1858 Wedding Ceremony

From Rev D. B. Clayton's autobiography are these comments on a:

Sensible Wedding.

During this visit, the writer celebrated on October 23, [1858] what he may, he thinks, properly designate a unique wedding. At Alston a friend of his, Mr. T. D. Feaster, intimated to him, as he went on up to Spartanburg, that he might possibly want him to perform a marriage ceremony for him as he returned. Mr. Feaster had already been married more than once, and was at that time boarding with the mother of his last wife, who was a widow, with one grown-up daughter and another about ten years of age. The residence was within a very few steps of the railroad track. Passengers going down from Spartanburg had to wait an hour or two for a train down from Greenville, on which to reach Columbia. On the arrival of the writer, Mr. Feaster invited him to his boarding house. He had not intimated, nor had the preacher any idea, who the bride was to be, in case a marriage should occur. On reaching the house introductions were passed, and Mr. Feaster and his friend sated.

No one was about, besides the two gentleman, but the mother and her two daughters, the elder of whom sat at her work-table sewing, the younger being engaged in the culinary department, which was in a side room. Conversation was engaged in, and continued for an hour or so, without any allusion to a wedding, when Mr. Feaster inquired of the preacher: "What is the time of day?" On being told, he remarked: "It will soon be train time" and then turning to the young lady at the work-table he said, "Mary, if we are going to get married, I guess we had better attend to it. Are you ready?" "Yes," replied she, and together they faced the minister, who by that time had taken his stand. The younger sister and her mother being called, stepped in from the cooking department, and, in much less time than it takes to record this description of the scene, the couple were united in the bonds of wedlock: whereupon the bride resumed the seat from which she had so recently arisen, took her work from the table, and resumed where she left off, the younger sister returned to her work, and the preacher, after waiting a little while longer till the train arrived, boarded it and went on his journey, with a five-dollar-bill in his pocket that he had not carried there, feeling that he had officiated at about as sensible a wedding as he had ever attended.



editor's note: Mary was Trez's 3rd wife (at least), I don't see where he married her sister - but certainly possible.
inspired by http://boyinthebands.com/archives/the-shortest-wedding-service/