Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Felix Holt, author

It was indeed Felix Holt who wrote and told our story.  He was born in Murray, Calloway County, Kentucky in 1898.  From his father he learned to appreciate great literature, but was destined to complete his formal education with high school.  It was perhaps experience rather than education which proved to be the most valuable asset to Felix Holt.

He was a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper in Paris, during WW I.  This led him to serve as a cartoonist and later as a reporter for the newspapers in Chicago following the War.  He moved to Detroit and wrote for the Detroit News and Detroit Times in the 1920s.  He began his career in radio in the 1930s and became chief writer for the Lone Ranger serial which had originated from Detroit.

He drew on the family reminiscences and legends handed down from his pioneer ancestors in Kentucky to produce his first novel, The Gabriel Horn in 1951.  The Gabriel Horn is the story of “the last immense wilderness of western Kentucky – the Jackson Purchase country”.  The Gabriel Horn made it to the movies as “The Kentuckian” in 1955 starring Burt Lancaster.  Holt’s second book, Daniel Boone Kissed Me, came out in 1954, shortly before his death.   Holt died in Bucks County Pennsylvania June 2, 1954 at the age of 56.

(This posting adapted from the article by Danny R. Hatcher which appeared in the Jackson Purchase Sesquicentennial Publication, 1969, of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society.  The above picture accompanied the article and carried this caption:  Photograph taken during the 1920s.  Photograph courtesy of Mrs. Louise Holt Dick of Murray, KY.)

From the Mayfield Monitor, Saturday, April 23, 1881:  “Mrs. Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Brigham Young, will lecture in Mayfield about the 12th of May.”

What would the wife of Brigham Young be doing on the lecture circuit and why come to Mayfield? Ann Eliza went on the lecture circuit speaking out against polygamy, Mormonism, and Brigham Young after her divorce from Young and excommunication from the Latter Day Saints Church.  The divorce and excommunication make her an instant celebrity.

Born September 12, 1844 in Nauvoo, Illinois, Ann Eliza, at 4 years of age, went to Salt Lake City with her Mormon parents.  Married at 19 and having two children, she divorced her husband when he apparently wanted to take a second wife.   Married to then 67 year old Brigham Young when she was a 24 year old divorcee, Ann Eliza filed for divorce from Young in 1873, was excommunicated from the LDS Church in October 0f 1874, and divorced in January 1875.  She testified before Congress in 1875 for which she is credited with contributing to the passage of laws against polygamy.  Her lecture circuit appearances centered on three (3) themes, but her appeal increased dramatically when she published, in 1876, her exceedingly successful book, Wife No. 19; or the Story of a Life in Bondage.  Moving to Michigan, Ann Eliza married a third time, to Moses R. Denning, whom she divorced in 1893.  A revised version of her book was published in 1908 but it was not as successful as the original.  For all this notoriety, Ann Eliza died in obscurity.

Why did she come to Mayfield?  Again, from the Mayfield Monitor, Saturday, March 31, 1877, an obituary:  “Mr. John D. Lee, Mormon priest who was shot in Utah Territory last week was born and raised in southern part of Graves County.  He was son of John Lee, one of the first merchants of Feliciana and up to 1845 resided near here.  Went to Utah and afterwards returned.  Married a Florida lady and farmed near Water Valley.  He stayed there some time and moved to Utah.”   Is there some connection, church affiliation or otherwise, between Ann Eliza’s scheduled appearance and this Mormon priest’s relatives in Graves County?  Cursory research didn’t uncover any.  Do you know?

Incidentially, it is not known if Ann Eliza actually made the scheduled appearance in Mayfield as subsequent research didn’t uncover reports of such an event.

(This posting created from the following sources:  Graves Co. KY Newspaper Genealogical Abstracts, Volume 1, Mayfield Monitor, 2-19-1886 to 12-1-1885, copyrighted 1977 by Don Simmons; Internet sources at www.novelguide.com (Ann Eliza (Webb) Young), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Eliza_Young)

Elementary school children know that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492,  but not when the day to celebrate this event was set aside, thus giving them a holiday from school.  A day to commemorate this event wasn’t made a U.S. national holiday until 1937 after intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal benefits organization.  In 1971, the celebratory day was set as the second Monday in October.  This day is also celebrated in Spain, the Bahamas, Costa Rica and other areas of the Americas under similar names and in Canada the U.S. holiday falls on the same day as the Canadian Thanksgiving.

