Columbia (Hnftergftp 
 intijrCttpofi^rmgark 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
WORTHY WOMEN 
 
 OF 
 
 OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MRS. O. J. WISTER 
 
 AND 
 
 MISS AGNES IRWIN. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1S77. 
 
Copyrighted, 1877, by the " Women's Centennial Executive Committee." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The volume here offered to the public is so far from fulfill- 
 ing the hopes of the editors that they think it due to those 
 under whose auspices it is published to give an idea of what 
 it was meant to be, and of the causes of its partial failure. 
 The work was undertaken by the desire of the Women's De- 
 partment of the Centennial Commission. They wished to 
 connect their own labors with a record of the lives of Ameri- 
 can women in earlier times ; to show what they had been and 
 effected under the difficulties, domestic, social, and political, 
 which are to be found in all new countries and civilizations 
 while the roads are being made; to offer to their young coun- 
 trywomen honorable models and examples. The intention 
 was to collect a series of brief biographies, one for each of the 
 original States, so as to illustrate the very various conditions 
 and demands of life in the older parts of the country. The 
 choice of subjects in point of date ranged from the colonial 
 epoch to the last generation. It was not thought desirable 
 to include any one still living or but lately dead. This neces- 
 sarily excluded so many of the States that it confirmed the 
 limitation to the first, contemporaneous, thirteen. In order 
 that the work might not be too voluminous, each State was 
 restricted to one memoir. It was not requisite that the sub- 
 ject should have been a woman connected with Revolutionary 
 times or historical events, although especial interest attaches 
 to those who were. The conspicuous women of the Revolu- 
 tion, and indeed of America down almost to the present day, 
 had found biographers in Mrs. S. J. Hale and Mrs. E. F. Ellett. 
 
 1f)()R()H 
 
PREFA CE. 
 
 Their notices are too short and sketchy to give a clear idea 
 of character and individuality; but they had supplied a com- 
 plete register of names and events. All that we required, 
 therefore, was the lives of women of weight and mark, whose 
 influence was felt for good in their own circle, whether a wide 
 or a narrow one ; who had thought and acted for themselves, 
 either in decisive public issues or in the even tenor of private 
 life. It was also earnestly wished that the memoir for each 
 State should be written by a woman from that State, that the 
 welded chain of the Pine-Tree flag might once more be held 
 by clasping hands, not the mailed grasp of men, but the not 
 less firm and sustaining hold of women ; that as this Centen- 
 nial Anniversary has reknit the bond of brotherhood through- 
 out the country, that of sisterhood should be drawn as close. 
 Such was the scheme. Every pains was taken to find out 
 proper heroines for the memoirs, and proper biographers, and 
 also to avoid unsuitable ones. The editors were engaged for 
 upwards of six months in corresponding with distinguished 
 and patriotic people all over the country to try and get the 
 information necessary to proceed upon. Then followed letters 
 to and from ladies in the thirteen States, which, if they could 
 be published, would form a most interesting and entertain- 
 ing collection. Still, this did not succeed in bringing about 
 the object completely. Mrs. Gillespie, the President of the 
 Women's Department of the Centennial Commission, in an 
 appeal which she sent forth last autumn, and which was cir- 
 culated throughout the country, begged for biographies of 
 eminent and memorable women, but without calling out a single 
 satisfactory reply. There were great difficulties at every step. 
 In the first place, although the editors endeavored to be ex- 
 plicit as to what they wanted, the answers they received almost 
 invariably referred only to women of Revolutionary times, as 
 if none other were eligible. It then appeared that, although 
 the older States are rife with traditions and anecdotes of 
 women who did honor to their place and day, material for 
 biographical notices of them, correspondence, journals, written 
 record of any sort, personal recollections, are wanting. One 
 
PREFA CE. 5 
 
 of the most noble and impressive female figures in our annals 
 is Faith Robinson, wife of the first and mother of the second 
 Governor Trumbull of Connecticut; but, beyond two or three 
 striking stories, and the veneration for her name and worth 
 which her children have transmitted to their descendants, no- 
 thing remains of her. Again, some of our most prominent and 
 admirable women did not belong either by birth or family to 
 the States with which their names are connected. Mrs. John 
 Jay, of the Revolution, who held so high a position in New 
 York, was a native of New Jersey; Mrs. Judson, of our own 
 times, the missionary and martyr, if ever self-devotion de- 
 served the crown and palm-branch, hailed from New Hamp- 
 shire, but was born in Massachusetts. In other eminent in- 
 stances, such as that of Mrs. John Adams, the life and corre- 
 spondence are already so well known that to republish them 
 in any form would be a twice-told tale. In most cases, how- 
 ever, the ladies were not scribes: often in following up their 
 traces it was found that every scrap of writing had perished, 
 either through the jealousy of affection, or indifference, or 
 accident. In the South, where the circumstances of life are 
 more picturesque than along the rest of the Atlantic coast, — 
 where romantic situations and heroic incidents are more fre- 
 quent in feminine existence, owing to the solitude and remote- 
 ness of plantations accessible only by wood-roads or lonely 
 rivers, — where, too, the peculiar responsibilities of slavery fell 
 heavily upon the women of the master's family, developing the 
 administrative ability and qualities of housekeeper and nurse 
 in a signal degree,— the practice of keeping private papers 
 was general ; but fire has always been the enemy of those 
 frame houses, with their open chimney-places, pine torches, 
 and careless servitors, and the war swept off most of their 
 remaining archives, public and private. Besides, it has been 
 with our recollections as with our relics: nations, like men, 
 when they are young, forget. that they will ever grow old, 
 and learn to prize mementos of their earlier time. There has 
 been from the first a lamentable destruction of what were 
 really national heirlooms, to which the approach of the Cen- 
 
6 PREFA CE. 
 
 tenary first called general attention ; and so it has been with 
 reminiscences. Our people had not begun to remember. 
 
 These are the principal obstacles we have had to en- 
 counter. On the other hand, there has been everywhere the 
 warmest interest in the undertaking, — ready sympathy from 
 those to whom we have applied, and help where it was to 
 give. Unfortunately for some of the memoirs, those best 
 qualified to prepare them were too much taken up with other 
 duties to do so. But the ladies to whom application was made 
 exerted themselves to find able substitutes. Many of those 
 who undertook the task have been hampered by ill health or 
 the pressure of other claims, but their researches and inquiries 
 have been as thorough as if they had been writing history. 
 We are particularly indebted to the families of the women 
 chosen as representatives, for their willingness to allow the 
 use of the material they possess and for their active assistance 
 in collecting more. We owe hearty thanks for advice or aid 
 to Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mrs. Oliver Hubbard, of New 
 York, Mrs. M. P. Cutts, of Brattleboro', Lloyd P. Smith, Esq., 
 of Philadelphia, Mrs. Catherine Pennington, of New Jersey. 
 In regard to the memoir for Pennsylvania the writer must 
 express her gratitude to the Logan family and connections 
 generally, most especially to Mrs. John Dickinson Logan, 
 who copied from the diary of her husband's grandmother, to 
 which only near relations have access, all the extracts given 
 from it, and pages more not quoted, from which the picture 
 of the heroine's character and life has been completed. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all this effort and this encouragement, 
 we have only six sketches to offer as the result. Nor have 
 we in all of these the living personal representation we hoped 
 would be presented in every case : the scantiness of material 
 made that impossible. Should the volume, such as it is, find 
 general favor, it may be the means of obtaining biographies 
 from the remaining States. If suitable ones be sent, as we 
 trust they may, a second volume will be published. 
 
 Philadelphia, October, 1876. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 STATE. SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE 
 
 Virginia. . . . Mrs. T. M. Randolph. . . Miss S. N. Randolph . 9 
 New York. . . Mrs. Philip Schuyler. . . Miss S. F. Cooper , . 71 
 Massachusetts. . Mrs. Samuel Ripley. . . Miss Elizabeth Hoar. 113 
 New Hampshire. Women of New Hampshire. Mrs. Francis W. Fiske. 229 
 South Carolina. J' us. Rebecca Motte. . . A Lady of S. Carolina 259 
 Pennsylvania. . Di-borah Logan Mrs. Owen J. Wister . 279 
 
WORTHY WOMEN 
 
 OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Amid scenery of almost unsurpassed beauty in the central 
 part of Virginia, rises the modest height of Monticello. There 
 are few points in the surrounding country from which its 
 graceful profile cannot be seen, and the " little mountain" is 
 pointed out as the object of greatest interest in every land- 
 scape in which it appears in that lovely region. To its summit 
 many a tourist wends his way, and, in spite of the ruin, 
 the desecration, which mark its present condition, still finds 
 traces there of the statesman, the philosopher, and the man 
 of taste. 
 
 But it is not as the home of the great man in either of these 
 characters that our attention shall be directed to this classic 
 spot in these pages, but rather as the birthplace and loved 
 and lost home of his daughter, — she who as a child was his 
 only comforter in the great sorrow of his life, who in maturer 
 years was his intimate friend and companion, and whose pres- 
 ence lent to his home its greatest charm, as her love and her 
 sympathy were his greatest solace in the troubles which so 
 clouded the evening of his eventful life. 
 
 Martha Jefferson Randolph, daughter of Thomas and 
 Martha Jefferson, was born at Monticello, September 27, 1772. 
 Her mother, Martha Wayles, was first married to Bathurst 
 
 9 
 
IO WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Skelton, who dying two years after this marriage, she married, 
 four years later, January I, 1772, Thomas Jefferson. His biog- 
 raphers have given an account of the gay wedding-journey 
 of over a hundred miles, from the bride's home below Rich- 
 mond, to Monticello, which began in a carriage and under 
 propitious skies, but the last eight miles of which was per- 
 formed on horseback and through a deep snow after sunset. 
 
 Mrs. Jefferson is said to have been a singularly beautiful 
 woman, and a person of great intelligence and strength of 
 character ; and certainly, if the attractions of a woman can be 
 measured by the love borne her by her husband, hers must 
 have been great indeed, for never was a wife loved with more 
 passionate devotion than she was by Jefferson. There was 
 no sacrifice too great for him to make for her ; and when her 
 health first gave signs of giving way, an appointment abroad, 
 or, indeed, any office which could take him from her side, 
 was positively refused. Her health was extremely delicate 
 during several years ; and nearly a year before her death, Jef- 
 ferson speaks in one of his letters of his " perpetual solicitude" 
 about her. 
 
 His anxiety was but too well founded, and after the birth 
 of her sixth child, in the spring of the year 1782, she sank 
 so rapidly that before the summer was gone her friends real- 
 ized that she could be spared to them but a few weeks longer. 
 The devotion, the clinging tenderness with which her husband 
 nursed her are well known. The little Martha was too young 
 to realize the calamity which was overhanging her. Mrs. 
 Jefferson had been too ill to see the child for some time, when 
 one day the latter was called in to see her mother dressed 
 and sitting up in a chair, as something that would please her. 
 Then for the first time the truth flashed on her as she saw 
 death stamped on the invalid's pale face ; and so overcome 
 was she by the shock that she was obliged to leave the room. 
 
 It was during those last days of her life, when the pang of 
 separation was so keenly felt by both husband and wife, that 
 she spoke with emotion to her sisters of his devotion to her, 
 of the depth of her love for him, and of the period of their 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. n 
 
 married life as one of unalloyed happiness, which no cloud 
 between them had ever risen to dim. The closing scene came 
 at last, and on the 6th of September, as the gentle invalid 
 breathed her last, her husband was borne fainting from the 
 bedside. The part that the little Martha took in these painful 
 scenes she years afterwards described : 
 
 " The scene that followed I did not witness, but the vio- 
 lence of his emotion, when, almost by stealth, I entered his 
 room by night, to this day I dare not describe to myself. He 
 kept his room for three weeks, and I was never a moment 
 from his side. He walked incessantly almost night and day, 
 only lying down occasionally, when nature was completely ex- 
 hausted, on a pallet that had been brought in during his long 
 fainting-fit. My aunts remained constantly with him for some 
 weeks, I do not remember how many. When at last he left 
 his room, he rode out, and from that time he was incessantly 
 on horseback, rambling about the mountain in the least fre- 
 quented roads, and just as often through the woods. In those 
 melancholy rambles I was his constant companion; a solitary 
 witness to many a burst of grief, the remembrance of which 
 has consecrated particular scenes of that lost home beyond 
 the power of time to obliterate." 
 
 Not long after her mother's death, Martha was carried, with 
 her two little sisters, Mary and Lucy Elizabeth, to the resi- 
 dence of a friend of their father's, in Chesterfield County, there, 
 according to the custom of the country, to be inoculated for 
 the smallpox. Their father accompanied them, and nursed 
 them through the whole period of their inoculation, and while 
 engaged in this received notice of his appointment as Pleni- 
 potentiary to Europe. This appointment he did not now hesi- 
 tate to accept ; but, the time of his departure being uncertain, 
 he left his two younger children with their aunt, Mrs. Eppes, 
 and took Martha to Philadelphia with him. She was only ten 
 years old at the time of her mother's death, and was from 
 that time her father's constant companion. In afterlife she 
 often spoke of the journeys she had made with him, and 
 of the difficulties and the tedium of traveling in those days, 
 
12 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 particularly to a little girl, the sole companion of a gentle- 
 man and thrown often among entire strangers. But the first 
 wish of her heart was to be with him always and under all 
 circumstances, and there were few trials and privations which 
 she would not have borne rather than give up that pleasure 
 and happiness. 
 
 Before her mother's death, her father had paid very partic- 
 ular attention to her education, but whatever of discipline or 
 restraint she recollected as having been imposed on her at that 
 early age came from her mother. From her father she re- 
 membered to have received only words of love and encour- 
 agement, some of which had sunk deeply in her heart and 
 were cherished with gratitude long after they had been spoken. 
 In Philadelphia her father placed her under the care of Mrs. 
 Hopkinson, at whose house she remained until they sailed for 
 Europe. Mr. Jefferson, in the mean while, took his seat in 
 Congress, which was then in session in Annapolis; and his 
 letters to his daughter, and the particular directions which 
 they contain as to her course of study and the manner in 
 which she should spend her time, prove how constantly she 
 was in his thoughts and with what care he watched over her 
 education. 
 
 They at last sailed for Europe early in the summer of the 
 year 1784, and reached their destination after a short voyage. 
 Mr. Jefferson at once took rooms in the Hotel d'Orleans until 
 he could find a suitable house. He kept his daughter with 
 him for some time, and then placed her at school in the con- 
 vent of the Abbaye Royale de Panthemont. The advantages 
 for intellectual, moral, and social training which this place 
 offered were very great. The nuns who watched with the 
 tenderest care over the girls placed under their charge be- 
 longed to the best families in Europe, and were born and bred 
 . ladies. The pupils were from the higher classes of society, 
 being the daughters of the gentlemen and diplomatic men of 
 various countries, and of the nobility and gentry of France. 
 They had the best instruction, the best masters for accomplish- 
 ments ; and no pains, no expense were spared to make the 
 
MRS. THOMAS MA XX RAXDOLPH. 13 
 
 system of education as complete as possible. Nor were the 
 recreations of the pupils neglected, and they were a bright, 
 joyous set. 
 
 No pupil was admitted at Panthemont without the recom- 
 mendation of a lady of rank; and, Mr. Jefferson being without 
 acquaintances on his first arrival in Paris, his devoted friend 
 the Marquis de La Fayette obtained from a lady friend of his 
 the necessary recommendation for the admission of the little 
 American. Naturally very diffident, the fiery ordeal which 
 her entrance into such an establishment was can be well appre- 
 ciated. A motherless little girl, transported from the primitive 
 simplicity of the retired life of the most retired part of Vir- 
 ginia, and placed at school in the gayest capital in the world, 
 among the daughters of the noblest houses in Europe, not un- 
 derstanding one word of the language spoken around her, how 
 she must have suffered, and how many times she must have 
 wished herself out of that strange throng and back at her 
 dear, beautiful Monticello, under the gentle instruction of her 
 father, who by precept and example instilled into her soul a 
 love of all that was good and noble ! Years afterwards she used 
 to describe to her children the depths of her despair at parting 
 with him. During the first week the kind Lady Superior 
 allowed him to see her a little while every evening ; during 
 those first few days she wept incessantly, the looking forward 
 to his coming being the one bright ray of light in her cheer- 
 less existence. 
 
 But, under the gentle influences by which she was sur- 
 rounded, such a state of things could not last long. She soon 
 learned to speak French. The pupils in the school were very 
 kind to the little Virginian, and, one or two of them taking 
 her under their wing and befriending her in her disconsolate 
 condition, she formed friendships with them which lasted 
 through life. After she had become accustomed to her new 
 life and grown happy in the convent, she was allowed to visit 
 her father in his own house once a month. Her school-mates 
 called her " Jeff" or " Jeffie," and from her correspondence 
 with them I find that " chere Jeff" was their general mode 
 
14 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of address in letters written to her even after she had left 
 school. 
 
 In a quaint letter to Mrs. Trist, a lady in Philadelphia, who 
 was a friend of her father's and who had been very kind to her, 
 she gives some glimpses of her life in the convent. The letter 
 was written after she had been in Paris more than a year, though 
 she describes her first arrival with her father in France. The 
 naivete and artlessness betrayed in the following extracts from 
 this letter will amuse the reader : 
 
 " I am very happy in the convent, and with reason, for there 
 wants nothing but the presence of my friends of America to 
 render my situation worthy to be envied by the happiest; I do 
 not say kings, for, far from it, they are often more unfortunate 
 than the lowest of their subjects. I have seen the king and 
 the queen, but at too great a distance to judge if they are like 
 their pictures in Philadelphia. We had a lovely passage in a 
 beautiful new ship, that had made one passage before. There 
 were only six passengers, all of whom papa knew, and a fine 
 sunshine all the way, with a sea which was as calm as a river. 
 . . . We landed in England, where we made a very short 
 stay. The day we left it we got off at six o'clock in the even- 
 ing, and arrived in France at eleven the next morning. I 
 cannot say that this voyage was as agreeable as the first, 
 though it was much shorter. It rained violently, and the sea 
 was exceedingly rough all the time, and I was almost as sick 
 as the first time, when I was sick two days. The cabane was 
 not more than three feet wide and about four long. There 
 was no other furniture than an old bench, which was fast to 
 the wall. The door by which we came in at was so little that 
 one was obliged to enter on all-fours. There were two little 
 doors on the side of the cabane, the way to our beds, which 
 were composed of two boxes and a couple of blankets, without 
 either bed or mattress, so that I was obliged to sleep in my 
 clothes. There being no window in the cabane, we were 
 obliged to stay in the dark, for fear of the rain coming in if 
 we opened the door. I fear we should have fared as badly at 
 our arrival, for papa spoke very little French, and I not a word, 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 15 
 
 if an Irish gentleman, an entire stranger to us, who seeing our 
 embarrassment, had not been so good as to conduct us to a 
 house, and was of great service to us. It is amazing to see 
 how they cheat strangers ; it cost papa as much to have the 
 baggage brought from the shore to the house, which was about 
 half a square, as the bringing it from Philadelphia to Boston. 
 From there we should have had a very delightful voyage to 
 Paris, for Havre de Grace is built at the mouth of the Seine, 
 and we follow the river all the way through the most beau- 
 tiful country I ever saw in my life, — it is a perfect garden, — 
 if the singularity of our carriage (a phaeton) had not attracted 
 the attention of all we met ; and whenever we stopped we 
 were surrounded by the beggars. One day I counted no less 
 than nine where we stopped to change horses. ... I wish 
 you could have been with us when we arrived, I am sure you 
 would have laughed, for we were obliged to send immediately 
 for the stay-maker, the mantuamaker, the milliner, and even 
 a shoemaker, before I could go out. I have never had the 
 friseur but once ; but I soon got rid of him, and turned down 
 my hair in spite of all they could say; and I defer it now as 
 much as possible, for I think it always too soon to suffer. I 
 have seen two nuns take the veil. I'll tell you about that 
 when I come to see you. I was placed in a convent at my 
 arrival, and I leave you to judge of my situation. I did not 
 speak a word of French, and not one here knew English but 
 a little girl of two years old, that could hardly speak French. 
 There are about fifty or sixty pensioners in the house, so that 
 speaking as much as I could with them I learnt the language 
 very soon. At present I am charmed with my situation. . . . 
 There come in some new pensioners every day. The classe is 
 four rooms, exceedingly large, for the pensioners to sleep in; 
 and there is a fifth and sixth, one for them to stay in the da}-, and 
 the other in which they take their lessons in. We wear the uni- 
 form, which is crimson, made like a frock, laced behind, with 
 the tail, like a robe de cour, hooked on, muslin cuffs and tuckers. 
 The masters are all very good, except that for the drawing." 
 The French words and idioms in this letter show that the 
 
1 6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 little lady had learned that language sufficiently well to be 
 in danger of forgetting how to express herself elegantly in 
 her own. We catch another glimpse of her at this period in 
 the following extract from the "Journal and Correspondence 
 of Miss Adams, Daughter of John Adams," who was at that 
 time in Paris : 
 
 " Thursday, October 14, 17S4. — Mr. Jefferson sent us cards 
 yesterday to admit us to see the ceremony of taking the veil 
 in the convent where his daughter is to receive her educa- 
 tion. . . . The relations of the two victims appeared less 
 affected than any one present. Thus these two girls are 
 destined to pass their lives within this convent. They are not 
 so strict as formerly. Miss Jefferson told me they were very 
 cheerful and agreeable. They seemed to take great pleasure 
 in contributing to the happiness of the pensioners. There 
 were three princesses, who are here for their education, and 
 were distinguished from the others by a blue ribbon over the 
 shoulder. This is considered the best and most genteel con- 
 vent in Paris. Most of the English who send their children 
 here for their education put them into this convent. There 
 are a number now here." 
 
 " % wary 27. — A small company to dine to-day. Miss 
 Jefferson we expected, but the news of the death of one of 
 Mr. J.'s children in America, brought by the Marquis de La 
 Fayette, prevented. Mr. J. is a man of great sensibility- and 
 parental affection. His wife died when this child was born, 
 and he was almost in a confirmed state of melancholy, con- 
 fined himself from the world, and even from his friends, for a 
 long time ; and this news has greatly affected him and his 
 daughter. She is a sweet girl ; delicacy and sensibility are 
 read in every feature, and her manners are in unison withiell 
 that is amiable and lovely. She is very young." 
 
 " F. ~ . — To-day we dined with Mr. Jefferson. He 
 
 invited us to come and see all Paris, which was to be seen in 
 the streets to-day, and many masks, it being the last day but 
 one of the Carnival. Miss Jefferson dined with us ; no other 
 company. . . ." 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. \j 
 
 "May 9. — When we had finished our business we went to 
 Mr. Jefferson's, where I saw Miss J., a most amiable girl." 
 
 The death of the child alluded to in this extract was indeed 
 an affliction keenly felt by Mr. Jefferson and his daughter. 
 Out of six children he now had only two left, and he deter- 
 mined to have his youngest, Mary, — or Polly, as she was some- 
 times called, — sent over to join him in Paris as soon as possible. 
 But it was nearly two years before an opportunity for doing 
 this occurred ; and when she did join her father and sister they 
 had become almost perfect strangers to her, and, a very beau- 
 tiful but very diffident child, she was at first, in the strange 
 land to which she had been brought, as timid as a frightened 
 hare in her intercourse with them. She was placed at school 
 in the convent with her sister, with whose school-mates and 
 friends she was a great pet and darling, her sweet and caress- 
 ing ways being as charming to them as they had been to 
 Mrs. Adams, who has left such a pretty picture of her in her 
 letters. 
 
 While at Panthemont, Martha Jefferson was very ill of a 
 fever, and the nuns, kind-hearted as they were, did not wish to 
 have their sacred retreat desecrated by the death of a heretic 
 within its walls. They therefore requested that she might be 
 taken away ; and it was only at the earnest entreaties of her 
 father, who begged that her chance of recovery might not be 
 lessened by moving her, that they at last consented she should 
 stay, at least until she was past all hope, if death should prove 
 to be inevitable. Since that day, one of her daughters who 
 visited Paris found the church of the Abbaye de Panthemont 
 open, and a Protestant clergyman preaching in it. Such had 
 been the changes since the school-days of her mother. 
 
 Though not handsome, Martha was at this time a tall and 
 aristocratic-looking girl. The lady at whose recommenda- 
 tion she had been admitted into the convent, being one day on 
 a visit to it, and watching the young girls playing in the gar- 
 den, pointed out one of them to the nun who was with her, 
 and asked who she was. The nun answered, with a little sur- 
 prise, " Comment, madame ! e'est votre protegee Mademoi- 
 
18 worthy women of our first century. 
 
 selle Jefferson." " Ah ! mais vraiment elle a l'air tres-dis- 
 tingue," replied the lady. 
 
 The English friends at the convent with whom she seems 
 to have been most intimate were Julia Annesley and Bettie 
 Hawkins. The first became, by some family inheritance, soon 
 after she left school, Lady Julia, — " to her great satisfaction," 
 one of her school-mates writes of her to " dear Jeff." The 
 second, who seems to have been a girl full of life and intelli- 
 gence, with a very warm heart, married a gentleman who, as 
 she expresses it in one of her letters, " would be Lord J. 
 should the present heir kick the bucket." In another letter 
 to her friend Martha she suddenly breaks off from the subject 
 on which she is writing, and says, — 
 
 " My dear girl, I am to be married on Wednesday, the day 
 after to-morrow. I have not been myself for this week past, 
 and am now really nn pett dcrangee dans la fete. The idea 
 that I quit all my friends, my dearest and nearest relations, 
 to follow a man who may soon forget the many promises 
 he has made me, and in the end prove totally different from 
 what we all imagine him to be, makes my feelings too acute 
 to bear description. If — but I will not anticipate imaginary 
 evils, or dwell on this subject, on which I can never converse 
 half an instant without showing myself (mamma says) an 
 idiot. Direct all your letters to Watersperry, where we go 
 immediately after the ceremony. Adieu ; pity your distressed 
 friend. Indeed I am very unhappy, though I have every 
 reason to be the contrary. A description of my journey, etc., 
 you shall have soon ; and pray, Jeff, write to me." 
 
 The evils proved, indeed, to have been imaginary, for the 
 trembling and doubting bride became the happy wife, whose 
 letters, after years of married life, continue to breathe content- 
 ment and delight. 
 
 A charming French girl, Mademoiselle de Botidoux, and 
 Mademoiselle Brunette de Chateaubrun, were among Miss 
 Jefferson's other convent friends. The last left Paris before 
 her Virginia friend did, and returned to her home on her 
 father's plantation in Guadaloupe. She married, later, an officer 
 
MRS. THOMAS MAX.Y RANDOLPH. 19 
 
 of the French navy, M. Salimbeni, and a change of fortune 
 bringing her to America with her husband in trouble when 
 Mr. Jefferson was President, he gave them some assistance, 
 and thus returned to his daughter's old school-mate some of 
 the kindness with which she had treated those first desolate 
 days of her school life. This lady's letters, when she first 
 began to write to her friend, are filled with descriptions of 
 balls and fetes, and of boxes of West India preserves which 
 had been prepared to be sent to her " chere Jeff '/" and in her 
 last letter she speaks of the " circonstances malheureuses qui 
 m'ont toujours poursuivies avec une espece d'acharnement." 
 She died of consumption, fading away slowly, until one day 
 she was found sitting in her chair apparently asleep, but really 
 dead. 
 
 The last year that Miss Jefferson spent at the convent she 
 dined at the abbess's table, at her father's request, though at- 
 tending her classes as usual. She felt this to be a restraint, 
 but soon got accustomed to it, and formed some pleasant ac- 
 quaintances among the lady boarders who dined at the same 
 table. This, too, made her transition from the convent life to 
 the gay society into which she entered the next year more 
 easy and graceful. Among the new acquaintances formed at 
 the abbess's table was Lady Caroline Tufton, with whom she 
 became intimate, and with whom and her sister Lady Eliza- 
 beth she remained always on the most cordial and friendly 
 terms. After her return to Virginia and her marriage, these 
 ladies wrote her affectionate letters ; and one of her father's 
 farms lying at the foot of Monticello, which she called Tufton, 
 in honor of Lady Caroline, still bears that name. Lady 
 Caroline boarded for a short time only at Panthemont, when 
 she and her sister went to stay at the house of their uncle, 
 the Duke of Dorset, the English ambassador at the court of 
 Versailles. 
 
