Letters Unposted: The Adventurous Life of Alexander Dromgoole

By P. Lynne Hutchins

It is 1828. Fate has brought four people together in a modest house in Abingdon, Virginia. All of them have experienced great losses in their lives, with the three adults consumed by their grief and regret. The fourth, an innocent, is a recently orphaned young boy working through his own sadness but learning to adapt to his new living situation.

Alexander Dromgoole, a Revolutionary War veteran and Indian trader, is a frail and ailing old man, living out the last years of his life being boarded out by the town's Overseers of the Poor. He wonders how his life had taken this turn, considering in years past, he participated in some of the most important events in the history of America. He once had so much, and yet he has lost everything.

Letters Unposted tells Alexander's adventure-filled story through letters he wrote to his brother over a period of fifty years. Due to failing eyesight, he has the young boy, Thomas, read them back to him, reviewing his life one last time before he dies.

How will Alexander's letters affect the members of the household, reopening old wounds and causing them to reexamine painful events of the past? Will they be able to find acceptance and the self-forgiveness needed to create new bonds and start life anew?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890611765

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Sources

About the Author

cover.jpg

Letters Unposted

The Adventurous Life of Alexander Dromgoole

P. Lynne Hutchins

Copyright © 2023 P. Lynne Hutchins

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-89061-175-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89061-176-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Kathy

For your unending patience and support

even when I call interrupting your dinner…again.

Author's Note

This book is based on the life of a real person, Alexander Dromgoole, who participated in many remarkable events in the period before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. He lived what might be considered a double life, that of a respected Virginia landowner but also an adventurer, trading and living among the Cherokee. He was truly an enigma, a soldier and major in the militia, and yet a man working toward peace with the Native Americans. He was a man who cared for others; however, even with multiple families, he was a man who left, always seeking the next adventure.

I discovered his story while conducting genealogical research on one of my family lines. His life was filled with drama and intrigue. There was much to admire, and yet he was a human with flaws. The challenge was how to share his story without making him the hero or the villain.

I chose to have Alexander tell of his life through fictional letters written over a span of more than fifty years to his absent eldest brother, John. Although the letters are filled with factual details, some parts are theories based on surviving records.

The Travels of Alexander Dromgoole Key

These are the routes available at the time that Alexander Dromgoole would have traveled to places that are documented. He would have journeyed to many more during the Revolutionary War and afterwards as he moved among the various Cherokee villages and later on when he spent time in the Kentucky wilderness.

York. Pennsylvania: where Alexander was born and lived until Revolutionary War (His whereabout during war are uncertain)

Romney: Alexander was paid here for his service in the war.

Winchester, Virginia: where he lived with his wife Elizabeth, returning several times after his trips west

Cumberland Gap: the natural passage through the mountains for the Wilderness Road

Fayette County, Kentucky: the location of his military land grant

Chota, Tennessee: The main town of the Overhill Cherokees where Alexander lived with Nancy

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alexander accompanied Sconetoyah to meet with government leaders.

Keowee (Pendleton County, South Carolina: Alexander owned land here and set up a meeting of the government and Cherokee.

Nashville, Tennessee: Alexander traveled here after being reported killed, and conducted various trades.

Dromgoole's Station (Adairville, Kentucky): Alexander joined brother, James here.

Sapling Grove (Bristol, Tennessee): Alexander moved here after marrying Isabella Elliot Shelby.

Abingdon, Virginia: Alexander lived here after leaving Tennessee with Isabella and after her death with new wife, Ann Balbzel.

North Carolina Reservee Land: Alexander lived here until being injured and returning to Abingdon where he resided until his death.

Chapter I

Take me with you! Please! I'm old enough! I won't be a bother! I promise! The small boy clutched a pant leg of the young man perched high upon the bay mare. Tears meandered down the contours of his freckled face like the crooked path taken by the nearby creek. Brother, you can't leave me! Please let me go with you!

The older brother brushed his hair from his forehead and looked imploringly at his parents, who were standing by the cabin door. His mother was wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. The boy's father stepped forward and gently took hold of his arm.

Step back, Alex. You need to let John and your grandfather leave. You'll see them again.

But what if I don't! he wailed. I don't want Brother to leave!

Come on, John. It's time we left. An older man with a sun-weathered face and silvery beard clicked, and his horse moved forward. He gave a slight nod to the young boy's parents then turned away. The early morning fog made the trees' dark silhouettes look like a gathering army awaiting the last of the soldiers.

John reassured his little brother. I'll meet up with you again, and I might even show you my special fishing hole in the creek where that big ole catfish hides. You need to take care of Father and Mother for me—oh, and little Jimmy. He glanced at his youngest sibling, half hidden behind his mother's skirt. Giving Alex a wink, he straightened in his saddle and quickly turned away to hide a threatening tear.

Alex wiped his nose with his arm and stepped away from his brother's horse. Promise you'll come back, Brother.

John looked back at his family, smiled, then rode ahead to join his grandfather. Alex watched as the tall young man in a homespun woolen shirt and breeches and the older man dressed in leather disappeared into the grayness of first light. He stood without moving until he could no longer hear the sound of the horses' hooves in the distance. His mother stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in comfort.

We'll see him again, Alex.

