19th c Missionary letters from Natal: childbirth, journeys and daguerrotypes

There’s a gap in Charlotte Grout’s letters due to the birth of her daughter, Eliza, as is explained in a letter from Umvoti dated 28 July 1851:

Now my dear little Eliza is seldom willing to allow me time though my strength is increasing. She is at this moment lying on the bed beside me talking, laughing and tossing up her little feet. She is a very sweet child when she is well as she seems to be this evening. She is now 13 weeks old. She has been rather a crying child thus far …

My dear husband never seemed so precious to me as when at my bedside he besought the Lord to have mercy in that time of need. I have very slowly regained my strength, indeed I am not yet strong, but am comfortable. Two weeks ago we had company for a whole week of five or six persons, but Mr. G assisted me, & our girls were very faithful.

Last week we took a journey to Port Natal to obtain supplies, and I think neither myself or baby are any the worse for it. It occupied us the entire week. O!, you cannot fancy what a time we had each night in getting ready to retire, and each morning in dressing and packing up things in riding order. A. & N. had their bed made up on the bottom of the wagon in front, while we & baby slept on our mattresses elevated on a frame about a foot & a half from the bottom. Shawls, blankets & rugs all came in use in hanging up in the wagon to keep out wind and cold. You will probably be surprised to learn that each morning we were up, dressed, and riding often before sunrise, & that too in our winter mornings, when it is sometimes bitter cold. I often thought, & indeed said, that I would not think of taking the journey to Gen. Meeting in Sept. next … distant from us about 80 miles. But I have got home & rested & feel none the worse, so perhaps I shall start again in about five weeks. It is all hard work with children. The traveling & then living in the wagon after we arrive is quite trying, but we need the change. We need to meet the brethren & sisters of the Mission …

Can you believe that your daughter C(harlotte). is 40 years old?! I cannot realize it, and today I was thinking that James is 30. I was surprised to receive his Daguerreotype (sic) & see how old he looks. … Last week we received Oriana’s. How she has grown!

We hear that a man has arrived here from England who has knowledge of this art (daguerrotype) & I hope the time is not far distant when we shall be able to send you ours.

Above left: Charlotte Grout as an older woman.

The photographer to whom Charlotte refers is probably William Waller, who arrived in Natal in May 1851 and advertised in the Natal Witness in August of that year, indicating that he would be taking daguerrotype portraits. (Louis Daguerre had perfected the art, later named after him, in 1839.)

The Oriana mentioned is Oriana Grout (she never used her other forename, Relief) Aldin's daughter by his first wife.

Rev Aldin Grout and family in Natal mid 19th c.

Charlotte Grout wasn’t the only correspondent in the family: despite his busy schedule, Aldin Grout also managed to write home occasionally – even to the Baileys, his parents’ in-law.

In a letter from Umvoti, July 1850, to Mrs James Bailey, Rev Grout gives a clear picture of the isolation endured by the American missionaries on their rural stations:

Having written thus far, I went to Mr. L. Grant’s station to attend a meeting of the contiguous missionaries to see if we might not form ourselves into a sort of association for mutual improvement but as it happened instead of six or seven members present as we had hoped, we had but three. The distance is such that starting at about nine in the morning, I arrived only at about four in the afternoon riding on horseback, and this perhaps my nearest missionary neighbor, though two others, Mr. Tyler and Abraham will be about the same distance from me.

Agricultural skills or a knowledge of crafts such as building and carpentry were often of more value in the mission field than an academic education. Aldin Grout, like most missionaries, was able to undertake a variety of practical tasks. In 1848 he describes his building operations at Umvoti:

If my house when done is not as well finished as a workman would do it yet I swear that every part of it shall be strong, durable, and comfortable. The walls are of brick made of ant hill dried in the sun. My boys [i.e. Africans living at the mission] have made them all. I have an L to the house, but that was built first by itself. Then a little more than half of the main house was commenced, joining upon the kitchen. The walls of that part are now up, the roof timbers on ... Thus far have I progressed my work. When the totality is done, then comes plastering and laying floors. That done I design to move into that part and put up the other part. I submit to this slow and tedious way of building for two reasons. 1st I cannot hire workmen to build me a comfortable house for the amount allowed me for that purpose and 2nd I am in the mean time going on with my missionary work …