 It would have been strange for a young girl situated as 
 Martha Jefferson was, and subjected to the influences which 
 surrounded her, not to have been favorably impressed by the 
 religion of the good nuns to whom she was so sincerelv at- 
 
20 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 tached. They on their part seem to have made some efforts 
 to convert her to their faith. In this they were aided by the 
 amiable and excellent Abbe Edgeworth de Firmont. This 
 worthy man, who afterwards remained so faithful to Louis 
 XVI. in the last tragical days of his life and accompanied him 
 to the guillotine as his confessor, could not fail to make an 
 impression on the young Protestant. She became deeply at- 
 tached to him, and so much were her religious views influenced 
 by her intercourse with him that at last she found that her 
 desire was to join the Roman Catholic Church. She was too 
 conscientious not to communicate the state of her feelings on 
 the subject at once to her father. But she was not prepared 
 for the shock which her request to be allowed to join that 
 Church was to him. He listened to this with the utmost 
 emotion, and entreated her so earnestly not to take any such 
 decisive step until she had reflected more maturely on the 
 subject, that she abandoned the idea. She felt that she could 
 never be happy in taking a step which she saw would cause 
 him so much unhappiness. 
 
 Shortly after the interview with her father on this subject, 
 she left the convent and went to live with him ; but she spoke 
 of the Abbe always through life with esteem and affection. 
 The last year of her life in Paris was now spent in the gay 
 whirl of its fascinating society. Her most frequent com- 
 panions in going out were the Ladies Caroline and Elizabeth 
 Tufton, Mademoiselle de Botidoux, who seems to have been 
 very popular, and some of her other convent friends. The 
 most cordial and friendly relations existed between the Duke 
 of Dorset and Mr. Jefferson, and an English lady Mrs. Rob- 
 erts, a widow who was an inmate of the duke's house, acted 
 as chaperone for his nieces, and often performed the same kind 
 office for their friend Miss Jefferson. The young people seem 
 to have made the most of their opportunities, and to have 
 missed none of the enjoyments of the gay and brilliant world 
 in which they found themselves. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson limited his daughter to three balls a week, 
 and, it mattered not how tempting a fourth might be, the rule 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 21 
 
 was adhered to. Whenever she went out she lost no chance 
 of dancing, of which she was passionately fond, that being 
 an accomplishment to which her father had made her pay 
 great attention at an early age. On one occasion the Duke 
 de Fronsac, afterwards Duke de Richelieu, was standing near 
 her, and remarked, " Vous avez bien danse ce soir, mademoi- 
 selle." She replied, " Beaucoup !" " Et bien," he added. At 
 another ball, having danced eight times with one of the Po- 
 lignac family, it not being admissible to dance twice in suc- 
 cession with the same partner, she knew that she must have 
 danced sixteen times at least. 
 
 The beautiful and celebrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devon- 
 shire, was in Paris that winter. The freshness of youth was 
 gone, but the same ease, grace, and sweetness of manner 
 which, united to the most extraordinary beauty of form and 
 feature, had placed half the world at her feet, were still there. 
 With this distinguished peeress and the Ladies Tufton, Miss 
 Jefferson went to a dinner given to the duchess. The 
 young Virginian was the only lady present whose height 
 was equal to her own, and the duchess, observing it, said, 
 " It gives me pleasure, Miss Jefferson, to see any one as tall as 
 myself." But she was invited to meet another distinguished 
 woman, a more world-renowned but, alas, more sadly cele- 
 brated beauty, the ill-starred Marie Antoinette. She was to 
 appear, incognita of course, at an evening party at the Duke of 
 Dorset's, and Miss Jefferson was asked, but was prevented by 
 an untimely indisposition. It is needless to say how great 
 was the disappointment, and that it was one she regretted all 
 her life. 
 
 As a girl of sixteen, Martha Jefferson could, of course, only 
 look on at a respectful distance at Madame de Stael, whom she 
 constantly saw at balls, surrounded by a circle of gentlemen 
 under the spell of the wonderful charm of her conversation. 
 The Marquis de La Fayette was then in the zenith of his pop- 
 ularity, gay, gallant, and agreeable, and he never passed the 
 daughter of his friend Jefferson without pausing to say a few 
 gay or kind words to her. 
 
22 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 The first threatenings and murmurings of the approaching 
 storm which was to burst so soon and with such fury over 
 that devoted city were heard before Jefferson and his daugh- 
 ter left Paris. When the king was brought from Versailles 
 and the whole population of the city was in the streets and 
 in an uproar of excitement, Miss Jefferson and some young 
 ladies were placed at a window to see the procession pass by. 
 The king's coach appeared, and they received a bow from one 
 of his chamberlains, with whom they were acquainted. Then 
 there rose a noise which they could not account for ; it sounded 
 like the " bellowings of thousands of bulls." At last it reached 
 the ears of that part of the crowd nearest to them, and was 
 taken up by those who heard it : " La Fayette ! La Fayette !" 
 was the cry, and there came a young man in a frock-coat care- 
 lessly riding by; he looked up at the window, saw and recog- 
 nized Miss Jefferson, — the only lady in the party whom he 
 knew, — and bowed. Never before nor afterwards did she re- 
 ceive a bow of which she was so proud. Her young friends 
 declared they were filled with envy. On another occasion 
 she was at a party in the country near Paris, just after the 
 French officers had assumed the tri-colored cockade. There 
 were a number present, and they proposed to transfer their 
 cockades to the ladies, who accepted them at once and pinned 
 them on their dresses. Long years afterwards Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph's daughters found among a package of her mementos 
 a faded tri-colored cockade, and learned from her its history. 
 But the close of this brilliant and gay period of her life was 
 at hand, and she left Paris for America with her father and 
 young sister the 26th of September, 1789. They did not sail 
 from England until the 22d of October, and after a passage of 
 thirty days reached Norfolk in safety late in November. 
 
 From Paris to Norfolk, — from the metropolis of the world 
 to a little sea-port town, where it was difficult to find a hotel in 
 which decent lodgings could be had for the night. The change 
 was terrible, and could but affect the spirits of the travelers, 
 no matter with what delight they landed on their native shores 
 and felt they were within reach of the dear home for which 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 23 
 
 all three sighed. The lovely little Polly, who had shed so many 
 tears on leaving Virginia, seems to have shed quite as many 
 on her return. Rather a querulous little beauty, she stood 
 what was disagreeable in the situation with less equanimity 
 than either of her companions. But the depth of her misery 
 was sounded when a little boy in the hotel, after making 
 desperate love to her, gallantly kissed her hand. Her sister, 
 knowing how sensitive and diffident she was, said a few sooth- 
 ing words to her; but she was inconsolable, and sobbed forth, 
 "Mais c'est bien different de Paris." 
 
 There were no stage-coaches in those days, and the journey 
 from Norfolk to Monticello was performed with horses lent 
 by friends, and in easy stages from one friend's house to 
 another, visiting in turn on their way homeward those whom 
 they had not seen for years, and stopping at places with which, 
 after such a long absence, there were associations both pleas- 
 ant and sad. For an account of their final arrival at Monti- 
 cello, I must here ask the indulgence of the reader for the 
 repetition of words used in describing the same scene in 
 another work : 
 
 " A letter written by Mr. Jefferson to his overseer had been 
 the means of the negroes getting information of their master's 
 return home some days before he arrived. They were wild 
 with joy, and requested to have holiday on the day on which 
 he was expected to reach home. Their request was, of course, 
 granted, and they accordingly assembled at Monticello from 
 Mr. Jefferson's different farms. The old and the young came, 
 — women and children, — and, growing impatient, they saun- 
 tered down the mountain-side and down the road until they 
 met the carriage-and-four at Shadwell (four miles distant), 
 when the welkin rang with their shouts of welcome. Martha 
 Jefferson speaks of their 'almost' drawing the carriage by 
 hand up the mountain ; her memory in this instance may 
 have failed her, for I have it from the lips of old family serv- 
 ants who were present as children on the occasion, that the 
 horses were actually ' unhitched,' and the vehicle drawn by 
 the strong black arms up to the foot of the lawn in front of 
 
24 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the door at Monticello. The appearance of the young ladies, 
 before whom they fell back and left the way clear to reach 
 the house, filled them with admiration. They had left them 
 when scarcely more than children in the arms, and now re- 
 turned — Martha a tall and stately-looking girl of seventeen, 
 and the little Maria, now in her eleventh year, more beautiful 
 and, if possible, more lovable than when, two years before, her 
 beauty and her loveliness had warmed into enthusiasm the 
 reserved but kind-hearted Mrs. Adams." 
 
 * Mr. Jefferson and his daughters reached Monticello on the 
 23d of December, 1789, and on the 23d of February, 1790, 
 Martha was married to her distant relative, young Thomas 
 Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe. The marriage was probably 
 hurried that her father might set out for New York, where he 
 was to take his place in General Washington's cabinet as 
 Secretary of State; for a few days after the wedding he left 
 home. Mr. Randolph was of good social position, of dis- 
 tinguished appearance, and a man of talent; he had been 
 educated at Edinburgh. 
 
 Young as she was, her accepted lover was not the only one 
 who had paid his addresses to Martha Jefferson, and, if we are 
 to believe some of her Paris correspondents, there were more 
 than one on that side of the Atlantic who had made an effort 
 to keep her there. The charm of her manner and conversa- 
 tion, even at that early age, is represented as being very great, 
 and but for the contrast with her singularly beautiful little 
 sister she might have been thought handsome. 
 
 When she first returned from Europe she was not very 
 favorably impressed with Virginian society, but on visiting 
 the families of some of the owners of large landed estates she 
 found handsome, well-bred men and women, who in refine- 
 ment and dignity of manner did not differ from those she had 
 left abroad. There were still traces of the old colonial style 
 of living, and of its school of manners, which would have 
 compared favorably, in its day, with any in the world. But 
 the establishments where this style of life was kept up when 
 Martha Jefferson returned home were rather the exception 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 2 $ 
 
 than the rule. It is difficult to realize what the change must 
 have been from the gayest and most brilliant society of 
 the world, with all its excitement, to the primitive country 
 life in Virginia, with no amusements whatever, and which, 
 contrasted with the scenes in which she had been living, must 
 have seemed almost barbarous in its extreme simplicity. 
 
 It was well therefore that a suitable husband appeared so 
 soon, and that in the novelty of married life the young bride 
 and wife lost all thought of a society and existence now far 
 beyond her reach. The first winter and summer of their 
 marriage were spent by the young couple at Monticello. 
 They then moved to Varina, an estate belonging to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, below Richmond, where they seem to have been very 
 pleasantly situated and to have passed two very happy years. 
 The only glimpse I find of this period of Mrs. Randolph's 
 life is through the letters of her friends who had visited her ; 
 one of these being her old convent school-mate Brunette, who 
 found an asylum in the house and home of her "dure Jeff" 
 on her arrival with her husband and children in America, 
 refugees from Guadaloupe. She writes with enthusiasm of 
 her friend's happy situation and of " ce bon pays de la Vir- 
 ginie que j'aime a la folie." 
 
 Mrs. Randolph's sister, now no longer " Little Polly," as 
 her school-mates always called her, but a beautiful young lady 
 on the eve of marriage, writes to her father from Varina early 
 in the year 1796, and, after announcing her safe arrival, says, — 
 
 " I found my sister and her children in perfect health ; she 
 enjoying the satisfaction arising from the consciousness of 
 fulfilling her duty to the utmost extent But it is one she has 
 always had. It would please you, I am sure, to see what an 
 economist, what a manager, she has become. The more I see 
 of her the more I am sensible how much more deserving she 
 is of you than I am ; but, my dear papa, suffer me to tell you 
 that the love, the gratitude she has for you could never sur- 
 pass mine: it would not be possible." 
 
 After her return to Virginia, Polly's name was changed to 
 Maria, that being the Virginia pronunciation of Marie, as she 
 
2 6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 was called in France. The self-distrust and self-depreciation 
 betrayed in the lines just quoted from her letter were promi- 
 nent traits in her character. She does not seem to have had 
 the bright, gay, and happy temper which her sister possessed. 
 To deserve and retain their father's unbounded love was the 
 highest aim in life for both the sisters, and the youngest was 
 always troubled with the fear that not having her sister's 
 talents she would not have an equal share in his affections. 
 When therefore her sister would exclaim, sportively, " Oh, 
 Maria ! if I only had your beauty," she did not receive it as a 
 compliment, but rather as an insinuation that she was praised 
 for her beauty because she could not be praised for talent : so 
 little did she value good looks. 
 
 Maria Jefferson was married in the autumn of 1797 to her 
 cousin John Wayles Eppes. Her winters were spent at the 
 house of her husband's father in Chesterfield County, and her 
 summers at Monticello. 
 
 About the time of this marriage Mr. and Mrs. Randolph 
 moved to Belmont, an estate in Albemarle, not more than 
 six miles from Monticello. Their family now consisted of 
 three children, Anne, Jefferson, and Ellen. 
 
 As giving the best picture of Mrs. Randolph's life at this 
 period, I give the following letters and extracts from letters 
 written to her father. The first contains a striking illustration 
 of the manner in which children were made hardy in the past 
 generation, — the little boy alluded to in this letter being not 
 quite six years old: 
 
 MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 "Belmont, May 12, 1798. 
 " Dearest Father, — Nothing makes me feel your absence 
 so sensibly as the beauty of the season; when every object in 
 nature invites one into the fields ; the close monotonous streets 
 of a city, which offers no charms of society within-doors to 
 compensate for the dreariness of the scene without, must be 
 absolutely intolerable, particularly to you who have such in- 
 teresting employment at home. Monticello shines with a 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 2 J 
 
 transcendent luxury of vegetation above the rest of the neigh- 
 borhood as yet. . . . We have been all well but Jefferson, 
 who had declined rapidly for sometime from a disorder which 
 had baffled every attention and change of diet. But Mr. Sneed 
 opening school and Jeffy being hurried out of bed every morn- 
 ing at sunrise and obliged, after a breakfast of bread and milk, 
 to walk two miles to school, his spirits returned, his com- 
 plexion cleared up, and I am in hopes that his disorder has 
 left him entirely. He is much mended in appearance, strength, 
 and spirits, which had been low to an alarming degree. Anne 
 just begins to read, and Ellen points at grandpapa's picture on 
 the chimney when asked where he is. Adieu, my dearest 
 father. Blest as I am in my family, you are still wanting to 
 complete my happiness. Monticello will be interesting indeed 
 when with the prospect of it the loved idea of yourself and 
 dear Maria will be so intimately blended as they will in a few 
 weeks, I hope. Once more adieu, and believe me, with every 
 sentiment of affection, yours." 
 
 " Belmont, June — , 1798. 
 " It is easier to conceive than to express the sensations with 
 which the sight of the preparations for your return inspires 
 us. I look forward to Thursday with raptures and palpita- 
 tions not to be described ; that day which will once more 
 unite me to those most dear to me in the world. Adieu, 
 dearest and adored father. The heart-swellings with which I ad- 
 dress you when absent, and look forward to your return, con- 
 vince me of the folly or want of feeling of those who dare to 
 think that any new ties can ever weaken the first and best of 
 nature. The first sensations of my life were affection and re- 
 spect for you, and none others in it have weakened or sur- 
 passed these. The children all send love to grandpapa, and 
 count the days with infinite anxiety. Yours with tenderest 
 love and reverence." 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1800 Mr. Randolph moved 
 with his family to his own estate, Edgehill, a mile from Bel- 
 mont, and nearer Monticello than that place. The house at 
 
2 8 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Edgehill was small, but there seems to have been always a 
 spare room for company. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph was now the mother of four children, another 
 little girl, Cornelia, having been added to the number. She 
 also had the care of her husband's sister, Virginia, whose 
 mother dying when she was very young, her brother's house 
 became her home. Mrs. Randolph bestowed on her the same 
 affectionate attention which she would have shown her own 
 sister, and added to her other kindnesses that of educating 
 her. Mrs. Randolph's intercourse with her husband's family 
 was marked by the most perfect self-abnegation, and there 
 was not a member of it whose affection and boundless esteem 
 she did not command. A proof of this was the fact that if 
 the brother was ever the object of any ill will it was never 
 extended to his wife. 
 
 Her husband's family not only visited Mrs. Randolph in 
 her own house, but in her father's. She was always a com- 
 forter to them in distress, and not rarely a nurse for themselves 
 and their children in sickness. One of her sisters-in-law being 
 with her on one occasion in delicate health, she took the 
 trouble to attach the invalid's little boy to her, though she 
 had her own young children around her, that his suffering 
 mother might be relieved of the care of her son, who soon 
 became devoted to " auntie." The following letter was written 
 soon after the move to Edgehill : 
 
 MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 " Edgehill, January 30, 1800. 
 " I have this moment received your two letters to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph and myself (together), and by the same post one from 
 Mr. Eppes, informing me of the loss of his child. My heart 
 is torn by an event which carries death to hopes so long and 
 fondly cherished by my poor sister. I would give the world 
 to fly to her comfort at this moment ; but having been disap- 
 pointed before in doing what perhaps my anxiety only termed 
 a moral duty (visiting her during her confinement), I am afraid 
 to indulge any more hopes upon that subject. To your in- 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 29 
 
 quiries respecting poor Jupiter,* he too has paid the debt to 
 nature. Finding himself no better on his return home, he 
 unfortunately considered himself poisoned, and went to con- 
 sult the negro doctor who attended the Georges. He went 
 into the house to see Uncle Randolph, who gave him some 
 brandy, which he drank, and seemed to be as well as he had 
 been for some time past, after which he had a dose from his 
 black doctor, who pronounced that it would kill or cure. Two 
 hours and a half after taking the medicine he fell down in a 
 strong convulsion fit, which lasted from ten to eleven hours, 
 during which time it took three stout men to hold him. He 
 languished nine days, but was never heard to speak from the 
 first of his being seized to the moment of his death. Ursula,t 
 I fear, is going in the same manner with her husband and son. 
 . . . The doctor, I understand, had also given her ' means,' 
 as they term it, and upon Jupiter's death has absconded. I 
 should think his murder sufficiently manifest to come under 
 the cognizance of the law. . . . Adieu, my dearest father. I 
 have written this with the messenger who is to carry it, at my 
 elbow, patiently waiting." 
 
 The picture of the negro doctor and his method of practice 
 given in this letter is a perfect illustration of the strange ideas 
 of the science of medicine entertained by his race. To them 
 it is half science, half witchcraft. In by-gone days in Vir- 
 ginia, on almost every plantation there was some favored in- 
 dividual, either male or female, among the slaves who was 
 thought to be endowed with the power of effecting wonderful 
 cures by means of curious signs and mysteriously compounded 
 drugs. Their ideas of physiology were particularly striking; 
 the palate, for instance, being supposed to be held in place by 
 a particular lock of hair on the crown of the head. If in an 
 attack of sore throat the palate " was down," the inspired phy- 
 sician was called in to raise it by tying up the " palate-lock." 
 
 Hospitable as Jefferson and his daughter both were, the 
 
 * Mr. Jefferson's coachman and favorite servant, 
 f Another servant. 
 
30 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 crowds of visitors who thronged the open doors at Monticello 
 were naturally at times a great annoyance and burden. The 
 two interesting letters which follow show how much this was 
 the case in the summer visits which Jefferson paid to Monti- 
 cello during his terms of office. 
 
 MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 " Edgehill, January 31, 1S01. 
 "... I am delighted that your return will be at a season 
 when we shall be able to enjoy your company without inter- 
 ruption. I was at Monticello last spring one day before the 
 arrival of any one, and one day more of interval between the 
 departure of one family and the arrival of another ; after which 
 time I never had the pleasure of passing one sociable moment 
 with you. Always in a crowd, taken from every useful and 
 pleasing duty to be worried with a multiplicity of disagree- 
 able ones, which the entertaining of such crowds of company 
 subjects one to in the country, I suffered more in seeing 
 you always at a distance than if you had still been in Phila- 
 delphia; for then at least I should have enjoyed in anticipation 
 those pleasures which we were deprived of by the concourse 
 of strangers which continually crowded the house when you 
 were with us. I find myself every day becoming more averse 
 to company. I have lost my relish for what is usually deemed 
 pleasure, and duties incompatible with it have supplanted all 
 other enjoyments in my breast, — the education of my chil- 
 dren, to which I have long devoted every moment that I could 
 command, but which is attended with more anxiety now as 
 they increase in age without making the acquirements which 
 other children do. My two eldest are uncommonly back- 
 ward in everything ; much more so than many others who 
 have not had half the pains taken with them. Ellen is won- 
 derfully apt ; I shall have no trouble with her ; but the two 
 others excite serious anxiety with regard to their intellect. 
 Of Jefferson my hopes were so little sanguine that I discov- 
 ered with some surprise and pleasure that he was quicker 
 than I had ever thought it possible for him to be. But he 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 31 
 
 has lost so much time, and will necessarily lose so much more 
 before he can be placed at a good school, that I am very 
 unhappy about him. Anne does not want memory, but she 
 does not improve. She appears to me to learn absolutely 
 without profit. Adieu, my dear father ; we are all fearfully 
 anxious to see you. Ellen counts the weeks and continues 
 scoring up complaints against Cornelia, whom she is perpet- 
 ually threatening with your displeasure. Long is the list of 
 misdemeanors which is to be communicated to you, amongst 
 which the stealing of two potatoes, carefully preserved two 
 whole days for you, but at last stolen by Cornelia, forms a 
 weighty article. Adieu again, dearest, best-beloved father. 
 Two long months before we shall see you. In the mean 
 time rest assured of the first place in the heart of your affec- 
 tionate child." 
 
 To this letter the following beautiful and touching answer 
 was written, — beautiful in its efforts to quiet the anxieties 
 about her children of an inexperienced and ambitious young 
 mother; touching in the cry with which it closes for that rest 
 in the bosom of his family which this devoted father was never 
 to enjoy : 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 
 
 "Washington, February 5, 1S01. 
 "My dear Martha, — Yours of January 31st is this mo- 
 ment put into my hands, and the departure of the post obliges 
 me to answer on the same day. I am much afflicted to learn 
 that your health is not good. ... I have formed a different 
 judgment of both Ann and Jefferson from what you do; of 
 Ann positively, of Jefferson possibly. I think her apt, intelli- 
 gent, good-humored, and of a soft and affectionate disposition, 
 and that she will make a pleasant, amiable, and respectable 
 woman. Of Jefferson's disposition I have formed a good 
 opinion, and have not suffered myself to form any opinion, 
 either good or bad, of his genius. It is not every heavy- 
 seeming boy which makes a man of judgment, but I never 
 
32 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 yet saw a man of judgment who had not been -a heavy-seem- 
 ing boy, nor knew a boy of what is called sprightly parts be- 
 come a man of judgment. But I set much less store by talents 
 than good dispositions, and shall be perfectly happy to see 
 Jefferson a good man, an industrious farmer, and beloved 
 among all his neighbors. By cultivating these dispositions in 
 him, — and they may be immensely strengthened by culture, — 
 we may insure his and our happiness; and genius itself can 
 propose no other object. Nobody can ever have felt so severely 
 as myself the prostration of family society from the circum- 
 stance you mention. Worn down here with pursuits in which 
 I take no delight, surrounded by enemies and spies, catching 
 and perverting every word which falls from my lips or flows 
 from my pen, and inventing where facts fail them, I pant for 
 that society where all is peace and harmony, where we love 
 and are beloved by every object we see ; and to have that 
 intercourse of soft affections crushed and suppressed by the 
 eternal presence of strangers goes very hard indeed, and the 
 harder as we see that the candle of life is burning out, so that 
 the pleasures we lose are lost forever. But there is no remedy. 
 The present manners and usages of our country are laws we 
 cannot repeal. They are altering by degrees, and you will 
 live to see the hospitality of the country reduced to the visiting 
 hours of the day, and the family left to tranquillity in the even- 
 ing. It is wise, therefore, under the necessity of our present 
 situation, to view the pleasing side of the medal, and to con- 
 sider that these visits are evidences of the general esteem 
 which we have all our lives been trying to merit. The char- 
 acter of those we receive is very different from the loungers 
 who infest the houses of the wealthy in general, nor can it be 
 relieved in our case but by a revolting conduct which would 
 undo the whole labor of our lives. It is a valuable circum- 
 stance that it is only through a particular portion of the year 
 that these inconveniences arise. The election by the House 
 of Representatives being on Wednesday next, and the next 
 our post-day, I shall be able to tell you something certain 
 about it by my next letter. I believe it will be as the people 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 33 
 
 have wished ; but this depends on the will of a few moderate 
 men, and they may be controlled by their party. I long to 
 see the time approach when I can be returning to you, though 
 it may be for a short time only. These are the only times 
 that existence is of any value to me. Continue, then, to love 
 me, my ever-dear Martha, and be assured that to yourself, your 
 sister, and those dear to you, everything in my life is devoted. 
 Ambition has no hold on me but through you. My personal 
 affections would fix me forever with you. Present me affec- 
 tionately to Mr. Randolph. Kiss the dear little objects of our 
 mutual love, and be assured of the constancy and tenderness 
 of mine to you. Adieu." 
 
 Read in the light of subsequent events, the interest in these 
 letters increases ; for the " heavy-seeming" boy, the object of 
 such tender solicitude, grew up indeed to be the " man of 
 judgment," whose loving arms in the hour of adversity were 
 the stay and support of this anxious mother and fond grand- 
 father, as the warmth of his affections was their joy. After 
 a long life of usefulness and self-sacrifice, sinking to rest with 
 the declaration on his lips that it had been his rule through 
 life to repress all feelings of resentment for any wrong done 
 him, he was borne to his grave amid the most touching 
 expressions and evidences of the love which his friends and 
 neighbors bore him, while with him was buried a fund of 
 varied information, knowledge, and wisdom which there are 
 few who might not envy. 
 
 As usual, Mr. Jefferson spent the summer this year (1801) 
 at Monticello, his two daughters and the little grandchildren 
 being with him. In a letter written in the spring of 1802, Mrs. 
 Randolph alludes to her father's return home in the summer, 
 and to the pleasure of their meeting at Monticello,—" though 
 not, on my side," she adds, " unmixed with pain when I think 
 it will be a precursor of a return to the world from which I 
 have been so long secluded and for which my habits render 
 me every way unfit." This dreaded " return to the world" 
 was an anticipated visit to Washington, which, did not take 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 place, owing to the illness of Mrs. Randolph's children. In 
 the same letter written to announce this disappointment to 
 her father, she tells him of the illness of one of his servants, 
 and speaks of having sat up with him, together with a lady 
 friend, " all night, until the doctor could arrive, which was not 
 until after daylight." She expresses great sympathy with the 
 sufferings of her " fellow-creature," and speaks of " the fortu- 
 nate circumstance of his being with us rather than at home, 
 for if nursing and the most unwearied attention can save him, 
 he shall not want ; for Mr. Randolph, the doctor, and myself 
 have been hourly with him." What could be more pleasing 
 than this picture of the high-bred lady watching beside the 
 bed of her father's faithful slave during the long hours of the 
 night, and not being willing during the day to intrust the care 
 of him entirely to others ? 
 
 The two sisters, with their families, again passed the summer 
 with their father at Monticello in 1 802, and in October, after 
 his return to Washington, he wrote to insist on their coming 
 to pay him the long-promised visit there. In reply to this 
 summons the following letter was written : 
 
 MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 " October 29. 
 
 " Dear Papa, — We received your letter, and are prepared 
 with all speed to obey its summons. By next Friday I hope 
 we shall be able to fix a day ; and probably the shortest time 
 in which the horses can be sent after receiving our letter will 
 determine it, though as yet it is not certain that we can 
 get off so soon. Will you be so good as to send orders to 
 the milliner, — Madame Peck, I believe her name is, — through 
 Mrs. Madison, who very obligingly offered to execute any 
 little commission for us to Philadelphia, for two wigs of the 
 color of the hair inclosed, and of the most fashionable shapes, 
 that they may be in Washington when we arrive ? They are 
 universally worn, and will relieve us as to the necessity of 
 dressing our own hair, a business in which neither of us are 
 adepts. I believe Madame Peck is in the habit of doing these 
 
MRS. THOMAS MA XX RANDOLPH. 35 
 
 things when desired, and they can be procured in a short time 
 from Philadelphia, where she corresponds, much handsomer 
 than elsewhere. Adieu, dearest father." 
 
