Poetry, Shillens, and Jerusha Hall Peacock

Jerusha Hall Peacock ca. 1866

The past is not always remembered because of famous people or important battles. Sometimes we remember people from the past because the papers and documents they leave behind reveal their spirit and personality. These documents show a degree of beauty and remind us that our relationships are not so very different from those that people had in the past. Those people created drawings and paintings of the beauty they saw around them. They wrote poems and short little messages to loved ones. Jerusha Hall Peacock is one such individual who never did anything important enough to be mentioned in history books. That is not to say that she was unimportant. Rather, Peacock left behind fragments of her life at Antioch College that reveal who she was and what she was interested in.

            Jerusha Hall Peacock was born on June 20, 1843 in the state of New York. Peacock attended Albany Female Academy, and by early 1865 she was teaching in the Preparatory Department of Antioch College. During that time she wrote many colorful letters to her parents, which included funny little stories about the people she met. For instance, on August 4, 1861 she described a woman who was traveling with her by stage coach. The woman was instructed to call to the driver to make a stop for a fellow passenger. When she was unable to do so, the woman threw her head out of the stage coach to call to the driver. As she did so, she made a horrible choking noise, according to Peacock, and exclaimed that she had swallowed her “shillen.” The money she had swallowed was not one coin, but was in fact “a ten cent piece and two pennies.” 

In another instance, Peacock wrote an intimate poem to her sister that indicates the closeness of their relationship:

“Ah, don’t be sorrowful darling,
And don’t be sorrowful, pray,
Taking the year together my dear,
There isn’t more night than day,

Tis rainy weather, my darling,
Times waves they heartily run;
But taking the year together, my dear
There isn’t more cloud than sun

And God is God, my darling,
Of night as well as day,
And we feel and know that we can go,
Wherever he leads the way,

Sept. 26, 1865 For Anna

Looking through the letters, drawings, poems, and other documents that people, like Jerusha Hall Peacock, kept shows how they lived and what was important to them. It demonstrates the spirit and creativity of an individual that lived a hundred and fifty years ago. Her life is far removed from the ones we lead today. However, beauty can still be discovered in her words and drawings. Her letters and poems to her family and friends show the closeness of those relationships and how those types of relationships have both changed and remain the same.

Jerusha Hall Peacock Sketch. ca. undated

Works Cited
[“For Anna” Poem, Sept. 26, 1865, Box 1, Folder 10], MS-139, Jerusha Hall Peacock Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

[Letter to Mother and Father, August 4, 1861, Box 1, Folder 1], MS-139, Jerusha Hall Peacock Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

[Jerusha Peacock Sketch, Undated, Box 1, Folder 12], MS-139, Jerusha Hall Peacock Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

[Jerusha Peacock Photo, c. 1866, Box 1, Folder 13], MS-139, Jerusha Hall Peacock Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio