Tallahassee, Fla., Oct. 20, 1872.
Major Geo. E. Tommey, Tommeysville, via Louisville, Ga.
My Dear Sir: Eneas, your old negro, whose name I had forgotten until I read your
letter in a local paper, was on my plantation near here in '65. He came here very blue and utterly discouraged from Thomasville, Ga. Said he was looking for a little Thomasville owned by Major George E. Tommey. He brought a letter from a friend of mine. There are no Tommeys in this county, and no Thomasville, and not knowing what to do with him, I passed him along to Colonel Chairs, a friend in Washington County, which is on the gulf coast. Chairs wrote me that he had had a great deal of fun out of Eneas. The gulf astonished him. He declared solemnly that he knew he was in the wrong Washington, because there were no oranges, or scrub palmettoes, or big green spiders (crabs) in his, and the water had no salt in it. Eneas talked a good deal of Macon and Louisville, and there being a county and town so named, besides another Thomasville, to the north in Alabama,
Chairs started him up that way. I am truly sorry the old man came to grief. He was a harmless old fellow, though a picturesque liar, as are many old negroes when they talk of their white folks.
It is possible that Eneas had a trunk, but I have no recollection of seeing one in his possession.
Yours very truly,
Randolph Thomas.
Louisville, Ala., Oct. 28, 1872.
Major Tommey, Louisville, Ga.