 The long-delayed visit to Washington was made this fall, 
 and the two sisters gladdened their father's heart by spending 
 a portion of the winter with him. Mrs. Randolph was in very 
 bad health, having an abscess on her lungs, and her physician, 
 fearing she might have consumption, advised her to spend the 
 winter in Bermuda. She left home, therefore, with the inten- 
 tion of staying a short time only in Washington, and then 
 going on to Bermuda. 
 
 The journey from Edgehill to Washington was generally 
 accomplished in four days. The roads were execrable, and 
 the only mode of conveyance was a private carriage. For Mrs. 
 Randolph the journey itself, so much dreaded, proved to be 
 most beneficial, as at the end of the first day the abscess on 
 her lungs broke, and the improved condition of her health 
 which followed was such that the intended trip to Bermuda 
 was abandoned. 
 
 The pleasure of this trip to Washington seems to have been 
 unalloyed, and the two sisters, who thus emerged from the 
 seclusion in which they had been living in their quiet country 
 homes in Virginia, to plunge into the gayeties of the capital 
 of the nation, showed no want of zest in the enjoyment of 
 them. To Mrs. Randolph it was the first glimpse of the world 
 which she had seen since she had enjoyed the delights of the 
 brilliant society at the court of Louis XVI. As the daughters 
 of the President they would, under all circumstances, have 
 received attention and admiration ; but there were graces of 
 mind and person in the two sisters which would have secured 
 these for them had they been no other than what they assumed 
 to be, Virginia ladies. Years afterwards Mrs. Madison would 
 describe with great delight the impression which they made 
 when going into society together that winter. The singular 
 beauty of Mrs. Eppes caused all eyes to be riveted on her 
 when her lovely face and graceful form appeared in the door- 
 
36 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 way, while the charm of Mrs. Randolph's manner, her vivacity 
 and her powers of conversation made her the centre of a group 
 not less enthusiastic in their admiration of her than of her 
 beautiful sister. 
 
 There was the usual round of balls, parties, and dinners, in 
 all of which Mrs. Randolph participated. To Mr. Jefferson 
 the burdens and cares of public life were lightened by the 
 presence of the two beings who were dearer to him than life 
 itself, and it was one of the very few occasions in his public 
 career when he enjoyed, while at his post, the sweets of daily 
 family intercourse. 
 
 The two sisters left Washington in January and returned to 
 the quiet of their country homes in Virginia. The family was 
 again reunited at Monticello in the summer, when the con- 
 dition of Mrs. Eppes's health was such as to excite grave ap- 
 prehensions about her, which were too sadly realized in the 
 course of the twelvemonth. Mr. Jefferson's two sons-in-law 
 following him to Washington in the fall to take their places 
 in Congress, Mrs. Eppes was easily persuaded to spend the 
 winter with her sister at Edgehill. She needed indeed the 
 tender care and attention which her sister alone could give, 
 and these last months that they were destined to be together 
 on earth were thus passed in the closest and most intimate in- 
 tercourse. It was a period of great physical suffering to one 
 and of the keenest mental anguish to the other. 
 
 Every attention that love and tenderness could suggest 
 Mrs. Eppes received from her sister, who left her chamber 
 and her own infant that she might assist in taking care of the 
 invalid and her child at night. That there was no improve- 
 ment in her condition during the fall and winter we learn from 
 the anxious tone of her father's letters, in one of which he ex- 
 presses the hope that the evening post would bring news of her. 
 
 But the good news of the invalid never came. Her child 
 was born in February, and there was a flare-up of her strength 
 which revived hopes of her ultimate recovery, and, in an out- 
 burst of joy betokening the relief of long-restrained anxiety, 
 her father writes to congratulate her on hearing of her well- 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 37 
 
 doing. " A thousand joys to you, my dear Maria," he writes, 
 adding, "I rejoice indeed that all is so well." Alas for hopes 
 destined so soon to be blighted! for Mrs. Eppes soon grew 
 worse, and sank steadily until, about the middle of April, sur- 
 rounded by those she had loved first and last, this beautiful 
 young woman passed away from earth. 
 
 For the first few hours after her sister's death Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph's grief was so violent that one attack of hysterics suc- 
 ceeded another. At last she received a message from her 
 father begging her to come to him. She made a desperate 
 effort to control her feelings, and went to his room. She 
 found him with the Bible in his hands and composed, but on 
 seeing her enter the room he gave way to his feelings, and a 
 violent outburst of grief ensued from both. As soon as he 
 recovered himself sufficiently to speak, he exclaimed, " Oh, 
 my daughter, I did not send for you to witness my weakness, 
 for I thought I could control myself, but to comfort me with 
 your presence." Those words, and the thought they sug- 
 gested, that she alone could be his comforter, instantly gave 
 her strength to master her grief for his sake. " I felt at once 
 strong," she said in after-years to one of her children, in de- 
 scribing this painful scene. It was, perhaps, the greatest 
 proof she could have given of her filial devotion, that even in 
 the first wild moments of her agonizing grief for the beautiful 
 young sister to whom she had been half mother, her father's 
 first cry of distress should have centred her thoughts on him 
 and made her control her own feelings in her desire to soothe 
 his. 
 
 The loss of this loved daughter made Mr. Jefferson cling 
 with increased tenderness to the one still spared him. The 
 winter after her sister's death Mrs. Randolph had a severe 
 illness, of which her father was not informed until she had 
 recovered from its effects. As soon as he heard of her having 
 been ill, however, he wrote to reproach her for not having 
 told him sooner of the danger she had been in, and assured 
 her that but for business he should have gone to her even 
 then as " fast as my horses could carry me." The anxiety he 
 
38 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 expresses about her health, and his entreaties to her to take 
 care of herself, are touching. In reply she writes, — 
 
 "Nothing could have been farther from my mind, dearest 
 father, than the idea of exciting alarm in that bosom which it 
 has been the study of my life to soothe and comfort. . . . 
 I feel my importance with regard to yourself, my helpless 
 little girls and their father, whose joint affection gives to life 
 a value which cannot fail to render me sedulously attentive to 
 the preservation of it. For your sake, my dear father, par- 
 ticularly will I be careful of myself, that your declining years 
 may not be embittered by the loss of their last prop. Adieu, 
 with every sentiment of affection." 
 
 Mrs. Randolph only visited Washington twice while her 
 father was President. The first visit was made, as we have 
 seen, with her sister; the second in the winter of 1805-6, 
 when she took with her her whole family, now consisting of 
 six daughters and one son. On the occasion of this visit the 
 wife of the British Minister sent to ask if Mrs. Randolph had 
 come to Washington as the President's daughter, or as the 
 wife of a Virginia gentleman. If as the first, she would make 
 the first call ; if as the second, she would expect it. It not 
 being the etiquette for natives, whether residents of the city or 
 not, to call first on foreign ministers, Mrs. Randolph, under her 
 father's instructions, replied that she was in Washington as 
 the wife of a Virginia gentleman, and as such expected the 
 first call from the wife of the British Minister. It is almost 
 needless to add that the ladies did not exchange visits. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph had ample opportunities for indulging her 
 taste for society during this winter spent in the President's 
 house. He entertained a great deal, and in a style becoming 
 the station which he held. This he did more from a sense of 
 duty than a taste for company, which was often a serious 
 burden to him and added greatly to the fatigues of his official 
 duties. Three times a week he had dinner-parties, the company 
 invited being members of Congress, or the citizens, and any 
 distinguished foreigners who might be in town. Among the 
 distinguished guests entertained by the President this winter 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 39 
 
 was the ambassador from Tunis, who, being the latest arrival, 
 was the lion of the day. 
 
 True to their Oriental ideas, this embassy came loaded with 
 superb presents for the President and his daughters, and, 
 equally true to his ideas of propriety, Mr. Jefferson did not 
 allow these to enter his house. They were accepted with due 
 form and courtesy at the State Department, then sold, and the 
 money from the sale placed in the Treasury as belonging to 
 the government. 
 
 In a society composed of such varied elements as that 
 which was entertained at her father's hospitable board, natu- 
 rally many incidents occurred which afforded amusement to 
 one with such a keen sense for the ridiculous as Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph. Those who knew her well can remember still with 
 what zest she related even late in life many a good story with 
 which that winter furnished her. A close observer of every- 
 thing going on around her, and a good judge of character, 
 she had a fund of anecdotes which added not a little to the 
 interest of her conversation, always gay and sprightly. 
 
 But there were incidents, partaking in no way of the ridicu- 
 lous, which revealed to this high-toned lady party hate and 
 malignity such as she had never dreamt of in the simple and 
 pure life of her quiet Virginia home. In the early part of Mr. 
 Jefferson's administration gambling was indulged in to a great 
 extent in Washington, the vice extending to women of high 
 position. On the occasion of some evening entertainment, 
 when perhaps cards formed one of the amusements, a North- 
 ern member of Congress asked Mrs. Randolph to join him in 
 a game. She declined, but in a short time he renewed his 
 invitation. She again declined; but on his repeating the 
 request the third time she assured him, in a manner which 
 could but carry conviction, that there was not a game of cards 
 that she could play. " Is it possible, madam!" the gentleman 
 exclaimed. " Why, with us the universal impression is that 
 you are the greatest gambler in the country, and that if a per- 
 son wants office nothing would favor him so much as having 
 lost money with the President's daughter." 
 
40 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 John Randolph of Roanoke was at this time in Congress. 
 It must have been in his intercourse with Mrs. Randolph 
 during this winter that he learned to know her so well and so 
 to appreciate her worth and talents that later, when her health 
 was proposed at a gentleman's dinner in Virginia, at a time 
 too when he was one of her father's bitterest political foes, he 
 seconded the toast with the exclamation, " Yes, gentlemen, 
 let us drink to the noblest woman in Virginia." The impres- 
 sion she made on foreigners was not less favorable. The 
 polished Marquis de Yrujo, who was then Spanish Ambassa- 
 dor in Washington, said she was fitted to grace any court in 
 Europe. 
 
 But not in the delights of society, not in the charms of 
 conversation with men of talents and polish, — charms so fas- 
 cinating to a woman of culture, — did she find her greatest 
 happiness in this visit to Washington. That was in being so 
 constantly in her father's society, and in the intimate and unre- 
 served intercourse which existed between them. Her rever- 
 ence for him, which amounted almost to adoration, did not 
 prevent her sharing every thought with him and finding in 
 him the tenderest sympathizer with her every joy and sorrow, 
 whether trivial or great. The death of the beautiful and ten- 
 derly-loved member of this devoted trio seemed to have drawn 
 the two remaining more closely together than ever. Mrs. 
 Randolph had access to her father's apartment at all hours ; 
 and when an unusual press of business left him no spare 
 moment to give even to her, the key of his room was put in 
 the lock on the outside of the door ; as a sign that if possible 
 he must not be disturbed, but that if she chose she could 
 enter. 
 
 From an interesting account of Mrs. Randolph's life at this 
 period, written by her daughter Mrs. Trist, I make the fol- 
 lowing extract : 
 
 " My mother's second visit to her father was in the winter 
 of 1805-6. She had then lost her sister. My aunt left two 
 children, Francis and Maria Jefferson. The little girl was 
 only a few months old, and did not long survive her mother. 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 41 
 
 Francis passed that winter under my mother's care, his father 
 being still in Congress. One of my brothers was born that same 
 winter, — the first birth which took place in the White House. 
 He was called James Madison. Mrs. Madison was an inti- 
 mate and much-valued friend of my mother's, and her amiable 
 playful manners with children attracted my sisters and my- 
 self and made her a great favorite with us. . . . My oldest 
 sister, Anne, completed her fifteenth year that winter, and 
 was not yet going into society; but my mother permitted her 
 to go to a ball under the care of a lady friend, who requested 
 that my sister might go to her house to dress and accompany 
 her own daughter, near her age, to the ball. My sister ex- 
 cited great admiration on that occasion. She had a ' remark- 
 ably classic head,' as I remember hearing an Italian artist re- 
 mark at Monticello upon seeing her there after she was the 
 mother of several children. Her hair was a beautiful auburn, 
 and her complexion had a delicate bloom very becoming to 
 her ; and with the freshness of fifteen I can readily imagine 
 how strikingly handsome she was. My mother, accompanied 
 by Mrs. Cutts, went to the ball at a late hour. She was very 
 short-sighted; and, seeing my sister entering the ball-room, she 
 asked Mrs. Cutts, ' Who is that beautiful girl ?' Mrs. Cutts, 
 much amused, answered, ' Why, woman, are you so unnatural 
 a mother as not to recognize your own daughter ?' 
 
 "... A lasting impression was made on my memory 
 by the reception in one of the drawing-rooms of the Tu- 
 nisian Ambassador and suite, — the brilliantly-lighted room, 
 the odd appearance to my puzzled senses of the rich Turkish 
 dresses, and my alarm at receiving a kiss from the secretary 
 of the ambassador, whilst one of my sisters, just two years 
 old, whose Saxon complexion and golden hair made her a 
 beautiful picture, was honored by a kiss from the ambas- 
 sador. I heard of the elegant presents brought by them for 
 my mother and aunt, which were publicly exhibited and sold. 
 My mother wished to purchase one of the shawls intended 
 for her; but when Mrs. Madison went to make the purchase 
 she found that she had been anticipated by another person. 
 
42 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 The talk about these presents could not, of course, fail to 
 greatly excite my curiosity; but my desire to see them was not 
 gratified. My grandfather did not allow them to be brought 
 to the President's house." 
 
 The following letter, written after Mrs. Randolph's return 
 home, is a vivid picture of the anxious mother at the bedside 
 of an ill child : 
 
 MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 " Edgehill, July 12, 1S06. 
 " I have suffered so much from fatigue and anxiety since 
 my return home that I have not had spirit to write to my 
 dearest father. The day Mr. Randolph left me I discovered 
 my dear Ellen to be very ill. . . . The speed with which 
 Mr. R. moves and accomplishes his business prevented my 
 sending for him, as he could only have been brought back 
 two days sooner than he intended to return. His business 
 was very urgent; and the heat of the weather, his anxiety and 
 fatigue would have endangered his health so much that I 
 determined to depend on my own strength and the advice of 
 the physician. The complaint from the beginning seemed to 
 be of the most inveterate kind, with so much fever that she 
 became through the day delirious, but employing every lucid 
 interval in reading. Judge of my feelings, my dearest father, at 
 seeing her escaping from me so rapidly, and often, when hang- 
 ing over her in agonies indescribable, to have some question of 
 natural history, which she was reading at the time, addressed 
 to me by the little sufferer, the activity of whose mind even 
 the most acute bodily pain was never capable of subduing! She 
 sank at last in a state of stupor, which, however, seldom left her. 
 She was as certainly saved by bleeding, my dear father, as 
 others have been killed by it. Thank God, the fever has inter- 
 mitted. Ann wrote to you when the crisis had taken place 
 in consequence of the bleeding, and myself, exhausted with 
 watching, want of food, and anxiety, had taken to my bed under 
 a severe illness. But, thanks to the very judicious and friendly 
 attention and management of my case by Doctors Everett and 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 43 
 
 Gilmer, who by sitting up with Ellen relieved me from care and 
 anxiety, I was not confined more than five days. The fever- 
 ish derangement lasted ten days ; and to the false strength 
 which that gave me I was indebted for the incessant attention 
 night and day which it enabled me to give my darling, and 
 by which perhaps she was saved. The others were all of them 
 sick at the same time, and required also unwearied attention to 
 their diet, that they might not be suffered to get too low. Jane 
 from home, and not a female friend to assist me, — I reflect, 
 with horror that no language can depict, upon that week." 
 
 The two years which elapsed between Mrs. Randolph's 
 visit to Washington and her father's final return to Monticello, 
 freed at last from the splendid torments of public life, were 
 spent by her in her quiet home at Edgehill. Though her life 
 there was so hidden from the world, its duties and its cares were 
 very great. The mother of seven children, the mistress of a 
 Virginia plantation, and with her husband's finances always 
 in an embarrassed condition, she had her full measure of 
 troubles and care. Yet her good sense, her spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, and her bright, happy temper bore her in triumph 
 through every trial. The " little girls," for whose sakes we 
 have seen her expressing such anxiety to live, never had any 
 other instructor than their mother; and few women could 
 boast a better education than they received. So admirable 
 was her system of instruction, and so great her power of 
 inspiring her young scholars with a desire to learn, that she 
 found it oftener necessary to use the curb than the spur with 
 them. 
 
 Excellent as she was both as the loyal wife and devoted 
 attentive mother, yet it was perhaps as the kind and thoughtful 
 mistress that Mrs. Randolph's superior traits of character 
 shone forth. Only those thoroughly familiar with plantation- 
 life as it was in Virginia can appreciate the fact that the mis- 
 tress of a large landed estate was the greatest slave on it. On 
 her devolved the duty of seeing that the slaves were properly 
 provided with clothes and abundance of wholesome food, and 
 
44 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 that when sick they received every attention. She, too, was 
 their friend in every trouble, in sickness or in health, and into 
 her sympathizing ear were poured their idle or just complaints 
 of wrongs, fancied or real. With what patience, with what 
 fidelity, and with what kindness of heart Mrs. Randolph 
 discharged these various duties, the devotion of her slaves 
 sufficiently testified. Sunday, she often said, was no day of 
 rest to her, for that was the chosen day on which the old 
 negro women asked an audience of their mistress and made 
 their wants known to her. 
 
 On every well-regulated Virginia plantation the wool from 
 the flocks upon it was spun into yarn and manufactured by 
 the women into very excellent cloth. To have an eye to 
 all the details of this operation was no easy task, and required 
 no little executive talent; but Mrs. Randolph proved herself 
 equal to it. No greater proof, perhaps, of the almost Homeric 
 simplicity of life in Virginia at that day could be given than 
 the picture of this lady, with the tastes and accomplishments 
 which might have adorned a princess, giving out to her maid- 
 servants wool which they were in due time to return to her 
 manufactured into a given amount of properly-woven cloth. 
 One is reminded of the Greek matrons presiding over the 
 work of their handmaidens. 
 
 Occasional visits from a friend or neighbor, new books 
 sent by her father, her harpsichord, and the constant com- 
 panionship of her children, were the relaxations Mrs. Randolph 
 had in her busy but, as far as variety and amusement went, 
 dull and monotonous life at Edgehill. All visits from neigh- 
 bors were generally to spend the day, — taken in its literal 
 sense, — and not to make morning calls. Nor was it a mark 
 of intimacy to make such a visit without special invitation : 
 a carriage driving to the door was often the first intimation 
 the hostess had that she was to have company to dinner. 
 Such being the custom, it was the necessary fashion to come 
 early, as early even as eleven or twelve o'clock, that the lady 
 of the house might have time to make suitable additions to 
 her dinner. The visitors generally came with their knitting 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 45 
 
 or embroidery, sustained an animated conversation with the 
 ladies of the house for an hour or two, which was followed 
 by a mutually agonizing period of suppressed yawns, until 
 dinner — always an excellent one — was announced. The meal 
 being over, the company set out almost immediately for home, 
 which was generally reached after dark and after a drive of 
 seven or even twelve miles over execrable roads. 
 
 The happiest days in all the year for the mother and chil- 
 dren at Edgehill were those on which the dear grandfather 
 came from Washington to spend a few weeks at Monticello. 
 His journey was generally so timed that he arrived at Edge- 
 hill to breakfast, and when he started for Monticello, a few 
 hours later, he was accompanied by his daughter and the 
 little grandchildren, whose bright, happy faces were radiant 
 with delight as they turned towards the beautiful spot which 
 they already knew and loved as their home. At last the 
 days of separation were ended ; and great was the joy which 
 filled the hearts of this father and daughter the morning he 
 arrived, not as the President of the United States on a hur- 
 ried visit to his country home, but as the private citizen, who 
 was never again to be deprived by the discharge of official 
 duties of the sweet pleasures of domestic life for which he 
 had so long sighed. The move to Monticello this time was 
 permanent, and during her father's life it never ceased to be 
 the home of Mrs. Randolph and her children. 
 
 The early days of this return home, before he began to 
 realize the extent of his financial embarrassments, was, per- 
 haps, both to Jefferson and his daughter the happiest period 
 of their lives. It must have been with infinite satisfaction that 
 she saw herself established with her family in the home of 
 her childhood, and her children growing up around her father 
 with a love and veneration inferior only to her own. His in- 
 tercourse with them was very charming, and many a spring 
 day they were seen trooping after him as he went from flower- 
 bed to flower-bed, planting seed that were soon to present to 
 their longing and impatient gaze flowers which they thought 
 wonders of beauty. 
 
4 6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph presided over her father's establishment, and, 
 in addition to the trouble which the entertainment of crowds of 
 visitors involved, the " spinning-room" fell under her province 
 here, as at Edgehill. Years afterwards, an old negro woman, 
 while speaking with some pride of having been one of the 
 "spinners" at Monticello, added, "Oh, we were so bad and 
 troublesome, I wonder how mistress had the patience to bear 
 with us as she did !" Her favorite recreations were reading 
 and the cultivation of flowers. Music, too, remained a great 
 resource to her, and it was her habif to play after tea every 
 evening for her father, whose passion for music is well known. 
 After his death she did not play as much as she had formerly 
 done, but it was noticed that she was careful not to forget his 
 favorite pieces, which she continued to play to the day of her 
 death. 
 
 Now and then the arrival of a distinguished foreigner at 
 Monticello afforded Mrs. Randolph an opportunity of listen- 
 ing to conversations whose wit and eloquence reminded her 
 of the brilliant talkers at the court of Louis XVI. Few 
 men of note came to America who did not visit Monticello. 
 There Kosciusko told the tale of Poland's wrongs and sor- 
 rows to a sympathizing and eagerly listening audience ; there 
 the Abbe Correa de Sena, the accomplished Portuguese phi- 
 losopher, displayed his wonderful powers of conversation, so 
 eloquent and so brilliant, yet so simple and full of grace, that 
 even children felt the spell of its charm ; there, too, La Fayette 
 moved his hearers to tears by the recital of the horrors of the 
 dungeon of Olmutz, whence he had emerged shattered in 
 health and maimed for life by the hardships undergone there. 
 
 Enlivened as it occasionally was by such visitors, the life 
 at Monticello was very delightful. The place being sur- 
 rounded by scenes whose beauty baffles description, mere 
 existence there would have been a pleasure to one so appre- 
 ciative of nature as Mrs. Randolph. Great was the delight 
 of a life when to this pleasure was added the far greater one 
 of daily and intimate intercourse with those she loved best, 
 and the frequent enjoyment of a society at her father's table 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 47 
 
 which in refinement and intelligence could compare favorably 
 with any in the world. It is not to be wondered at, there- 
 fore, that, with such surroundings and associations, Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph and her children should have been devotedly attached 
 to their home at Monticello. 
 
 The most welcome perhaps of all the guests was the Abbe 
 Correa, called in Paris the learned Portuguese, and ranked by 
 De Candolle with, if not above, Cuvier and Humboldt. He 
 resided for many years in Philadelphia, and visited Monticello 
 every summer or autumn, staying sometimes three weeks at a 
 time. The least troublesome of visitors, the most amiable of 
 men, as well as the most charming and interesting of com- 
 panions, his arrival was hailed with delight by the servants, 
 children, and grown people of the household. Botanizing was 
 his favorite occupation, and in this he found an enthusiastic 
 companion in Mr. Randolph himself, the best botanist in 
 Virginia. They spent hours almost every day in wandering 
 together through the woods and fields, studying the flora of 
 the country. In these long strolls he often stopped short to 
 talk awhile with his companion, when his conversation was 
 so animated and earnest that it was impossible not to listen 
 to him with interest, though the inconvenience of these long 
 delays in the return home was often great. He was of low stat- 
 ure and ungainly in his appearance, but with a noble head, and 
 large dark eyes beaming with intelligence and good humor. 
 The great cordiality and perfect simplicity of his manner were 
 exceedingly attractive to children, of whom he was very fond. 
 He was well versed in the history and politics of Europe, and 
 his powers of conversation were unsurpassed, the delight and 
 admiration of all who were with him. The room which he 
 generally occupied while the guest of Jefferson is still pointed 
 out as the "Abbe Correa's chamber." 
 
 In 1824, Mrs. Randolph welcomed to Monticello, as a 
 broken-down old man and refugee from his country, the 
 General La Fayette whom she had known as a dashing young 
 officer, the darling of the French nation. The touching 
 meeting between himself and his loved Jefferson has been 
 
48 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 often described by those who witnessed it. But not less in- 
 teresting than their meeting were the conversations between 
 these two old men on the occasion of this visit. When in the 
 freedom of conversation over their wine after dinner they re- 
 verted to the stirring scenes of their early lives, its reminis- 
 cences and incidents, so animated did they become, with such 
 eloquence did they speak, that, carried away by the enthu- 
 siasm of the moment, the rest of the company involuntarily 
 left their seats at the table and grouped themselves around 
 the two sages, that they might not lose one of the eloquent 
 words which fell from their lips. 
 
 It was while dining at a neighbor's house with one of his 
 distinguished guests that an incident occurred which so well 
 illustrates the extreme amiability of Jefferson's character that 
 I cannot refrain from inserting it here. The gentleman of the 
 house was noted for his imperious and peevish temper. It 
 was already past the hour, and dinner not announced, and the 
 host's darkened brow betrayed his ill-suppressed impatience. 
 Mr. Jefferson and some other guests happened to be standing 
 near a door in the hall that looked down a side-passage into 
 which the staircase leading from the kitchen opened. A ser- 
 vant, aware perhaps of his master's brewing wrath, came run- 
 ning in all haste up the staircase carrying a dish with a roast 
 turkey in it, and as he made a sudden turn out flew the turkey 
 and fell upon the floor. The poor domestic stood dum-^ 
 founded, with the empty dish in his hand; but Mr. Jefferson, 
 who alone had seen the catastrophe, stepped forward in- 
 stantly, and, picking up the turkey by its two ends, with the 
 tips of his fingers replaced it in the dish, as he whispered 
 kindly to the frightened waiter, " Never mind : put the turkey 
 on table, and say nothing of this." 
 
 Mrs. Randolph was the mother of twelve children, five 
 sons and seven daughters. Of these last the second died 
 when an infant, and the youngest, from being the seventh, was 
 named Septimia. In allusion to this, the Abbe Correa used 
 to say, " Your daughters, Mrs. Randolph, are like the Ple- 
 iades : they are called seven, but six only are seen." The 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 49 
 
 eldest daughter, Anne, who is described as having been so 
 beautiful, was married when quite young to Mr. Bankhead. 
 Some years later, while Monticello was still their mother's 
 home, two of the other sisters were married, Ellen to Mr. 
 Coolidge, of Boston, and Virginia to Mr. Trist. 
 
 The clergyman who officiated on these occasions was Mr. 
 Hatch, of Charlottesville, an Episcopal minister, and the only 
 clergyman of any denomination in the village. An incident 
 occurred connected with him which is too illustrative of the 
 primitive customs of the country at that day not to be re- 
 lated here. Mr. Hatch was on a visit to Monticello one day, 
 when Mr. Jefferson was suddenly summoned from his library 
 to see some persons awaiting him on the lawn in front of his 
 door, and who had come on " urgent business." On going 
 out he found two countrymen on horseback, each with a 
 woman mounted en croupe behind him. Their business was 
 soon explained. They had come from their homes, fifteen or 
 twenty miles off, to Charlottesville, one couple to be married, 
 the other, as their friends, to witness the ceremony, and they 
 were all to return home that day. When they reached Char- 
 lottesville they were told Mr. Hatch had gone to Monticello 
 to spend the day. Not being able to await his return, they 
 had followed him, and called Mr. Jefferson out to lay the state 
 of the case before him. Assuring them that everything should 
 be arranged to their satisfaction, he kindly insisted upon their 
 dismounting, and, conducting them into the house, sent to the 
 drawing-room for Mr. Hatch, and had the ceremony performed 
 in his own presence in the large hall, with such members of 
 the household as chose to witness the ceremony. This being 
 over, the happy couple, accompanied by their friends, mounted 
 their steed, and made their wedding-journey back home, and 
 have doubtless since related many a time to their children's 
 children the story of their trouble about the parson, and of 
 the kind way in which they were helped out of it by the old 
 man who lived on the little mountain. 
 