*****

An elderly man sat slumped in an old cane chair, staring out the grimy window of his shabby room to a view of the yard and street below. There was nothing much to see, and yet watching others participate in the ordinary daily activities of life had become his sole pastime. Being destitute and too ill to look after himself at the poorhouse, the Overseers of the Poor of the small Virginia town paid one of the townspeople for his room and board. Consequently, Alexander had come to the realization that his declining health and frailty meant he was likely to spend the remainder of his days alone, betrayed and imprisoned by his own body.

Again, his thoughts came unbidden. How is it possible that it's come to this? Once I was a prosperous man, respected and by some loved, only to lose everything and be forgotten and ignored? I was entrusted with crucial missions among the Indians for years after the War for Independence by some of the most important men in government, but now I've been cast away.

Regret felt like a heavy stone lying on his chest as he thought of the women who loved him and the sons and daughters that grew to adulthood while he was away, always leaving for one reason or another. Four wives, five daughters, and two sons, and yet he was utterly and completely alone. He took in a deep slow breath, letting out a shuddering sigh.

Alexander grimaced as he moved back from the window to reposition his leg that rested on an old crate. The leg, swollen and useless, had made it almost impossible for him to navigate the stairs and leave his room on the top floor of the two-story wooden house. Feeling both trapped by his failing body and discarded, he again asked himself how his life had become so unbearable.

Hearing the crack of an axe splitting wood, he leaned forward again to peer out to the yard below. His landlord, a husky man, wide in chest, picked up another piece of wood and set it on a massive stump. He paused in his work to raise his arm and wipe the perspiration from his brow, then he rolled up each sleeve of his sweat-soaked shirt. Raising his axe, he swung it down to split the log expertly and tossed the pieces onto the growing pile in the back of the farm wagon. When full, the man, Henry Brown, would deliver the wood to many of the townspeople without woodlots of their own. This supplemented the modest living he earned making sturdy tables, chairs, and benches for folks with the means to buy them.

Emerging from the shadow of the huge elm tree in the yard, Alexander saw the woman he knew only as Mary, who cooked and kept house. She stepped to the well, attached the bucket, and turned the crank to lower and fill it. When removing the full pail, water sloshed onto the skirt of her dress, leaving small drops that quickly disappeared in the warmth of the afternoon sun. She wiped her hands on her apron then reached up to brush from her eyes several strands of light-brown hair that had escaped from the tight bun at her neck. Alexander saw her glance up briefly to his window as though she sensed he was watching her, so he quickly withdrew from view. He could still see her, however, as she bent down to pick up the pail of water and turned toward the modest unpainted house.

I think she once may have been a handsome woman, he mused. But who could tell? She rarely lifts her head and has the look of someone who has seen much in life, which has brought her low.

It was then that Alexander heard the clacking of a stick as it traveled along the pickets of a neighbor's fence. A barefoot young boy sauntered into view, tossed the small branch aside and, straightening, greeted his grandfather. Brown said nothing but nodded before returning to his work. The boy stood and watched for a few minutes, almost like a lapdog waiting for a pat on the head from his master, but Alexander neither saw nor heard any further exchange. Mary called from the house, and the boy, without hesitation, dashed to the side door, out of sight. Letting the flimsy curtain fall into place, Alexander leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

*****

The boy, Thomas, trudged up the stairs that led to a loft bedroom as if a doomed man climbing to the gallows. It wasn't that his chores were that taxing, but he hated the daily task of visiting the old man's room to bring him his dinner bowl and retrieve his stinking chamber pot. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the old codger had a foul odor and snapped at him if he spoke to him at all.

Thomas knocked lightly on the worn wooden door at the top of the stairs. There was no answer. The door, being poorly hung, never closed completely, so he timidly pushed it open a bit and peered inside.

The light was dim; just a few pale beams of sunlight made their way through the dingy window and partially illuminated the old man sitting in the battered chair.

S-sir, I have your food.

Again, no answer. Just a faint rustle came from the corner of the stuffy room, which looked as though it had not seen a dust rag in years. Sneezing, the boy stepped inside.

Wrinkling his nose, he noticed that the room had the sour smell of neglect and inattention to any aspect of cleanliness. In the corner, the old rope bed sagged enough to almost touch the floor beneath and was nothing more than a jumble of dirty cloth on the broken-down mattress. A cracked pitcher and chipped washbowl accompanied the stub of a candle and an old pipe. The remaining ashes of its most recent use joined the smattering of dust on a small table, the only piece of furniture in the room other than the chair and bed.

S-sir, I-I brought your food. Thomas hated that he stuttered when he became nervous, and the old man always made him so.

As the old man turned, Thomas took in his appearance. Long unkempt hair that was mostly white partially obscured the thin line of a scar tracing from his ear down the length of his neck on one side. It reminded him of the meandering path taken by the garden snake he had seen earlier that day. Deep shadows under hooded eyes with a maze of creases gave evidence of his many years. Ragged nails on spotted hands rested on a shapeless paunch that seemed to have shriveled a bit in the past months.

Noticing his apparel, the boy wondered why such a poor man dressed the way he did. The old man wore the remnants of a fine vest over a well-made shirt and breeches, although these were worn beyond repair. There were no stockings on his bare legs. He had on his feet a pair of stained deer hide moccasins, but they seemed out of place with his other clothing.

S-sir? Your f-food?

Set it there. Alexander pointed disinterestedly to the table. Then go and take my pot with you.

It was then that Thomas saw for the first time the large, battered