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Delacoosha: The Little Colonel Years
Home to the Burges,
who Introduced Annie Fellows Johnston to Pewee (Lloydsboro) Valley
and where the Little Colonel Stories began;
where she first met the irascible
Old Colonel;
where she first met Mom Beck
and where "The Giant
Scissors" was written
Go to Delacoosha Part 2:
The Mt. Mercy Camp & Boarding School
Years
The Burge home, above, was built in about 1858 by James A. Miller,
who also built another home in Pewee Valley known as Undulata.
Undulata was purchased by poet W.D. Gallagher, and seven years after his death,
became the model for the Haunted House of Hartwell
Hollow in the “Little Colonel” stories.
Delacoosha was located next to the
chapel built by St. Aloysius Church on Mt. Mercy Avenue in 1914.
It was demolished in 1982 and the Mt. Mercy Place subdivision was built on the
site it formerly occupied.
(Photo from “The Land of the Little Colonel,” published 1974 by Mrs. John
S. Smith)
"On the 11th of October we were married at Trinity Church. It was the
church my father had built the last year of his life. As soon as we were
established in our new home, the children came to us from Kentucky where
they had been in the home of an aunt for five years. They brought with
them an ardent love for Kentucky. Pewee Valley to them was only another
name for Paradise. They were all three bright, beautiful children with
golden curls. John, the youngest, was only seven. Through them the Land of
the Little Colonel was drawing closer to me, although I did not know it
then."
Annie Fellows Johnston,
In her autobiography,
Land of the Little Colonel (1929)
referring to her 1888 double wedding along with her younger
sister Albion
When Annie Fellows married her mother’s cousin, William Levi Johnston,
she took her first step toward writing the books that were destined to
make both herself and the little town of Pewee Valley famous around the
world.
Johnston, a widower, had three children by his previous marriage to
Hallie Eaves: Rena, John and
Mary. During his wife’s final illness, he sent his children to Pewee
Valley, where they lived with his sister-in-law, Rena, her husband, Albert
W. Burge, and his niece Hallie.
One of the people she might have heard about from her three
step-children was Rebecca Porter and her husband Henry, who were the
Burges’ live-in servants in 1880, according to the U.S. Federal Census.
Rebecca Porter was destined to become Annie Fellows Johnston’s model for
Mom Beck, the Little Colonel’s beloved nurse
throughout the series.
In 1895, Annie Fellows Johnston made her first visit to Pewee Valley
and stayed with the Burges. In Chapter VII of “Land of the Little Colonel”
she wrote:
"EVER since the
children had first come back from Kentucky they had talked so much of
Pewee Valley that I felt acquainted with the place and the people. The
girls went back every summer, and just after finishing "Joel" I went
with John for a visit. It appealed to me as a most picturesque place,
full of interesting characters.
I felt as if I had
stepped back into a beautiful story of ante-bellum days. Back into the
times when people had leisure to make hospitality their chief business
in life, and could afford for every day to be a holiday; when there
were always guests under the spreading rooftree of the great house,
and laughter and singing in the servants' quarters."
It was during that visit that she
encountered the irascible
Colonel George Washington Weissinger; his
similarly hot-tempered granddaughter,
Hattie
Cochran; and Rebecca Porter, destined to become the model for
Mom Beck,
the Little Colonel’s beloved nurse throughout the series. The story of how
the first “Little Colonel” novel came into being was told nearly half a
century later by the author’s niece, Hallie Burge (Jacob), in the
following article by Hamilton Howard that appeared in the September 11,
1943 “Courier-Journal:”
The Naming of a Book
Mrs. Jacob, then of Pewee Valley, heard her mother
suggest the story of "The Little Colonel"
Hattie Cochran, the original "Little
Colonel" of literary fame, was, as anybody in Pewee Valley would tell
you, a cute child but "bad as she could be."
When the Little Colonel was three and Hallie Burge, now Mrs. Donald
Jacob of Louisville, was just entering her teens, Mrs. Cochran brought
Hattie over to visit Mrs. Burge and Annie Fellows Johnston. Mrs.