 The happy days at Monticello were happy indeed, but there 
 was a reverse to the medal. With some charming guests 
 
 4 
 
5 o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 there came crowds who were attracted either by curiosity to 
 see the retired statesman or by the desire to spend a few days, 
 or even weeks, at a pleasant country place. The number thus 
 entertained was very great ; and, annoying as it was to have 
 one's home so thronged with company, — often self-invited, — 
 the expense it entailed was a still greater evil, for with the 
 guests came their servants and horses. The state of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson's affairs, already so embarrassed when he left public 
 life, could not stand this additional burden, and the corre- 
 spondence of both himself and his daughter betrays an anxiety 
 as to their finances increasing with each year. It was but the 
 foreshadowing of the grave results which were to follow. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's generosity to others brought bankruptcy 
 on himself, and Mrs. Randolph could now look only to her 
 father, whose own fortunes were tottering, for aid and support 
 for herself and children. In one of her letters written at this 
 time she speaks of her son Jefferson's assuming his father's 
 unpaid debts, of his exertions in his grandfather's behalf which 
 had saved his property from a forced sale; "and the sacrifices 
 made by such," Mrs. Randolph writes, "would have deprived 
 his revered head of a shelter in his old age. My spirits," she 
 adds, "and consequently my health, are beginning to recover 
 from the dreadful effects of this agitating crisis." What 
 mental anguish these lines reveal ! And yet there was a sorer 
 trial in store for her. A few weeks after they were written, 
 her daughter Mrs. Bankhead died, in February, 1826. 
 
 The two following letters so touchingly reveal the sorrows 
 of this sorely-tried family that I cannot refrain from inserting 
 them here. Mr. Jefferson Randolph was in Richmond at the 
 time they were written, trying to get permission from the 
 legislature for his grandfather to sell a portion of his property 
 by lottery. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON TO THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 
 
 " Monticello, February II, 1826. 
 
 "Bad news, my dear Jefferson, as to your sister Anne. 
 She expired about half an hour ago. I have been so ill for 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 51 
 
 several days that I could not go to see her till this morning, 
 and found her speechless and insensible. She breathed her 
 last about eleven o'clock. Heaven seems to be overwhelming 
 us with every form of misfortune, and I expect your next will 
 give me the coup de grace. Affectionately adieu." 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 "Richmond, February, 1826. 
 " My dearest Grandfather, — Last night I received yours 
 of nth conveying the heart-rending intelligence of the death 
 of my beloved sister, an event for which I had been in a 
 manner prepared by previous letters from home, and adding 
 another pang to your afflictions. Let me entreat you to re- 
 strain yourself and cheer up with the hope of better times. 
 We have proceeded slowly, but surely, we hope, in your busi- 
 ness here. The vote given the other day was without debate 
 on the reading of the bill. ... It will be certain to be taken 
 up day after to-morrow, and by the next mail I hope to com- 
 municate its passage. Preserve yourself for our sakes. If 
 the worst should happen, which I again repeat I do not in 
 the least apprehend, neither my mother nor yourself can ever 
 want comforts as long as you both live. I have property 
 enough for us all, and it shall ever be my pride and happiness 
 to watch over you both with the warmest affection and guard 
 you against the shafts of adversity. How wretched are those 
 possessing large property and unfortunate in the vices and 
 ingratitude of their children ! How rich you are in the vir- 
 tues and devoted attachment of yours ! Preserve your health 
 and spirits, and all other ills are but comparative and imagi- 
 nary, and we shall all, under the worst possible circumstances, 
 be rich enough for our desires. On the passage of this bill, 
 which is not doubted by its friends, our ills will vanish like 
 smoke. Your devoted grandson. 
 
 But the ills did not " vanish like smoke." To Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph the great agony of her life — the death of her father — 
 came early in the summer of 1826; a few weeks later another 
 
52 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 blow, which could have been second only to that in bitterness, 
 — the almost certain loss of her home, — forced itself on her. 
 In the depreciated condition of property it was found that 
 Jefferson's debts would swallow up his whole estate, and leave 
 his daughter penniless. 
 
 The autumn after her father's death, with many anxieties 
 for the future, so veiled in painful uncertainty for her, and 
 with her great sorrow still fresh upon her, Mrs. Randolph 
 went to Boston to spend the winter Avith her daughter Mrs. 
 Coolidge. Removed from the scene of her recent affliction 
 and the daily cares of her life there, it was thought the 
 change would be beneficial to her health and spirits, as indeed 
 it proved to be. Enjoying the society and being under the 
 watchful care of a much-loved daughter, she received from 
 her son-in-law, Mr. Coolidge, to whom she was sincerely at- 
 tached, every attention that kindness of heart and the utmost 
 delicacy of feeling could suggest. In the haven their home 
 afforded her she therefore found rest from the trials through 
 which she had just passed, and time to gather strength to 
 meet those still in store for her. 
 
 In this visit to Boston Mrs. Randolph was accompanied by 
 her two youngest children, Septimia and George, while the 
 rest of her family spent the winter with her eldest son, Jeffer- 
 son, who was never so happy as when his mother and her chil- 
 dren made his home theirs. The two children with her were 
 placed at school in Boston, Septimia being the first and only 
 one of her daughters who ever went to school. The little 
 George, the youngling of the flock and his mother's darling, 
 who grew up to be a man of such mark and distinction, was 
 not taught his letters until he was eight years old. There 
 was, consequently, some difficulty in finding a suitable school 
 for him, and in one of her first letters from Boston, in men- 
 tioning this fact, his mother says, — 
 
 " The difficulty seemed irremovable, and I determined to 
 devote myself to him all the morning till the time for dressing 
 for morning visitors, which frittered up my time so that I could 
 do nothing. But a young man who has just left college has 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 53 
 
 opened a school for the higher branches, but to which he 
 agreed to admit George, with many kind and affectionate ex- 
 pressions for his grandfather, whose name he venerates, and 
 whose grandson he said he should consider it an honor to be 
 permitted to teach anything and everything he knew. So the 
 poor little boy, with tears of shame and mortification at his own 
 ignorance, accompanied Mr. Coolidge yesterday for the first 
 time, and after his return seemed so determined to have his 
 lessons ready that he hardly allowed himself time for his meals." 
 In another letter she writes of the little boy, — 
 " George is a very fine boy, and has excited a good deal 
 of interest, — so industrious, so sensible, and so affectionate. 
 The child's attachment to me is becoming a passion. The 
 moment he is out of school he runs home and throws his 
 arms around me. He said yesterday that he thought so much 
 of me in school that it made him unhappy till he returned, 
 and in going he said, ' Thank God, at two o'clock I can see 
 you again.' " 
 
 The letters written by Mrs. Randolph from Boston are full 
 of interest, and give a perfect picture of her life at that time. 
 They are addressed to her daughters Mrs. Trist and Miss 
 Mary J. Randolph, whom she had left behind her in Virginia, 
 as we have seen, at their brother Jefferson's house. From 
 these letters I give the extracts which follow. They tell their 
 own sad tale, revealing to us, as they do, the touching picture 
 of a gentle and high-born lady suddenly cast down by for- 
 tune and writhing under a great sorrow, which was embittered 
 by the loss both of a home and a support. Yet, unselfish in 
 adversity as in happier days, she feels more for those dear to 
 her than for herself, and bears with courage, calmness, and 
 dignity the reverses of fortune which had fallen so heavily 
 upon her. The first of these extracts was written years after 
 those which follow, but finds its appropriate place here : 
 
 EXTRACTS. 
 
 " I can well understand what you have suffered for the loss 
 of poor H., and the recurrence of the mind to the days of 
 
54 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 early childhood is the natural effect of grief in the first hours 
 of its bitterness. When my dear father first died, my mind 
 for some time was in the state of one in a vision. I lived 
 over my life with him, every circumstance appeared to pass 
 in review through my memory, and if at that moment my 
 thoughts could have been transmitted to paper, it would have 
 constituted a memoir of his private life more complete and 
 perfect than can ever again be written. The journeys that I 
 had made with him in my childhood were still so fresh in my 
 mind that in traveling the same road afterwards in my journey 
 to Boston I was overwhelmed with melancholy recollections. 
 As much as every object had changed, the old scenes, asso- 
 ciated with the names of the places we had visited together, 
 rose fresh in my mind to make the contrast yet more bitter. 
 Yet I must do myself the justice to say that, great as that 
 contrast was, it was not that, it was not the loss of fortune 
 and of hope, but of the being on earth I most idolized, and 
 one of whom the thought had for years past become a habit 
 of my mind. His age and his infirmities, and the near termi- 
 nation of that precious life, had long weighed upon my spirits, 
 and the darkness of the future, impervious even to the eye 
 of the imagination, admitted not one ray of light or hope to 
 enlighten the gloom." 
 
 "November 22, 1826. 
 
 " Now that I shall have my mornings free, I can write reg- 
 ularly to you all, dear children of my heart. I have thought 
 of you but once since I left you, and that was from the morn- 
 ing of our sorrowful parting until the present moment. My 
 health, strength, and spirits have all recruited very much. If 
 hope could ever exist again in my heart, I should say that our 
 prospects are brightening. But I shall never expect good for- 
 tune until I lay my hand upon it, and even then I shall wash 
 my face to see if I am really awake and not dreaming. Now 
 that I have become reconciled to the prospect of earning my 
 bread by a school, it remains to be proven whether when the 
 cup of bitterness is actually pressed to my lips I can take it 
 with the same philosophy that I do a necessary medicine that 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 
 
 55 
 
 is to restore health. God help me if that fail ! I should not 
 long be here to eat the bread of dependence, or to see my 
 children beggars. Upon their success in life I believe mine 
 depends. Adieu, dearest Virginia. I dare not think of you, 
 or rather give way to my thoughts, anywhere but in the re- 
 tirement of my own bed-chamber ; for, though I can command 
 every other demonstration of grief, the tears will occasionally 
 drop from my eyes when I forget to restrain my sad thoughts, 
 which will revert to past, present, and future scenes, all fraught 
 with wretchedness and anxiety. Adieu again, and God bless 
 you and my other dear children and grandchildren, from 
 N. down to my precious little Willie and P. Remember me 
 to every one of them ; to my good neighbors all, and the 
 servants every one. God knows my heart is overflowing 
 with love for many and kindness to all." 
 
 " December 12, 1826. 
 " Perhaps I may get one thousand or twelve hundred dol- 
 lars from Congress, if they see fit to pay a just debt, — money 
 actually advanced by my dear father, originally five hundred 
 dollars, now, with the interest of twenty years, more than 
 doubled. But that is uncertain, although I have looked to it 
 as a resource to fix up my school. I have fixed my eye so 
 steadily upon the Gorgon's head that it is producing its effect, 
 and I am every day more callous or more resigned to the 
 drudgery of it. If we should succeed and make anything, 
 those profits might be placed in the funds, so as to give a 
 support for the years in which I may no longer be able to do 
 anything for myself. Unfortunately, I was educated as the 
 heiress to a great estate, and was learning music, etc., etc., 
 when I ought to have been acquiring dexterity with my 
 needle ; but I believe no good management of mine could, 
 under the circumstances in which we have been placed, have 
 saved the estate, although it might have added, and no doubt 
 would, to the comfort and elegance of our living ; but my 
 education may still be the means of procuring us food and 
 raiment." 
 
56 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 " December 28, 1826. 
 
 " With regard to a removal from the neighborhood, what- 
 ever place will be most favorable for our future business will 
 be best for us. Although I still believe we should have the 
 advantage of respect and affection — everything to persons who 
 have lost everything else — in a degree in our own neighbor- 
 hood, where we are known and appreciated, that as strangers 
 we could hope for nowhere else ; but this, after all, is a sec- 
 ondary consideration. I received a letter from your brother 
 (Jefferson) yesterday of so cheerful a tone that it has made me 
 feel more light-hearted than usual, although he still repeats 
 that we have nothing but our own exertions to depend upon. 
 I have never for one moment believed otherwise ; but we are 
 all young, and the struggle is over, our minds being made up 
 for the future, and I trust we all have strength of mind suffi- 
 cient to make the necessary exertion gracefully and cheerfully. 
 I hope Jefferson will be able to assist his brothers, at least 
 till /can contribute my share. I write that / boldly, because 
 with returning health and strength I feel an energy that I 
 trust will not spend itself in words. . . . We were at an 
 oratorio Christmas eve, where there was certainly a tinta- 
 marre de tousles diables ; but if you ask me about the music I 
 must answer you by a quotation from old Alberti, ' De damn 
 dog make such a noise me no hear de music ;'* but I was 
 obliged to keep that to myself, and, praising that which was 
 good, say nothing of the bad. Tell my dear Lewis that I have 
 been made truly happy by hearing how steadily he has been 
 going on with his studies since I left ; but they have none of 
 them written to me. Ben's energy of character I depend on 
 to make him a useful member of society if properly applied, 
 and I hope James will not be deficient when he sees us all 
 cheerfully laboring for the same end. God bless you, my 
 dear Mary. Nicholas furnished us with a motto that we 
 ought to adopt : a tree without leaves, and ' reflorebo.' 
 Brighter days will come. This winter will be very serviceable 
 
 *A speech made by Alberti when taken to a fox-hunt and asked how he liked 
 the music of the pack of hounds in full cry. 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 57 
 
 to us all, and when we meet it will be, I hope, to show our- 
 selves worthy of our origin. Through life I have had a bright 
 example of fortitude, cheerfulness, and dignified resignation 
 to unavoidable evil. Once more, God bless you all, my 
 
 beloved ones. 
 
 "Your own devoted mother." 
 
 1S26. 
 
 " Comfortable as I am here, and sorry as I shall be to leave 
 Ellen, yet, in truth, ' Home is home, be it ever so homely,' 
 and my heart is constantly hovering around it. For myself, 
 as I must resign the spot which sheltered whilst living, and 
 now contains the only earthly remains of my dear, dear 
 father, on my own account I do not care where I go ; for your 
 sakes, I wish to do that which is most for your interests, my 
 dear children ; but I cannot but look back to Monticello, as 
 Eve did to Paradise after they were driven forth into the 
 wilderness of the world. . . . Excuse this illegible scrawl, 
 but really, inexplicable as it may seem, I have even less time 
 here than at home, and nothing to show for it. We breakfast 
 at half-past eight; at nine the children are gone, and it is 
 nearly ten before I get to my room; at eleven I dress for 
 morning visitors ; we dine at half-past two, and the days are 
 already as short here as they are at their shortest in Virginia. 
 The broken intervals in the forenoon I ' mend' for the children 
 and myself, and write. After dinner I strum a little on the 
 piano, and help George and Septimia with their lessons. A 
 most unsatisfactory day it makes, and a very idle one. Mr. C. 
 insists much on my walking, and I really, unless it was the 
 day we played truant from a stupid preacher, have never had 
 time. Adieu." 
 
 " December 21, 1S26. 
 
 " I judge from the manner in which George's schoolmaster 
 encourages and praises him that he has never required the 
 spur. I can say with truth that / have never eaten one meal 
 in peace since he has been going to school, for his 'Come, 
 mamma, we are losing time,' rouses me from many a pleasant 
 
58 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 conversation. Poor little fellow, it is the only trouble he 
 gives me." 
 
 " January 17, 1827. 
 
 " When I return we will determine on our future home, — 
 as dear Monticello is out of the question, I presume, for the 
 present at least. I acknowledge I have looked forward to the 
 possibility of returning there at some future day, when our 
 income in money, clear of the enormous encumbrance of those 
 large families of negroes, would permit us to control our 
 expenditures ; but it has rather been a vague wish than a 
 hope. However, one prospect of more certain happiness is, 
 my dear daughter, that we shall all meet again and be blessed 
 in each other's society. Wherever our home is, there also 
 will be love and harmony. ... In writing me the par- 
 ticulars of the sale" (of the furniture at Monticello) " tell me 
 what arrangements have been thought of with regard to a resi- 
 dence ; for no doubt the subject must have been much talked 
 of and some places suggested as most desirable. Remember, 
 in all deliberations of the kind, that I shall have no choice 
 but the interest of the family. I still think we shall have to 
 keep a school; and wherever we can do the best in that line 
 will be the wisest choice." 
 
 " January 22, 1827. 
 
 " I have been very anxious to hear the particulars of the 
 sale at Monticello, and whether the paintings have been taken 
 down yet. My father's two, Jefferson's and mine, will, of 
 course, remain ; Mr. Madison's also ; I do not think it would 
 be treating so excellent a friend well to sell it. ... I should 
 also wish that the gold medal given my father by one of 
 the agricultural societies of France, and the beautiful medal 
 of Bonaparte, and Oliver Cromwell's picture, should be re- 
 tained ; also Coffee's bust of Mr. Madison. I hope Jefferson 
 will not think me unreasonable in wishing to retain these. If 
 he thinks it wrong, however, they must go. There were some 
 articles of the furniture that I should have wished bid in for 
 me, but, except my dear father's bedroom furniture (not the 
 clock), and what belonged to you girls, and Septimia's and 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. $g 
 
 George's little presses that your aunt Jane gave them, I did 
 not think I had a right to keep anything else. My heart has 
 been continually hovering about that dear home, and my 
 imagination at work with a minuteness of detail that has 
 spared me nothing but the sight. I know it is necessary ; I 
 do not repine; but I cannot but remember that such things 
 were and are most dear to me. Do not think that I give way, 
 my dear daughters, to low spirits. You will find that I have 
 as much exertion and self-command as our necessities demand. 
 I can say no more, nor must you be surprised if at times when 
 I cannot be occupied the unbidden tear will start. The images 
 at the bottom of my heart naturally recur when my attention 
 is not forcibly called from them, and that every hour, nay, 
 every moment, of the day." 
 
 " February 13, 1827. 
 " The marble clock* I should have prized beyond anything 
 on earth, and if, in our circumstances, I had felt myself justi- 
 fiable in retaining a luxury of that value, that clock, in pref- 
 erence to everything else but the immediate furniture of his 
 bedroom, I should have retained. However, in addition to 
 the loss of the clock, which I regret the more bitterly since I 
 know how near we were getting it, let us not alienate so near 
 a relation and friend, who, I dare say, is sorry for it now that 
 it is past. I am very glad nobody would buy the old sofa, as 
 many a time will my weary limbs rest upon it, without the 
 self-reproach of having retained a luxury, however cheap, that 
 could have been sold. As it was, the high sales of the old 
 furniture only showed the kind disposition of the neighbor- 
 hood to us." 
 
 " February 19, 1S27. 
 
 " The approach of spring makes my heart turn to dear 
 home and my still dearer children, only to remember that I 
 have no home and am seven hundred miles from so many 
 objects of my love." 
 
 * This clock — the dial between two black marble obelisks — stood on a bracket 
 over Jefferson's bed. 
 
60 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 " March 21, 1827. 
 " Your father speaks of joining McKinney, if he has not a 
 partner, ' somewhere in sight of Monticello.' Oh, how often 
 the words ' dear home' tremble upon my lips and dim my 
 eyes! Will it ever again be my home? And until that ques- 
 tion is decided, where is our home to be ? I believe it would 
 be more convenient for me to remain here till the fall." 
 
 " June 20, 1S27. 
 " God bless you all, my beloved children, from Jefferson 
 down to little P. Remember me to the old ladies particularly, 
 and kiss all the others, boys and girls. Do not forget to say 
 something to our kind neighbors, — they are too many to 
 name them all, — and to the servants, individually and gener- 
 ally. Perhaps if I mention the names of Wormley, Burvvell, 
 and Johnny, it will give them pleasure ; and I certainly think 
 of them all, male and female, with great kindness." 
 
 " , 1S27. 
 
 " In our poverty we have still some of the greatest luxuries 
 of wealth, — consideration and respect. I never feel my own 
 dignity more than when in company with a rich parvenu. Our 
 poverty is an honorable one. Our wealth, which was great, 
 was not spent in riotous living nor in extravagance, but it was 
 lost by the time and attention which others devote to their 
 private affairs being exclusively devoted by my dear father to 
 his country, in whose service he was worn out. He retired 
 from public life too old to learn, and too infirm to attend to his 
 own business; and this, with causes of expense incident to his 
 situation, is sufficient to account for our condition." 
 
 So end the extracts from letters written by Mrs. Randolph 
 during this sad period of her life. She remained in Massa- 
 chusetts, where she had been joined by one of her daughters, 
 and where she boarded part of the time in Cambridge, until 
 the spring of 1828, when she returned to Virginia. Monticello 
 had not yet been sold, and Mrs. Randolph went there to 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 6 1 
 
 spend the summer with her daughters. Her husband, who 
 had been traveling at the South a part of the time which she 
 had spent at the North, was at Monticello when she arrived. 
 She found him in very bad health, and on June 26, 1 828, he died. 
 
 This stay at the old home, besides being saddened by her 
 husband's death, must have been too fraught with painful 
 associations to have given her any pleasure. The venerable 
 figure of him whose memory consecrated every spot of the 
 loved home was gone ; the probability that the place itself 
 would pass into the hands of strangers had now become a 
 certainty; and the lovely landscapes surrounding it, tran- 
 scendent still in their beauty, — could the joy of hourly gazing 
 upon them, with all the soothing influences of such scenes, be 
 unalloyed while the thought was ever present that that joy 
 would soon belong of right to others? Monticello was sold 
 in December, and Mrs. Randolph removed with her family to 
 the house of her son Jefferson, who lived in sight of the home 
 for which she only ceased to sigh with life itself. 
 
 The present condition of the home which it cost this loving 
 woman such a pang, such a heart-wrench, to give up, presents 
 so great a contrast to what it was when occupied by her and 
 those dearest to her that it can but be noted as a striking 
 illustration of the vicissitudes of life. Over a scene whose 
 cheerful aspect and serene, tranquil beauty had seemed to 
 mark it as safe from the changes of fortune there now breathes 
 the spirit of ruin and desolation. The lawn whose soft turf 
 was so often pressed by the eager little feet of the young 
 children of the house, as they ran the race marked off and 
 witnessed by the aged grandfather, is now, a waste overgrown 
 with weeds. The terraces, from whence the visitor looked 
 down on scenery unrolled at his feet whose magnificence is 
 almost dazzling, are falling in and not to be trodden. 
 
 But within the house the scene is still more painful. The 
 rooms known as the Madison and Abbe Correa's chambers 
 have within the past few years been sometimes occupied by 
 negro families. The drawing-room, where, amid surroundings 
 which betokened ease and good taste, Jefferson was wont to 
 
62 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 spend his evenings with his family, now presents four bare 
 walls, while its beautiful inlaid floor generally bears marks of 
 the dance which the latest picnic party has had upon it. Ad- 
 mission to what were his private apartments is almost always 
 refused. Perhaps it is as well that this should be the case ; 
 for I imagine there are few so curious as not to prefer passing 
 by the closed door of Jefferson's library to looking in and 
 seeing it used as a kitchen and the cook busily engaged in 
 giving their dinners to the negro laborers of the farm, while 
 everything about the apartment, black and filthy as it is, 
 would make an Irish hovel seem neat and orderly beside it. 
 
 But Nature has remained constant to a spot on which she 
 has lavished so many of her charms. The same lovely views, 
 the same rich scenes, surround it still as those through which 
 she shed her sweetest smiles on its former occupants. She 
 would honor the dead as much as the living; and the un- 
 dimmed brightness with which the stars pour their soft light 
 upon the graves on that lonely mountain-side shows that as 
 pure an atmosphere still enwraps the whole as when they 
 moved as living beings through scenes in which for long 
 years they have slept the silent sleep of death. 
 
 During the year which Mrs. Randolph spent with her son, 
 the plan of keeping a female boarding-school, with her daugh- 
 ters as assistant teachers, was again suggested. While it was 
 under discussion, however, the necessity for it was removed 
 by the generous donation from South Carolina of ten thou- 
 sand dollars to Mrs. Randolph. Louisiana soon followed the 
 example of her sister State, by giving her the same sum ; and 
 thus the fear which had haunted her day and night, of seeing 
 her children in want and having herself to eat the bread of 
 dependence, was removed from the breast of this gentle and 
 suffering but brave and high-spirited lady. She now had the 
 means to secure for herself and those dearest to her the neces- 
 saries of life ; and more she did not ask. Nor more did the 
 country her father had served so well intend her to have. 
 The plan that each State should give her ten thousand dollars 
 apiece was forgotten as soon as South Carolina and Louisiana 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 63 
 
 made their donations ; while the just debt of the paltry sum 
 of twelve hundred dollars due from Congress to her father 
 for money advanced by him was never paid. 
 
 Mr. Clay having secured a clerkship in the State Depart- 
 ment for Mr. Trist, Mrs. Randolph's son-in-law, she determined 
 to live in his house in Washington with her daughters and 
 her two orphan grandchildren, the son and daughter of her 
 daughter Mrs. Bankhead. She therefore turned her back on 
 her beautiful native mountains, with all their lovely landscapes 
 and tender associations, in the fall of the year 1829. In Wash- 
 ington she was received with every mark of attention and 
 respect. The ladies of the cabinet, and Mrs. Donelson, who 
 presided at the White House, cast aside etiquette and hast- 
 ened to make the first call ; while the President, General Jack- 
 son, and the members of his cabinet paid her the same mark 
 of respect. Nor did General Jackson during the whole time 
 of her residence in Washington omit to call on her once a 
 year, accompanied usually by the Secretary of State. 
 
 In alluding to her destitute condition before receiving South 
 Carolina's gift, I find her, several years later, saying, in a letter 
 to one of her daughters, — 
 
 " But time, that blessed friend of the unfortunate, had com- 
 forts in store for us that the most sanguine dared not to an- 
 ticipate ; and I have been saved the horror of seeing my dear 
 children withering in poverty and the drudgery of a school. 
 Can I ever forget South Carolina ? But for her liberality, her 
 gratitude to my dear father, where and what should we have 
 been now ? God preserve me from the sorrow of ever seeing 
 the hand of one of my children raised against her ; for to us 
 she has given the comforts of life, without which life itself 
 would have been a burden." 
 
 Of her life in Washington at this time, her daughter Mrs. 
 Trist writes, — 
 
 " During the years which she passed in Washington she 
 resumed many of her old occupations : her taste for flowers 
 revived, and good music afforded her enjoyment, although she 
 no longer played much herself after my grandfather's death. 
 
64 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Her habits of reading she never lost; and she always began 
 the day with some chapter of the New Testament. She was 
 an early riser, in summer and in winter. She liked an east 
 window in her bedroom, because it enabled her to read in bed 
 before the household were stirring. Every year she visited 
 alternately my elder brother at his residence near Monticello, 
 in the southwest mountains of Virginia, or my sister, Mrs. 
 Joseph Coolidge, in Boston. 
 
 " In the spring of 1831 she was called on to make a painful 
 sacrifice such as mothers only can appreciate, — she gave her 
 consent to George's entering the navy. After passing a winter 
 with her in Washington, he had entered a school near the 
 University of Virginia, when a midshipman's warrant was 
 procured for him ; but he was yet a mere child, and his 
 mother's heart sickened at the thought of his going forth 
 alone to encounter the naval perils as well as brave the hard- 
 ships of a sea- faring life. She had, however, the fortitude to 
 approve of what was judged best for his future, and her sor- 
 row was borne with the patient and cheerful resignation which 
 belonged to her character. The recollections of that parting 
 as a trial for her stir up, even at this distance of time, the 
 long-dormant feelings which I thought my last tear had been 
 shed for." 
 
 In allusion to this painful parting, Mrs. Randolph herself 
 writes to her sailor-boy, a year after he entered the navy, 
 " The great sacrifice, perhaps the greatest I have ever made 
 in my life, was giving you up in the first instance. I hope 
 my old age will be spared such another day of agony as the 
 one on which I parted with you, my dear child ; but time has 
 reconciled me to the separation." 
 
 In the spring of 1831 there was a hope of recovering pos- 
 session of Monticello ; and I find Mrs. Randolph's letters 
 written from Edgehill, where she was staying with her son 
 Jefferson, filled with feverish delight at the bare prospect. 
 After speaking of her plans in the event of her getting the 
 place, and of the place itself, she says, — 
 
 " Cornelia spent the day there, and, as everybody who has 
 
MRS. THOMAS MA XX RAXDOLPH. 
 
 65 
 
 been absent from it any time, was surprised to find it such a 
 paradise. All these are delightful visions, which serve to 
 amuse the hours of work, always dull enough to require 
 some balm to the spirit." 
 
