Submitted by Phyllis Dye Slater for the Marshall County WVGenWeb.

DRUSILLA BUKEY McMAHON WELLS (Nov. 25, 1815-Feb. 24, 1898)

Drusilla McMahon was born on what is now called "The Austen Farm" in 
Wells Bottom, Marshall County, W. Va.  The farm was a portion of the 
property which her mother, Elizabeth Tomlinson McMahon, had received 
by inheritance from her father, Joseph Tomlinson II.  Drusilla was 
the third child of the four children born to Elzabeth and Joseph Cox 
McMahon.  April 10, 1817, Elizabeth McMahon died, leaving four 
children, William Bukey, aged five, Eliza Ann, aged three, Drusilla, 
aged eighteen months and Elizabeth, or Betsy as she was familiarly 
called, a baby of three weeks.  The grandmother, Elizabeth Hartness 
Tomlinson who was with her daughter at the time of her death took 
with her to her home in Moundsville, then Grave Creek, William B., 
Eliza Ann, the baby Elizabeth (Betsy) and the nurse.  Joseph 
Tomlinson III, an uncle of the children who had come to the funeral 
of his sister, took with him the child Drusilla.  He traveled in a 
buggy from Wells Bottom to his home four miles below Williamstown 
(now the house is within the corporation on the top of an elevation 
overlooking the Ohio River).  He cared for her all her life as if she 
were his own child.  Drusilla was taught at home until she was old 
enough to go to school at Fort Harmer across the river.  Every 
morning and evening so long as the weather permitted a colored man 
ferried her across the river and in severe weather she boarded at a 
hotel in Harmer.  November 30, 1817, Joseph C. McMahon married Ann 
Hurst, of Grave Creek.   Soon after their marriage they visited 
Joseph Tomlinson III.  Drusilla was then but two years old.  At the 
table the first day of their visit something occurred which 
displeased the child and she left the dining room in high ill humor.  
She was out of the cellar door pounding her heels and crying.  There 
she was found by her new mother who said, 'If I had you, my lady, I 
would take the capers out of you.'  'Yes,' said Drusilla, 'but you 
haven't got me.'  Then overcome by fear that she might get her, she 
ran to her uncle.  Uncle was extremely amused at the little incident 
and gathering her in his arms assured her that she should stay with 
him.  With that assurance she was content.  Often he would take her 
in his arms and say 'But she didn't get you, did she?'  This remark 
was always followed by an admonitory shake of the head by his wife 
for putting such notions into a child's head.  Drusilla and her uncle 
were close friends, an unusual bond of sympathy existing between 
them.  Joseph's only child, Elizabeth, who married when but seventeen 
years of age to George W. Henderson, left the home with no other 
child but Drusilla.  So about her was centered the interest of the 
home.  In summer she was taught cooking, sewing, spinning and the 
general management of a house.  While the hard work was done by the 
colored servants, she helped her aunt, who was a delicate woman, in 
overseeing.  She was an especially good sewer.  One of her special 
duties was to cut the clothing for the colored people and to teach 
and over-see the women in the making of the garments.  One story of 
her school days she delighted to tell.  Surrounding the school yard 
was a picket fence.  When the children were playing it was their 
custom to hang caps and bonnets on the fence.  In those days cows and 
pigs were permitted the freedom of the street.  One cow in particular 
seemed to take delight in chewing the garments left by the children 
in their haste when the school bell rang telling them recess was 
over.  One day Drusilla wore a new pink sun bonnet, the old one had 
been destroyed by the same cow.  Uncle had admonished her to take 
good care of this one and of course she promised faithfully to take 
good care of this one.  But alas for promises!  The bonnet was hung 
on the fence as before and as before was forgotten.  When school was 
over a search revealed no bonnet.  The cow had eaten it - if one 
could call it eating.  Drusilla was in tears - partly sorrow, partly 
anger.  Upon reaching home she confided her loss into the sympathetic 
ear of her uncle.  He thought up a plan by which the cow would be 
taught a lesson.   They asked Aunt for a piece of linen, not telling 
her the use for which it was intended.  In it they put some red 
pepper.  The next morning Drusilla fastened the little bag to a 
picket, not mentioning the fact to anyone.  After a while when the 
children were sitting quietly in school they heard an awful roar and 
all the children and teacher rushed out to see what dreadful thing 
had happened.  They found the poor cow down by the small creek which 
ran near the school house burying its head in the cool water then 
rising to giveforth that awful roar.  Never had Drusilla realized the 
length of a cow's tongue.  That night the whole story was told to 
Uncle Joe and when Aunt did finally hear of the deed, she shook her 
head and said 'Shamie! Shamie!'  The cow had learned her lesson and 
never again molested the children's garments from that day.  February 
17, 1836 she married Rolla Niven Wells, whose first wife was her 
cousin, Mary Riggs.  Lemuel Wells, Rolla's brother had married her 
sister Eliza Ann McMahon in July of the previous year 1835.  Drusilla 
went to reside after her marriage - which event occurred at the home 
of her Uncle Joe Tomlinson - at Wells Bottom on his farm which 
adjoined the farm on which she was born.  Joseph Tomlinson III was 
the guardian for his sisters children and when they married, he 
returned to them all of the property left to them with the increase.  
