Concerning Colonel Musgrave one finds the ensuing
account in a publication of the period devoted to
biographies of more or less prominent Americans.
It is reproduced unchanged, because these memoirs
were—in the old days—compiled
by the person whom they commemorated. The custom
was a worthy one, since the value of an autobiography
is determined by the nature of its superfluities and
falsehoods.
“Musgrave, Rudolph Vartrey, editor;
b. Lichfield, Sill., Mar. 14, 1856; s.
William Sebastian and Martha (Allardyce) M; g. s.
Theodorick Q.M., gov. of Sill. 1805-8, judge of the
General Ct., 1808-11, judge Supreme Ct. of Appeals,
1811-50 and pres. Supreme Ct. of Appeals, 1841-50;
grad. King’s Coll. and U. of Sill.
Corr. sec. Lichfield Hist. Soc., and editor
Sill. Mag. of Biog. since 1890; dir. Traders
Nat. Bank, Sill.; mem. Soc. of the Sons of
Col. Govs., pres. Sill. Soc. of Protestant
Martyrs, comdr. Sill. Mil. Order of
Lost Battles, mem. exec. bd. Sill. Hist.
Assn. for the Preservation of Ruins. Democrat,
Episcopalian, unmarried. Author: Colonial
Lichfield, 1892; Right on the Scaffold, 1893; Secession
and the South, 1894; Chart of the Descendants of Zenophon
Perkins, 1894; Recollections of a Gracious Era, 1895;
Notes as to the Vartreys of Westphalia, 1896.
Has also written numerous pamphlets on hist., biog.
and geneal. subjects. Address: Lichfield,
Sill.”
For Colonel Musgrave was by birth the lineal head
of all the Musgraves of Matocton, which is in Lichfield,
as degrees are counted there, equivalent to what being
born a marquis would mean in England. Handsome
and trim and affable, he defied chronology by looking
ten years younger than he was known to be. For
at least a decade he had been invaluable to Lichfield
matrons alike against the entertainment of an “out-of-town
girl,” the management of a cotillion and the
prevention of unpleasant pauses among incongruous
dinner companies.
In short, he was by all accounts the social triumph
of his generation; and his military title, won by
four years of arduous service at receptions and parades
while on the staff of a former Governor of the State,
this seasoned bachelor carried off with plausibility
and distinction.
The story finds him “Librarian and Corresponding
Secretary” of the Lichfield Historical Association,
which office he had held for some six years.
The salary was small, and the colonel had inherited
little; but his sister, Miss Agatha Musgrave, who
lived with him, was a notable housekeeper. He
increased his resources in a gentlemanly fashion by
genealogical research, directed mostly toward the rehabilitation
of ambiguous pedigrees; and for the rest, no other
man could have fulfilled more gracefully the main
duty of the Librarian, which was to exhibit the Association’s
collection of relics to hurried tourists “doing”
Lichfield.
