A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless

A Biographical Sketch of the Life
and
by Charlotte Taylor Blow
Charless

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Title: A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph
Charless In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren
Author: Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
Release Date: September 6, 2007 [EBook #22534]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH
CHARLESS ***

Produced by John Young Le Bourgeois

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH of the LIFE AND CHARACTER of
JOSEPH CHARLESS, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO HIS
GRANDCHILDREN.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and
if there be any praise, think on these things. Phil., chap.4, verse 8.
SAINT LOUIS: A. F. COX, PRINTER, OFFICE OF THE MISSOURI
PRESBYTERIAN.
1869.

Letter One

MY DEAR GRANDCHILDREN:
We are reminded daily of the uncertainty of human life: for the young
and the old, the gay and the grave, the good and the wicked, are subject
to death. Young people do not realize this, but it is nevertheless true,
and before you are old enough, my children, to understand and lay to
heart all that your mother would tell you of her dearly beloved father,
she may be asleep with grandma, close beside him in Bellefontaine. An
earthly inheritance is highly esteemed among men. For this reason
great efforts are made by them to lay up treasures for their children.
They know not, however, who shall gather them, for “riches take to
themselves wings and fly away.” But a good man leaveth an
inheritance to his children, and to his children’s children, which is as
stable as the throne of the Most High. Like the stream that gathers
strength from every rivulet, and grows deeper, and broader, and more
majestic, until the myriads of crystal drops are received into the bosom
of the mighty deep, so likewise is the legacy of a good man. It descends
to his child by birthright, and through the rich mercy of a
covenant-keeping God, widens and extends its life-giving power,

flowing on and on, as rivers of water, into the boundless ocean of
God’s love.
Your grandfather, my beloved children, was a great man. Not as a
warrior, nor as a statesman, nor in any sense which is simply of the
earth, earthy. But he was great by being the possessor of a rare
combination of moral worth and Christian excellence, which made him
a blessing to his race. In other words, he was great because he was truly
good. In the midst of his days of usefulness he was cut off from the
land of the living. His precious remains rest quietly in the fresh made
grave; his immortal spirit has winged its flight to the mansions of the
blessed, for “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest
from their labors, and their works do follow them.”
While endeavoring, in much weakness, to put together for your perusal
such facts as may present to your minds a faithful likeness of the noble
man from whom you have descended, I sincerely pray that you may be
stimulated, by the grace of God, to follow him even as he followed
Christ.
Affectionately yours, GRANDMA.
BELMONT, January 7, 1860

Letter Two

MY DEAR GRANDCHILDREN:
If you will look in your mother’s Bible, you will find that your
grandfather, JOSEPH CHARLESS, was born in Lexington, Kentucky,
on the 17th of January, 1804; that his father, whose name was also
Joseph Charless, was born July 16th, 1772, in Westmeath, Ireland,
being the only son of Captain Edward Charles, whose father, (or
paternal ancestor, John Charles), was born in Wales and emigrated to
Ireland in the year 1663.

Your great-grandfather, Jos. Charles, fled from his native country to
France, in consequence of his having been implicated in the Rebellion
of 1795, “at the head of which figured the young and noble Emmet,
who fell a sacrifice for loving too well his enslaved country.” After
remaining a short time in France, he sailed for the United States of
America, where he arrived in 1796, landing at the city of New York.
Upon his arrival in the United States he added an s to his name to
secure the Irish pronunciation of Charles, which makes it two syllables
instead of