 To the letter from which this extract is made, I find a post- 
 script written by one of Mrs. Randolph's daughters ; and the 
 touching devotion of the whole family for the old home which 
 it betrays must justify the following quotation from it : 
 
 " I have not been to Monticello yet ; the day I was to have 
 gone I was taken sick and obliged to stay at home ; but I often 
 amuse myself by looking at it through the little pocket-tele- 
 scope which I dare say you remember. A part of the north 
 end of the house only is visible ; the rest, including the por- 
 tico, is completely shrouded by the trees ; but I recognize 
 one of our beloved old willows, and carry my eyes over all 
 the cleared spots and woods which chequer the mountain, the 
 playground of our childhood. A part of it at least lies before 
 me, smiling in the sunshine, and some well-known objects — 
 the roof of the stone house and stable — are distinguishable ; 
 and even the solitary tobacco-house, standing not very far 
 from the river, has the air of an old acquaintance. Mamma 
 has told you of our delightful castles in the air; and C. and 
 myself are talking of having silk-worms, when we go back, 
 in one of the pavilions." 
 
 When Mrs. Randolph first visited Edgehill after it be- 
 came the home of her son Jefferson, all view of Monticello 
 was entirely cut off by a group of magnificent tulip-trees. 
 To be so near her old home and not to have it constantly in 
 sight was more than she could bear. Her son, therefore, on 
 returning from his usual morning ride over his plantation one 
 day, was appalled to see these superb trees lying prostrate on 
 the ground, and one of the old Monticello servants busily 
 engaged, with others under his command, cutting them up. 
 To stick spurs into his horse and rein him up in front of the 
 old servant to ask how he dared " touch those trees," was the 
 work of a minute for Mr. Randolph. The servant, while appre- 
 ciating fully his young master's wrath, knew the power there 
 
 5 
 
66 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 was in this instance behind the throne, and answered, in a tone 
 not at all apologetic, " I am acting under my old mistress's 
 orders, sir." "Then you are doing just what you ought to 
 do," was her son's instant reply. Devoted as he was to his 
 mother, nothing, perhaps, could have given him more pleasure 
 than this assumption of authority on her part over anything 
 belonging to him. Those who have often heard him relate 
 this anecdote will remember the countenance beaming with 
 satisfaction with which it was always told. 
 
 The intimacy and affection existing between Mrs. Randolph 
 and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Jefferson Randolph, was such 
 as is rarely found in similar relations in life, and added not a 
 little to the happiness of both. Each had undergone the suf- 
 fering of having the home of her childhood — consecrated in 
 their hearts by the tenderest associations in life — sold under 
 the auctioneer's hammer. This, perhaps, made the daughter- 
 in-law particularly sympathetic with her husband's mother in 
 her sorrow. I well remember with what feeling she always 
 spoke of having on one occasion, when Mrs. Randolph was 
 on a visit to her at Edgehill, gone to her door and, getting no 
 response to her knock, having crept in softly. She found the 
 gentle lady lying on a couch in front of a window which 
 looked up to Monticello through the vista she had herself had 
 opened. She was asleep. Her face was turned to the window ; 
 a half-closed book had slipped from her grasp, and on her 
 cheek stood a tear, — the unbidden tear, doubtless, which we 
 have seen her declare would start when the thought of the 
 past forced itself upon her. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph returned to Washington in the fall of 1831. 
 The second year of her residence there she was joined by her 
 son Lewis, then in his twenty-second year. Conspicuously 
 handsome, full of life and talents, and with a winning ease and 
 grace of manner which made him the darling of every society 
 in which he appeared, few things, perhaps, could have added 
 more to the happiness of his mother and sisters than to have 
 him living under the same roof with them once more. Fasci- 
 nating as he was in society, his tender affections, his gayety, 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 6j 
 
 and his strong domestic tastes made him still more charming 
 in the home circle. He married later Miss Martin, moved to 
 Arkansas to practice law, and died there not main' months 
 after his mother's death. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph visited her daughter Mrs. Coolidge in the 
 summer of 1832, and I find her writing from Boston to one 
 of her daughters as follows : 
 
 " If I had lost the power of walking and eating, for both 
 of which I seem to have renovated powers, I should resem- 
 ble the unfortunate hen whose brains had been extracted and 
 who sat still and fattened in her stupidity. I have lost my 
 memory entirely, but not my taste for reading, and if I for- 
 get what I read at least it amuses me for the time, although 
 it leaves but a vague, misty impression. I have read lately 
 one of the most poetical books of travel I ever met with, — 
 
 Chateaubriand's Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem 
 
 After once having known the happiness of a comfortable home 
 of our own, how bitter is the moment that drives us from it, 
 and how little interest has any other spot after it! A mere 
 resting-place for the while, where everything is confined to 
 the present; no future which brings anything but a change 
 of place, nothing to amuse the heart or interest the fancy. 
 If ever I can afford it I will have a permanent residence 
 somewhere, a home, in fine, — a feeling I never shall know in 
 a rented house." 
 
 In a letter written later she expresses great sorrow and 
 sympathy for a friend who had just lost a sister, and says, 
 " What can enable her to bear up under her loss ! Religion, 
 only, that never-failing friend of the afflicted, and time ; but 
 the first wretched days nothing can soothe or shorten." 
 
 Mrs. Randolph did not return from Boston to Washington 
 until the spring of 1833. Late in the summer she went to 
 Edgehill, and remained in Virginia for more than a year. In 
 January, 1834, she lost her son James, who died in his twenty- 
 seventh year. In the summer of the same year she was made 
 happy by the arrival at Edgehill of her daughter Mrs. Coo- 
 lidge, with her children, to whom their grandmother was pas- 
 
68 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 sionately attached. A happy summer was thus spent with 
 her children and grandchildren around her in the home of 
 her beloved son, amid the scenes of the happiest as well as 
 saddest days of her life. In the fall, accompanied by Mrs. 
 Coolidge, she returned to Washington, where she spent the 
 winter, and for the last time had all of her daughters with 
 her. Her health, which had been good, gave way in the spring 
 of the year 1835, when she had an illness that her physician 
 pronounced the " breaking up of her constitution," and which 
 was so serious as to call her sons from Virginia to her bed- 
 side. She rallied, however, and, as soon as her strength per- 
 mitted, followed Mrs. Coolidge to Boston. 
 
 She never again stayed in Washington for any length of 
 time. The few old friends now living who knew her there 
 still speak with animation of the loveliness of her character, 
 the tranquil dignity of her manner, and the peculiar charm 
 of her conversation. A gentleman who perhaps knew her 
 more intimately than any other friend she had in Washington, 
 being asked not long ago to describe her manner and address, 
 replied, " She was dignified, even majestic, in her manner, a 
 little reserved when she first met you, but soon melting into 
 cordiality quickly fascinated you with the delights of her 
 conversation." 
 
 The summer of 1835 and the winter following it were spent 
 by Mrs. Randolph in Boston. On her way to Virginia in 
 the spring she stopped in Philadelphia, and sat to Sully for 
 her portrait. She arrived safely in Virginia, and was joined 
 at Edgehill by all of her daughters except Mrs. Coolidge. 
 The devotion which her children lavished on their mother 
 amounted almost to adoration. Her sons, active, energetic 
 men, with the cares of life often resting heavily upon them, 
 clung to her, even when married and settled with families of 
 their own, with the same warmth of affection as when they 
 had hung around her knee in childhood. Even the blight 
 on their lives which the loss of their home was to them was 
 not felt in its full bitterness by this united family as long as 
 their mother was spared to them. And as she visited each 
 
MRS. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. 69 
 
 in turn they felt their homes blessed by her presence. Her 
 letters have shown with what warmth and tenderness of affec- 
 tion she returned this devotion. In a letter to one of her 
 daughters she writes, while speaking of her children, — 
 
 " My life is a mere shadow as it regards myself. In you 
 alone I live and am attached to it. The useless pleasures 
 which still strew my path with flowers — my love for plants 
 and books — would be utterly heartless and dull but for the 
 happiness which I derive from my affections ; these make life 
 still dear to me, and will make death painful." 
 
 The stay at Edgehill this summer was saddened to Mrs. 
 Randolph by the thought of the separation from her children 
 which must soon follow, for her son-in-law, Mr. Trist, being 
 consul at Havana, it was decided that Mrs. Trist, accompanied 
 by two of her sisters, should go thither in the fall. Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph herself was to return to Boston with her daughter 
 Mary, to spend the winter. Her son Jefferson never saw her 
 leave his home but with pain, nor did he ever cease to urge 
 her to make his house her permanent home. It was with 
 peculiar regret that he saw the preparations made for her 
 departure on this occasion, and so urgent was he for her to 
 remain that she half promised his wife and himself to make 
 their home hers on her return from Boston. The day was 
 now near when the family party was to break up and the dif- 
 ferent members of the home circle be so widely scattered. 
 All dreaded the sad hour of parting; but how much more 
 severe was the trial in store for them than any anticipated ! 
 how bitter the cup that was soon to be pressed to their lips ! 
 
 The fatigue caused by the preparations she made for her 
 departure gave Mrs. Randolph a severe headache ; but, being 
 subject to such attacks, the apprehensions of the family were 
 not excited about her. She remained in bed for the day, and 
 received every attention which the tender and vigilant care 
 of her daughters could bestow, and the family retired for the 
 night without an anxious thought as to the condition of the 
 loved being who was the heart-centre of their home circle. 
 But at sunrise the next morning the alarm was given that she 
 
70 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 had suddenly grown worse, and her children hastened to her 
 bedside. At an exclamation from her of " My God, what a 
 pain !" as she pressed her hand to her head, her son Jefferson 
 raised her in his arms. The next instant the long slanting 
 rays of the rising sun crept into the room and fell on her face 
 as, laying her back on her pillow, the words, " Our mother is 
 dead," fell from his lips. 
 
 She died as she would have wished, in sight of the home 
 of her childhood, and in the arms of the son so dear to her 
 heart. Her death, which was caused by apoplexy, took place 
 on the ioth of October, 1836. Two days later she was buried 
 at Monticello, in that desecrated graveyard on the lonely 
 mountain-side. She sleeps well, lying at the head of the 
 mother she lost so young, of the father she loved so devotedly, 
 and of the fair sister for whom she had such tender affection. 
 At her head lies her sailor-boy, whose dying request was, 
 " Bury me as close to my mother as I can be placed," and 
 whose career and success in life are marked by the words in- 
 scribed on his tomb, of " Sailor, Soldier, Statesman, Scholar." 
 A few yards off, a newly-made grave marks the last resting- 
 place of her first-born son, whose noble life will not soon be 
 forgotten. 
 
 The same vulgar, almost brutal, mania of obtaining from 
 their graves relics of the distinguished dead, which has muti- 
 lated and desecrated her father's tomb, has extended to the 
 modest stone which marked her grave. The remnant of a 
 marble slab is all that now indicates the resting-place of this 
 highly-gifted, unselfish, tender, and true woman. But when 
 marble itself shall have crumbled, when the memory of what 
 the world calls greatness shall have passed from men's minds, 
 and the secular oaks shall have perished whose interlocked 
 branches over-arch the graves of this father and daughter, the 
 touching story of their singular devotion for each other, of 
 their dignified resignation in adversity, and of the purity of 
 their lives, will form not the least interesting page in American 
 Biography. 
 
 Sarah N. Randolph. 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 A SKETCH. 
 
 "The General's wife must not be afraid!" 
 
 "Love to sweet Kitty Van Rensselaer, if you see her." 
 This gentle message was sent from New York, September 
 21, 1753, by a youth recently arrived in the regular packet 
 schooner from Albany. The schooner lay at Ten Eyck's 
 wharf, and the letter closing so tenderly was written in haste, 
 for the skipper, Captain Wynkoop, was to sail on his return 
 voyage that afternoon, and Billy, the negro boy, must hasten 
 with it to the wharf in half an hour. The message was sent 
 through " Brom," and the writer was " Philip of the Pasture." 
 Such was the familiar name borne in early life, among his 
 relatives, by Philip Schuyler, a young man of great intelli- 
 gence, spirit, and high personal character. The Schuyler 
 family was numerous, and Philip John, to distinguish him 
 from others of the same honorable name, was called " Philip 
 of the Pasture," a farm belonging to his own branch of the 
 family. His widowed mother was Cornelia Van Cortlandt, a 
 woman of superior character. At the time of this visit to 
 New York the youth was about eighteen, known in society as 
 a remarkably pleasant companion, tall, slender, with dark hair 
 and eyes, decided features, and a fine expression of counte- 
 nance. The great ability, energy, fortitude, and noble fidelity 
 to duty which marked his later career could not then have 
 been foreseen. 
 
 Precisely two years after the visit to New York, in 1/5 5, 
 
 71 
 
72 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 this " sweet Kitty" became the wife of the young man, as ap- 
 pears from a record in the family Bible : 
 
 " In the year 1755, on the 17th of September, was I, Philip 
 John Schuyler, married [in the 21st year, 9th month, and 17th 
 day of his age] to Catharine Van Rensselaer, aged 20 years, 
 9 months, and 27 days. May we live in peace and to the 
 glory of God." 
 
 Catharine (or Catalina) Van Rensselaer was the daughter of 
 Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer, of Claverack, a little village 
 near the eastern bank of the Hudson, about forty miles — then 
 a day's journey by coach or on horseback — from Albany. A 
 charming bride the young lady must have been, very pleasing 
 in form and feature, with dark eyes and hair, and a richly 
 colored complexion ; rather below the medium height, but 
 particularly graceful in movement, with a sweet and winning 
 manner, and a low soft voice. The goodly company collected 
 to grace the occasion may well be imagined. Doubtless young 
 " Brom," at a later day General Abraham Ten Broeck, was 
 there. And chief among the wedding guests must have been 
 the stately forms of Colonel Philip Schuyler of the " Flats," 
 and his admirable wife — " Madam" to the world at large ; the 
 revered "Aunt" to half the society in Albany, — the honored 
 heads these of the important Schuyler clan, and near relatives 
 of the groom. Simple in their daily life, our Dutch ancestors 
 could be grand on state occasions, when the best rooms in the 
 house were opened, the sideboards brilliant with plate, and 
 family portraits looked down upon powdered gentlemen and 
 ladies in rich dresses of velvet, satin, and brocade, whose lace 
 ruffles and diamond buckles were as much a necessity as 
 sword and fan. And no doubt a score of broad black faces, 
 smiling, wondering, gleeful, made up the background, dimly 
 haunting doors and windows. Perchance a cry was heard 
 from the street, " Bonnie bride, bonnie bride, throw out your 
 cookies !" when windows were opened and showers of sweet 
 cakes were thrown down to the merry crowd of old and young 
 gathered before the house. Such was the kindly custom at 
 important weddings in Albany of the last century. 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 73 
 
 Probably there was more Dutch than English spoken 
 among the company, — especially among the elders. The 
 marriage ceremony was, no doubt, performed in Dutch by 
 that most excellent man Dominie Frelinghuysen, pastor of 
 the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. The Dominie, good 
 man, was in trouble about that time. An English regiment 
 was quartered in the town, and the officers got up a play, 
 which they performed in a barn, — the first theatrical perform- 
 ance in Albany. This was considered a terrible enormity by 
 the good Dominie, whose sermons for a time were chiefly 
 devoted to bitter denunciation of these proceedings. One 
 Sunday the sermon was especially severe. On Monday morn- 
 ing the Dominie found just within the front door of his gabled 
 parsonage a staff, a pair of old shoes, a crust of black bread, 
 and a silver dollar ; an old custom, apparently, — a broad hint 
 that the person to whom these gifts were offered had better 
 change his abode, a staff, provisions, and money for his jour- 
 ney being thus provided. Not very long after this incident 
 the good Dominie sailed for Holland and was lost at sea. 
 
 The young groom was in the army, and only a few days 
 earlier he had fought his first battle. The colonies were then 
 at war with Canada. In June Philip Schuyler had raised a 
 company of volunteers, and had joined General Johnson's 
 army at Lake George. After the battle of September 8, and 
 the victory won by the colonial army, Captain Schuyler was 
 sent to Albany to make arrangements for the prisoners. 
 Then it was that the " sweet Kitty" became his wife ; he 
 seized the moment to complete the marriage already planned. 
 The wedding was scarcely over when General Dieskau and 
 his aid, Colonel Bernier, both wounded, arrived from the 
 camp, and the young man devoted himself to making arrange- 
 ments for their comfort : he spoke French fluently, a rare ac- 
 complishment in those days, and one which rendered his 
 society very acceptable to the French officers. At the end 
 of a week he returned to the army, but before leaving home 
 he commended the aged general, severely wounded, as an 
 especial charge to his mother and his young wife. Very 
 
74 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 faithfully were his wishes complied with. Both ladies seem 
 to have taken pleasure in doing all in their power for the com- 
 fort of the two wounded officers. It is charming to think of 
 this gracious beginning of the married life of Mrs. Schuyler, 
 who had scarcely thrown aside her bridal dress when, at her 
 husband's request, she devoted herself to these kindly offices. 
 And this pleasing opening scene was but the earliest of many 
 similar labors which marked every succeeding year for half a 
 century. Her life was thoroughly filled with gracious womanly 
 charities, — quiet, unobtrusive, and kindly, — now in her home, 
 now among the poor, and very frequently also the same gen- 
 erous spirit assumed the form of graceful hospitalities to the 
 stranger. 
 
 General Dieskau was very grateful for the kindness he re- 
 ceived. His aid, Colonel Bernier, wrote to Captain Schuyler 
 from Albany, — 
 
 " One can add nothing to the politeness of Madame your 
 mother, and Madame your wife. Every day there come from 
 them to the Baron fruits, and other rare sweets, which are of 
 great service to him. He orders me, on this subject, to ex- 
 press to you all that he owes to the attentions of these ladies. 
 If it was permitted to me to go out, I should already have 
 been often to present to them his respects and mine." 
 
 Anxious months followed for the young wife. During the 
 entire war — and indeed throughout all those colonial wars — 
 Albany was always a central point; now fearing an attack 
 from the French and Indians ; now in a turmoil, crowded 
 with English troops billeted on the inhabitants sorely against 
 their Dutch will. Captain Schuyler was, from the first, very 
 actively employed, engaged in important duties, and gaining 
 rapidly a high personal position. A high sense of honor, 
 strict integrity, promptness, and a resolute discharge of duty 
 were already his characteristics. A year after his marriage 
 he was on the western frontier at Oswego, with Colonel Brad- 
 street, as assistant commissary. Widowed mother, and wife 
 were anxiously following from a distance the young officer's 
 second campaign. There were often distressing intervals of 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 75 
 
 silence ; the rumors spreading through the town were often 
 alarming, often false. Then perhaps a wild figure would 
 slowly approach with noiseless step, wrapped in a blanket, 
 bareheaded, with scalp-lock and feather, with face strangely 
 painted, and, opening the skin pouch at his girdle, would 
 present to the ladies a dirty letter from the far-away camp. 
 The Indian runners passed very swiftly over the narrow 
 forest trails, but once within the town they assumed their 
 usual quiet, noiseless movement. Or perhaps some soldier, 
 with military clatter, riding express, would gallop to the door 
 of the gabled house, and with military salute deliver a packet 
 of letters. One incident of Captain Schuyler's campaign of 
 '56 must have warmed the hearts of mother and wife when it 
 reached them. It was during the skirmish on the Oswego 
 River. Colonel Bradstreet was compelled to retire suddenly 
 from an island where he had posted his party ; the enemy 
 were approaching in force ; there was but one bateau, already 
 overcrowded with troops. " For the love of God do not leave 
 me here to perish alone by hunger and thirst !" cried a poor 
 wounded Canadian prisoner. " Rather throw me into the 
 river!" Captain Schuyler looked at the wounded man, then 
 at the crowded bateau ; suddenly throwing sword and over- 
 coat to a comrade, he seized the poor fellow, bore him to the 
 river in his arms, swam across the deep channel with him, and 
 placed him under the surgeon's care. The Canadian lived to 
 express his gratitude twenty years later. 
 
 The death of Colonel Philip Schuyler, the venerable head 
 of the house, marked the year '57 very sadly for his many 
 relatives and friends. His noble wife continued to live at the 
 " Flats," gathering about her the younger generation. Cap- 
 tain Schuyler and his wife, with their infant children, passed 
 much of their time with her, and many of the better class of 
 English officers were often her guests. Among others, the 
 young Lord Howe was a frequent visitor, and became a great 
 favorite with the aged lady, who saw with pleasure an inti- 
 macy growing up between her nephew " Philip of the Pas- 
 ture," as he was still called, and the English officer. The two 
 
y6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 generous young men became friends. The army of General 
 Abercrombie was now gathering in force for the invasion of 
 Canada, — a larger army than had ever yet marched through 
 Albany. On the 5th of July they embarked proudly on the 
 clear waters of Lake George, bound for the conquest of 
 Ticonderoga, — sixteen thousand men in nine hundred ba- 
 teaux, with one hundred and thirty whale-boats, led by Lord 
 Howe in a large boat somewhat in advance. Major Schuyler 
 was not with the fleet: his duties as commissary detained him 
 at the head of the lake. As he stood on the strand watching 
 Lord Howe proudly leading the fleet, he saw him for the last 
 time in life. On the 6th a solitary boat came slowly up the 
 lake, bearing the body of the gallant Englishman, and the 
 arrival of the boat was the first tidings Major Schuyler re- 
 ceived of the death of that most promising young officer, "the 
 soul of the army," as he was called. An express was imme- 
 diately sent to Albany with the sad news. As this man, riding 
 at a gallop and bareheaded, passed the " Flats," the family 
 rushed to the doors to hear his tidings. " Lord Howe is 
 dead !" he cried, as he flew past. " Lord Howe is dead !" 
 echoed long and loud through the house, amid sobs and 
 lamentations ; and the following day the wail was renewed, 
 when a bateau was seen on the river rowing slowly past the 
 house, bearing the body of Lord Howe, and Major Schuyler 
 guarding it. He had asked permission to escort the remains 
 to Albany, brought his dead friend through the forest on a 
 rude bier to Fort Edward, and thence down the river in a 
 boat. The doors of the Schuyler vault were opened to re- 
 ceive the soldier; and there he lay for many years, until he 
 was removed and placed beneath the chancel of St. Peter's 
 Church. On changing the wooden coffin for a leaden one 
 before placing him in the church, it was found that the nat- 
 urally luxuriant hair, which the young officer had sternly 
 cropped as an example to the army, had again grown long 
 and fine in the grave. 
 
 Within a few weeks after the ignoble defeat at Ticonderoga, 
 in which General Abercrombie's inefficiency as a commander 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 77 
 
 was made so lamentably clear, a bold expedition against Fron- 
 tenac was planned by Colonel Bradstreet. Major Schuyler 
 hastened in advance to Oswego. There, in the space of three 
 weeks, far away in the wilderness, he built a rude but strong 
 schooner for transporting the troops across Lake Ontario. 
 The craft was named the " Mohawk." In August the bril- 
 liant surprise of Frontenac cheered the heart of the colony 
 after the disgraceful defeat at Ticonderoga. One by one the 
 principal French positions were beginning to fall before the 
 English armies. 
 
 So successful had been the services of Major Schuyler, as 
 assistant to Colonel Bradstreet in the commissary department, 
 that he now received the appointment of commissary general, 
 an office of the very highest importance in those colonial 
 wars. The very life of the armies depended on his exertions. 
 The difficulties to be overcome were great and peculiar. It 
 was no easy task to collect supplies in a country so thinly 
 peopled and of such great extent, and when collected the 
 transportation was often a tremendous labor. Wagons and 
 horses and oxen in sufficient numbers for the draught must 
 be brought from a distance, and when ready for movement a 
 wilderness lay before them ; roads must be cut through the 
 forest, bridges must be thrown over streams. Probably no 
 other man in the country could have discharged these duties 
 so well as Major Schuyler, prompt, methodical, resolute, and 
 strictly upright as he was acknowledged to be. 
 
 While these public duties frequently carried Major Schuyler 
 to a distance from the home he loved so well, Mrs. Schuyler 
 was gradually fitting herself by practical experience for taking 
 charge of her husband's private affairs. The young lady so 
 gentle in manner was endowed with great latent energy, which 
 was now aroused, and, guided by natural good sense, rendered 
 her assistance very valuable. Her life soon became one of 
 active duty and constant care. Her whole character was a 
 singular union of sweetness and strength, and she was re- 
 warded for her exertions not only by her husband's full affec- 
 tion, but also by his confidence and respect. His private 
 
7 8 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 affairs were frequently intrusted to her discretion while he 
 was absent on public business. 
 
 In 176 1, Major Schuyler went to England on business of 
 importance for Colonel Bradstreet, whose health prevented 
 his crossing the ocean. It was necessary to lay the colonel's 
 accounts as quartermaster-general before the British govern- 
 ment. Major Schuyler left his family in Albany early in the 
 winter, and in February sailed for England. Wife and friends 
 were very anxious for his safety, as the ocean was then swarm- 
 ing with French men-of-war and privateers. The voyage was 
 eventful. But it was not until the middle of May that Mrs. 
 Schuyler heard the details. On the 14th of May the regular 
 packet from England arrived at New York, and Colonel De 
 Lancey, a friend of the family, immediately forwarded the 
 letters to Mrs. Schuyler by express. Great was the wife's 
 joy and thankfulness on receiving them, and eventful was the 
 story they told. Major Schuyler, from the moment of sailing, 
 became interested in nautical matters, especially in the navi- 
 gation, which he studied carefully. The captain died. The 
 passengers and crew united to request him to take command 
 of the vessel, which he did. They met a dismantled slaver in 
 distress, her water and provisions exhausted. Mr. Schuyler 
 transferred the crew to his own vessel, and ordered the hatches 
 of the slaver to be opened to give the two hundred poor crea- 
 tures a chance for life. Soon after he spoke a vessel laden 
 with horses, bound to the West Indies. He urged the cap- 
 tain to look up the slaver and feed the poor negroes on horse- 
 flesh. A few days later Mr. Schuyler's vessel met a French 
 privateer, and was captured. They were not long, however, 
 under the white flag of France. An English frigate hove in 
 sight, when Mr. Schuyler's ship and his captor were both 
 seized and taken to London. Such were the tidings Mrs. 
 Schuyler found in her first package of letters. Rather later 
 came others more agreeable in character. Colonel Bradstreet's 
 accounts had been laid before a committee of Parliament, and 
 Major Schuyler had been highly complimented on their accu- 
 racy and neatness. He was indeed a very skillful accountant. 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. yg 
 
 It was said there was but one man in England who could com- 
 pute more rapidly than himself. Of course the wonderful 
 sights of London, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, 
 were visited. But one of the marvels which especially inter- 
 ested him was the canal of the Duke of Bridgewater, the first 
 work of the kind in England, then recently completed. He 
 examined this canal closely, and his active mind almost im- 
 mediately seized the idea of carrying out similar works in his 
 native colony. He would thus seem to have been the first 
 American to conceive the germ of the important canal system 
 of our country. In the autumn he returned to his happy 
 fireside. 
 
 Mrs. Schuyler had been very much occupied during his 
 absence in building a new town-house in the southern suburbs 
 of Albany, — a brick building of ample size, surrounded by 
 extensive grounds reaching to the river. The family home 
 of Major Schuyler at the time of his marriage was an old 
 building of large size, highly ornamented in the Dutch style, 
 with gabled roofs and small windows, which stood very nearly 
 on the ground now occupied by the city hall at Albany. The 
 new home was built according to modern ideas ; and on the 
 return of Major Schuyler the household fires were lighted on 
 the new hearthstone, — brilliant, generous fires of hickory 
 wood, no doubt. 
 
