Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

It was during the incumbency of Dr. Junkin that the college, which for two years was conducted on a farm south of the Lehigh, was moved to the present site, on what has since been known as College Hill Easton, and Old South College built. President and Mrs. Junkin and their seven children moved into the original building, where they continued to reside until March 30, 1841, when the doctor accepted the presidency of Miami College, Oxford, O.

It was during her residence at Easton that Margaret and her sister, Eleanor, became members of the First Presbyterian Church and that her first productions in verse appeared in the columns of a local newspaper; they were “Childhood,” “The Forest Grave” and “Where Dwelleth the Scent of the Rose.” After her removal to Oxford, O., she wrote “Lines Written on Reading Letters Bringing Sad News From Easton.”

In 1844 Dr. Junkin returned to Easton to again assume the presidency of Lafayette College, in which position he capably served until 1848, when he accepted the presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Va.

Upon Margaret Junkin’s return to Easton, she wrote “Love’s Tribute to the Departed,” occasioned by the death of an intimate friend, and “The Fate of a Raindrop.” These were followed after removing to Lexington, by “Thoughts Suggested by Powers’ Proserpine,” “The Old Dominion,” “The Solaced Grief,” “Galileo Before the Inquisition,” and “The Polish Boy.”

The life of Margaret Junkin at Lexington differed from that which she experienced as a young girl at Germantown, Easton and Oxford. She had reached the age of twenty-eight, and the old town in the Shenandoah Valley, with its educational institutions, social atmosphere and local culture brought many interesting persons as visitors, not to speak of the quaint life among the slaves. This all appealed to her. She entered into the spirit of this environment to the fullest extent. Her lovely character, unusual attainments, literary and social, were fully recognized at home and abroad.

The death, in 1849, of her brother, Joseph, followed by that of her mother, in 1854, and only a few months later by that of her favorite sister, Eleanor, brought profound grief to the Junkin household.

The sister, Eleanor, survived only a year her marriage to Major Thomas J. Jackson, a graduate of West Point, and then a professor in the Virginia Military Institute, who later achieved fame in the Civil War and gained the sobriquet of “Stonewall Jackson,” second only to his commander-in-chief, Robert E. Lee. After the death of Mrs. Jackson, her husband continued to be a member of Dr. Junkin’s household for four years.

Margaret Junkin married, August 3, 1857, Major T. L. Preston, professor of Latin in the Virginia Military Institute, a widower with seven children. To this family she proved to be an affectionate and devoted mother.

Two sons were born to Major and Margaret Junkin Preston—George Junkin Preston, for many years a successful specialist in nervous diseases at Baltimore, now deceased, and Herbert Preston, now General Solicitor for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.

The war clouds were lowering for a bitter conflict between the North and South, and the Junkin family became divided. The father, Rev. George Junkin, a pronounced abolitionist and opposed to secession, resigned the presidency of Washington College, and, with his widowed daughter departed for Philadelphia.