Remembrance - William and Mary Hill - Non Relatives

I found a site that contains some old Love Letters from 1854 to 1862 of a couple who met, fell in love through writing to one another, married and had children. During the times they were apart because of duty and necessity, they wrote to one another.

I was very touched and moved by these letters and not only do I want to be able to refer to them and point others to them, but believe they serve as a testament to true love and how it never fails to touch and move our hearts.

The link to these love letters of William Hill and wife Mary (Carnes) Hill is HERE.

There are over 50 letters written back and forth between these two people, who are not my relatives, but I believe they should be read by as many people as possible who are interested in live and love during that period of time in our history.

They met in 1850 where they were both students at Burritt College in Spencer, Tennessee. After completing the course, William moved away to find work, and began writing Mary expressing interest and eventually love for her. She was cautious at first, having formed an impression of William that proved to be inaccurate and she soon found herself falling for him. They were married 22 July 1854 and Mary moved away from her parents, extended family and home she had known, to where William was working and made their new home there in Sparta, TN. Mary had been teaching at the college where her father was President, after she finished her courses there during her courtship with William.

I think it's very interesting to read about this obviously well-educated family and couple, (read the letters if you think they didn't have a great education!), because I think it is thought by a lot of us that many people during that time period were uneducated. There are plenty of our own relatives who could not read nor write as indicated by the census records, so to read the Love Letters between two highly educated people, and she becoming a teacher and he studying to be a Lawyer is a refreshing change of pace. I know many areas had teachers and educational facilities, but this was, for the most part, not the norm for most of our ancestors. By the way, these families were not well-to-do as indicated by the letters.

William and Mary are buried side by side in the Smyrna Cemetery near Pikeville, Bledsoe County, TN. I found their Memorial Pages on Find A Grave.com, which are completely devoid of the memory of their love and relations. Perhaps I can persuade the owners of the Memorials to include a link to the Love Letters pages because people should be remembered in the best way possible.

Links on Find A Grave:

William Jasper Hill 1827 - 1862 - 34 yrs old

Mary (Carnes) Hill 1827 - 1901 - 74 yrs old

Mary's Mother Elizabeth (Billingsley) Carnes is buried in the same cemetery. In the summer of 1859, Mary went to take care of her Mother who was stricken with cancer, and while I'm sure she was happy to be with her Mother, she expressed deep sadness at watching her slowly waste away before her eyes. Elizabeth's husband, and Mary's Father was William Davis Carnes and was a great educator and ran several colleges during the middle part of the 1800's.

The Love Story of William and Mary has a sad ending as he died of Typhoid Fever before he even served six full months as a Confederate Captain in the Tennessee Army of the Civil War, or should I say the War between the States, as my Southern Cousins ask me to call it. They were married for only a little over 7 years and had six children, the youngest being only 4 months old at the time of William's death.

This husband and wife and family should be remembered as often as possible so I am making this post for their Remembrance and for their relatives, if they should ever find this post.

The letters and posting on the web link is by: Charles Massey, who is a direct descendant of William and Mary Hill.