Our family being large, my parents allowed me to go into the country (Worcester County), at the early age of seven. I was educated a paper-maker previous to entering upon a course of liberal education. Thus separated from home, I had less knowledge of our ancestry than might otherwise have been the case. Supposing that my surviving brother at Mobile has better information regarding our ancestry than I have, I take the liberty of forwarding your letter to him, requesting him to supply any intelligence he may have at hand. He having been long a resident there, and loyal to the Union, is an ex-Mayor of the city, appointed by Gen. Pope, and is at present, happily for him, Judge of Probate for the County. His address is "Hon. Gustavus Horton, Mobile, Alabama." From him you will probably hear soon. Wishing you much success in your laudable investigations, and quite willing to recognize any of our cousins in the Keystone State,
I am yours, &c.,
F. HORTON.
The Rev. Francis Horton, writer of the foregoing letter, was one of the excellent of the earth. He was a scholar and quite a poet, and an able and much loved minister of the Word. He died in 1873. It is highly probable that he was a descendant of Joshua I.
In connexion with this, we give the following thrilling article, which was published in the Boston Watchman and Reflector, soon after the barbarous murder of the Rev. Jotham Horton:
LAST HOURS OF A NEW ORLEANS MARTYR.
AN AFFECTING SKETCH.
"Good-by, Emma," he said, "I shall not be gone long. It can't take more than ten minutes to open the Convention, and then I shall come right away. Look for me at three o'clock, at farthest," and the young pastor kissed his wife and hurried away to the city.
That day was destined to be one among the most memorable in the annals of human wickedness since the famous St. Bartholomew's. The members of the Union Convention had looked forward to it with apprehension. They knew that the spirit of the late rebellion still survived in New Orleans, and they could not hope that they should be permitted to assemble without some molestation from disorderly individuals, but they had no suspicions that the masses of the city would rise against them, organized for deliberate bloodshed. They did not know that all the arms had been bought up, till the gun-shops contained not so much as a pocket-pistol. They did not know that the Mayor had telegraphed to the President that there would certainly be a riot, and had received the assurance that the military would not interfere with the civil power. They did not know that the police force had been increased by the addition of a gang of blood-thirsty men, and that the municipal authorities had agreed upon signals, and arranged to begin the riot themselves. Watched by no suspicion, and awed by no Butler's strong right hand, the conspirators were suffered to perfect their preparations, and when the morning of the 30th of July dawned, the treacherous officials appeared at the station-house fully armed, and waiting the opportunity for their bloody work.
The pastor of the Colleseum Baptist Church, Rev. Jotham W. Horton, had been requested to open the Convention with prayer. Moved by the warmest Christian sympathy for the freedmen, this young New England minister had gone to the South with his wife, to give his best energies to their welfare. He was a man of sincere piety and a large heart; pure as a little child, self-denying where duty was concerned to an extent that often made him suffer, and so peaceable that though repeatedly insulted, and even once fired upon, and though conscious that he was fatally marked by malignant disloyalists, he would never go armed.