Parental anxieties were compounded by the family’s isolated situation:

Our children have both colds & coughs. Humphrey was so poorly last Sabbath that Charlotte stopped at home with him all day and in the afternoon I stopped with her giving him medicine and witnessing its duration. We were quite alarmed about him, but as no doctor was nearer than forty-five miles it was of no use to think of calling one, and our only alternative was to do our best and commend our case to the great [God?]. We now think them both better and hope in a few days to see them about again.

As the year 1850 approached, Natal became the focus of British emigration schemes, notably that of Joseph Byrne: 20 ships carrying about 2 700 settlers arrived at the port between May 1849 and April 1850. Other smaller private schemes followed in their wake. No doubt missionary families like the Grouts read in the local press about these interesting developments, and pondered over the inevitable changes such an influx of emigrants would bring to Natal.

American missionary letters from Natal continued.

Although Umpande had allowed Aldin Grout to found the Inkanyezi Mission Station, two years later the King gave his army orders to kill any of his subjects connected with the mission, though Grout and his family were to be spared.

At this point the American Board of Commissioners withdrew from the field. Not wishing to abandon his work, Grout went to Cape Town, returning as a Government missionary unconnected with the ABCFM, a position he held for a year in Natal. Meanwhile, Newton Adams had also decided to stay on, setting up his station at Amanzimtoti. Lindley became a minister to the Voortrekkers for five years (during which time he baptised a boy named Paul Kruger). Later, Lindley founded the Mission Station at Inanda.

Aldin Grout resumed his ties with the ABCFM in 1845 and the following year founded the Umvoti Mission Station. By this time Umpande’s power and popularity were in decline and large numbers – possibly as many as 100 000 - of his people had crossed the Tugela and moved into Natal.

Charlotte Grout soldiered on, coping with the daily vicissitudes of a frontierswoman. She writes in housewifely mode to her father from Umvoti on 16 August 1848:

I have often thought that you may at times feel anxious about us lest we suffer for the necessaries and comforts of life. True we are deprived of many of the good things we enjoyed at home, but we seldom suffer. There is no season of the year but we have something from our garden. It is now winter, and we have sweet potatoes, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, sugar cane and gooseberries. For the last eight months we have had daily green corn … and we often have peas, beans, onions, cabbage, and cauliflower. We do not have a good variety of meats, though we have fowls in abundance and pigs. We seldom have a piece of beef unless we slaughter. We have some sheep and goats, but not enough to slaughter very often. We usually have milk enough for family use and generally make our own butter, though sometimes purchase of a Dutch farmer who lives a few miles from us. Cows are becoming far more expensive than they have been owing to the number of white inhabitants which is constantly increasing. We can generally purchase wheat meal and fine flour, though we have sometimes been reduced to Indian meal for a short time … For dinner today we had fried ham and eggs and sweet potatoes, with a dessert of gooseberry and custard pies. These Cape gooseberries are delicious. I may sometime send you a bottle preserved. We can purchase very common clothing here, though it is expensive. We frequently send to Cape Town. Shoes are very poor here and are a great bill of expense to us, as our children wear them constantly on account of poisonous reptiles …

Our postboy … takes his mail bag on his back & starts on foot early Mon. morning, arrives at D’Urban Tues. evening, and returns here on Thursday evening. The distance is 45 miles. We always receive the Natal Witness and letters from some or all of the brethren and sisters. But our letters from home are worth all the rest.

If only we all had a Charlotte among our own ancestors, someone who maintained a regular flow of correspondence, allowing us illuminating glimpses into their daily lives. Letters remained the most important means of communication for the Natal missionaries, though the inevitable delays (waiting for ships to arrive, weather to improve or for rivers to subside) must have been frustrating. If there was one quality essential to a missionary it was patience.

Engraving of the Entrance to the Bay of Natal, a sailing ship entering the channel, with the Bluff

and Signal Station at right and the sandy spit known as the Point at left.