A Day at Lake St. John

 

Saturday's weather could only be described as sublime.  I attended a get together at Lake St. John in celebration of three important birthdays: Tony Byrne, whose house hosted the event, turned 90.  He was mayor of Natchez for around 30 years and has been missed ever since.  Tony is ever young, still playing tennis and looking not a day over 70 at the very most.  Natchez ran as a smooth machine during his tenure as mayor, even through the troubled days of the Civil Rights movement.  He was also kind, offering the key to the courthouse and a cot where our local and beloved "bag lady" could find respite and rest.  He loves animals, and City Hall became home to a cat -- a three-legged yellow tabby named Tripod, whose memorial stone still announces his presence some 40 years later.  Tony is a raconteur of the first order and to hear him tell his stories is a delight and an education.

It was also his daughter, Christie's 64th birthday, a beautiful young lady I hadn't seen since high school.  Remembering what a sweet and pretty teenager she had been was easy while listening to her talk of her children and her grands, and I hope her visit home brought pleasant Natchez memories.

In addition, it was his goddaughter René's 60th birthday.  René was just a toddler when I was in high school.  Her father, Clyde Adams was the coach at our little school, Trinity Episcopal Day School, where he coached the basketball team to State victory, and was loved by everyone -- students and parents and fellow teachers.  Clyde was one of Tony's best friends, so I was not surprised to learn that he was Renés godfather.  One of René's first memories of me was of my weeping inconsolably while we put my beloved buckskin, Pedro, to sleep after a long and gentle life, patiently carrying children on his back through the woods on the banks of the Mississippi River.

So it was no surprise to find the house lot loaded with cars and the yard swarming with guests, both young and old.  I'm at the age (68) where I'm losing friends I thought I'd know forever.  I believe Tony will outlive us all, his joy for life and bona fide affection for his fellow man and beast carrying him along for many years to come.

It was a warm spring day with the perfect breeze coming off the lake, and I found myself swinging under the protective branches of an ancient oak tree.  "Now if this isn't nice, I don't know what is," I thought to myself and basked in the dappled shade and remembered my times at the lake as a child where I swam and waterskiid without a worry in the world.  A pefect afternoon.

May 18, 2026

Visit to a Dying Friend

 I got up early and drove to visit a dying friend to say goodbye and tell her I love her. She's not afraid, and accepts the end with grace.

Once home I took the dog for a walk and saw this shining masterpiece behind the yuccas in the driveway. It seemed a sign.

Then I happened on the bird, and they both spoke to me: This is how it is; this is how it ends. There is beauty; there is death. And they are intertwined in ways mysterious and profound. 

I will think about today for a long time to come. 

Derby Day

 

The Casualties of War: a marriage, happiness and demise

 

This is my ancestor Henry Elias Munger. He was from Illinois, and fought with the 18th New York Infantry in the Civil War. He married Anne Snyder, also from Illinois, and a friend of Abraham Lincoln.

He became an alcoholic after the war. I imagine it was PTSD. He and Anne had three children: two boys and a girl.

After a few years, Anne could take his drinking and abuse no longer, and the last time she saw him, she was putting him on a train in Alton, Illinois, heading for Texas, where he was going to look for work on the railroad.

She was so worried that day. He was extremely drunk and she was scared to death he might pass out on the tracks and be run over by a train. But she managed to get him on his train. She never saw or heard from him again.

She sent her sons to live with her brother in Illinois and brought her daughter to Natchez to live with her relative, William Howard Pritchartt, who had built a house overlooking the river.

She was destitute and brought with her three items that had monetary value: a handwritten personal invitation written by Lincoln inviting her to his inauguration; a large portfolio of American Indian portraits, which she later sold; and her brother's naval commission signed by Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy and President Abraham Lincoln.

It's said she was a terrible housekeeper, and she lost the invitation, but we still have the naval commission.

His fate was a mystery in our family until a few years ago when a young man named Ryan A. Conklin contacted me. He was writing a book about the regiment Munger was in and what became of its members.

He was able to fill in the blanks for us, including a rather amusing description of an unexpected encounter with a group of Confederate soldiers when, far from both their picket lines while touring Mount Vernon, they engaged in a brief skirmish, which ended with a few shots being fired from both sides, after which they gave up and each fled back to their own picket lines, "...hopefully having gained some refined wisdom for their audacious minds." Conklin, Ryan A. The 18th New York Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster. North Carolina:  McFarland & Company, Inc. 2016. 

