I Thirst to Meet You in Bright Glory

Abstract

On an ordinary spring morning in 1852, Ben Major and his wife Lucy are eating breakfast when they are interrupted by a frantic messenger. Ben’s only sister, Eliza Ann Davenport, is gravely ill with cholera. Ben rushes to her home, where he tries all his various botanical treatments for cholera, but to no avail. Eliza Ann dies, and within a short time it is clear that two of her sons and Ben are sick, too. All three of them die within a few days. With the deaths of Tolbert and Ben—six months apart—the remarkable correspondence between Bassa Cove and Walnut Grove ends, but the final letter from Liberia is not the last interaction between the Liberian colonists and the American Majors. Years later, Wesley Harlan travels from Liberia to pay his respects at Ben Major’s grave in Illinois.