 The wives and mothers of Albany were now relieved from 
 the terrible anxieties by which they had been haunted for 
 many a long year. Oswego, Niagara, Quebec, and Montreal 
 had fallen, — the English flag waved over those posts. All 
 fears of savage incursions, of French and Indian bands, had 
 ceased. It was a period of relief. Mrs. Schuyler probably 
 thought that never again would her husband be called to 
 severe duties at the frontier posts on Lake George and Lake 
 Champlain. If such was her belief it was but a delusive 
 dream. The most arduous duties of her husband and his 
 severest trials were connected at a later day with the same 
 region of country. But happily for her this fact could not 
 have been foreseen. Quiet days of peaceful occupation fol- 
 
8o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 lowed. At no period was the life of the young couple a slug- 
 gish one. Both husband and wife were too healthful, too 
 generous by nature, to be satisfied with mere self-indulgence, 
 and they worked in harmony. They were one in spirit. In 
 every community living essentially under Christian influences 
 the happy marriage is the rule, the unhappy marriage the ex- 
 ception. The tone of family life at Albany was sound and 
 healthful. But the attachment between Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler 
 would appear to have been peculiarly strong ; they were truly 
 one in feeling and in action. And now the thoughts of both 
 were much occupied with improvements going on upon a valu- 
 able estate which Major Schuyler had inherited in his boy- 
 hood from an uncle of the same name. This estate lay at 
 Saratoga. The uncle, Colonel Philip Schuyler, had built 
 some thirty years earlier a substantial brick house, pierced 
 with loop-holes for defense, and surrounded by valuable 
 mills and a little hamlet. One luckless night in the " Old 
 French War" of 1745, a marauding band, Indians and French, 
 under Marin, burned the house, killed the owner, destroyed 
 the little colony, sang " Te Deum" on the ruins, and went 
 their way to Canada. It was upon this valuable property that 
 improvements on an extensive scale were now going on. A 
 pleasant country-house of ample size was built. The clearings 
 were enlarged. New mills were added to those already built. 
 The house stood near the banks of a brawling stream, called 
 the Fishkill, flowing out of Saratoga Lake, and the Hudson 
 ran within a quarter of a mile. As soon as the dwelling was 
 completed the family came to Saratoga, and it continued their 
 home during eight or nine months of every year. The mills 
 on this estate were of peculiar interest and value, and among 
 them was the first flax-mill worked in America. There were 
 large fields of flax and hemp cultivated under Major Schuy- 
 ler's supervision ; and no doubt a portion of the flax was spun 
 in Mrs. Schuyler's household, not only by her handmaids in 
 the workroom, but also by herself and her daughters in her 
 drawing-room at Albany. A pretty little spinning-wheel was 
 in those days as much a lady's companion as the tambour- 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 8 1 
 
 frame. A great deal of the finest thread used in families was 
 spun in this way for choice pieces of table and household 
 linen. Pretty table-cloths and napkins spun by the ladies of 
 those days are still preserved in many families. Even good 
 Queen Charlotte and the princesses her daughters amused 
 themselves with turning their dainty little wheels in the draw- 
 ing-rooms of Windsor and Kew. To-day the spinning-wheel 
 has vanished from the land ; though perchance the ghost of 
 one may be found in some old farm-house garret. At Sara- 
 toga in the good olden time "Adam delved and Eve span." 
 The master of the house was busily at work making inroads 
 upon the ancient forest, which then covered all the hills in 
 sight, planning new fields of wheat and maize, new meadows 
 for his large herds and flocks. An English friend promised 
 to send him the model of a machine invented in Switzerland 
 for pulling up trees by the roots very expeditiously. Was 
 this the origin of our stump-extractor of the present day ? 
 
 In the autumn the family returned to the town-house, 
 where the winter months were usually passed. Many were 
 the guests of interest who, in succession, shared the generous 
 hospitality of the Albany home. Colonel Bradstreet, now 
 very infirm, became an inmate, one of the home circle, sharing 
 in the gentle kindness of Mrs. Schuyler. A flock of children 
 were gathering in the nursery, prattling Dutch, no doubt, 
 with their negro nurses, sung to sleep by Dutch lullabies, 
 calling the blossoms gathered in the grass by names known in 
 the meadows of Holland, singing Dutch hymns on Sunday, 
 and all eager for Santa Claus at Christmas-tide. There was a 
 little chilcTs hymn sung by the Albany children in those days 
 in especial honor of Santa Claus, "Gocdt heyligh man.'" There 
 were troops of blacks of all ages, from the dignified white- 
 headed patriarchs to the toddling round-faced little ones, — 
 most fascinating imps, as they always are, — all considering 
 themselves as life-long members of the household, and strongly 
 attached to the family, whose interests they made their own, 
 sharing heartily all joys and sorrows in common. We have 
 not a word to say in behalf of slavery in the abstract ; but 
 
 6 
 
82 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 probably the evil never took a happier form than among the 
 old Dutch colonial families, where there was so much kindli- 
 ness of feeling on both sides. The slaves were never very 
 numerous, and their names were usually recorded in the 
 family Bible with those of the sons and daughters of the 
 house. Over-indulgence was the common rule with the 
 masters. But Mrs. Schuyler's very large household are said 
 to have been remarkably well trained for their different duties. 
 With the gentle manner and sweet voice which gave an 
 especial charm to her presence, she could also be firm, and 
 never failed in energy. Like most ladies of the Dutch fami- 
 lies, she was a thoroughly good housekeeper : diligent, 
 prudent, wise, there was harmony in all her arrangements. 
 The style of living was generous, her table handsomely 
 served, the savory dishes rich combinations of meats and 
 sweets and spices. Many an admirable recipe might be found 
 scrawled in very uncouth letters, and in Dutch words often 
 misspelt, no doubt, in the old Albany housekeepers' books. 
 The education of the ladies was simple and practical. They 
 had few accomplishments, and no learning whatever. They 
 were generally taught to read and write and cast up simple 
 accounts by their mothers. There were no schools in Albany, 
 not even for boys, in the first half of the last century. The 
 daughters of the house learned to sew, to embroider, to spin, 
 as a matter of course ; they were natural, modest, merry, and 
 often very attractive, making excellent wives and mothers ; 
 and those who were in prominent positions knew how to do 
 the honors of their house with simple courtesy. Among 
 those ladies not one was more beloved, more respected, than 
 Mrs. Philip Schuyler; her thoroughly womanly nature won 
 for her the regard and affection of all who knew her. It was 
 said of her that she carried with her the glow of sunshine. 
 
 The new house at Albany became a centre of the most gen- 
 erous hospitality, a hospitality which included not only the 
 very large circle of old friends and relatives, not only the 
 most important people in the colony, but also the poor and 
 afflicted. Old and infirm, widow and orphan, lame and blind, 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 83 
 
 Dutch, negro, Indian, — all these were often seen coming over 
 the well-trodden path for alms, receiving food, clothing, med- 
 icines, for which they gave a blessing in Dutch or Mohawk. 
 A kindly hand was always held out to them by the lady of 
 the house, with a gentle word softly spoken, a pleasant smile, 
 to cheer the sad heart. Charities in this form, the dole from 
 the Christian fireside, were absolutely necessary in those days. 
 There were none of the many societies for the relief of dif- 
 ferent classes of sufferers which are to be found in every town 
 at the present hour. 
 
 Colonel Schuyler — he was now in command of a regiment 
 raised by his own exertions — delighted in these hospitalities, 
 and in these charities also. He was very liberal and helpful 
 to the poor. Among the frequent guests from New York 
 were the different governors and their families in succession. 
 Sir Henry and Lady Moore came in %j ; and a little later a 
 very different company appeared. A band of nine of the 
 principal Cherokee warriors, headed by their chief Attakul- 
 lakulla, came into the Iroquois country to sue for peace. 
 There had been war between the Six Nations and the Chero- 
 kees, and the last had been worsted. Colonel Schuyler met 
 the rude embassy as they landed from the sloop, and con- 
 ducted them to his house. It seems a strange wild company 
 to have filled Mrs. Schuyler's drawing-room ; but Indian war- 
 riors from many tribes were frequent guests under the Schuy- 
 ler roof. These wild visitors from a far-away region soon 
 moved westward and accomplished their errand: the calumet 
 of peace was smoked and the war-hatchet buried at Onondaga. 
 
 Mrs. Schuyler was now preparing for a temporary removal 
 to New York. Colonel Schuyler was elected a delegate to 
 the Colonial Assembly. The parents wished to carry their 
 flock of children with them ; but how to dispose of them was 
 the question. There were apparently no boarding-schools in 
 New York at that day. Negotiations were opened with a good 
 widow lady living in Hanover Square, with whom it was pro- 
 posed to place two of the children. Fifty pounds a year, two 
 pounds of tea, one loaf of sugar, for each child, were the 
 
84 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 terms demanded ; their stockings and clothes were to be 
 mended, " but new work must be paid for the making." 
 
 The Assembly of which Colonel Schuyler was a member 
 consisted of twenty-nine gentlemen, all men of character. 
 Fourteen bore Dutch or Huguenot names, and probably there 
 were not more than one or two of unmixed English lineage. 
 
 The great political storm was arising. With manly de- 
 cision Colonel Schuyler took his stand on the side of his 
 native country. The oppressive measures of the Crown and 
 Parliament of England aroused his honest indignation. Re- 
 sistance to those measures marked his course in the Assem- 
 bly. From the first he took a high personal position in the 
 House, although one of its youngest members, only thirty- 
 five. Several important measures proposed by him were car- 
 ried. It is easy to imagine the anxiety which pervaded every 
 American home in those years. Wives and mothers were 
 all sad at heart. Those whom they loved most dearly were 
 about to throw themselves into a struggle terrible in its dan- 
 gers and its magnitude, a handful of colonists in arms against 
 the mother-country, against the nation which at that date was 
 the most powerful in Europe. Anxious days were succeeded 
 by sleepless nights or troubled dreams. Peace and repose 
 were banished from the fireside. Kindred were divided in 
 opinion and in action. Bitter denunciation and violent meas- 
 ures prevailed in every part of the country. The wife of 
 Colonel Schuyler, beloved and admired among her friends 
 for the sweet womanly gentleness of her nature and manner, 
 showed herself fearless and firm in the hour of trial. Her 
 nature was too healthful to be cowardly. Modestly and quietly, 
 but yet firmly and bravely, she stood at her husband's side 
 throughout the great struggle of twenty years' duration ; yes, 
 twenty years. The war of Independence began with the first 
 meeting of the Privy Council of England in which it was re- 
 solved to tax the colonies without their consent. It was 
 England herself which thus called the colonists to arms. 
 " Colonies exist only for the benefit of the mother-country," 
 was the assertion of a leading statesman of the day. Those 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 85 
 
 words contain the key to the whole question. That opinion, 
 and the feeling connected with it, cherished alike by Crown 
 and Parliament, set the armies of England in motion and 
 drove the colonists to arms. Brave, hardy, resolute, as they 
 had proved themselves from their first landing on the West- 
 ern Continent, the American colonists were not the race to 
 submit tamely to unreason, oppression, and insult so gross. 
 Gradually the crisis drew near; and very gradually the colo- 
 nists themselves, as they were compelled by their opponents 
 to take one important step after another in the path of resist- 
 ance, awoke to the full importance of the struggle. There 
 had been no secret conspiracy on the part of the Americans ; 
 there was no treachery lurking in their hearts ; there was 
 nothing of blind prejudice, nothing of fanatical violence, in 
 their tone or action. They were indeed very slow to believe 
 that separation and independence must ere long become a 
 necessity. And it was this simple, manly honesty of purpose 
 which gave the full force of moral strength to the war of 
 Independence. 
 
 Many of Colonel Schuyler's friends were warm loyalists. 
 His opinions on all the unjust measures of the mother-coun- 
 try were well known and always frankly uttered. He never 
 faltered in his course. But his kindliness of nature and his 
 gentlemanly manner prevented all needless disturbance, and 
 in social life he still continued on friendly terms with the 
 leaders of the Tory party. Governor Moore and Governor 
 Tryon were frequently his guests during that period. In 
 1773 Mrs. Schuyler was busy preparing for the reception of 
 the governor and his family, while her husband was looking 
 out for " a good vessel" in which " the voyage" from New 
 York to Albany could be made with comfort. Mrs. Tryon 
 remained a month with Mrs. Schuyler, passing part of the 
 time in what may be called the gay world of Albany, in which 
 grand dinners and suppers and other entertainments prevailed, 
 where the stately figures of the ladies, with powdered heads, 
 high heels, and long trains of brocade and satin, moved about 
 the handsome rooms ; and somewhat later they were in the 
 
86 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 pastoral wilds of Saratoga, robed in linen negliges and high 
 muslin caps over their powdered locks, peeping into the 
 flax-mill and the saw-mills, gathering wild strawberries in the 
 meadows among great herds of cattle, or in the evening sit- 
 ting on the stoop watching the humming-birds, or listening to 
 the wren and the oriole, or perchance to the howling of the 
 wolf in the nearest forest. The gentlemen were away in the 
 Mohawk country, holding " talks" with Sir William Johnson 
 and the Indian chiefs. 
 
 From early youth Philip Schuyler had been a frequent suf- 
 ferer from severe attacks of hereditary gout, the first seizure 
 occurring when he was a lad of fourteen. And now, during 
 the year 1774, the period of the tea-troubles, he was much too 
 ill to attend to his duties in the Assembly. He was a close 
 prisoner at his house at Saratoga, a great sufferer, under the 
 loving care of his wife as nurse, for several months. Like 
 all good, natural women, Mrs. Schuyler was often engaged 
 in the office of nurse to those she loved, — her gentle manner, 
 quiet movement, and sweet voice adding peculiar charm to 
 her services of this kind. Her flock of children was large, 
 fourteen in all, and of these six died in childhood. Six times 
 in succession the tender mother was called to bow over the 
 death-beds of the little ones so precious to her. Of sorrows 
 like these the world takes no note; but in the record of a 
 mother's life they must assuredly find a place. These are 
 heart wounds which open and bleed at many a touch long 
 years later. The memories of those lost little ones are always 
 precious to the good mother. And the stern soldier-father's 
 heart was also very sore at such times. His family attach- 
 ments were very strong. When absent he often wrote of his 
 children in the most endearing terms. Six times in succession 
 the doors of the Schuyler vault were opened to receive these 
 little children, who were placed beside their father's friend 
 Lord Howe. 
 
 The first Colonial Congress was now about to assemble. Col- 
 onel Schuyler was strongly urged to accept the nomination 
 as delegate from New York. No man in the country had 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 87 
 
 thrown himself more frankly into the cause of the colonies. 
 But he was much too ill at that time for duties so important. 
 The Congress met, and those two important measures were 
 passed, — the American Association for Non-Intercourse with 
 the Mother Country, and the Declaration of Rights. 
 
 With every month the country became more agitated, 
 more determined upon resistance. A convention of the 
 colony was held in New York in the spring of 1775, com- 
 posed of members chosen by different modes of election, and, 
 Colonel Schuyler's health having improved, he took his seat 
 at the head of the delegation from Albany. They assembled 
 on the 20th of April. They remained in session only three 
 days. Blood had already been shed at Lexington the day be- 
 fore this first independent convention met in New York. But 
 no news of the important struggle had reached them. Colonel 
 Schuyler returned to Albany, and from thence went to Sara- 
 toga; and it was not until late on the evening of the 28th that 
 the grave tidings reached him. His resolution had long since 
 been taken : that evening he wrote to a friend, " For my own 
 part, much as I love peace, much as I love domestic happi- 
 ness and repose, and desire to see my countrymen enjoying 
 the blessings flowing from undisturbed industry, I would 
 rather see all these scattered to the winds for a time, and the 
 sword of desolation go over the land, than to recede one line 
 from the just and righteous position we have taken as free- 
 born subjects of Great Britain. War has now actually begun. 
 I care not what others may do : as for me and my house, we 
 will serve our country." 
 
 Most faithfully was that declaration carried out, through 
 the long and varied trials of the great struggle. The follow- 
 ing day was Sunday. Colonel Schuyler was in his usual place 
 with his family, in the little chapel near his house. The ser- 
 vice over, the people gather about him. " He was the oracle 
 of our neighborhood," says an eye-witness. " We looked up 
 to him with feelings of respect and affection. His popularity 
 was unbounded ; his views on all subjects were considered 
 sound, and his anticipations almost prophetic. On this occa- 
 
88 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 sion he expressed his belief that a crisis had arrived which 
 must forever separate us from the parent state." 
 
 The whole country now flew to arms. The battle of Bun- 
 ker Hill was fought. Congress voted to raise an army of 
 twenty thousand men. Colonel Washington was appointed 
 commander-in-chief, and of four major-generals, Colonel 
 Schuyler was one. He was placed in chief command of the 
 Northern Department. The colonial troops of New York 
 amounted at that date to rather less than three thousand men. 
 General Schuyler on his return to Albany as commander of 
 that department received a formal military and civic reception: 
 he was escorted to his house with full ceremonies, and the 
 town was illuminated in the evening. 
 
 Mrs. Schuyler must have looked at those lights with min- 
 gled feelings of pride and anxiety. And how anxiously the 
 devoted wife must now have listened to every rumor, every 
 convention, every incident connected with the war-cloud 
 gathering so darkly over her home ! Assuredly she gave 
 little thought to any personal risks or trials of her own. Good 
 women are always self-forgetful in the hour of danger, — they 
 may be even brave and resolute in spirit, ready to face danger 
 fearlessly in the hour of peril, — but for those they love they 
 are sure to be full of alarms and anxieties, even to weakness. 
 The good wife knew but too well the risks of the great 
 struggle in which her husband now held a position so impor- 
 tant. Still, it is said that she never attempted to hold him back 
 from duty. She gave him her full sympathy, and was ever 
 ready with the loving gentleness of her nature to cheer and 
 support him in the hour of trial. And often she was of 
 great practical assistance by attending to many details of his 
 private affairs while he was absent on urgent public duties. 
 
 Journeys, conferences with military men, Indian councils, 
 now followed each other with increasing rapidity. There was 
 difficulty and embarrassment at every step. But every diffi- 
 culty was faced by the general with energy and resolution. 
 Reform was needed everywhere. The deficiencies in the sup- 
 plies were inconceivable. " No arms, no powder, no blankets." 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 89 
 
 — " The troops can be of no service to you," wrote the authori- 
 ties of the colonies, with remarkable frankness : " they have 
 no arms, clothes, blankets, or ammunition, — officers no com- 
 missions, — treasury no money." And this was the force, or 
 rather the weakness, with which General Schuyler was ex- 
 pected to conquer Canada ! 
 
 In August he returned from the frontier posts to hold what 
 proved to be the last Indian council ever held in Albany. 
 He was always a favorite with the red men ; his family had 
 been their fast friends for several generations, and he had been 
 personally adopted into the Mohawk tribe by the title of 
 " Tho-rah-Thau-yea-da-Kayer." The Indians were asked to 
 remain neutral. The missionary, Mr. Kirkland, was the inter- 
 preter. The result of the council was satisfactory, as the 
 Indians had already decided that their true course was neu- 
 trality. " This is a quarrel between father and son : we will 
 stand aside and have nothing to do with it." Such was their 
 determination at the time. At a later day Sir John Johnson 
 induced them to take up arms against the colonists. 
 
 Preparations for the campaign in Canada were now pushed 
 forward by General Schuyler, in spite of severe illness. He 
 was reduced to a skeleton by gout, fever, and rheumatism. 
 The tremendous difficulties constantly arising in his path 
 must have greatly aggravated his illness. " I hope in a little 
 while," he said, " to make all obstacles vanish. Much maybe 
 done when people set to work with hand and heart." But 
 deficiencies in stores and equipments were not the worst evils : 
 jealousies personal and political did infinite harm ; clash- 
 ing authorities, the Congress on one side, provincial Assem- 
 blies on the other, aggravated the difficulties. Insubor- 
 dination was rife. " Connecticut privates are all generals," 
 wrote General Montgomery. Neglect, dishonesty, peculation, 
 were only too frequent. " If I had not arrived here on the 
 day I did, as sure as God lives, the army would have been 
 starved." " If Job had been a general in my situation, his 
 memory would not have been so famous for patience." Ill 
 health compelled him to return home to Albany; the sooth- 
 
9 o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 ing, tender care of his wife had never been more needed. 
 His headquarters were then fixed at Albany; and in spite of 
 severe illness he continued his indefatigable labors, taking 
 upon himself the duties of commissary, quartermaster, 
 muster-master, and hospital superintendent. Congress did 
 not spare him. He was ordered to suppress a threatened 
 rising of the Tories and Indians in Tryon county, — to have 
 explorations of the St. Lawrence carefully made, — to repair 
 Ticonderoga, — to build a fleet of bateaux on Lake Cham- 
 plain, — to send supplies of timber for ship-building at Pough- 
 keepsie. All these different labors he carried on at the 
 same time. The state of his health caused the deepest anxi- 
 ety to his wife and children ; they saw him suffering acutely 
 while at the same time he was laboring under a combination 
 of duties likely to exhaust a man in robust health. All that 
 tender, loving services could do to alleviate his sufferings, to 
 soothe and cheer him, never failed while he was in his own 
 home. But he was constantly called to a distance by the 
 important duties of his department. His health was indeed 
 at this time the cause of much public anxiety. Military men 
 of the highest rank were constantly urging him to prudence. 
 Prayers, both public and private, were offered for the preser- 
 vation of his life. The President of Congress wrote, " I am 
 extremely sorry to find you recover health so slowly. The 
 Congress have the most anxious concern for you." It is 
 indeed remarkable that a public man suffering so frequently 
 from acute forms of disease should have been able to accom- 
 plish such a vast amount of labor, physical and mental, as fell 
 upon General Schuyler. 
 
 In one of his many expeditions of inspection to the northern 
 posts he was taken seriously ill at Ticonderoga with gout and 
 malarial fever. Mrs. Schuyler hastened to his bedside. The 
 journey was one of exposure and fatigue far beyond what is 
 now felt in crossing the continent from the banks of the Hud- 
 son to the Pacific. Leaving her children with a sad heart, we 
 may be sure, and well laden with all that could add to her 
 husband's comfort, the anxious wife set out on the first day's 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 9 ! 
 
 journey, accompanied by an aide-de-camp sent by the general 
 to escort her. Mrs. Schuyler has left no record of her pilgrim- 
 age, but from other sources we gather many details which tell 
 the story for her. The first stage from Albany was Saratoga, 
 the wretched condition of the roads rendering a halt for rest 
 at the country-house necessary. Hurrying through the coun- 
 try was impossible at that date, even for men. Few were the 
 women who passed through the wild region between the Hud- 
 son and Lake Champlain. From Saratoga the next stage was 
 to McNeill's Ferry, — a short one, only two miles and a half, — 
 traveling in an open wagon. The ferry was crossed in a raft- 
 like boat, wagon and baggage passing over at the same time. 
 On the eastern bank of the river the travelers again took their 
 uneasy seat, and were jolted on their way to Fort Miller. 
 There is a fall in the stream at this point ; a mile beyond they 
 embarked in a rough bateau for Fort Edward. The voyage 
 was short, only seven miles, but fatiguing, and even dangerous, 
 from the great rapidity of the current. The bateaux were 
 strong, however, and worked by companies of picked men 
 paid for this service by Congress, — a hundred men and their 
 captain, each receiving four pounds ten shillings per month. 
 They were expert, and all their skill was needed to stem the 
 current in critical places. They were four hours working 
 their way through the seven miles. Fort Edward was in 
 ruins ; but there was a large inn here, and a regiment quartered 
 in it. A respectable dinner was found here, bear's meat being 
 one of the delicacies provided for distinguished guests. Seven 
 miles of a fearfully bad road had now to be traveled over be- 
 fore nightfall. Those forest roads were always bad, but now 
 worse than ever, broken up into deep ruts by the constant 
 passage of heavy wagons and artillery. Frequently the track 
 lay through forest swamps over the trunks of trees, — the 
 " corduroy" road of the frontier ; frequently some petty stream 
 was crossed on a bridge of logs. Occasionally the travelers 
 would rise to the summit of some sandy knoll, looking down 
 upon the Hudson, and noting the spray from some one of the 
 different falls in the stream. There was ample time to enjoy 
 
92 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the beauties of nature, for the wagon moved at a snail's pace, 
 scarcely more than a mile an hour. Doubtless the good lady 
 took little heed on that occasion of the picturesque points on 
 the road; her thoughts must have been now with her children 
 in the Albany nursery, now with her suffering husband at 
 Ticonderoga. Night found her at Wing's tavern, half-way to 
 Fort George, within sound of another cascade of the Hudson. 
 With daylight the next morning the journey was continued to 
 Fort George, some eight miles or more, part of the way over 
 swampy ground, and then over the mountains which shut in 
 the lake. Fort George, like Fort Edward, was a ruin, — none 
 but ruined forts, it will be observed, to oppose an invading 
 force. But there was a barrack here, where Mrs. Schuyler 
 could rest and dine. Then came the voyage down Lake 
 George, on a craft of the rudest sort, — a large bateau used 
 for transporting troops. There was a sort of mast, and a 
 square blanket for sail ; an awning making a shelter had been 
 prepared for the general's wife. There was not a single boat 
 boasting a cabin on that lake. The blanket sail could only 
 be used when the wind was abaft, and against a head-wind 
 the bateau-men made slow progress. Had a storm come up, 
 the lady must needs have landed on a desolate island or slept 
 beneath the awning and without a bed. The bare plank was 
 both bed and berth in those rough boats. The banks of the 
 lake were entirely desolate, — a mountain wilderness clothed 
 with a ragged forest, — with the single exception of Sabba'day, 
 or Sabatay Point, as the word was occasionally written at that 
 time. At that spot there were a few scattered cabins and about 
 fifty acres of cleared land. That night the lady stood by her 
 husband's bedside, cheered, no doubt, by that look of loving 
 trust and gratitude so touching in the wan face of a sick man 
 at the approach of wife, mother, or sister to whose tender care 
 he resigns himself. Thank God, that is a look often seen on 
 earth ! Repeatedly during the severe attacks of the general 
 Mrs. Schuyler left her family and went to the frontier post 
 where he had been taken ill, to nurse and cheer him. He 
 always rallied under her care. And on the occasion re- 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 93 
 
 ferred to he soon recovered partially, and both returned to 
 Albany. 
 
 In the spring of 1776 three especial commissioners were 
 ordered to Canada by Congress, at the suggestion of General 
 Schuyler. These were Dr. Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles 
 Carroll. They were invested with extraordinary powers. Their 
 first destination was of course Albany. They sailed from New 
 York on the afternoon of April 2, accompanied by their black 
 servants, in a sloop well provided with stores, and also with beds 
 brought from Philadelphia. The first afternoon they coasted 
 the entire length of Manhattan Island, and anchored. April 3 
 proved rainy, with a head-wind, which compelled them to 
 anchor opposite the place of Colonel Philipse, at Yonkers. 
 Towards evening they " got under way, and ran with a pretty 
 even gale as far as the Highlands, forty miles from New York." 
 There they encountered serious difficulties. " In doubling one 
 of these steep, craggy points, we were in danger of running on 
 the rocks ; endeavored to double the point called St. Anthony's 
 Nose, but all our efforts proved ineffectual ; obliged to turn 
 some way back in the straits to seek shelter; in doing this 
 our mainsail was split to pieces by a sudden and most violent 
 blast of wind off the mountains. Came to anchor. Blew a per- 
 fect gale all night and all day the 4th. Remained all day in 
 Thunder Hill Bay. Our crew were employed all this day in 
 repairing the mainsail. 5th. Wind northeast; mainsail not 
 yet repaired." So wrote Mr. Carroll. The different batteries 
 were visited, and situations for others pointed out. About 
 nine at night they weighed anchor with a favorable tide, and 
 came-to again about two in the night of the 6th. A fine breeze 
 carried the sloop gallantly up the river on the 6th, and in the 
 evening she anchored within four miles of Albany, after " a 
 glorious run of ninety-six miles. 7th. Weighed anchor about 
 six o'clock, wind fair, and, having passed over the Overslaw, 
 had a distinct view of Albany, distant about two miles. Landed 
 at Albany at half-past seven. Received at landing by General 
 Schuyler, who, understanding we were coming up, came from 
 his house, about a mile out of town, to receive us and invite 
 
94 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 us to dine with him. He behaved with great civility; lives in 
 pretty style ; has two daughters (Betsey and Peggy), lively, 
 agreeable, black-eyed girls. . . . The citizens chiefly speak 
 Dutch, being mostly descendants of Dutchmen; but the Eng- 
 lish language and manners are gaining apace." 
 
 On the 9th the commissioners, with Generals Schuyler and 
 Thomas, left Albany early, traveling in a large wagon, Mrs. 
 Schuyler and the young ladies being of the party. A little 
 before sunset they arrived at the country-house at Sara- 
 toga. The roads were in very bad condition. Poor old Dr. 
 Franklin was sorely jolted and bruised. " General Schuyler 
 informed me," says Mr. Carroll, " that an uninterrupted water- 
 carriage between New York and Quebec might be perfected 
 at fifty thousand pounds' expense, by means of locks and a 
 small canal. . . . The distance is not more than three miles." 
 Here, it is said, we have the first official suggestion of what 
 became afterwards the great canal system of the State of New 
 York. Only a few months later, General Schuyler was called 
 upon by Congress to take the first steps in the work. " The 
 lands about Saratoga are very good, particularly the bottom- 
 lands. Hudson's River runs within a quarter of a mile of the 
 house, and you have a pleasing view of it for two or three 
 miles above and below. A stream called the Fish-kill, which 
 rises out of Saratoga Lake, about six miles from the general's 
 house, runs close by it and turns several mills, — one a grist- 
 mill, two saw-mills (one of them carrying fourteen saws), and 
 a hemp and flax-mill. This mill is of a new construction, and 
 answers equally for breaking hemp or flax." 
 
