Samuel Hughes Woodson

Samuel Hughes Woodson was a resident of Jessamine County. He is buried at the Crockett Burying Ground on Catnip Hill Road, Nicholasville.

This is taken from “Letters from a Young Shaker,” edited by Stephen J. Stein. It is a collection of letters written by William Silouee Byrd to his father, Charles Willing Byrd. William S. Byrd’s mother was Sarah Meade, daughter of David Meade II of Chaumiere. He was descended from the prestigious Byrd family of Westover, Virginia. Charles Willing Byrd was Governor of the Northwest Territories and in 1803 after Ohio became a state, Thomas Jefferson appointed him a federal judge. William Silouee Byrd went to live in the Shaker community of Pleasant Hill in mid-1826. It was located a few miles from Lexington as well as Chaumiere des Prairies. William S. Byrd died in 1829, a victim of costifness, which was constipation secondary to another, undetermined chronic illness.

Here, in a letter to his father, William S. Byrd describes the death of Samuel Hughes Woodson, of Jessamine County.

Page 77

“Your connection to Uncle Samuel Woodson, has gone to witness the reality of an unseen world. He departed this life at Chaumiere, last Saturday morning, after a short, and painfull illness of one week. The disease which terminated his earthly career is called the inflammation of the brain. How uncertain is human existence, it has been a short time since he was here with his son, Tucker, both apparently in the enjoyment of good health. His daughter Sally is at this time lying sick in Frankfort, and will in all probability share the same fate. All this information you will not be surprised to receive after their removal from the healthiest, to the most sickly part of the state.

‘Evelyn (my note: William S. Byrd’s sister and Tucker Moore Woodson’s wife) went to Frankfort to supply the place of her Aunt who was sent for from Chaumiere, to attend her husband, or I might perhaps with more propriety say, to be an unprofitable witness of the distressing scene, for I do suppose there was little prospect of her being able to administer relief to her husband, as there was of Evelyn's rendering any service to her daughter. Had she been in the possession of useful medical knowledge, and a nurse of the first order, it might be accounted for, but as it is I am at a lost to know what object they could possibly have had in view.’ ”

Brain fever is meningitis or encephalitis.

Costif is a Middle English word meaning sluggish or to constipate. It comes from the French verb, costever, to constipate.

Contributed by Judith Woodson Martin.