Check this page to
see our newest additions to this site. We add new material at whim
or when it becomes available, and that can be very random. You could
miss it if you didn't know where to look. We'll list links in order
so that the top portions are the newest and the
older additions follow.
December 2007
December
6 To coincide with the Little Colonel
Exhibit, the University of Louisville has posted a new and
comprehensive site on the
works of Little Colonel photographer, Kate Matthews. It has
been launched today with an impressive exposition of no less than 428
photographic images, many of them hand colored by Kate herself. Many
thanks to Susan Finley and all the staff at the U of L photographic and
special collections archives for this landmark website!
Today, we posted a major
update to our page on Mary Gardener Johnston,
Annie Fellows Johnston's stepdaughter and the model for Joyce Ware in the
Little Colonel stories.
November 2007
November 26
The Little Colonel Exhibit is now open
to the delight of Annie Fellows Johnston and Little Colonel fans
everywhere! Preview it here!
We'll have the driving tour guide of Lloydsboro/Pewee Valley for sale
on-line shortly! It will make a great stocking stuffer for the
Little Colonel aficionado in your life.
And rarely do we get excited
about a link, but when we found that Annie's rarest book, co-authored with
her sister Albion Fellows Bacon and published in 1897, has now been
digitized by Google Books, we had to let you know. You can even
download the PDF version of
Songs Ysame!
November 12 We added
views of San Antonio, and "the
little town of Bauer" (Boerne), Texas. Annie Fellows
Johnston lived in Boerne from 1903 until 1911, and wrote many of the
Little Colonel books there. She set much of Mary Ware's story in that
area.
November 11 There is
a greatly expanded page on
Grandmother McIntyre and her family.
November 9 We
speculate on the Tremonts, Elsie, Phil &
Stuart, and find that there are some parallels to real life models.
October 2007
October 27 We revised
and greatly expanded pages on Kate Matthews
("Miss Marks" in the stories) and her home,
Clovercroft. We've added more information on the
Railroad Station and the
Interurban railroad
that connected Lloydsboro Valley to the city. The page on
The Gables has been updated
October 24 Over the
past week, we've been making minor updates all over the place. These
are mostly improved images, minor corrections and additions. There
are too many pages involved to list here. Fairly major updates were made
to the stories of Beechmore
and Olde Pine Tower
(expanded to two pages) and the Pewee Valley
cemetery. The
biggest update is to the
Tanglewood estate page, where budding romance began in several
Little Colonel books. Speaking of romance, we finally found a photo
of the Little Colonel's real life husband, Albert Conrad Dick. We
put it on her page. Finally,
we have a letter from
Annie Fellows Johnston to Emmet O'Neal (of Olde Pine Tower) dated December
27, 1901.
October
16 The star of our website has until now been a little shorted on her
page as we went after some of the more obscure characters in the series.
Today, that's been corrected with a completely new page on
Hattie Cochran, the real life model for the
Little Colonel. (This page also contains many new pictures,
including her beloved terrier Fritz)
And we add a new face to our
list: one we once thought we may never find: May
Lily
October
15 We now have a face for "Unc' Henry,"
who was introduced as the kindly old coachman in "Two Little Knights of
Kentucky." We also have two new pictures of
Sycamore Chapel, from the
Little Colonel times.
Next to Edgewood and across
from The Beeches is a house that didn't quite make it into the Little
Colonel books, but Twigmore
is nevertheless entwined in the lives of the Little Colonel folks and has
a few distinctions of its
own.
An update to
Judge Moore's page includes his will.
Check our
Rollington pages to to see more
information and pictures of Rollington then and now.
October 14 A Major
update to the Burge Home, later Mt
Mercy School, with entertaining new tales on the beginnings of the little
Colonel stories. We've also added a page on
The Pewee Valley Sanatorium,
final stop in real-life of some of
the Little Colonel characters.
October 13 Halloween
is just around the corner, so we've expanded the page on
the haunted house of Hartwell Hollow,
and now we also have a picture of the old place!
October
12 Anyone who is familiar with The Little Colonel stories knows of the
revered portrait of The Little Colonel's grandmother, Amanthis
that was described hanging in The Locust in most of the books. Well,
thanks to Donna Russell, we tracked tracked down the actual portrait of
Amanthis: You can see it now on the
Old Colonel's page!
October 11 We found
and posted information about the real Walker,
the Old Colonels faithful manservant! (Alas, the story is a more than a
little bit sad.) Also, we have completely rewritten and expanded the
story of The Beeches. There you
will find a story of a heretofore almost
unknown manuscript for a book that Annie Fellows Johnston had been
writing, but was never completed or published!