Johnston, later to become author of the famous Little Colonel series of
books, was staying at the old Burge Place visiting the Burges, cousins
of Mr. Johnston.
People said little Hattie Cochran was just like her grandfather, Colonel
Weissinger, who had a "vile tember and cursed every breath he took."
Hattie didn't want to go home that afternoon. She dragged back,
screamed, and sat down on the floor, beating it with her tiny heels.
Mrs. Burge turned to Mrs. Johnston, "Now, there," she said, "Just write
a book about that! And call it The Little Colonel!"
So Hallie Burge Jacob's mother named The Little Colonel books! To talk
to Mrs. Jacob is better than spending a week in Pewee Valley because the
town has changed so much that reminiscence is the only way you can catch
the flavor of the old days in Pewee.
"Mom" was Part Indian
Mom Beck, The Little Colonel's nurse in the books, was actually Hallie
Burge Jacob's nurse. "She was very aristocratic," Mrs. Jacob tells you.
"Part Indian. She ruled the whole family-- in fact, she was the only
human being Poppa was afraid of!"
Mom Beck got her name because Hallie called both her old Negro mammy and
Mrs. Burge "Momma." Mrs. Burge stood it as long as she could, then
decided the time had come for her to put her foot down. "You can't keep
calling us both "Momma," she told her daughter. So the colored woman had
to be called something else. Hallie dubbed her "Mom Beck."
Hallie Burge must have been somewhat of a terror herself. Mom Beck kept
a twig always handy to switch Hallie when she was bad. "But let Momma
spank me," she said, "and Mom Beck wouldn't eat for three days!" She and
the child would walk all over Pewee-- Mom Beck carrying Hallie on her
back -- just as she carried "The Little Colonel" in Mrs. Johnston's
books.
"Polly in the Little Colonel books was my parrot, too," she continued,
"We had Polly ten years. When she died she was buried in
Pewee Cemetery with a headstone and all. We never did know her age
exactly so we put 58 years on the headstone!"
"She came from New Orleans and spoke only French at first. Later she
learned English."
An aunt who lived in Louisville gave the parrot to the Burges because
the Polly used to get out on the front porch on Sundays and curse so
raucously that people began to complain. So the parrot was shipped away
to Pewee and has been immortalized along with Mom Beck in the Little
Colonel books. Her picture, in fact, adorns one of the pages-- perched
on the end of a broomstick in the Little Colonel's hand.
(Etheldred Barry's
Illustration from the book, 1895)
"We clipped one of Polly's wings." Mrs.
Jacob continued. "But she went all over the house and grounds anyway.
She would fly into the apple tree, sit there all day and sing to
herself, 'Oh Lawdy, I'm so happy -- Oh, Lawdy, I'm so happy!' "
Polly was never in her cage and her favorite diversion was to ride
around from the stables to the house in the carriage. Eric, the Burge's
gardener, would hitch up the carriage when Mrs. Burge called him, "Eric,
hitch up the carriage," Polly learned to say it, too. She would screech,
"Eric, hitch up the carriage!" Eric would drop what he was doing, hitch
up and Polly would fly to the front seat.
Eric would drive around. "Here is the carriage, Mrs. Burge," he would
say.
"But I didn't tell you, Eric," she would answer.
"Yes, you did, Mrs. Burge," he would say and Polly would cackle and
laugh.
Colonel Weissinger must have been quite a frightening man but, you
gather, Hallie Burge wasn't the least afraid of him. "Poppa," Mrs. Jacob
said, "used to hunt birds. It wasn't considered proper to serve birds
fried in those days. Colonel Weissinger was over to dinner one Sunday
after a hunting trip. We had two fowls on the table under covered
dishes. Momma lifted the covers to serve and the Colonel exclaimed, "My
God, Madam, you have fried birds on the table!"
"Momma stood up to him. 'Colonel,' she said, 'you can just go home!' He
went and didn't come back for three months!"
