Helen's Babies and more...

Dec. 8, 1880

Our Evergreen Society assembed as usual at three o'clock. Lucy read a scrap called "Too Candid by Half" (this is by John Godfrey Saxe, famous for The Blind Men and the Elephant) which made us all laugh. (See "Pages" on left side of blog to read "Too Candid by Half") Nannie then played a bright little waltz called "Fairy Wedding." Lou played "Monastery Bells" with good taste & time. Mattie Kate read some extracts from "Helen's Babies" which were so much enjoyed that the girls requested that the whole book might be read to them in reading hour. Sallie ended a very pleasant hour by playing "Nearer My God To Thee" with variations.

It's December, 1880

Dec. 1, 1880

Well you may know that I was anxious for Cousin Florence to go to the party, as I consented to keep the record for her. After the usual proceedings Lucy played (while the girls sang) "Beyond the ___?_ and the Weeping". Lucy played it very badly but, the girls sung it very sweetly. Nannie read a very sweet piece called "A Dream." Then Loulie played with much expression "Shepherd Boy." It's a very sweet piece, but the old lady became quite ?palsaic" before she got through, this however didn't destroy the beauty of the piece. Lou read "The Force of Examples." The substance of the piece is this: An old lobster gives her young daughter a scold for walking backwards whereupon she says, "Why mother it would be quite presumptuous for me to change the fashion which my "Great Grand Mammy" & even down to my Mammy. To illustrate this I will use a quotation from the first part of the book. viz: "Put yourself in the place of anyone whose work you wish to criticize and you will find that it is very much easier to say how a thing ought to be done than how to do it." Mattie repeated a piece called "Gentle Words and Loving Fondly." I wish our tongues would roll off some of these oftener as Sister Blount said the other day that her head was about to roll off & I think we had better roll out some gentle words than she should lose her "pretty" head. Cousin Lou read "Counsels for TheYoung," which if we would practice them we would be so happy and everything would be all right. Then as usual we reserved the best for the last, which was a beautiful piece called "The Music of the Sea" by Mattie Kate. She did full justice to the piece. Cousin Lou then marched us out to walk which of course ended a pleasant evening.

B

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO LEFT US...

This past Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 we said good-bye to our little friend Fred. He'd been with us since a cold snowy day in January 2001. He passed away on a warm sunny day, just the way he loved for the weather to be. Fred was around 14 years of age. He was found on the side of the road, shivering, lonely, abandoned. My husband sited him and stopped. He said, "You look like you could use a friend." We tried to find his owner, who probably did not want to be found. We were lucky to have our little buddy Fred. Sometimes we called him our small speckled pony. He never hurt a flea and followed me everywhere. He could be encouraged to howl, and when he did we said he was singing Happy Birthday! Only the past few months was he no longer trudging up the staircase behind me. But, he'd wait patiently at the bottom or bark if he wasn't sure where I was. He had been having kidney issues for which he was medicated; a small scoop of aluminum hydroxide powder with his meals worked wonders for him. The vet said he wasn't expected to live through last August. Well, he's our little rebel and he lived happily until Tuesday. His last week was rough though as his condition deteriorated rapidly. We couldn't let him suffer, and he was. We took him to our vet, Dr. Forrester who lovingly let him rest eternally. She was as heartbroken as we were. He was in my arms sleeping and we said our good-byes. We'll miss our little Fred and his grave is just out the window next to where I'm typing. I wish everyone I knew was as true a friend as he. One of our friends, Tom from New York, said, "I know dogs go to heaven, because it wouldn't be heaven without dogs." That made me feel so good. Thanks Tom and to all of you who have sent your sympathy. Fondly, Tere

Fred at the door of Green Mount and playing Santa and just hanging out in the yard here.

Fred's last nap at home and his little grave in the side yard.

This is the first pet we've had to bury here at Green Mount. Makes me wonder how many are buried here throughout the yard and gardens. As much as the Fleets loved their animals, I'm sure there are many such graves and each one special.