He had cared for them and educated them without any charge 
whatsoever.  Drusilla entered immediately upon the duties of the 
home.  Rolla had during his widowerhood left his two children, 
Elizabeth D. and Mary Isabelle, with their grandmother, Lucy 
Tomlinson Hoskinson.  Upon his marriage he brought them home.  With 
these two children, aged three and one and one half years 
respectively, a farm-hand and Betsy ( Joe her brother) colored people 
beside her husband, Drusilla age twenty took up her duties of 
homemaker.  In those early times these duties were many and varied.  
She dyed the wool, had women come to the home to spin the wool.  Ann 
Kemp was one of the last of these who came to do spinning.  When the 
yarn was ready she and her husband would go back on the hills to take 
it to people who made it their business to weave it into cloth or 
blankets.  The house where she lived when she was first married, was 
a large hewed log house.   It was situated below where the old barn 
stood (when we were children).  The situation was pleasant.  Nothing 
now remains of this house but the foundation stones of the cellar and 
some York and Lancaster rose bushes which grew beside the old 
chimney.  In September, 1855 they moved into the brick house where 
they lived until her death.  All of the children were born in the log 
house except Joseph T.  The new house was two years in building.  
During the first year bricks were made.  The clay being taken from a 
nearby field.  The stone was quarried from the face of the hill back 
of Charles Prather Wells' house.  The cellar was dug and the cellar 
wall was built.  The wood was bought from a pine raft which had come 
down from the Alleghany River.  During this year the woodwork was 
made by hand, of course.  The next year the house was built and 
completed by the time the winter 'set in.'  All the working men, 
masons, carpenters, stone-cutters, those who burned the brick beside 
the farm hands were lodged and boarded at the Wells house.  Such a 
busy time.  Besides this host of men there were nine children in the 
family, the youngest a child of eleven months (Rachel) when the house 
was finished.  Joseph T. was born in the new house.  Life in the new 
house was much easier because of the ample space and the many 
conveniences which Rolla, unlike many farmers, was always making 
around the house.  There was a well-sweep just off the porch 90 feet 
deep, a pump on the back porch with a pipe to carry water to the pig 
pen, a wash cellar was paved with brick from the old school house, 
which Rolla had had built on the road when the main road was along 
the Ohio River.  In those days there were no public schools. After 
the river road was abandoned and public schools were organized Rolla 
used the brick to pave the floor of the cellar.  The Wells home was 
famous for its hospitality and many were the house-parties which were 
made up of relatives from New Martinsville or Sistersville.  The poor 
relatives as well as those in more affluent circumstances were alike 
welcomed.  When the relatives from 'the west' came back to Virginia 
to visit 'Uncle Rolla's' was the stopping place.  After the war when 
many of the young men who had served in the Confederate Army could 
not stay at their own homes they came to stay until the bitter 
feeling had somewhat subsided.  The oldest son, Ephraim Owings, spent 
four years in the confederate army.  He was wounded and his mother 
went to nurse him.  One of the Cresap boys (Quince) was also wounded 
and sister Ophelia went to take care of him.  Ephraim met many of his 
relatives in the army and formed many strong friendships which lasted 
through life.  When tidings came that Ephraim was wounded Drusilla 
went to Belleville, Ohio to hear further news.  Another time she went 
to Cameron to nurse her husbands nephew, Quincy Cresap, who had 
broken his leg trying to escape from a train which was surrounded by 
Federal troops.  She cared for him until his sister Ophelia came to 
take care of him.  When Hardesty Talbot and his family came back from 
Missouri in November 1864, having suffered so much at the hands of 
the Union men that he could not stay in that neighborhood, he came to 
stay with his wife's father.  He and his wife and five children, 
Charles Prather (Wells) and his wife, Belle Leep, who was married, 
Oct 24, 1864 and lived at home until their house was finished during 
the next summer.  The family, the school teacher, the servant girl 
and the hired man made up a family of twenty-one for the winter.  