In many cities of the U.S. this day has become a day of celebrating  Italian-American and Catholic heritage because Christopher Columbus was an Italian-born, Catholic, explorer sponsored by the Spanish royalty, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

In the 19th century, anti-immigrant groups rejected the holiday because of its association with Catholicism and most recently Native Americans and other groups protest celebrating this holiday because Columbus’s discovery led, howbeit indirectly, to the colonization of the Americas which resulted in death by European diseases and warfare and the institution of slavery of native peoples.

Regardless of how history treats Columbus and his discovery, it cannot be argued that his voyages to the Americans did light a fire in Old World imaginations which began 150 years of European exploration and colonizations in the Americas.

(This posting created from the following resources: What Every American Should Know About American History, 200 Events that Shaped the Nation, by Dr. Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips, 1992; Internet sources at http://en.wikipedia.org and www.history/com.)

Item in the Mayfield Monitor, Wednesday, February 15, 1893:

“Mittens Willett, well known young actress, died in New York of cancer.  Born in Columbus, Kentucky 30 years ago.  Appeared on the stage under name of Mary Anderson.  In 1884 she married Henry Aveling.  He was a suicide in 1891.  Left a five year old boy.  She was a niece of Col. Len G. Faxon of Paducah” (Graves Co. KY Newspaper Genealogical Abstracts, Volume 3, Mayfield Monitor).

Her obituary in The New York Times, on February 10, 1893, states she made her debut on the stage with Mary Anderson’s company and that she was the daughter of Edward Willett, former editor of the Sunday Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (see The New York Times Internet online archives).

How did Mittens get from Columbus, Kentucky to the Big Apple and was her name really Mittens?  Why is the fact that she is a niece of Col. Len Faxon so important that he is mentioned in her obituary?

Leonard “Len” G. Faxon began the Cairo City Times with William Alexander Hacker in Cairo, Alexander County, Illinois in May 1854.  Faxon left this newspaper in 1855 to begin his own, The Cairo Weekly Delta. When Faxon left the Times he was replaced by Edward Willett.  The two papers merged into the Cairo Weekly Times & Delta and Faxon and Willett published this newspaper and the Tri-Weekly Times Delta.  Faxon moved to Paducah and edited the Paducah Herald sometime after April 1859 (see “A History of Newspapers in Cairo, Alexander County, Illinois, 1841-1881 by Darrel Dexter at http://rootsweb.ancestry.com).

Cursory research does not tell us exactly what happen between Faxon and Willett but it is surmised that Faxon took Willett home to visit his folks where Willett met one of his sisters whom he subsequently married and fathered a daughter sometime around 1860.  In 1880 Edward Willett was in New York with a Kentucky born wife named Dora and a daughter named Mittens, 20 years old (see U.S. Census records online at www.ancestry.com).  But why she was named Mittens or if this is just a nickname has yet to be uncovered.  Mittens was a direct descendant of the famous New York Willett family and both she and her father were buried in the family vault in Marble Cemetery, New York City. (see The New York Times obit).

So we can surmise that Mittens went to New York with her family and made a name for herself on the stage.  She was important to the editor of the Mayfield Monitor because of her link to the Paducah journalist Faxon and her birth in Columbus.

Mittens captures the imagination not only because of her name, ancestry and her acting career but because her New York Times obituary describes a complex talent:  “She was better known as an actress on the road than in this city, though her comely face and bright manners made her a favorite everywhere.  From her father she inherited marked literary tastes.  She was a frequent and a welcome contributor to the various comic papers, such as Puck and Judge, and has written some very acceptable verse for the magazines.”

Unanswered still is the question: where is her son and mother?  Does the Jackson Purchase harbor within its history the continued legacy of this artistic talent or has the thread been knitted up elsewhere?