With all that said, I would like to add a few more pictures. The owner of Green Mount visited the other day and brought with him the family Bible.

Fleet Family Bible

Recording of deaths of Fleets from Civil War era.

Pa, Ma, Florence, Fred, Lou, Bessie, Willie and his wife Nannie. There is no record of David's death.

Benny's death, written by Pa...on the facing page.

Benjamin R. Fleet was murdered by the Yankees on Wednesday 2nd March 1864 in King Wm Co. near Mr. Anderson Scott's, whither he had gone as a Scout where he met the Advance Guard of the Enemy dressed in Confederate Uniform, and was killed by them. Aged 17 yrs. 5 months & 1 day.

A FEW MORE MINUTES...ICE SKATING TIME!

Nov. 24, 1880

It seems a very short time since the beginning of the session when I kept the record of our first meeting. Since then our days have glided by peacefully & I trust profitably, with few sorrows & many joys; among the greatest of which I must record the baptism of three of our girls, the 2nd Sunday in this month. After reading the record above, Nannie played with good time & taste "Weber's Last Waltz." Loulie read July (?), & Lou played with Sister "The Turkish Reveille." Mattie Kate read the beautiful poem called "God's Plans" or "Lo??? Time." Lucy read some good advice of Spring (?) viz: "Never stop a plough to catch a Mouse." Sallie played with good expression Gottschalk's "Last Hope," & we sang "The Rose Bush" after which we adjourned to enjoy sliding on the ice which has formed rapidly during the past unusually cold days.

M.L.F. (Lou)

There is a small spring fed pond just across the field to the right of the house. It has grown up a lot and the owner of Green Mount would love to clean it out and clear around it so it will look similar to how it was back during the 1880's. I hope we can do that. It's a beautiful little pond and it is where the Fleet's used to get their ice and go ice skating. We even have two pair of the old ice skates here at the house. If I can find them I'll add a photo. But here below you can see the view from the yard in the direction of the ice pond. Then the second photo shows where the ice pond is, just beyond those reed like weeds. You can actually see a glimpse of the water between them if you look closely. It's very swampy now. I would love to clean it up and especially think we should relic hunt the area and the mud that we dredge out of the bottom. No telling what could be in that!

FINALLY...MORE OF THE MINUTES...

Green Mount

November 17th, 1880

We opened our exercises by reading the 39 Psalm and then Lucy played "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still" which we all enjoyed. Then Nannie read "Lessons on Contentment," Loulie gave us "Gen. Smith's Grand March." Lou read for our enjoyment "Life and Death." Mattie Kate sang much to our delight "Little Emily." I wish she would sing oftener in our Society it would add so much to our enjoyment of all. Sallie read a chapter from Astronomy called "The Morning Star", the first of which ran thus "The Universe is God's name writ large." What a beautiful thought!

Mattie Ella Fleet

I took a few photos of the Fleet Family Cemetery today. I am planning to weedeat and clean it up this weekend. It sits out in the middle of the field out back. You can see the house in the bottom photo. This is where Lou, Florence, Betsy, Benny, Willie, Ma and Pa are buried. Lou was the oldest and lived to be in her 60's. But Florence and Betsy both died at 50ish, around 1903, only a couple years after their mother passed away. Willie married a Nannie Burke from North Bank and they are both buried in here too as are two of their daughters, Betsy and Mary Fleet. These two daughter never married which is true of all the sisters of Willie also, and his two daughters are the two sisters that I knew. They were so sweet. Tomorrow would have been Mary's 101st birthday I noticed when I was reading the tombstones again today.

MORE CIVIL WAR BUTTONS FOUND

I feel like I've neglected a friend by not having been on line lately. I was gone to Nags Head over Easter for 5 days and returned home needing to prepare for company. All is behind me now and went well. I will be typing more minutes later today!