**********
The
Little Colonel: A Romantic Vision of Life Long Ago in Oldham County
A
Special Exhibit: November 17, 2007 through February 16, 2008
More information
July 2007
July 24
More information and pictures on Rollington.
Also after 9 years, we thought it was high time to put up an "About"
page, giving credit where credit is due.
July 12
Today we did a major update to the page on
Woodside (Wayside).
This is one of the "Lloydsboro Valley" landmarks that we're currently
uncertain if it played a part in the stories. Yet the more we
document these type places the more seems to come together, and a bell
might ring on it eventually. We're looking real hard at all the places the
Pewee Valley residents thought important enough to put on
the map in the 1930s. At this time we
can say one connection is that it was the neighbor of Edgewood, and
housed the cousins of the Two Little Knights of Kentucky and the Walton
kids during the Little Colonel days.
June 2007
June 11
Read about "Woodside,"
an historic "Lloydsboro Valley" landmark that has suddenly become
endangered. We also added
nine postcard views of
the former Burge home as Mt. Mercy Camp and Boarding School
June 5
We added more to the stories of the Muir's
(Moore's) of Oaklea (Rob Moore and his cousin
Anna Moore of the Little
Colonel series). We warn you though, there won't be any happy
endings as there were in the books....
May 2007
May 23
Donna has been digging deep into old Lloydsboro Valley's past and has
finally put together just how it came to be that Annie Fellows Johnston
came to the valley in the first place. The connection between rural
Vanderburgh County in Indiana and Oldham County in Kentucky is through her
husband's sister-in-law's (by his first marriage) marriage into the
Burge family of Pewee Valley. (You can guess
that wasn't easy to track down!) We also now have a much expanded page on
Kate Matthews ("Katie Marks"),
photographer of the Little Colonel stories, with help from her living
relatives.
May 21
Hattie Cochran Dick, the Little Colonel later in life, was a popular
hostess in her day. We add a page for some her her favorite
recipes.
May 11/12 We
add Kate Malone ("Katie
Mallard" in the books) to our growing list real life models for the Little
Colonel stories, as well as Mrs.
Clelling and Mrs. Bisbee. Also, see our radically updated
page on Clovercroft. All of
this again thanks to the continuing sleuth work of Donna Russell.
The Tuliphurst page has been expanded to two pages:
The Noble Butler Years (before
1864) and the W.
H. Dulaney/Little Colonel Years.
April 2007
April 10 We thought you'd finally like to see
Gay Melville and read about her
cabin from The Little
Colonel's Knight comes Riding.
April
8 (Easter Sunday): New pages are up on the
mountain settlement schools
that formed the inspiration for the Shadow Club in the Little Colonel at
Boarding school, as well as the related story of the
murder of Lura Parsons.
Also we add pages on
Union Station and
Benedict's restaurant in Louisville, settings for scenes in The
Little Colonel's House Party and The Little Colonel Maid of Honor.
We also can now show you Annie
Fellows Johnston's grave site in
Oak Hill Cemetery in
Evansville, Indiana, thanks to photos sent to us by Sue Berry of
Henderson, KY..
April 6: Moving
right along, we've added a lot since the last week of March. We have
greatly added to the information on Oaklea,
Edgewood (2 pages now), and the old
Presbyterian Church.
There are new pages:
The Old Mill,
the setting for a picnic and game of
charades in "The Little Colonel's House Party",
Children's Free
Hospital from "The Little Colonel's Holidays",
The Villa Ridge School,
"Aunt Allison's" school behind Edgewood,
The stores across from the
railroad station which have a significant part in "The Little
Colonel at Boarding School," Delacoosha
the Burge home where it all began, the
Home of George Madden
Martin, author of Emmy Lou and a friend of AFJ,
Lakeland Asylum, in nearby
Anchorage KY, mentioned in "The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding."
Most of these places also contain histories of people who were characters
of the Little Colonel stories or were close to them in real life.
March 2007
We added more historic background on
the Presbyterian Church,
including an absolute identification of the Little Colonel character
models at a tree planting
outside the church in 1903. There is more historical background on
Tuliphurst, a Lloydsboro
(Pewee) Valley landmark.
Donna Russell read the story of
Marietta Waring in "The Little
Colonel's Christmas Vacation," put two and two together and makes a
convincing argument that Marietta may have been inspired by Jennie
Casseday. This lead to another page on the
Jennie Casseday Rest
Cottage for Working Women, another "Lloydsboro" landmark, although not
specifically mentioned in the Little Colonel books.
We now have a face and a story for
Judge Moore! We will have more
information on his home (which you can see now)
Oaklea! We also continue to add to the list of
minor people and places of the stories.
