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Presentation by Don Wicks on Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson (Pearl Rivers) at the Pearl River Historical Society Meeting, 5/21/2007, 6pm at Crosby Library. (First of many expected revisions on 6/26/2007)
My talk today is about Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson, Picayune?s favorite daughter, who was the poet Perl Rivers, and owner and publisher of the Times Picayune from 1876 to 1896.
Eliza was Bom in Gainsville Mississippi, 20 miles south of Picayune (where the test site is now) on March 11,1843, contrary to the often published date of 1849. She lied about her age, not unusual for that time period and even for women today that can get away with it. She was reported to be a quiet child, a daydreamer with, a sickly mother, very busy father and two older brothers that taunted her. Once when her aunt Jane Kimball visited, she found her playing in the ashes of the fireplace, meaning to show how forlorn she was or perhaps how dangerous the act. Jane entreated her sister to let Eliza Jane come live with her and her husband, Leonard, in Hobolochitto, the early name for Picayune. Leonard managed a plantation and store. The property, now called the Hermitage is located in northwest Picayune, on a high bluff bordering Hobolochitto River at the confluence of East and West Hobolochitto (Boley) creeks. An antebellum home, started before the Civil War and finished after the war, graces the site. The land was originally purchased by Stephan Jarrell from Chief Muchihira, the Choctaw Chief who proceeded Chief Hobolo or Hobogue for whom the river was named. Jarrell opened a trading post and traded with the Indians and the few settlers located in the area. Jarrell sold the property to Moses Cook who willed it to Leonard Kimball.
Leonard married Jane Potter Russ in Gainsville around 1840. Jane was in her early teens and Leonard was in his late thirties. They were childless in 1852 when Eliza Jane came to live with them.
The published reason for giving up Eliza Jane was that Mary Poitevent, Eliza?s mother was sickly and couldn?t take care of her infant and Eliza, reportedly three, at the same time. However in 1852, when Eliza moved to Picayune, she was nine, had older brothers by three and six years, a younger brother by two years, and younger sisters by seven, five and 2 V2 years. While sickness was a factor, I think that it was Mary?s love for her daughter that prompted her to give her up. She knew that, in her sickly state she couldn?t control her boys and that her sister Jane and Leonard would make good parents. I think she saw her first daughter in danger in that environment and hoped the change would bring her out, but is this true, or did Eliza Jane have and retain the wild nature she exhibited in later life. Was she sent away because she was difficult to control? .
I can imagine the long trip from Gainsville to Hobolochitto, either on a steamship or by buggy. It must have been devastating to Eliza Jane to receive the news. I expect she thought she was being abandoned because of her worthlessness. Was she angry or in despair? It was when she arrived and settled in that she begins to reveal herself in her poems. She writes about it in Myself:
With windows low and narrow too,
Where birds came peeping in To wake me up at early morn