Why I think the letter from "Johnathan" was from Jonathan Rees Skeen.
Revised June 24, 1998.
[x] Text transcription of letter (small file)
[x] .jpg image of letter (901K bytes)
[x] Text index
[x] Graphical index
[x] email (js45520@navix.net).
I think this letter was from Jonathan Rees Skeen to his son Joseph
and that it was written for him by Joseph Jessee. It came down to my family
through my great-grandfather Thomas Skeen/Skean, a civil war veteran whose tombstone
dates are November 17, 1842 - February 16, 1920. He died in Wayne Co, W.Va. and is
buried in the Docks Creek Cemetery near Kenova. The grandchildren of Thomas Skean believe
that the letter was from his grandfather Jonathan to Thomas' father Joseph and
that Joseph lived in Floyd County Kentucky at the time it was written.
According to
Kevin Click's "Descendants of Jonathan Alexander Skeen" web pages, Jonathan Rees Skeen's
son Joseph was the father of Thomas S. Skeen, born "Abt. 1844". The endnotes state
that Thomas was listed as age six on the 1850 census. If he was actually seven and
the census was taken before November then "Abt. 1844" could be 1842. The reference to
"Caty" could be to Joseph's sister Katherine. I'll try to find marriage documents for
Katherine Skeen and "Absolm".
Some of the members of the
SKENE-L at rootsweb have written me privately with interesting points
which question some of my assumptions. I'll be seeking more information from
my aunts and my uncle in the next couple of weeks in hope of resolving as much
of the doubt as possible.
I'd like to learn if it was common for a letter recipient's
name to be written at the bottom of the message on the left side. One critic's suggestion
was that the letter was not written by Mr. Joseph Jessee, but by a Skeen brother named
Joseph Jessee Skeen. The added paragraph at the bottom was directed formally to the
recipient, calling him "sir", so this doesn't seem to me to be a letter to a brother. The
handwriting in the body of the letter is identical to that
of the note at the end signed "Joseph Jessee". The Jessee family name was
well-established in Russell County. That, and the reference to "Abslom" working for Archer
Jessee support my belief that Joseph Jessee was not a Joseph Jessee Skean.
The criticism has been welcome and I invite more of it. I could easily be wrong and I'm willing to be enlightened by anybody. Please e-mail me or Skene-L@rootsweb.com
with any explanations or comments you care to offer.
Jonathan K. Skean, Lincoln, Nebraska.