Outside of that, go to the movie
map and we now have almost every
important place in Lloydsboro Valley covered in some way, thanks to a
growing excitement and help from the current residents of the valley.
Click on the places on the map to learn more about each location.
These places are what we are focusing on now and will be expanding over
the next weeks.
February 2007
Now it's time to get busy on the site
again. February should be a busy month.
First, we just added the a "new"
map of Lloydsboro Valley. By
new, we mean around 1933-34. This map was made by residents of Pewee
Valley to help Hollywood in the production of the Little Colonel movie
shortly after Annie Fellows Johnston's death. It was done by people
who still remembered the area as it was during the Little Colonel days,
and is a blend of the places in the stories and other real life
landmarks of the "valley."
Next (and this was too good to hold off
until Halloween), we've located, with about 99% certainty,
the Haunted House at Hartwell Hollow.
This, and much of what is to follow, is a result of the sleuth work of our
new website co-author Donna Russell.
Another setting often visited in the
Little Colonel stories was the post office.
Now you can see what it looked like. This page includes a wonderful
picture of Miss Allison and Mrs. Walton at the post office, and later
photos with Annie Fellows Johnston and her daughter Mary with towns
people.
We now have posted pictures and
information on The Churches of Lloydsboro Valley
and we're starting a now section on some of the
minor people and places of the stories,
as we find their real life models.
Just added a bit about The old
'Lloydsboro' Pewee
Valley Cemetery, where Kate Matthews is
buried.
January 2007
The
inn has kept us incredibly
busy throughout the fall, so we couldn't add much to the site.
However we now have a new full time collaborator: Donna Russell, the owner
of Edgewood Manor. She has done an
incredible amount of research over the past few months and has identified
a number of further real-life models for the Little Colonel characters as
well as places mentioned in the stories and some amazing observations.
All that will be coming to this site soon. Today we added recent
photos of Edgewood, and an early photo
of the spring that
figures prominently in Two Little Knights of Kentucky.
Also for
those interested in The Little Colonel and looking for a reason to visit
dear old Lloydsboro (Pewee) Valley, there will be an
exhibit of Little Colonel memorabilia at the Oldham County
Historical Society from November 2007-February 2008 (dates
TBA . . email us if you wish to be informed of the actual dates when they
become available.
October 2006
Yesterday (October 1) we had some
guests appear unexpectedly at the front door of the
Mansion.
One was the daughter of "Georgina of the Rainbows." (!!)
Unfortunately, ye olde historian webmaster of this site was not close by
at the time, and so I only get a little bit of the story. This may
be turned around a bit, but I understand Georgina was herself from Pewee
Valley, and her family had (still has) a Provincetown connection.
Then came another surprise to us: It could be that Georgina first met her
future husband at a dance here in the Samuel Culbertson Mansion ballroom.
After a short tour, the ladies got away without leaving any contact
information, so I'll be trying to track that down. If someone knows
how to get in touch with Georgina's daughter, please write! Thanks!
September 2006
We visit "The
Cuckoo's Nest" (McCutchanville, IN) In the stories, this was the
home of Betty Lewis, but we see it's really a place closer to Annie
Fellows Johnston's heart.
August 2006
We finally can put a face to
Grandmother McIntyre, matriarch
of Edgewood, mother of Miss Allison, Mrs.
Walton and Aunt Elise, and grandmother of the Two Little Knights of
Kentucky. We have also found a drawing of
Rollington by Annie's daughter Mary, and
an old photo of the Lloydsboro
Seminary.
March 2006
"I heard a bird sing in the dark of
December" -- Signed original photograph by the photographer of the Little
Colonel series, Kate Matthews, for you to see on
her page
February 2006
We just acquired a small photo album of Lee's
Ranch near Phoenix, the setting for The Little Colonel in Arizona.
Not only that, some of the pictures have captions on the back written
in AFJ's own hand! Others are captioned in a handwriting we do
not know, but those could be written by J.J. (John her son, model
for Jack Ware) Three of the photos even contain his image, so now we
can finally see the face of Jack Ware!
Other album pictures show AFJ on a burro, and her accommodations at the
ranch when she stayed there 1902/1903.
January 2006
The Little Colonel's "Cottage" has gotten
a page, as well as the villa in France
where Annie Fellows Johnston wrote the Gate of the Giant Scissors.
And if you all
haven't noticed, The Gutenberg Project (www.gutenberg.org)
has been adding Annie Fellows Johnston titles at a pretty good rate
lately. We link to these as we find them on our home page. We
were just ready to start adding The Story of Dago and Ole Mammy's Torment
as parts of the Little Colonel Stories 2, and they're already on line!