 A week passed pleasantly for the commissioners under that 
 hospitable roof. Mrs. Schuyler, with her never-failing kind- 
 ness, proved a good nurse to dear old Dr. Franklin : the rest 
 and good care of his hostess put the old man in traveling 
 condition again, although at one time he thought the tem- 
 pestuous voyage up the Hudson, and the fearful roads from 
 Albany, must shorten his days, and he set about writing fare- 
 well letters to his friends. The young ladies, a few years 
 later Mrs. Alexander Hamilton and Mrs. Stephen Van Ren- 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 95 
 
 selaer, entertained Mr. Carroll very agreeably. "April i6th> 
 I parted with regret from the amiable family of General 
 Schuyler. The ease and affability with which we were treated, 
 and the lively behavior of the young ladies, made Saratoga a 
 most pleasing sejour, the remembrance of which will long re- 
 main with me." 
 
 But little was accomplished by the commissioners. They 
 found matters in a very discouraging state, and the arrival of 
 a British fleet in the St. Lawrence rendered retreat a necessity. 
 Dr. Franklin returned to Albany exhausted by the journey 
 and its hardships. As a matter of course he stayed at General 
 Schuyler's house. The general was again at Ticonderoga, 
 but Mrs. Schuyler received him with her never-failing kind- 
 ness, and once more her care and attention revived the old 
 philosopher. The doctor wished to continue his journey to 
 New York in a " sulky," driving himself. This, his hostess 
 would not hear of: the roads were much too bad; he himself 
 was not well enough for the exertion of driving. No, he must 
 let her make arrangements for his comfort ; he must be satis- 
 fied to take the easiest carriage she could provide for him, 
 and he must submit to be driven by " Lewis," a particularly 
 careful coachman. It was well that Mrs. Schuyler persisted 
 in having her own way on this occasion, for the road along 
 the Hudson — one of the best in America — was in such a con- 
 dition that the doctor confessed, on arriving in New York, 
 that he and the " sulky" would doubtless have been wrecked 
 together, and that it required all the skill of" Lewis" to bring 
 him through safe in life and limb. He was very grateful to 
 " good Mrs. Schuyler." 
 
 Never were General Schuyler's labors more arduous than at 
 this moment, and never, apparently, did he more need repose. 
 He was still a great sufferer, but wonderfully active. "The 
 Indians, the Tories, the exchequer, the commissariat, the 
 transportation, the recruiting, the general supervision and di- 
 rection of military and Indian affairs, — all claimed and re- 
 ceived his attention," says Mr. Lossing, in his interesting 
 biography. And what was to be the reward of exertions so 
 
g6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 great? New England had never done justice to General 
 Schuyler. The part he had taken as chairman of the com- 
 mittee which upheld the legal claim of New York to the ter- 
 ritory also claimed by New Hampshire — the present State of 
 Vermont — had laid the foundation of this prejudice, and sec- 
 tional jealousy added force to the feeling. There is always 
 childishness in these sectional prejudices, which are generally 
 strongest in the infancy of a nation, and which form no true 
 element of love of country. Strong and partial attachment to 
 home ground, to familiar scenes, to the thousand ties con- 
 nected with them, is a perfectly natural and healthful feeling. 
 But contempt, hatred, and abuse of all that lies beyond the 
 border become absurd, unworthy, dangerous. That supreme 
 satisfaction with one's own canton, that supreme contempt for 
 the adjoining parish, was very general throughout Europe 
 among the ignorant and half educated only as late as a hun- 
 dred years ago. Nay, even your philosopher was not always 
 free from the weakness. How seldom did the Englishman do 
 justice to the Scotchman! how widely sundered in feeling 
 were the different provinces in France, the different cities of 
 Italy, of Germany! Such a state of feeling is essentially 
 puerile, a combination of vanity and ignorance. The different 
 colonies of America were no exception to the general rule, 
 but in New England there was a force in the feeling beyond 
 what existed elsewhere. It was probably the Puritan spirit 
 which gave exaggeration to the self-complacency to which 
 they were in many particulars very justly entitled. We are 
 all wiser to-day, but in the year of grace 1776 one of the best 
 men in the country was to be the victim of this miserable 
 prejudice and jealousy. The expedition to Canada had failed. 
 That failure was laid to the charge of General Schuyler. In 
 truth the blame lay with Congress, who had strangely neg- 
 lected to send the reinforcements and supplies without which 
 success was impossible, — reinforcements and supplies most 
 earnestly and unceasingly asked for by General Schuyler. 
 Calumnies as absurd as they were outrageous were uttered 
 against him. The active man was called a sluggard. The 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 97 
 
 frank man was called a traitor, a spy. The brave man was 
 accused of cowardice. The generous, self-sacrificing man was 
 accused of venality. But where is the calumny which party 
 prejudice will not utter? There was a frenzy of popular pas- 
 sion aroused in New England against the upright leader. 
 
 How precious must have been the peaceful haven of his 
 home at such moments, — the tender love, sympathy, and re- 
 spect of the good wife, the guileless affection of his children ! 
 How happy the wife, the children, who can, in the hour of 
 trial, cheer, soothe, console husband and father ! 
 
 But General Schuyler was not the man to allow these at- 
 tacks upon his personal character to pass unrebuked. He 
 demanded a court of inquiry. " It is a duty I owe to myself, 
 to my family, and to the respectable Congress of this State, 
 that I should exculpate myself from the many odious charges 
 with which the country resounds to my prejudice." He did 
 not abandon his post, however. In the winter of 1777 he 
 was very actively engaged preparing for the next campaign, 
 which all foresaw must be of vital importance. In April, on a 
 journey to New York, he wrote to his family that there was a 
 rumor he was to be superseded by General Gates. The an- 
 swer from wife and children reported " all well at home ; that 
 nothing seemed wanting but his presence as Philip Schuyler, 
 Esq., to make them happy." General Gates arrived in Al- 
 bany, and was graciously received by Mrs. Schuyler, who 
 offered him the hospitalities of her house. The guest seems 
 to have felt rather uncomfortable, but was civil. A few weeks 
 later came the court of inquiry. May, 1777, Congress ap- 
 pointed a committee of one member from each colony to form 
 the court. General Schuyler's vindication was not only com- 
 plete, it was triumphant. Never had his character stood higher 
 than after he had himself read his manly defense before the 
 committee. His appointment as commander-in-chief of the 
 Northern Department was renewed, with increase of powers. 
 
 Early in the summer it became evident that an invasion 
 from Canada by Oswego and Lake Champlain was intended, 
 Albany being, as usual, the point aimed at. General Schuyler 
 
 7 
 
gS WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 was indefatigable in his exertions during those eventful sum- 
 mer months. And one might almost assert that the inaction 
 of Congress as regarded that particular department was also 
 as marked as usual. They were sadly wanting in "military 
 electricity," as General Lee declared. It would seem as if 
 General Schuyler was expected to raise his own armies, to 
 feed, clothe, and equip them with little support from the gov- 
 ernment. There was lamentable deficiency in every branch 
 of the supplies, — food, clothing, and ammunition. Reinforce- 
 ments were called for in vain. Then, in June, came the proud 
 advance of General Burgoyne, with an army of nearly eight 
 thousand men, admirably equipped, under the command of 
 experienced officers, moving gallantly up Lake Champlain. 
 
 From the first, in spite of all deficiencies, General Schuyler, 
 and General Washington also, had felt confident the enemy's 
 expedition would prove a failure. The evacuation of Ticon- 
 deroga and the retreat of General St. Clair were a shock to 
 this opinion. That step had been taken without orders. It 
 was known to the superior officers that the post could not 
 be long defended against a powerful invading force unless 
 strengthened ; but it was expected that the approach of the 
 enemy would be retarded, at least, at that point. General St. 
 Clair was, however, compelled to retire, was pursued, and a 
 portion of his army defeated at Hubbardton. General Bur- 
 goyne advanced to Skenesborough. The whole country was 
 thrown into agitation. The alarm in Albany was great ; people 
 were running wildly about the streets, half distracted, sending 
 off goods and families. They dreaded the tomahawk of Gen- 
 eral Burgoyne's Indian allies. General Schuyler wrote most 
 urgent appeals to Congress, to the Colonial Assemblies, to 
 General Washington, for reinforcements ; and at the same 
 time every hour was employed in making the best possible 
 disposition of his available force, or in throwing every con- 
 ceivable obstacle known to frontier warfare in the way of the 
 enemy. Roads were thoroughly broken up, great trees were 
 felled across them, trenches were dug, all bridges were burnt, 
 the navigable streams were filled with obstructions. The 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 99 
 
 cattle were driven off or killed. The forage was removed or 
 destroyed. The region between Skenesborough and the 
 Hudson became once more a wilderness. Rude defenses 
 these, but in the end more effectual than the walls of Ticon- 
 deroga. The fall of that post had again aroused the popular 
 cry, fierce and loud, against General Schuyler. The Eastern 
 militia refused to serve under him. It was harvest-time, July, 
 1777. More than half the militia who came into the camp 
 withdrew to their farms, under the excuse of cutting their 
 grain. On the 29th of July the hapless Jane McCrea was 
 murdered by the Indians. The women and children on the 
 Upper Hudson were all hurrying into Albany for safety. As 
 parties of these fugitives, in wagons or on foot, were flying 
 southward, they met a single carriage traveling northward, 
 guarded by one armed man. Within sat Mrs. Schuyler. The 
 fugitives were amazed at her daring. Had she no fear of the 
 tomahawk ? Were not parties of Indians known to be lurking 
 in the woods, now here, now there ? She would have to pass 
 through miles of the dark forest, and but a single armed man 
 to guard her. Had she not heard of the fate of Jane McCrea ? 
 Mrs. Schuyler knew many of these people; she leaned from 
 the carriage to speak to them, to inquire after the women and 
 children; she thanked them for their friendly remonstrances; 
 but she would not listen to their entreaties to turn back. She 
 took leave of them with her usual kindly manner, and 
 smiling said, "The general's zvife must not be afraid/" The 
 fugitives hurried towards Albany, and the solitary carriage 
 went its way towards Saratoga. No lurking Indian appeared. 
 The journey was accomplished safely. Mrs. Schuyler's object 
 in going to the country-house at that moment was to make 
 arrangements with the general for the removal of all valuables 
 to a place of safety. It was her last visit to the favorite home 
 where she had passed so many happy months with her hus- 
 band and children, among a simple people to whom her kind- 
 ness had much endeared her. The groves were then in their 
 midsummer glory. Ere the leaves fell, that pleasant, cheerful 
 home, the mills, even the very fences, were to be destroyed by 
 
100 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the firebrand of the enemy. Already the adjoining country 
 had a desolate aspect. The meadows and grain-fields had been 
 laid waste by the general's orders, in order to cut off the 
 enemy's supplies. There is a family tradition that on this 
 occasion Mrs. Schuyler herself, to aid in the necessary work 
 of destroying the forage, set fire with her own hand to one 
 of her husband's wheat-fields. 
 
 August 10, General Schuyler was again at Albany, hurry- 
 ing forward supplies, when letters reached him stating that 
 he had been superseded by General Gates. Mr. Jay wrote 
 him an explanation : " Washington and Congress were ad- 
 vised that unless another general presided in the Northern 
 Department the militia of New England would not be brought 
 into the field. The Congress, under this apprehension, ex- 
 changed their general for the militia, — a bargain which can 
 receive no justification from the supposed necessity of the 
 times." Never was General Schuyler's devotion to the country 
 proved more clearly than on this occasion. He received 
 General Gates politely, offered all the assistance in his power, 
 and remained with the army in citizen's dress, without military 
 rank, to bring forward the Albany militia. Already before 
 General Gates appeared there had been a striking change for 
 the better in the Northern Department. The fall of Ticon- 
 deroga had at last thoroughly aroused the country to the ne- 
 cessity of exertion ; the success at Bennington and Fort Stan- 
 wix gave encouragement to the militia. The harvest was 
 nearly over ; troops applied for earlier by General Schuyler 
 were now advancing ; supplies gathered by his indefatigable 
 labors were already moving towards Saratoga ; provisions pur- 
 chased with his own funds or on his personal responsibility 
 were filling the storehouses. Everything was prepared for the 
 repulse of the advancing enemy. And it was at this precise 
 moment that General Gates took the command. The result is 
 well known. The gathering of the American army on the 
 Upper Hudson, the slow approach of General Burgoyne, his 
 advance impeded at every step by the obstacles thrown in his 
 path by General Schuyler, pausing to fill up ditches, to rebuild 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 101 
 
 bridges, — no less than forty of these within a few miles, — to cut 
 new roads through the old forest, to lay corduroy roads of a 
 mile or two in length across swamps, and at length the suc- 
 cessive battles on the banks of the Hudson. After the battle 
 of July 7, when the ammunition of the American army was 
 all but exhausted, General Schuyler sent window-leads from 
 Albany for bullets. The American force was increasing every 
 day by the arrival of fresh troops. On the 7th of October came 
 the decisive battle, that most important victory for America. 
 General Burgoyne began a very ill-managed retreat, passing 
 his days in making up his mind as to the next step, passing 
 his nights in carousing and singing. General Schuyler's house 
 had been his headquarters at Saratoga; he returned there 
 after the battle of the 7th, and passed a merry night on the 
 9th, carousing while his army lay around him actually suffer- 
 ing from cold and hunger. " Schuyler's house was illuminated, 
 and rang with singing, laughter, and the jingling of glasses. 
 There Burgoyne was sitting, with merry companions, at a 
 dainty supper, while the champagne was flowing." So wrote 
 a German officer. The next morning on leaving General 
 Schuyler's house General Burgoyne ordered it to be burned, 
 with the neighboring mills. On the morning of the 17th the 
 English commander surrendered himself and his army amid 
 the smouldering ruins " on the ground where Mr. Schuyler's 
 house stood." And there General Schuyler himself, in citi- 
 zen's dress, saw the surrender which in justice should have 
 been made to himself. 
 
 A few hours later, Madame de Riedesel, the wife of the 
 German general, with her three little children, came into the 
 American camp. " When I approached the tents, a noble- 
 looking man came towards me, took the children out of the 
 waeon, embraced and kissed them, and then, with tears in his 
 eyes, helped me also to alight. ' You tremble,' said he : ' fear 
 nothing.' ' No,' replied I, ' for you are so kind, and have 
 been so tender towards my children, that it has inspired me 
 with courage.' He then led me to the tent of General Gates, 
 with whom I found Generals Burgoyne and Philips, who were 
 
102 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 upon an extremely friendly footing with him. Burgoyne said 
 to me, ' You may now dismiss all your apprehensions; for your 
 sufferings are at an end.' All the generals remained to dine 
 with General Gates. The gentleman who had received me so 
 kindly came up and said to me, ' It may be embarrassing to 
 you to dine with all these gentlemen ; come now with your 
 children into my tent, where I will give you, it is true, a frugal 
 meal, but one that will be accompanied by the best of wishes.' 
 ' You are certainly,' said I, ' a husband and a father, since you 
 show me so much kindness.' I then learned that he was 
 the American General Schuyler. He entertained me with 
 excellent smoked tongue, beefsteak, potatoes, good butter and 
 bread. Never have I eaten a better meal. I was content. I 
 saw that all around me were so likewise; but that which 
 rejoiced me more than everything else was seeing that my 
 husband was out of all danger. As soon as we had finished 
 dinner, he invited me to take up my residence at his house, 
 which was situated in Albany. I sent and asked my husband 
 what I should do. He sent me word to accept the invitation. 
 General Schuyler was so obliging as to send with me a French 
 officer, who was a very agreeable man. As soon as he had 
 escorted me to the house where we were to remain, he went 
 back." The house was an inn, half-way to Albany. General 
 Schuyler had already sent Colonel Varick to Albany to ask 
 Mrs. Schuyler to prepare for guests. The next day Generals 
 Burgoyne, Riedesel, and Philips, and their suite, arrived. 
 Twenty-two of the chief prisoners of war were presented to 
 Mrs. Schuyler in her drawing-room that evening, including 
 the charming German lady and her three little children. 
 " They loaded us with kindness," said Madame de Riedesel, 
 " and they behaved in the same manner to General Burgoyne, 
 though he had ordered their handsome houses to be burned, 
 — without any necessity, it was said. Even General Burgoyne 
 was deeply moved at their magnanimity, and said to General 
 Schuyler, ' Is it to me, who have done you so much harm, 
 that you show so much kindness ?' ' That is the fate of war,' 
 said the brave man ; ' let us say no more about it.' We re- 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 103 
 
 mained three days with them, and they seemed very reluctant 
 to let us go." There is apparently a misprint in the number of 
 days thus spent with Mrs. Schuyler : it was probably ten days. 
 When the excellent German lady left Albany, she carried with 
 her three little daughters, — Gustava, Frederica, and Caroline : 
 later she had two more, bearing the peculiar names of 
 America and Canada. The good lady also carried with her 
 the colors of the German troops, concealed in a bag by Gen- 
 eral Riedesel, who would not surrender them at Saratoga. 
 They were afterwards sewed up in a mattress " by an honor- 
 able German tailor," and thus smuggled out of the country. 
 
 General Burgoyne remained ten days at Mrs. Schuyler's, 
 while preparing his dispatches. At a later date, in speaking 
 in Parliament of the kindness of General Schuyler, he made 
 a strong acknowledgment : " He sent an aide-de-camp to con- 
 duct me to Albany, in order, as he expressed it, to procure 
 better quarters than a stranger might be able to find. That 
 gentleman conducted me to a very elegant house, and, to my 
 great surprise, presented me to Mrs. Schuyler and her family. 
 In that house I remained during my whole stay in Albany, 
 with a table of more than twenty covers for me and my friends, 
 and every other demonstration of hospitality." The English 
 general remained in Albany until October 26. Colonel Var- 
 ick wrote to General Schuyler, October 25, " Generals Bur- 
 goyne and Riedesel and their retinue are still here. They 
 give Mrs. Schuyler no small trouble. The former's dispatches 
 are not yet completed. On Saturday he mentioned to Mrs. 
 Schuyler, with tears in his eyes, his situation, that he had re- 
 ceived so much civility from you, and again from Mrs. Schuyler, 
 whose property he had destroyed, but pleaded that it was 
 thought necessary to save his army. He behaves with great 
 politeness." 
 
 "The British commander," says M. de Chastellux, " was 
 extremely well received by Mrs. Schuyler, and lodged in the 
 best apartment in the house. An excellent supper was served 
 him in the evening, the honors of which were done with so 
 much grace that he was affected even to tears, and said, with a 
 
104 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 deep sigh, ' Indeed, this is doing too much for a man who has 
 ravaged their lands, and burned their dwellings.' The next 
 morning he was reminded of his misfortunes by an incident 
 which would have appeared gay to any one else. His bed 
 was prepared in a large room, but, as he had a numerous 
 suite, several mattresses were spread on the floor for some 
 officers to sleep near him. Mrs. Schuyler's second son, a 
 little spoilt child of about seven, very forward and arch, as all 
 American children are, but very amiable, was running about 
 the house all the morning, according to custom, and, opening 
 the door of the saloon, he laughed at seeing all the English 
 officers collected, and, shutting the door after him, cried, ' You 
 are all my prisoners.' This innocent cruelty rendered them 
 more melancholy." 
 
 Mrs. Schuyler's skillful management as the head of a large 
 household must have been put to a severe test by this numer- 
 ous and sudden invasion. The strain upon the domestic com- 
 missariat must have been heavy. In winter there was always 
 abundance of game brought into Albany by Indians and other 
 hunters ; venison, bear's meat, wild turkeys, grouse, and wild 
 ducks were almost as common as beefsteaks are to-day ; and 
 the supply of fish was very rich. But in autumn some of 
 those delicacies were probably wanting. The old negro cooks 
 must have been half distracted. But happily not one of them 
 suffered the fate of Vatel : the bill of fare was complete. Mrs. 
 Schuyler in the drawing-room and her negro aids in pantry 
 and kitchen all came off with flying colors. 
 
 The court-martial demanded by General Schuyler was de- 
 layed until October, 1778. He was then tried upon the charge 
 of " neglect of duty," in being absent from Ticonderoga at the 
 time of the evacuation. As all his friends anticipated, he was 
 acquitted with "highest honor!* He then, early in 1779, re- 
 signed his commission as major-general. He was now a dele- 
 gate to Congress. He was anxious that Mrs. Schuyler and 
 his daughters should go with him to Philadelphia. The 
 Albany house was accordingly closed, and the ladies accom- 
 panied the general to what was then the political capital of 
 
MPS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 105 
 
 the country. They shared for a time in the usual gayeties, 
 but most of the winter was passed at Morristown in the camp. 
 General Schuyler was strongly attached to General Washing- 
 ton. He was, indeed, on terms of intimacy with the noble 
 chief, who had a great regard for him, and frequently in writing 
 to him signed his letters " your affectionate friend," or " yours 
 affectionately," an honor conferred on very few of his corre- 
 spondents. General Schuyler occupied a modest house near 
 headquarters. Mrs. Washington and a number of other ladies, 
 wives of the superior officers, were in the camp that winter, and 
 the society was very agreeable. The ladies were busy making 
 shirts and knitting stockings for the soldiers. No doubt Mrs. 
 Schuyler's knitting-needles were actively at work, and the 
 young ladies must have taken part in the shirt-making. One 
 of General Washington's aides, Colonel Hamilton, became 
 attached to Miss Eliza Schuyler. An engagement took place, 
 and in the spring they were married. The eldest daughter, 
 Miss Angelica Schuyler, had been already married several 
 years earlier to Mr. Church, an English gentleman. 
 
 A few months later, during the winter, M. de Chastellux 
 visited Albany, and was a guest of General Schuyler. "A 
 handsome house half-way up the bank opposite the ferry 
 seems to attract attention, and to invite strangers to stop at 
 General Schuyler's, who is the proprietor as well as architect. 
 I had recommendations to him from all quarters, but particu- 
 larly from General Washington and Mrs. Church. I had be- 
 sides given rendezvous to Colonel Hamilton, who had just 
 married another of his daughters, and was preceded by the 
 Vicomte de Noailles and the Comte de Damas, who I knew 
 were arrived the night before. The sole difficulty therefore 
 consisted in passing the river. Whilst the boat was making 
 its way with difficulty through the flakes of ice, which we 
 were obliged to break as we advanced, Mr. Lynch, who is not 
 indifferent about a good dinner, contemplating General Schuy- 
 ler's house, mournfully said to me, ' I am sure the Vicomte 
 and Damas are now at table, where they have good cheer and 
 good company, while we are here knocking our heels in hopes 
 
106 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of getting this evening to some wretched ale-house !' I par- 
 took a little of his anxiety, but diverted myself by assuring 
 him that they saw us from the windows, that I even dis- 
 tinguished the Vicomte de Noailles, who was looking at us 
 through a telescope, and that he was going to send somebody 
 to conduct us, on our landing, to that excellent house, where 
 we should find dinner ready to be served ; I even pretended 
 that a sleigh I had seen descending towards the river was de- 
 signed for us. As chance would have it, never was conjecture 
 more just. The first person we saw on shore was the Cheva- 
 lier de Mauduit, who was waiting for us with the general's 
 sleigh, into which we quickly stepped, and were conveyed in 
 an instant into a handsome saloon, near a good fire, with Mr. 
 Schuyler, his wife and daughters. While we were warming 
 ourselves, dinner was served, to which every one did honor, 
 as well as to the Madeira, which was excellent, and made us 
 completely forget the rigor of the season and the fatigue of 
 the journey. General Schuyler's family was composed of 
 Mrs. Hamilton, his second daughter, who has a mild, agree- 
 able countenance; of Miss Peggy Schuyler, whose features 
 are animated and striking ; of another charming girl, only 
 eight years old ; and of three boys, the eldest of whom is fifteen, 
 the handsomest children one can see. He is himself about 
 fifty, but already gouty and infirm. The government are at 
 present paying their court to him and pressing him to accept 
 the office of Secretary at War." 
 
 Miss Margaret Schuyler, mentioned by M. de Chastellux, 
 married a few months later Stephen Van Rensselaer, the Pa- 
 troon of Albany. The charming girl of eight was Cornelia, 
 who married Washington Morton. The three sons were John, 
 who died early, Philip, a member of Congress in 1820, and 
 Rensselaer, an officer in the army. 
 
 Among the many guests whom Mrs. Schuyler received 
 with her usual courteous kindness at this period was Aaron 
 Burr, coming to Albany to practice law, — he who twenty 
 years later brought such grief upon her family by the death 
 of General Hamilton. 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 107 
 
 The summer of 1781 was marked by an important incident. 
 A secret plot was formed to capture General Schuyler and 
 carry him a prisoner to Canada. John Walter Meyer, a bold 
 and reckless partisan, holding an officer's commission in the 
 British service, was employed to carry out the plan. This 
 man knew General Schuyler personally, and had been a guest 
 at his table. The moment chosen for the capture was in the 
 month of August, when the general was at his town-house, 
 about half a mile below Albany. Several abductions of im- 
 portance had recently taken place, and others were known to 
 be planned. General Washington wrote to General Schuyler 
 urging caution upon him. Accordingly, a guard of six men 
 were on duty at the house. Meyer brought his band of In- 
 dians, Canadians, and Tories into the neighborhood, conceal- 
 ing them for ten days among the pine woods, while he recon- 
 noitered the ground. Seizing a Dutch laborer, he forced the 
 man to give him the information he needed about the condi- 
 tion of things at the house, and then released him under an 
 oath of secrecy. The laborer, however, went immediately to 
 the general and revealed the plot, — very probably in Dutch. 
 A loyalist friend of the general also gave him a hint at the 
 same time. Towards evening of a sultry day in August the 
 general, Mrs. Schuyler, and their children were collected in 
 the hall ; an infant, the youngest child of the house, lay asleep 
 in its cradle in an adjoining room. The servants were scat- 
 tered about in various ways. Three of the guards were off 
 duty, asleep in the basement; the other three were lying on 
 the grass in the garden, their arms within reach. A servant 
 came to the general, saying that a stranger wished to see him 
 at the back gate. General Schuyler understood the summons. 
 Doors and windows were instantly closed and barred, and the 
 family collected in an upper room. The general ran to his 
 bedroom for fire-arms, when from the window he saw a wild 
 band gathering stealthily around the house, — Meyer and his 
 gang. He fired a pistol from the window to arouse the sleep- 
 ing guard and alarm the town. The guard sprang to their 
 arms, but were soon overpowered. The Indians burst open 
 
108 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the doors and rushed into the house. Suddenly Mrs. Schuy- 
 ler, in wild anxiety, looking over the family group, missed 
 her youngest child, the infant in the cradle ! In the wild 
 confusion, the safety of the general being the first object, the 
 sleeping child had been forgotten. The mother ran to the 
 door of the room, but one thought in her heart, — to recover 
 her child. But the general detained her, saying that her 
 own life must not be sacrificed. Margaret Schuyler, the bril- 
 liant young girl, heard her mother's cry, saw the detaining 
 hand of her father, and sprang to the door herself, flew down 
 two flights of stairs, rushed into the din and confusion below, 
 snatched her little sister from the cradle, and was running up- 
 stairs with the baby in her arms, when an Indian aimed a 
 tomahawk at her. Her dress was cut ; the weapon passed 
 within a few inches of the infant's head, and lodged in the rail- 
 ing of the stairs. Most of the band were now collected in the 
 dining-room, plundering the plate-closet. Meyer saw the 
 young girl running up-stairs with the infant, and, taking her for 
 the nurse, called out, " Wench, wench, where is your master?" 
 " Gone to alarm the town !" was the answer, and in another 
 moment she had gained the upper room in safety and laid the 
 child in her mother's arms. There are few actions recorded 
 of young girls so generous and so brave as the rescue of her 
 baby sister from that wild band by Margaret Schuyler. Her 
 answer to Meyer had also alarmed the marauders ; they 
 paused a moment in their plunder ; the voice of the general 
 was heard calling in a loud tone, as if speaking to a large 
 party of men, " Come on, my brave fellows ! Surround the 
 house ; seize the villains who are plundering !" Anxious to 
 secure the booty, which was very valuable, and fearing a 
 rescue, Meyer and his gang suddenly retreated, — actually put 
 to flight by the general's voice. They carried off a large 
 amount of plate, which was never recovered. It proved the 
 general's ransom, for their desire to secure it saved him from 
 capture. The infant so nobly rescued by her sister was 
 Catharine Schuyler, who died at Oswego, the widow of Major 
 Cochran, in 1858. 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. 
 
