April 19, 1857
Ten days after his first wife Elizabeth Ellison Bennett died in childbirth on the frontier in Moundville, Wisconsin, Edward Bennett — twenty-five years old, alone with a newborn daughter — sat down and wrote to her parents in Dover, New Hampshire. This is the letter.
What led to this letter
Edward Bennett and Elizabeth Ellison had married on May 28, 1856, in the M.E. Church at Moundville, Wisconsin. They had known each other from Lancashire, England — both immigrants, both twenty-something. They lived on Edward's 40-acre farm three miles south of the Moundville village.
On Sunday morning, April 12, 1857, at approximately 3 a.m., Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter. By Wednesday morning she was dead — after four days of seizures, medical attention that could not help her, and the frontier's version of everything possible being tried. She was twenty-one years old.
Her parents, Martin Greenhalgh Ellison and Alice Houlker, were living in Dover, New Hampshire in 1857. They would not move to Wisconsin themselves until later; they are buried at Moundville Cemetery beside their daughter, but only after outliving her by more than twenty years.
Edward wrote this letter ten days after Elizabeth's death. The transcription below is complete. Three illegible words in the original are marked with brackets.
Dear Father and Mother,
It is with great grief and sorrow I now write to you. You will by this time have received the sad and painful intelligence of the death of my Dear Elizabeth. She is gone to join the Angels in Heaven where I hope we may meet again. It seems to me for some time past she has had deeper feelings about Religion than usual. She has when left alone I have heard her singing hymns that has troubled me much and made me think we soon must part. On Friday the 10th, James was here, he commenced singing, "Sister thou was mild and Lovely," which we all joined.
For some time past she has talked a great deal of getting through her confinement alive and she has told me several times that if she and the child died I must send all the baby things to her mother. Elizabeth and I went to visit Chris and James on Tuesday the 7th. She told Chris' wife that if she died which things she must [illegible] her on own things I would not harken to and have tried to laugh her out of it. We could not think that she would die as she has been healthy all the time since we were married only having been sick 1 or 2 days. I think that she has hurt herself with sewing too much. Within the last 6 weeks she has made all the baby things and a great deal of sewing besides and she has done all her housework, kept things in such neat and clear order that was astonishing. But these things she would do and we could not persuade her different. She had got her house in order there was not a thing undone or out of order when she was taken sick.
She did all her work as usual on Saturday only complaining a little towards night of the backache. At 7 o'clock she felt a little worse and went to bed but could not sleep. About 10 o'clock I went for my sister Mary and then for Mrs. Falkner. She got her labour over about 3 o'clock Sunday morning and said she was thankful she had got it over so easy. She said she felt well enough to go to work. But things did not follow her labour to the satisfaction of my sister and Mrs. Falkner (it was too dry). But as she felt so well they was not alarmed and treated according to her condition. About 9 o'clock, I went to her bedside and asked how she was. She complained of her head aching. But she seemed to be pleased with her Baby. About 10 o'clock Chris and wife and James came with their team but they did not know what had happened. Elizabeth kept growing worse.
About 11 o'clock she was taken with [illegible]. Chris took his horse and went for Dr. Parrot which is 7 miles off. She had five fits before the Doctor came at 2 o'clock. He immediately cut the hair from the top of her head, applied mustard plasters to her feet, head, hands and breasts; but with no good effect. Bled her, but she had the fits about every 25 minutes. We tried a warm bath, put in her leggs. After the second fit I asked how she felt, she said, "very sick, very." The last words she spoke. Insensible after the third fit.
Towards morning the fits began to be long in between. About 9 a.m. Monday, the Dr. left us. She continued as though she was asleep having 3 fits during the day. The Dr. returned at night and tried with some medicine, but she could not swallow. We tried several times with no effect. On Tuesday morning the women changed her clothes and cleaned her, but she was no better. The Dr. left us and said it was no use of coming again unless there was a change for the better. She lingered on until Wednesday morning about 7 o'clock she ceased to breath. She died like one going to sleep and without a struggle.
It was a great consolation to me to have Chris and wife and James here. I can say that all it was possible to do was done for her. We have great confidence in Dr. Parrot and we all think he did his best. Dear Father and Mother, you must excuse me for noting all particulars but I thought you would want to know them. Our neighbors have all been very kind, all of them trying to do us some good. All of them ready to run at our call if we wanted them or bring us whatever they had that would be of some use to us.
Friday was the day that we buried her. We sung the 1092nd hymn in the Psalmist at our house and had prayer by Mr. Thurston. We then went to the school house about two miles east of here and had a sermon by Mr. Thurston. The next hymn was the 1123rd, and the next hymn 1091st. After singing, our minister took his text from the 29th vers. 7th Chap. 1st Cor., "Time is Short." After the sermon they sang the 1078th hymn. Then we retired to the grave and they sang the 1096th hymn and prayer by Mr. Thurston.
This has been a severe trial for me but when I think of my little girl being still left and doing so well, I feel comfort. My sister Mary has taken the baby to take care of and Ellen Sutcliffe is going to keep house for me and wash the things for the child. Everybody says it is a pretty child and it is very good. Never cries much only when it is hungary. We have got a [illegible] sucking bottle for it. I have not named it yet. There are two names I think of viz Sarah Alice, after both its grandmothers or Elizabeth, after its mother. I will leave it to you which of these two names to give her and let me know soon. I am taking care of all Elizabeth's things and I shall keep them for her child excepting such things as you want. I have no more to say at present form your affectionate son,
Edward Bennett.
What came after
Elizabeth's parents chose the second name: their granddaughter was christened Elizabeth, after her mother. She is known in the family as Lizzie. She grew up, married Albon Briggs Shadbolt in 1880, and lived to age seventy-two. Every Bennett descendant on this website traces back through her.
The minister, "Mr. Thurston," is Rev. J. M. Thurston — the same Baptist circuit rider who had baptized Edward in the Fox River exactly five years earlier, in April 1852. Two of the defining religious moments of Edward's early American life were officiated by the same man.
Rev. Thurston's sermon text on the day Elizabeth was buried was 1 Corinthians 7:29 — "Time is Short." That same verse would later be carved on Elizabeth's headstone at Moundville Cemetery. See the family tree →
Edward married Janet Hume, a young Scottish immigrant living in nearby Portage, in November 1858 — nineteen months after this letter. She raised Lizzie as her own, bore Edward eleven more children, kept the wartime letters through the 1860s, and outlived him by seven years.
Whether the original manuscript of this letter still survives — folded in a New Hampshire attic somewhere, or lost — is an open question. The transcription above was preserved by a family genealogist who worked from an earlier copy.