There was much company during this winter for many came to hear of 
the persecution in Missouri.  In 1863 Uncle William Shaw from 
Missouri spent the winter because of the bitter feeling.  Dudley 
Wells also spent the winter because of the bitter feeling with his 
brother Charles Claypole Wells (Great Uncle Charles) grandchildren 
called him.  After the war, Joseph McMahon, a nephew from Ravenswood, 
Absalom and Phillip Wells from Belleville, Hagan Wells also from down 
the river, stayed at different times when the unpleasantness 
following the war made it expedient for these relatives to leave 
home.  Lucy Virginia Wells, daughter of Dudley Wells, spent a year 
visiting in Virginia.  Will Ogden, Elizabeth's step-son also visited 
for a winter and summer at the Rolla Wells home.  In 1861, Betsy Rice 
came to her sisters home to die.  After a long illness (of 
consumption) through which she was tendrly nursed by her sister, she 
recovered sufficiently to travel.  She went to her daughter Maria 
Price's home in Quincy, Illinois.  After recovering her health she 
went to St. Louis to go as a nurse among the soldiers.  Ephraim 
Owings Wells and his wife, Virginia Simms, spent the two years 
succeeding his marriage in 1866 at his fathers house.  He then moved 
into the house on his mothers farm on which Rolla had had built a 
tenant's house.  He lived there until he moved to Nevada.  In 1864 
Amanda, the third child died of consumption in the twenty-fourth year 
ofher age.  She was a most lovable character, gentle in manner and of 
great assistance to her mother in the training and care of the 
younger children.  She was a beautiful needle-woman and did much of 
the fine sewing and embroidering for the family.  Rachel always held 
her in loving rememberance for it was she who taught her to read and 
sew.  Rachel did not go to school until after Amanda's death and she 
felt her loss during her whole life and would often speak of her with 
great affection.  The children were well educated for the time and 
circumstances in which the family lived.  They attended a 
'subscription school' which was always taught by a well-eduated man 
or woman.  The older students were taught the branches usually taught 
in secondary schools.  Rolla Wells built a better brick school on the 
bank of the river by the public road.  There the older pupils 
attended school.  Afterward the school house was abandoned.  When the 
county road was moved back to its present situation Rachel McMechen 
Wells, Rolla's mother, gave 3/4 acres 'to be used for a school or for 
religious purposes.  The octagonal school, was built in this form to 
throw light into the room, a window put into each panel for this 
purpose.  The school house was built of brick covered with plaster.   
Mr. John Scott, who had been reading of this new building material 
was the builder.  He read also of putting a certain form of pitch-tar 
preparation on the roof instead of slate which was hard to obtain in 
those days.  Rolla, when he was building his brick house, used it on 
the roof.  Whenever there was need to go on the roof, the pitch 
material was tracked down.  Afterward Rolla had a new story or attic 
and roof built but the old roof remained to my day to pester the 
family whenever anyone went to the attic.  I do not remember if any 
religious services were held in that building but I remember that 
services were held in the public school building.  Georgannia H. 
