Mrs. Hardcastle's maiden name was Sallie Williams Minter. She was born
in Bedford county, Virginia, June 19, 1841.
Reared in the shadow of the Peaks of Otter, whose lofty summits tower in
magnificent grandeur far above the wooded heights and billowy green
hills of the surrounding country, it is little wonder that the subject
of this sketch should have been early imbued with the spirit of poesy,
and led to the cultivation of tastes and the selection of themes which
the grand and picturesque in nature are apt to suggest. But in addition
to these favorable surroundings, a literary and thoughtful turn of mind
was inherited from her father and grandfather--the latter having been
eminent in his day as the author of a religious work, replete with keen
arguments and logical conclusions.
The former also was a writer of ability, and having a thorough knowledge
of the politics of his State, frequently discussed them in the local
journals with a ready and trenchant pen.
Mrs. Hardcastle was educated at Bedford Female College, but is indebted
to her father for her best and earliest tuition. At the age of fourteen
her first verses, written on the death of a little friend of her own
age, were published in the _Virginia Sentinel_. She was an occasional
contributor to the _Literacy Companion_, _Magnolia Weekly_, and other
Southern periodicals.
Mrs. Hardcastle was married in 1863 to Dr. Jerome H. Hardcastle, then a
surgeon in the hospital at Liberty, Va. After the war they came to
Maryland, and subsequently, in 1876, to Cecilton, in this county, where
they have since resided. They are the parents of five daughters and one
son.
Like many other persons, Mrs. Hardcastle neglected to carefully preserve
her poetical writings. And was so unfortunate as to lose most of the few
in her possession at the time of the evacuation of Richmond, in
consequence of which the following poems are all it has been practicable
to obtain, which is a matter of regret, inasmuch as they are by no means
the best of her writings.