, and Mr. McKim spoke to the people. We heard a very fine address from old Marcus. Afterwards we sat up late — Mr. Pierce and Mr. McKim having a long talk over the affairs of our little colony and we listening. Ellen and I are to sleep on the floor, Lucy McKim and Nelly Winsor in the beds in the same room. Ellen and I talked all night nearly.

SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina 1862-1864, p. 65-6

George Moses Horton

HORTON, George Moses, slave-poet, a fullblooded negro, was born in Chatham county, N. C., about 1798. He began to dictate verses before he had learned to read or write, and won the interest of Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz (q. v.), who gave him instruction. He worked on his master's farm until about 1831, when Dr. Joseph Caldwell, then president of the University of North Carolina, secured him employment in the village of Chapel Hill, where he wrote verses, acrostics, and love letters for the students at twenty-five cents each. He hoped to buy his freedom and a passage to Liberia, but took to drink after the death of Dr. Caldwell in 1835. He went to Philadelphia after the war with a Federal general. He published “The Hope of Liberty” (Raleigh, 1829); a second volume of verse appeared in 1838, and a third about 1850, with an autobiography. He also published novels and essays. He died about 1880.

SOURCE: James T. White & Co., Publisher, The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 7, p. 93