Wells was active in the work of looking after the Sunday School 
teachers and getting Methodist ministers to come.  They stay of 
course at the Wells house.  Many times Mr. Scott gave talks to the 
pupils on good citizenship and good manners.  He made a 'stile' for 
the entrance to the school-yard instead of a gate - the first in the 
neighborhood.  At the road in front of the Rolla Wells house was a 
platform with three steps leading up to it from which the women could 
mount the horses.  In those days people rode horseback, or in buggies 
or walked.  Among the teachers who taught in the 'subscription 
school' were Miss Mary Black of Connecticut, Miss Kiniball from N.Y. 
state, Miss Wallace from Moundsville.  When the public schools were 
opened the standard of the school rapidly declined, the teachers were 
crude and illiterate.  Then the families began to send their children 
away to school.  The older children were sent away to finish their 
educations.  Ephriam O. went to Bethany.  Charles P. to New 
Martinsville, where there was a good school.  But he never cared to 
go to school and he was especially indifferent after he hurt his eye 
by striking himself with the lash of a whip.  Elizabeth went to 
'subscription school' in New Martinsville. The teachers were from New 
England and were well educated.  She stayed with her grandmother Lucy 
Hoskinson.  Mary Isabelle went to school in Wheeling and after the 
death of her aunt Alivia Wells Pollack who lived in Wheeling, both 
girls came to Marietta where they attended the 'Seminary.'  In 
pleasant weather they stayed with Joseph Tomlinson III and in stormy 
weather they stayed at the hotel in Harmer.  Georgianna H. Wells went 
to Mont de Chauntal where also went Martha Nesbit and Virginia Simms 
who while there joined the Roman Catholic church and reared their 
children in that faith.  Friend Cox Wells went to West Liberty, Maria 
Camilla also went to West Liberty and while there met David H. Arrick 
who she afterward married.  Rachel Alivia Wells attended the Female 
Seminary College at Wheeling.  On her trips on 'the Hope', a 
steamboat which went from Parkersburg to Wheeling, she made the 
acquaintence of the first clerk, Arthur W. Hutchison.  It was the 
custom in those days for women traveling alone on a steamboat to be 
placed in the care of the captain or 1st clerk and to sit at the 
captains' table.  After Rachel became acquainted with Arthur 
Hutchison and meeting him on her trips back and forth from Wheeling 
they became engaged.  Ther were engaged for three years then they 
decided to marry.  She stopped going to school before she was 
graduated.  In those days people thought a married woman did not need 
an education to keep house and rear children.  Rachel always 
regretted the fact that she did not finish her course.  And she 
decided that if she had any children they would have as good an 
education as the times and circumstances could afford.  Her decision 
to live in Marietta was made after her family returned from a short 
stay in Chattanooga, Tenn.  She decided upon Marietta as a place of 
residence because there is a college to which she could send her 
children.   Joseph Tomlinson went to school at Waynesburg, Penn.  
After the death of Rolla Wells from a stroke, he had several during a 
spring and summer, his wife, Drusilla, took charge of the estate.  He 
died July 8, 1871.  He was accustomed to ride horseback about his 
estate watching the progress of the crops and consulting with his 
tenants.  Drusilla did not wish him to take these trips alone so 
Rachel was the one who accompanied him.  The conversations between 
father and daughter during these trips made an impression upon 
Rachel's mind and heart.  He drew her attention to the beauties of 
nature, the turn of a leaf, the different kinds of trees, the kinds 
of herbs used for medical purposes, the people on the farms.  Through 
it all ran his kindly philosophy of life which she could not have 
learned in any other way, and it drew them very close together and 
had a great infuence upon her wholesome outlook on life at a very 
impressionable period of her life.  Since there were so many heirs, 
Drusilla decided to sell all of the household goods and buy in what 
she needed and could afford.  She said afterwards that she should 
have bought in all of the furniture but she felt at the time that she 
could not buy all that she wanted and still be independant.  She sold 
all the horses and farming untensils.  She was very exact and careful 
in all her business dealings.  The clerk of the court said that 
during the many years of his experience but one estate had been 
settled up with as little friction as the Rolla Wells estate, and he 
complimented Mrs. Wells upon her tact and business ability.  The 
constant work and worry told upon her health and for a number of 
years she was in feeble health.  Later I shall write my recollections 
of my grandmother and her home when as a child, I spent a month 
during the summer ihn her home.  

[The material in the foregoing paper was told to J. D. H. by her mother,
Rachel Wells Hutchison.  The paper was never completed.]