December 2005
We found "new" photos of The Little
Colonel, Mary Johnston ("Joyce
Ware"),
Katherine Marks (Kate Matthews) and
Mom Beck.
We added a photo of a tea
at Clovercroft including Mom Beck, the Walton's and the Little
Colonel, and more pictures of "Elise
Walton," some as a young lady with her own children. There
are more photos of Rob Moore and the
Measuring Tree, and of The Locust.
November 2005
Clovercroft, a photo of the house
that played a big role in the Little
Colonel at Boarding School. Also, a lot of research has been
done over the the summer of 2005. Expect to see more on line
shortly.
May 2005:
The Lee Family and Lee's Ranch
A tip and some research from a Little Colonel devotee
finds the Lees of Arizona in census records, and gives us a general
location for the main site of the story of The
Little Colonel in Arizona. Also pictures and information on
hole-in-rock and Camelback Mountain.
March 2005:
Their Final Resting Places.
We tell you where you can find the Little Colonel folk
today
September 2004:
The old Railway Station of
Lloydsboro Valley. A lot more information and a picture of its
destruction.
Mrs. Lawton at Home,
an article from Harper's Bazar, April 28 1900. This appeared
a few months after General Lawton's death and just before Mrs. Lawton was
introduced to us as Mrs. Walton in The Little
Colonel's Holidays. In fact, some of the pictures in the
article might give a pretty good idea of the decor of the "Home of a Hero"
described in Chapter 12 of the same book. Mrs. Lawton would not
remain long at Redlands. Soon she moved to
Louisville, where she stayed for about a year until "The
Beeches" was completed.
July
2004:
"Letters
from Mrs. Walton"
Mrs. Lawton writes
to Annie Fellows Johnston:
"The
Book Party" March 7, 190?
(probably 1905 or 1906),
"The Hand that Touched Prince
Henry's" January 3, 1906,
Reunion with the 4th Regiment:
February 21, 1906.
March 2004:
New pictures of The Little
Colonel (1910), Betty (as a young
lady...Warwick Hall era?) and Malcolm
(age 16) have been added.
"A Letter from Lee's
Ranch" from Annie Fellows Johnston to "Mrs. Walton"
(1902 0r 1903)
Reunion
with the 4th Regiment: A letter from Mary Lawton
("Mrs. Walton") to Annie Fellows Johnston, February 21,
1906.
February 2004:
Letters from Mrs.
Lawton/"Walton" to Annie Fellows Johnston
"The Book
Party" March 7, 190? (probably 1905 or 1906)
"The Hand that Touched Prince
Henry's" January 3, 1906
January 2004:
Completion of the
book Mary Ware's Promised Land.
New Year's Day. That was an intense one-week effort!
This completes the entire series of the original Little Colonel books
on-line, but of course there will be more.
(We've been fired up with enthusiasm because of a number of recent new
contacts & info via the web, some with direct connections to the Little
Colonel people & places.)
Jan 3: A new group
photo comes our way of
The Little Colonel with two of the "Walton" Girls dated around
1906-7, the time of Little Colonel, Maid of
Honor and The Little Colonel's
Knight Comes Riding.
Pictures of the
remnants of the Spring- House
mentioned in the Two Little Knights of Kentucky.
December 2003:
Completion of the
book Mary Ware in Texas. Christmas Day
More on
Edgewood, the home of the MacIntyres,
thanks to the home's present owner.
September 2003:
More on the "Old
Colonel" and Amanthis.
August 2003:
We found the "Gate
of the Giant Scissors", and we have photos! Thanks to Mrs.
Marion in Paris.
March 2003:
Letter from Annie Fellows Johnston to her friend Lilly
sent from
Boerne Texas, in September 1908. This letter is packed with
previously unpublished background information on Annie Fellows Johnston's
personal life at the time, as well as quite a bit of insight on
The Giant Scissors and
Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's Chum.
Mary Ware in Texas penultimate
book in the Little Colonel series. This is still the OCR version
(corrections are still in progress), but it's readable.
February 2003:
Pictures of the "Walton" Girls and Mrs. "Walton"
and the kids in Manila, 1899 Click on the pictures for
hi-resolution enlargements
Picture of the Little
Captain in Manila, 1899, clickable
The Train Station. Imagine
this 1860s building in Two Little
Knights of Kentucky and over and over again as a setting for scenes
through the Little Colonel books
The "Lloydsboro" Seminary You
know it from "Little Colonel at Boarding
School"
New pictures of General Lawton (aka "General Walton"):
Last Photo Last known photo of the General
on the Novalache
Road, heading to San Mateo, P.I., December 1899. On our
Culbertson Mansion site.
This web site is devoted to