 According to Conklin's findings, Munger never regained sobriety and spent the rest of his days wandering from one railroad job to another, often fired for his drunkenness, which caused him to be cantankerous and violent. He earned a pension when an accident caused him to lose most of the use of both hands. It's not known how he died, but was discovered when he failed to collect his last pension check. He's buried in an unmarked grave in a pauper's cemetery in Lufkin, TX, called Stranger's Rest Cemetery, the only indication of his presence, his name engraved on a stone plaque placed in 1997, which lists the known names of those there interred. It took many years for Anne to go to Congress to prove his death and receive her "widder's mite," as being a devout Catholic, she never divorced him.

Restoring Hope Farm 2026

Hope Farm, the house my great aunt Katherine and her husband Balfour Miller bought and restored in 1926 was built around 1740 with later additions and reorienting the house to another direction.  I grew up going over there as a child and giving tours to visitors -- sometimes as many as a thousand a day.  It was due to Aunt Katherine (Auntee as we called her) and her friends that cultural tourism got its start in the South in 1932 when the people who owned the antebellum houses here decided to open them up for visitors.

Katherine died in 1983 and Balfour shortly thereafter, when it was sold to Ethel Banta, a Natchez native who wanted to move back home after her husband died.  It's been almost two....three? years since it burned. Unfortunately, Ethel was lost in the fire.  It was a tragedy all the way around.  Everyone thought the house was a total loss, but historic preservationists Kevin and Laine Berry happened to be in town that day and decided to take it on.  Like any major project its progress has been in fits and starts, but steady, and she's starting to look like her old self again.  They've got drywall installed, windows installed and finished, and are starting on the final stages in the main house while the ell in back still has a ways to go.

Thank you, Kevin and Laine, for taking on this massive undertaking and restoring hope that was almost lost when the house burned.  You have been and are a positive addition to our little town and are bringing new ideas and ways of thinking about how to tell the stories of the past.

This Saturday was the third Restoring Hope celebration, an open-air dinner held under the boughs of a huge live oak tree with the scent of azaleas and sweet olive permeating the air.  I know that next year's dinner will be held inside, and I, for one, can hardly wait.  Laine has done extensive research on Hope Farm and talked about things I'd known nothing about until this weekend.  Laine, if you'd like to write a guest column about the history of Hope Farm, here's my invitation.

Laine Berry and me at Hope Farm

The front porch has been painted to look like marble stones by the talented Matthew McGinley.  The doors are faux bois, painted by the equally talented Austin Billhime.

The view from the back porch

Annual Gala for the Natchez Historical Society

Well, the annual Gala for Natchez Historical Society was one for the books. In spite of having to reschedule due to inclement weather, we had a huge crowd. The food was superb, as was the program about Virginia-born artist John Gadsby Chapman (1808-89), who painted the massive "Baptism of Pocahontas," installed in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in 1840.

Speakers Adam Erby and Lydia Mattice Brandt gave a fascinating program detailing Chapman's life and influences, and talked about Chapman's painting, Hagar and Ishmael Fainting in the Wilderness, which has hung in the Rectory at St. Mary's Basilica since the Civil War where it was taken to protect it from the invading Union army.

After the program, awards were distributed to several outstanding members of our community, some posthumously.

Receving awards were:

James F. Barnett Jr., historian and author for his work as site administrator of the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, as well as many other contributions to Natchez and its history.

Ser SeshshAb Heter-Clifford M. Boxley, for his tireless efforts to research and advocate for The Forks of the Road Slave Market.

Dr. Thomas H. Gandy (posthumously) and the Reverend Doctor Joan W. Gandy, both Natchez history preservationists who helped found and lead the Historic Natchez Foundation, and are recognized for the preservation of Henry C. Norman photographs and of historic images by Henry’s son Earl and other early Natchez photographers.

The MacNeil Family: Grace M. S. McKittrick MacNeil (posthumously) and daughters Elizabeth “Beth” C. MacNeil Boggess, Ph.D.; and Anne W.S. MacNeil, (collectively, the MacNeil Family) are recognized for their promotion of historic preservation through public service and civic leadership, community involvement, and philanthropy.

If you've never attended one of our programs, you're really missing out.

https://www.natchezhistoricalsociety.org