Peake - Stiles - Person Sheet
Peake - Stiles - Person Sheet
NameEliza Jane (Duck) BEELER 
Birth1848
Death1905
FatherCharles BEELER (1823-1864)
MotherMary Ann STILES (1825-1896)
Misc. Notes
Eliza Jane climbed down from the stile and ran with her pigtails flying behind as she tried to gain the shelter of her home in a hurry. As she entered the hall the sound of that tall captain’s voice still rang in her ears as he said, “Little girl, you’d better go to the house; some of these men might hurt you.”
She could still hear the tramping of the marching men wearing blue uniforms led by the captain. She knew, somehow, that she shouldn’t have yelled, “Hurrah for Jefferson Davis!” as she had done.
To ease her fast beating heart she ran clear through the long hall to the back of the house and down the slope outside all the way to the shady bank of the Rolling Fork River. She forgot her fat chubby legs in her haste until she flopped on the bank in the shade of a tree along the edge of the river.
The dust raised by the feet of the marching men filled the air and Eliza felt her feet burning. Without a second thought she tore off her high topped shoes and long stockings and swung her feet into the water. It was cool and refreshing and eased her hurry and bustle till she drifted into reverie which she so often had done during this hot summer.
Her 13th birthday in February had not been too happy. Several things had interfered with the usual carefree celebration which the Beeler family enjoyed on the family birthdays. Her father’s strange preoccupation and seeming indifference began to puzzle her again as it had so often done lately.
She sat moodily stirring the water with her feet, completely relaxed except for changing her position to ease the discomfort in her arm. Her thoughts wandered to Josh, the slave boy her age….Josh, the merry one who had jokingly leveled the family shotgun at her when she had insisted on emptying the dishwater, which was his duty.
His distress when he learned the gun had filled her shoulder and arm with buckshot still came to her mind when the pain in her arm returned. Now she wondered where in the South he could be. His disposition and hers were so compatible that her heart was almost broken when the family had decided to sell him south because of the bad feeling against him. They hadn’t waited to learn that she would recover even if her shoulder and arm were full of buckshot.
She felt that Josh’s mother must know where he was, but she was always silent when questioned about him and just shook her head.
Eliza didn’t blame Josh for the loaded gun. He thought it was as it should be, hanging up empty and she knew she did him an injury when she insisted on doing what was his duty. But she never, never got to help keep house!
Eliza Jane’s father, Charles Beeler, was with John Hunt Morgan for two years. He then joined another unit of the Confederate army and was killed in l864. The family never learned where. He has a tombstone by his wife’s, but he’s not buried there. Mary Ann Stiles Beeler brought her children up alone.
Eliza Jane later married the Captain who marched by her house a decade earlier. (m. May 1875, to Samuel Wilson Moore of Greensburg.) They produced five children, one of whom, Mary Margaret Moore, married Campbellville’s Abel Turner Harding in l907.
She could still hear the tramping of the marching men wearing blue uniforms led by the captain. She knew, somehow, that she shouldn’t have yelled, “Hurrah for Jefferson Davis!” as she had done.
To ease her fast beating heart she ran clear through the long hall to the back of the house and down the slope outside all the way to the shady bank of the Rolling Fork River. She forgot her fat chubby legs in her haste until she flopped on the bank in the shade of a tree along the edge of the river.
The dust raised by the feet of the marching men filled the air and Eliza felt her feet burning. Without a second thought she tore off her high topped shoes and long stockings and swung her feet into the water. It was cool and refreshing and eased her hurry and bustle till she drifted into reverie which she so often had done during this hot summer.
Her 13th birthday in February had not been too happy. Several things had interfered with the usual carefree celebration which the Beeler family enjoyed on the family birthdays. Her father’s strange preoccupation and seeming indifference began to puzzle her again as it had so often done lately.
She sat moodily stirring the water with her feet, completely relaxed except for changing her position to ease the discomfort in her arm. Her thoughts wandered to Josh, the slave boy her age….Josh, the merry one who had jokingly leveled the family shotgun at her when she had insisted on emptying the dishwater, which was his duty.
His distress when he learned the gun had filled her shoulder and arm with buckshot still came to her mind when the pain in her arm returned. Now she wondered where in the South he could be. His disposition and hers were so compatible that her heart was almost broken when the family had decided to sell him south because of the bad feeling against him. They hadn’t waited to learn that she would recover even if her shoulder and arm were full of buckshot.
She felt that Josh’s mother must know where he was, but she was always silent when questioned about him and just shook her head.
Eliza didn’t blame Josh for the loaded gun. He thought it was as it should be, hanging up empty and she knew she did him an injury when she insisted on doing what was his duty. But she never, never got to help keep house!
Eliza Jane’s father, Charles Beeler, was with John Hunt Morgan for two years. He then joined another unit of the Confederate army and was killed in l864. The family never learned where. He has a tombstone by his wife’s, but he’s not buried there. Mary Ann Stiles Beeler brought her children up alone.
Eliza Jane later married the Captain who marched by her house a decade earlier. (m. May 1875, to Samuel Wilson Moore of Greensburg.) They produced five children, one of whom, Mary Margaret Moore, married Campbellville’s Abel Turner Harding in l907.