Finding Aids: Pathways to Georgia History
Cumming Letters: 183 A European Traveler
183.
1855, September 26 – Paris, Jos. B. Cumming to Mrs. Julia A. Cumming, Augusta, Georgia. Worried about Tom’s sickness in Tennessee; hopes Sand Hills will restore his strength. She should not worry about his finding life irksome after 3 years in Europe. Life in America is more active and exciting. Shall be older than the other men studying law when he returns. Emmie tells him that Harf is going to college; asks to let him know which one and all about it. Went to see Mrs. La Vert of Mobile. She asked about her, then relinquished him to Miss Octavia a young lady of 17 or 18. She’s pretty enough to make one look with surprise. She talked incessantly for the rest of the visit. ALS - from calendar compiled by Mary Ann Cashin
library of congress photo of the Arch Carousel
Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress. LC-USZ62-63736 (b&w film copy neg.) Photograph by Edouard Baldus and taken between 1851-1870
Octavia Walton LeVert was renowned in America and Europe as an intellectual and a beauty. A native Augustan, Mrs. LeVert would have already been acquainted with the Cumming family. For more on Octavia Walton LeVert, read Martha Jacquelyn Craven’s A Portrait of Octavia. Richmond County History. 1972 4:2 p.4-11 or LeVert’s own Souvenirs of Travel S.C. D919 .L65. Portrait reprinted from Richmond County History 1972 4:2
The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition describes the Grand Tour as “a tour of the principal cities and places of interest in Europe, formerly supposed to be an essential part of the education of young men of good birth or fortune.” When Joseph B. Cumming saw Paris as part of his Grand Tour in 1855 the Arc de Triomphe had only been completed for 19 years.