"Life was different in Pewee those days. Such a lovely town! Nobody
worried. They would drive around to parties and entertainments all the
time. We used to have house parties. Five or six men and girls came out
on Saturday and stayed over Sunday. Buggy rides were a big event, but
Momma didn't allow me to go on buggy rides-- just in carriages. I drove
ten miles to a party in a horse break one time-- you wouldn't remember
them. They were little narrow carriages with no back. My feet swung back
and forth the whole way."
"Momma never allowed us to sit under the trees. A boy could walk a girl
around the circle in front of the house twice and then we had to come
back and sit on the porch. We had to walk, too, Honey!"
"The boys would come to call and find ten or twelve other boys there on
Sundays...then they would all leave and go calling on another girl. If a
girl didn't have ten or twelve men around, she wasn't popular-- she was
disgraced! I was engaged to two or three boys at a time."
When you hear Mrs. Jacob's stories, when you realize she owned the
original Polly, that Mom Beck was her nurse, and that she stood up to
old Colonel Weissinger as a child, you wonder if you haven't just been
talking to the real original "Little Colonel.
Annie Fellows Johnston returned
to Pewee Valley several times before she eventually purchased
The Beeches in 1911 and made it her permanent
home. The 1900 U.S. Census lists the following occupants of the Burge
household:
-
Albert W. Burge, Head, 44
-
Hallie Burge, Daughter, 27
-
Mamie (Mary G.) Johnston, Niece,
28
-
John Johnston, 18, Nephew
-
Annie (Fellows) Johnston, Niece
(actually sister-in-law), 30
Albert Burge owned Delacoosha for
over 20 years, until his death in 1915.
Born in 1849, he came from a wealthy family. His father, Richardson Burge,
was included in the "Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky of Dead and
Living Men of the Nineteenth Century" published in 1877. According to the
profile, he came to Louisville from Virginia in 1839 and became engaged in
the tobacco trade. In addition to owning
a large tobacco business, Richardson Burge was President of the
People’s Insurance Company, organized by Louisville’s tobacco dealers in
1949, for many years; Vice President of the Falls City Tobacco Bank; and
was also involved in the wholesale and retail carpet trades. He built his
home on the site of Old Fort Nelson in
1855. Described as a "mansion,"
the encyclopedia noted that the family was still living there at
the time of its publication. The
1870 census lists its location as Louisville Ward 9 in Jefferson County
and shows the following family members as residents:
-
Richardson, 60, retired merchant,
with real estate valued at $300,000 and his personal estate at $20,000
-
Mary (Beatty) Burge, 43,
Richardson’s third wife. The couple was married in 1868.
-
Albert Burge, 21, unmarried and
working in the leaf tobacco industry
-
Mattie Burge, 18
-
Emma Burge, 14, who would later
marry Richard Mentor Johnston
-
Mary Burge, 9
-
Sallie Burge, 6, who would later
marry Sidney Muir. Their child, Anna Burge Muir, became the model for
Anna Moore in the "Little
Colonel" stories
-
Annie Burge, 5
-
Elisha Applegate, Richardson
Burge’s father-in-law from his second marriage to Louise Applegate in
1847 and natural grandfather to the six Burge children.
According to the encyclopedia,
Albert W. Burge joined his father in the family business in 1870 with
responsibility for exporting most of their tobacco to Europe. He married
Rena Eaves shortly after going to work for his father. By the 1880 census,
the couple was living in Delacoosha in Pewee Valley and had an
eight-year-old daughter, Hallie Louise.
Rena Eaves Burge did not live
long enough to see her daughter get married. She
died in 1898, and Hallie tied the knot with architect Donald R.
Jacob on July 1, 1903, according to Oldham County marriage records.
According to a letter
written by Annie Fellows Johnston on Sepember 23, 1908:
...The first of September Hallie and her husband moved to San
Antonio, where he had a fine offer to go into partnership with one of
its leading architects. They have taken a house there and Mr. Burge, the
dogs and servants will follow soon...
The 1910 census shows the Jacobs in San Antonio Ward 4, Bexar, Texas.
Albert Burge died on May 16, 1915
at his Pewee Valley home. Both he and his wife, Rena, are buried in
Cave Hill
Cemetery, Section B, Lot 21.