Some exciting news is that when I was getting ready for my company to arrive yesterday around noon, a friend came by and wanted to relic hunt. He and his buddy found two more buttons. His buddy dug another Yankee Staff Officer's button and Scott found a VIRGINIA BUTTON! We think it probably came off Fred's coat. And the other buttons were most likely cut off Benny's uniform. I'll tell you more about that later. And I'll try and get pics. I was so busy yesterday I forgot to take photos of the two they found. Those two new finds were from the same dirt I found my 3 buttons in. Amazing! We think it has something to do with being near the old well and probably a trash barrel that was used for burning in the 1900's.

Thanks for checking...Tere

OK...adding button and small coin like piece found by Scott Alley of King and Queen County. He came over with a friend and found this button in the dirt near the house where the other buttons surfaced and the small coin or token, which we haven't a clue about was found out back between two trees in the field. This location we have been told is where some of the slave quarters were located. Great finds! Poor photos. If Scott gets these photograhed and emailed to me I'll exchange my pics with his.

UNIDENTIFIED SILVER COIN OR TOKEN ABOUT 1/3" IN DIAMETER

VIRGINIA BUTTON, EARLY NEW YORK MAKER MARK ON BACK...GREAT CONDITION!

CIVIL WAR BUTTONS FOUND AT GREEN MOUNT!

On February 13th I was outside in the snow trying to help my son get the driveway more driveable. I was using a shovel to move some snow around and when I was walking back up toward the house I saw a button lying on the ground. It had just surfaced from the freezing and melting of the snow. A lot of pieces of broken dishes and glassware surface in this one little spot next to the well pump, but never a button before. There it was, like someone had dropped it yesterday. Actually it had probably gotten dropped in 1864 or so. Here's a picture of it.

It is a Yankee Staff Officer's button and it's worth maybe $30 - $40.00.


So we figured that was a pretty lucky find. My husband got his medal detector out a few weeks later and checked around that spot some more, but only found trash like aluminum foil and even an aluminum pie pan. So we're thinking maybe they used to burn trash in that spot or something when the last generation of Fleets lived here. Who knows. But yesterday, March 27th my son and I were back out there working on defining the area where we park and he scraped a bunch of dirt away so we could get some gravel and put down. Well, I was raking the dirt getting out the clumps of grass and another button just rolled out of the dirt. I couldn't believe it. But this is in the exact same area where the first button was found. And this button was just like the one I had found in February. Another Yankee Staff Officer's button. I thought, darn, that was lucky. Neat! So I put it in my pocket and kept raking. Guess what?! Another button within a minute of finding the last one rolled out of the dark dirt. This one looked different though. So I took it inside and called my husband who was out of town. I was looking at it under a magnifying glass describing it and he said, "That's a Maryland button and it's worth maybe $200." So I was happy! We won't sell it of course, but it's fun to find these things. I called my nephew and he came with his son and checked all over the spot with his detector. Aluminum foil and cans is all we could come up with. Weird! I think that area being near to the old well, may have been a resting spot, like a shady sitting area. And perhaps when the Yankees were here at Green Mount, which they were a couple of times, they lost some buttons! The pictures below are of the two I found yesterday. The photos are really crummy. But the one that's blurry really looks just like the button pictured above. The one on the right with some gold showing is really pretty and the picture doesn't show all the detail the button has. It's two people standing on either side of a shield in the center and then MARYLAND is written along the bottom circular edge. Really nice.

Yankee Staff Officer Button & Maryland Button

I'm not trying to be greedy, but I sure would rather find a Confederate button. But, I am really thankful that I found these.

The man who founded Wendy's Restaurants has passed away. His name was Dave Thomas. I remember reading something he said once which was "The harder you work, the luckier you get." I truly believe that is true. It's like if you work hard, you are rewarded in ways you would never expect. I'm very appreciative of the small rewards that were given to me from the soil at Green Mount. It made all that raking and shoveling worthwhile! I only wish these buttons could talk!