By the 1920 census, the Jacobs were
living in Pewee Valley again, but on Central Avenue near Annie
Fellows Johnston. By 1930, Donald was working as a vault manager at a bank
and they had moved to Magisterial District 5 in Jefferson County, where
they were sharing a rented house at 2448 Glenmary Avenue with William
Culbertson Gatchel’s family. Billy Gatchel grew up in Pewee Valley at
Woodside and was the son of
Frank and Alice Craig Gatchel. Other Gatchel family members living at 2448
Glenmary included Billy’s first
wife, Ninette Hite Gatchel; his mother-in-law, Ninette Hite; and his son,
Frank E., who was a year old.
Donald Jacob died in 1954, Hallie
ten years later on August 7, 1964 at
Pewee Valley Hospital.
Both are buried in
Cave Hill
Cemetery, Section G, Lot 65. Donald and Hallie are shown
in the
group picture
on the
Pewee Valley Post Office
page.
(click picture for an enlargement)
The
photo of the Burge House above was taken by
Kate Matthews. The photo shown here is a
scan of the original print, the one owned by Annie Fellows Johnston and
used for her autobiography, Land of the Little Colonel (1929), and
is part of the Samuel
Culbertson Mansion historic collection.
On the back of the photo above:
"Photograph by Kate Matthews, Pewee Valley, Ky-"
"Where the Giant Scissors was written"
Please return to Mary G Johnston, Pewee Valley
Ky."
Go to Delacoosha Part 2:
The Mt. Mercy Camp & Boarding
School Years
---by Donna Russell
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This Site:
Home Page
What's New? Biography of Annie Fellows
Johnston,
Books on Line (Complete
Original Little Colonel Book Series)
The Little Colonel (link to U. Penn))
The
Giant Scissors
Two Little
Knights of Kentucky
The Little Colonel's
House Party
The Little Colonel's
Holidays
The Little Colonel's Hero
The Little Colonel
at Boarding-School
The Little Colonel in
Arizona
The Little
Colonel's Christmas Vacation
The Little Colonel, Maid of
Honor
The Little Colonel's
Knight Comes Riding
Mary Ware, The Little Colonel's
Chum
Mary Ware in Texas
Mary Ware's Promised Land
Check our home page for more titles by AFJ on other sites
The People & Characters:
The Little Colonel, Papa
Jack and Mrs. Sherman, The
Old Colonel, Two Little
Knights of Kentucky,
Two Little Knights of Kentucky(2),
Uncle Sidney & Aunt
Elise, parents of the Two Little Knights of Kentucky,
Grandmother McIntyre,
Aunt Allison, The
Waltons, Rob and Anna
Moore, Betty,
Joyce Ware,
Jack Ware, Mom Beck,
Walker, Katherine Marks,
Gay Melville,
The Lees of Arizona,
Small Parts
Their Final Resting Places
The Places: in Pewee (Lloydsboro) Valley:
Map,
Map 2,
Where it all began, The Locust,
The Beeches
Edgewood,
The Little Colonel's Cottage,
The Railroad Station,
"Lloydsboro Seminary",
Clovercroft, The
Post Office, Churches,
The Haunted House at Hartwell Hollow,
Confederate Home
Rollington,
Minor Places In Old Louisville:
The Culbertson
Mansion, "Home of a Hero" Elsewhere:
The Cuckoo's Nest (Indiana),
Lee's Ranch,
Camelback Mountain &
Hole-in-Rock (Arizona),
San Antonio and
The Little Town of Bauer (Boerne),
Texas,
The Gate of the Giant Scissors (France)
Letters from Annie
Fellows Johnston and "Mrs Walton"
Scrapbook
Links
Cooking with The Little Colonel
Guest Book
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best to answer your questions.. Much of the material included on
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Room The East
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President's Room
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General Henry W.
Lawton
The Samuel
Culbertson Mansion
"Home of the Two Little Knights of Kentucky"
1432 S. Third Street
Louisville, KY 40208
(502) 634-3100
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original material & research ©
1998-2007 LittleColonel.com
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