 109 
 
 The surrender of Cornwallis in October, 178 1, was the 
 closing scene of the great drama. Then came the peace in 
 1783. The life of General Schuyler was, however, scarcely 
 less active than during the war. He became Surveyor-General 
 of the State, and was also Indian Commissioner. At the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution in 1789 he was elected to the Senate. 
 His political influence and sound judgment are well known to 
 have contributed more than those of any other man to the 
 code of laws adopted by his native State. But the labors 
 which especially marked the closing years of the century 
 were connected with the canals, which had been a dream of 
 his for thirty years. In 1792 the State legislature passed a 
 law carrying out two favorite plans of his own : two canals 
 were to be built, one to open navigation between Little Falls 
 and Oneida Lake, the other to unite the Upper Hudson and 
 Lake Champlain. General Schuyler became president of both 
 companies. It is an interesting fact that among the many 
 guests received by Mrs. Schuyler in those years was a young 
 French emigre, an engineer who brought letters to General 
 Schuyler, Marc Isambert Brunei, who was employed in making 
 surveys for the new canals. Many years later the same talent 
 conceived and built the Thames Tunnel. 
 
 These cares and interests of the general were in a measure 
 shared by Mrs. Schuyler. The conversation at the cheerful 
 fireside and at the hospitable table now turned upon surveys 
 in distant wilds, on the banks of the Genesee, on the Seneca, 
 or upon locks and canals, or upon practical improvements in 
 agriculture. Good wife as she was, the lady gave her sym- 
 pathies to these labors of her husband, and took pleasure in 
 doing-the honors of her house to the many different guests 
 brought under their roof by the general. Her children were 
 now all grown up, and a flock of grandchildren were gather- 
 ing about her. To all these she was very dear. As she ad- 
 vanced in life she became less active ; she grew large and 
 stout. But the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the pleasant 
 smile, were still there. The brilliant sunshine of youth may 
 pass away with years, but there is a softened glow lingering 
 
no 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 over the close of a well-spent loving life, which is even more 
 precious. It was remarked by those who knew Mrs. Schuy- 
 ler intimately that she was " 'much loved by the poor." The re- 
 mark reveals her character. There are many who are kind and 
 liberal to the poor; there are few who really win their love. 
 She herself gave not only alms but loving sympathy also, 
 which was returned with affection. 
 
 In preparing this brief sketch, a mere outline of the life of 
 a faithful American wife and mother of the past century, it 
 has been a matter of regret that no letters of her own have 
 been preserved. Probably she wrote very little. This fact is 
 characteristic of the period at which she lived. Few Ameri- 
 can women at that day wrote easily, fluently. It was prob- 
 ably something of a task to write even to the husband and 
 children she loved so well ; and her few letters may have been 
 connected with family matters, considered trifling at a later 
 day. It was chiefly business letters which were held to be of 
 lasting value at that period. But the memory of Mrs. Schuy- 
 ler has been preserved with so much distinctness, so much 
 affection, by her family and friends, that we receive a very 
 clear impression of her sweet, gracious, womanly character, — a 
 character which also commands our respect from its elements 
 of energy and firmness. Although but an outline, it is too 
 pleasing to be allowed to fade utterly away, especially as hers 
 was a life so closely interwoven with events of great public 
 importance. 
 
 Her death was very sudden. She died of apoplexy early 
 in the year 1803. General Schuyler never recovered from 
 the bereavement. He lingered for a time in feeble health, 
 tenderly watched and nursed by his youngest daughter, — 
 " my dear Kitty," as he called her, the child rescued from 
 the Indian tomahawk. He died in 1804, after the fatigue of 
 going over the old battle-field at Saratoga with two distin- 
 guished French travelers. 
 
 Some weeks after Mrs. Schuyler's death he wrote to a 
 relative, — 
 
 " My trial has been severe. I shall attempt to sustain it 
 
MRS. PHILIP SCHUYLER. UI 
 
 with fortitude. I have, I hope, succeeded in a degree ; but 
 after giving and receiving for nearly half a century a series of 
 mutual evidences of an affection and a friendship which in- 
 creased as we advanced in life, the shock was great and sensi- 
 bly felt to be thus suddenly deprived of a beloved wife, the 
 mother of my children, and the soothing companion of my 
 declining years." 
 
 Susan Fenimore Cooper. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In gathering up the treasures of the last century, some 
 record has been desired of the life of Mrs. Sarah Alden 
 Ripley, of Massachusetts. 
 
 Mrs. Ripley was known and revered in the region where 
 she lived, as one who combined rare and living knowledge of 
 literature and science with the household skill and habits of 
 personal labor needful to New England women of limited 
 means, and with the tenderest affection and care for the young 
 brothers and sisters whom her mother's delicate health and 
 death left to. her charge, and for the seven children of her own 
 marriage who grew up under her eye in the country parson- 
 age at Waltham. To the ordinary cares of her station were 
 added those of assisting her husband in the cares of a boys' 
 boarding-school, both in housekeeping and teaching. These 
 claims were met with disinterested devotion. And amid all 
 the activity of her busy life the love and habit of acquiring 
 knowledge, which was the life of her age as of her ardent 
 youth, kept even pace. 
 
 To a friend has now been committed the trust of making 
 some selections from Mrs. Ripley's letters written in youth, 
 in early married life, in the later days when her children had 
 grown up and rest seemed approaching, and in the last days 
 at the "Old Manse" in Concord, her husband's paternal in- 
 heritance, to which they had retired in the spring of 1846, as 
 a paradise of rest in age. The letters thus arrange themselves 
 in four chapters. As a continuous history of events, they 
 leave many gaps unfilled. At times of domestic changes, 
 
 8 113 
 
114 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 whether joyful or sorrowful, the family, never widely scattered, 
 drew at once together, and there was no need of letters in the 
 personal presence of filial and friendly sympathy. The friends 
 also who were dearest to her youth and middle life were all 
 within a near circle of residence. Thus, as to many of the 
 most interesting events of her life, no written record from her 
 hand remains. 
 
 No better sketch of Mrs. Ripley can be found than the 
 memorial written by Mr. R. W. Emerson at the time of her 
 death. This will be found upon a later page. Their friend- 
 ship had begun early and lasted long. Mr. Emerson's aunt, 
 Miss Mary Emerson, the half-sister of Mr. Ripley, was a 
 woman of genius, who had much influence in the early train- 
 ing of Mr. Emerson and his brothers. She had heard of the 
 young Sarah Bradford and sought her out* in the household 
 retreat in Boston where she devoted to study the time un- 
 claimed by domestic duties ; and the friendship which followed 
 included the Emerson childrenf so dear to the elder lady. 
 After Miss Bradford's marriage the claims of kindred also 
 brought these boys to their uncle Ripley's house in school 
 and college vacations, and the intercourse so precious to both 
 sides was never interrupted but by death. 
 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn, who in Mrs. Ripley's later years at Con- 
 cord became very valuable to her as a companion in study 
 and an affectionate minister to her enjoyment in many kind 
 offices of friendship, wrote at the time of her death about her 
 early studies thus: "It should be remembered that in the 
 early part of this century, when Mrs. Ripley laid the founda- 
 tion of her extensive knowledge of languages, of philosophy 
 and literature, the aids to study were few and imperfect in 
 
 * See Mrs. Ripley's letter to Mr. Simmons of October 7, 1844. 
 
 f The names of the Emerson children, excepting two who died very young, 
 were William, Ralph Waldo, Edward Bliss, Peter Bulkeley, and Charles Chauncy. 
 Edward and Charles died in early manhood ; they were young men of the greatest 
 promise : their death is commemorated by their brother in his poem entitled 
 " Dirge." In the " May Day and Other Pieces" is another tribute to the memory 
 of Edward. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 115 
 
 New England. A good dictionary of Latin or Greek did not 
 exist in English; editions of the ancient authors were rare and 
 often very poor, while of the modern languages, except the 
 French, scarcely anything was known in all this region. But 
 the difficulties in the way did not prevent Mrs. Ripley from 
 acquiring rapidly, and with sufficient correctness, a knowledge 
 of the Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages, and sub- 
 sequently the German ; with the literature of all which she 
 became familiar, and kept up this familiarity till her failing 
 strength made study, and even reading, irksome." 
 
 Wherever it is possible, the editor will avail herself of the 
 reminiscences of Mrs. Ripley's friends in giving such ex- 
 planation as is necessary for connecting the different series of 
 letters with each other. But the letters themselves will best 
 report the life of the writer. 
 
 Sarah Alden Bradford was born in Boston, July 31, 1793, 
 and was the eldest child of Captain Gamaliel Bradford. Two 
 brothers followed her, Gamaliel, afterwards a well-known phy- 
 sician and citizen of Boston, and Daniel, who studied law, and 
 died early in Mississippi. Then followed two sisters, Martha, 
 afterwards the wife of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, of Concord, Massa- 
 chusetts, and Margaret, the wife of Mr. Seth Ames, now one of 
 the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. 
 George, her youngest brother, whom she almost wholly edu- 
 cated up to the time when he entered Harvard College, and 
 Hannah, her youngest sister, who was the wife and is now 
 the widow of the late Mr. A. H. Fiske, a prominent lawyer 
 in Boston, completed the number of seven children, to the 
 three youngest of whom Sarah stood in the place of a mother: 
 her own children were not nearer to her heart. Her father, 
 who was a sea-captain, was often absent on voyages, and her 
 mother's delicate health gave to the eldest daughter, as she 
 grew up, a large share in the care of this numerous family. 
 The youngest brother and sister still survive. 
 
 Sarah attended a school taught by Mr. Cummings, well 
 known in days long past as the author of a school geography, 
 of whom she speaks in one of her latest letters as " my old 
 
Il6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 school- master, to whom I owe the foundation of all I know 
 worth speaking of." Her teacher asked her one day if she 
 would like to study Latin. It was a fortnight before she 
 could make up her mind to ask her father's leave, but one day 
 she came home and with great timidity said, " Father, may I 
 study Latin ?" Her father laughed, and exclaimed, " A girl 
 study Latin ! Yes, study Latin if you want to. You may 
 study anything you please." This, as it will be seen, was 
 opening the door into a wide field. 
 
 Captain Bradford's father and other relatives lived in Dux- 
 bury, near Plymouth. In her occasional visits to this place 
 Sarah had formed an intimate friendship with Abba Allyn, 
 the daughter of Dr. Allyn, the minister of Duxbury. He 
 himself took an especial interest in his daughter's young 
 friend, to which she never ceased to respond in grateful ac- 
 knowledgment. The girls read together, and explored the 
 woods and swamps in company, looking wistfully at the 
 flowers they gathered, longing for knowledge to detect the 
 laws and secrets of nature. After one of these visits, Sarah 
 wrote to her friend Abba a formal little letter proposing a 
 correspondence. The proposal was accepted, and the first se- 
 lection from Mrs. Ripley's letters will be a few from the earlier 
 ones in the life-long series which passed between the two 
 friends. The first letter, to which I have referred, is duly 
 dated, " April 15th, 1809." But this is almost the only date 
 in the whole series: so that the editor can only guess at the 
 order in which the letters followed each other by the increased 
 freedom of the style and handwriting, and by the order of 
 studies and topics, when a new book rises to mark the prog- 
 ress of the months ; as in Dante's pilgrimage the hours and 
 seasons are marked only by the succession of the constella- 
 tions. The correspondence, as I have said, began in 1809. 
 The Bradford family afterwards spent a year in Duxbury, re- 
 turning to Boston in 181 1. After that time the letters con- 
 tinued with confidence and affection unabated, and the friend- 
 ship never ceased through life. 
 
MRS. SAMUKL RIPLEY. 117 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 [About 1809.] 
 
 " My dear Abba, — 
 
 " I am sorry to perceive that you have greatly mistaken the 
 motive which has induced me lately to mix less with the world 
 than heretofore. You ascribe it to depression of mind, for 
 which you entreat me to assign a reason. You are much de- 
 ceived, my friend. God has continually blessed me since I came 
 into this world, and I should be very ungrateful if I were dis- 
 contented or unhappy. He has given me life, and hereafter I 
 shall be accountable to him for the manner in which I have 
 improved the time and privileges afforded me. At present I 
 am favored with the means of acquiring useful knowledge. 
 If, instead of employing the season of youth in improving my 
 mind, I spend it in idle visiting, in preparing for balls and par- 
 ties, neglecting the advantages afforded me, can I reasonably 
 expect that they will always be continued to me? I do not 
 intend to give up all society; I only intend to relinquish that 
 from which I can gain no good. Be assured I wish to conceal 
 nothing from you, and if I were in affliction your participa- 
 tion would greatly lessen it. Write to me the manner in which 
 you employ your time. Your papa informed me you had be- 
 come an adept in spinning. Have you begun Virgil ? I must 
 bid you good-by, my dearest and best friend, and it is my 
 earnest desire that you may be happy in this world and that 
 which is to come. Don't expose this letter. 
 
 "S. A. B." 
 
 "As the spring advances I am more and more desirous to be 
 with you. The grass in our yard begins to look green, and 
 the lilac-trees have leaved. We consider our yard and garden 
 quite a farm in comparison with the yards belonging to the 
 new-fashioned houses, which are in general about as large as 
 your back room. So that, although I am not in the country, 
 I am better off than many of my neighbors. Do you find 
 any pretty wild flowers? If you have never examined a dan- 
 
Il8 WORTHY WOMEN Or OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 delion flower, you will find it very curious, — the downy wings 
 of the seeds, by which they are scattered far and wide, the 
 perfect uniformity of the little flowers, each with its pistil and 
 five stamens, united by the anthers, the filaments separate, 
 almost too small to be distinguished with the naked eye. The 
 same order, regularity, and beauty are visible in the least as 
 in the greatest works of creation. Do you think a dandelion 
 could have been the work of chance? Surely that study can- 
 not be entirely useless which can make even this most despised 
 of flowers a source of admiration and entertainment, a demon- 
 stration of the hand of a Creator. I saw the other evening in 
 one of our neighbors' yards a Lombardy poplar in full bloom, 
 a sight I never saw before; but, as my face was swollen with 
 the ague, I could not get a blossom. I believe they are of 
 the same class as the balsam poplar, which I have often seen 
 in bloom. Father has frequently recommended to me a poem 
 called Darwin's Botanic Garden. I think I can borrow it at 
 Judge Davis's; and I am determined to bring it to Duxbury 
 with me, that we may enjoy it together." 
 
 In a later letter she says, — 
 
 "There are to be botanical lectures next winter in Boston, 
 but I suppose the pine woods must be our lecture-room, and 
 nature our herbalist." 
 
 In another letter, after analyzing for her friend the Linnaean 
 System and Darwin's Botanic Garden, her last book, she ends, 
 "But it is washing-day, and I must run and fold my clothes: 
 so good-by. . . . The clothes are not quite dry, so here I 
 come again. I thought at first I would read a little; but when 
 I get in a notion of writing to you I can attend to nothing 
 else till the rage is over. I study or read morning and 
 evening, when not prevented by company. How we might 
 improve these long winter evenings together!" 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 II 9 
 
 [1S09.] 
 
 " Your letter found me in company with one of my Greek 
 acquaintance; but he was obliged to yield to the superior 
 claims of friendship. I cannot sufficiently thank you for it, 
 affectionate and entertaining as it was. The poem* I have 
 long wished to read, written, by the way, by the biographer of 
 our favorite Cowper, — our favorite, I say, for I am sure you 
 cannot have read half through his life and not love him as 
 well as I do. He is a most engaging character. Perhaps you 
 may think him a little vain in making his own compositions 
 so frequently the subjects of his letters, particularly his trans- 
 lations of Homer. But I can readily find, in my own feelings 
 an excuse for him. How interested I feel in anything you 
 are engaged in ! How eager I am to know every step you 
 take in Virgil, etc. ! So anxious for the success and fame 
 of her friend was Lady Hesketh that he well knew the most 
 minute details would be interesting to her. ... A dreadful 
 apprehension of having forfeited the divine favor by his im- 
 perfections (when perhaps there was never a man who had 
 less reason for such a fear) seems to have been the occasion 
 of that melancholy which shaded the whole course of his 
 life and especially obscured the end, which so strongly 
 awakens the feeling of sympathy. Do you not relish much 
 more his pleasing descriptions since you know ' his praise of 
 nature most sincere, raptures not conjured up to serve the 
 purpose of poetic pomp, but genuine' ? I am delighted to 
 hear you do not desert our old friend Virgil. You need not 
 fear I shall be jealous of any share he may have in your 
 friendship. I have not read anything new since I wrote 
 you, but jog on in the same old road. I have finished Homer's 
 Odyssey, and wish to read the Iliad very much. Your papa 
 has one with a Latin translation, and, if he does not use it this 
 winter, by lending it to me he will add another great obliga- 
 tion to the many he has conferred upon me. You mentioned 
 in one of your last letters an abundance of new story-books, 
 
 * Hayley's "Triumphs of Temper." 
 
120 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 such as ' Vivian,' etc. I hope Daniel will read some of them 
 to me this long vacation, that I may be able in company to 
 bear some part in the conversation, for they are the only fash- 
 ionable topics. Dear Abba, since I wrote you I have com- 
 menced acquaintance with a Miss Emerson,* a sister of our 
 minister, a pious and sensible woman, between thirty and 
 forty years of age. She was so kind as to make the first ad- 
 vances by calling on me ; and from her society I expect to 
 derive the greatest advantages : she appears extremely inter- 
 ested in the religious improvement of the young. When I 
 consider what a price there is put in my hands to gain wisdom, 
 I am alarmed at the little progress I have made in a knowl- 
 edge of the things that concern my eternal peace. Good-night. 
 
 " Your friend, Sarah." 
 
 The following was marked by Miss Emerson, " First letter 
 of her childhood in friendship." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 [About 1S09.] 
 
 " Dear, dear Mary, — 
 
 "I am afraid you will hear no more about satiety and disgust 
 of life. With every rising dawn your idea is associated. The 
 day no longer presents in prospect an unvaried tasteless round 
 of domestic duties. Bright gleams of hope illumine the dull 
 perspective. The mellow rays of the declining sun sweep the 
 chords of love. Oh that they ceased to vibrate with the 
 gentle touch ! Your idea intrudes too often on the hallowed 
 hours. But it will not be always thus. The affection whose 
 object is so pure, so heavenly, cannot, will not, forever militate 
 with devotion. Once convinced the chains are riveted, suspi- 
 cion, dread to have disgusted or offended, will give place to 
 calm reposing satisfaction. How delightful the thought that 
 
 * See Mrs. Ripley's letter to Mr. Simmons of October 7, 1844, for an account 
 of Miss Emerson and of the beginning of their acquaintance. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 121 
 
 our religion sanctions friendship! How does worldliness dry 
 up every spring of pure affection, chill every generous, glow- 
 ing emotion ! I was bantered a little at tea about violent 
 romantic attachments. I was bold in the defense of disinter- 
 ested friendship. My mother considers it a delusion, innocent 
 as to its object, rather dangerous as to its effects, making me 
 unsteady, as she terms it. But you told me once you hated 
 sentimental epistles. May everything that can make life's 
 journey pleasant be yours in perfection !" 
 
 " I was peaceably poring over old Josephus when your affec- 
 tionate letter came. Its seal was broken with delightful agi- 
 tation. Poor Josephus ! I am afraid he will be obliged to 
 suspend for to-day the tedious narrative of his countrymen's 
 seditions. My interest in him increases as he draws near 
 the illustrious era beheld in prophetic vision, ushered in with 
 seraphic song. . . . The Roman annals of this period have 
 for me an amazing interest. I have them from the hand of a 
 master. I am eagerly looking on every page for some mention 
 of characters enshrined on the altar of Christianity. . . . My 
 affection for you has given a new tone to my feelings and 
 animation to my pursuits. ... I want you to become better 
 acquainted with my old friend Lactantius. He lived to a 
 great age, and had the satisfaction of seeing the clouds that 
 had so long lowered over the Christian world begin to break 
 away. It was the last burst of the tempest of persecution 
 that provoked his elegant defense. His style is very clear, 
 and his standard of morality high as perfection itself. He has 
 some faults, is often fanciful in his interpretation of Scripture 
 language, and sometimes shows great want of candor in in- 
 terpreting the moral precepts of heathen philosophy. He 
 seems to have fallen into an error natural to the early age of 
 the Church, — considers poverty and persecution necessary to 
 Christian virtue. Is it an error? Do not many graces imply 
 a state of suffering;?" 
 
122 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 " Miss Emerson has left Boston for an uncertain time. You 
 know how I dislike writing; yet I have already written to her. 
 It was the condition on which I am to expect her letters; and 
 if they are of as much benefit to me as I hope her society has 
 been, I shall be abundantly compensated. Do not be jealous 
 of her, my best friend. My affection for you and her are very 
 different: there is too much of reverential respect mingled 
 with the former to admit of that unreserved confidence which 
 is so strong a bond of union between us. Can an acquaint- 
 ance of a few months, where there is disparity of years and 
 difference in pursuits, be weighed in the balance with a friend- 
 ship of years, cemented by union in studies as well as senti- 
 ment?" 
 
 Her friend indorses the following letter, " This letter writ- 
 ten when she was seventeen." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 [iSlO.] 
 
 " Dear Mary — 
 
 " I have begun Stewart. (Oh, how you have multiplied my 
 sources of enjoyment !) By bringing into view the various sys- 
 tems of philosophers concerning the origin of our knowledge, 
 he enlarges the mind, and extends the range of our ideas, while 
 he traces to their source those torrents of error, skepticism, 
 and infidelity that have for ages inundated this fair field of 
 science ; clearly distinguishing between proper objects of in- 
 quiry and those that must forever remain inexplicable to man 
 in the present state of his faculties. Reasonings from induc- 
 tion are delightful. I have read but few works on these sub- 
 jects. Oh, how I envy the scholar, the philosopher, whose 
 business, whose profession, is science! Continually making 
 new discoveries in this boundless region, where every object 
 bears the impress of Divinity, Linnaeus could trace with equal 
 wonder and delight the strokes of a divine, unrivaled pencil, 
 as Newton the omnipotent arm that first gave motion to the 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 123 
 
 planetary system. Even the humble dandelion exhibits an 
 order and regularity of parts admirable as the harmony of 
 spheres. Yet, as much as I am pleased with your philosoph- 
 ical speculations, I should not be willing to renounce for them 
 entirely the poets of Greece and Rome. Opening Virgil the 
 other night after I was in bed, his fine description of vEneas's 
 descent into the lower regions held imagination entranced 
 for hours. The sombre and terrific images that throng the 
 gloomy portal, the turbid, sedgy stream, the supplications of 
 unburied shades that hover around its banks, thick as au- 
 tumnal leaves, the grim boatman, the converse of ^Eneas with 
 the spirits of departed heroes, the expressive look and manner 
 of his injured mistress, described in all the majesty of Virgil's 
 style, wonderfully entertain the fancy. In pathos of sentiment 
 he is unrivaled : he is acquainted with every avenue to the 
 heart. His epic abounds with the most affecting pictures of 
 filial love and heroic friendship. I have almost a mind to blot 
 this long eulogium. I am continually introducing you to one 
 or another of my old friends, that you do not care a fig for, 
 who meet with so much more agreeable society of your own 
 age. I am afraid you will never be rid of their intrusions till 
 you absolutely command them to stay at home. Do call me 
 a good girl for writing again so soon. Good-by. 
 
 " Yours with affection, Sarah." 
 
 " Dear Mary,— 
 
 " I have just received your valuable letter, and would answer 
 it while warm with gratitude for the affectionate interest it ex- 
 presses in my welfare. Your caution against an undue devo- 
 tion to literary pursuits is, I fear, too necessary. Perhaps not 
 more time is allotted to them than conscience would permit 
 for innocent amusements. But their dominion over the affec- 
 tions is the danger. I fear, if called to relinquish them en- 
 tirely or desert some positive duty, the sacrifice would be 
 made with reluctance. Yet, when I experience how much 
 more easy is the transition to serious meditation from an 
 evening spent in study than one spent in society, where vanity 
 
124 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 may have been excited or pride flattered, I am inclined to 
 consider them, if not directly tending to produce, at least not 
 unfavorable to, piety. How ready we are to excuse a favorite 
 passion ! It is my constant prayer that my affections may be 
 purified, and with advantages for improvement my sphere of 
 usefulness may also be enlarged. My friend, I should not 
 write thus to any one but yourself. I am almost ashamed 
 when I see that I have as yet been the only subject. Do tell 
 me if you think me vain or presuming. 
 
 "... You are the only person who ever thought me of 
 any consequence, and I am pretty well convinced other folks 
 are more than half right. I want you to love me, but you 
 must do as you please about it." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 " I have been so busily engaged since mother has been at 
 Duxbury in mending old clothes and making cambric bonnets, 
 that I have not had time to read, write, nor scarcely think, 
 except about my work. What will you say, — that I have im- 
 proved or degenerated, if I tell you I have spent almost a fort- 
 night in making two bonnets ? I am afraid if you knew how 
 much anxiety and fretting they have occasioned, you would 
 be at no loss in pronouncing judgment. Be that as it may, I 
 have acquired the fame of being quite a tasteful milliner, and, 
 if you regard the time and pains bestowed, I think there was 
 never any fame of the kind more justly earned." 
 
 "You don't want to know what I am doing, but I will tell 
 you to plague you. I study now and then a little Latin. In 
 the daytime while I sit at work Daniel reads some entertain- 
 ing book to me, and in the evening when there is no com- 
 pany I usually study a chapter in the Greek Testament. I dare 
 not tell you how much of my time I spend in playing with 
 Hannah, who grows a fine little girl : you don't know how 
 much we all love her. Do write to me soon and send me 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 1 25 
 
 a translation of some part of the yEneid, written handsomely 
 on a neat piece of paper. Have you begun the History of 
 Rome? Remark particularly the events happening about 
 Cicero's time. It is my favorite history. I expect it will afford 
 us a fund of conversation when we meet again. 
 
 " Dear Abba, we go through the same routine of business 
 here, — wash Monday, iron Tuesday, etc. The description of 
 one week would serve for all the rest in the year; no variety, 
 except of books, of which (as is usually the case in vacation) 
 we have abundance. Daniel comes home loaded with new 
 ones, French and English. Among the former I find Vol- 
 taire's Age of Louis XIV., valuable both from the style in 
 which it is written and the important events it relates. What 
 would you say if I were to tell you I have begun five different 
 books at once ? I am afraid the little leisure I have, divided 
 among so many objects, will not be very profitably employed. 
 I am reading Juvenal, a Roman satirist, who is charming when 
 he lashes those follies that are common among mankind in 
 every age ; but when he attacks those grosser ones of his own 
 which are now 'not so much as named among us' he is often 
 so indelicate that I am obliged to pass over a great deal. No 
 one can read the Satires of Juvenal, or St. Paul's picture of 
 his age in the first chapter of Romans, and not perceive how 
 greatly Christianity has refined the tone of morality, though 
 much of her genuine influence be diminished by the bad pas- 
 sions of men. 
 
 " I have undertaken to instruct the little ones this winter, 
 and now begin to realize what has been your task for a year 
 or two past. They hate the Latin grammar, but in geography 
 we go on more smoothly : they are pleased to trace countries, 
 rivers, etc., on the map, and George's eyes will sparkle when 
 he hears any place mentioned in conversation whose situation 
 he is acquainted with. To grammar they attach no kind of 
 idea, and I cannot conceive that its study can be useful in any 
 other way than forming a habit of attention. I have been 
 reading to-day part of a charming satire where Juvenal paints 
 glaringly the mistakes of men in their search after happiness. 
 
126 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 The book lies before me, with the leaf turned down : I long to 
 read it to you, it is so natural. Where do you think I am 
 writing to you ? In my own chamber, which, by the means of 
 a little shoemaker's stove* fixed here this afternoon, is as warm 
 as an oven. Some sweet ingredient is each day mingled in 
 my cup. For all these blessings I cannot be grateful enough 
 to kind friends, and to Him who has given me these friends. 
 Good-night, says one who loves you dearly. 
 
 " Sarah Bradford." 
 
 " I have not read much this vacation, though French books 
 have abounded, for I spent most of my leisure with Theocritus, 
 an old Grecian, the father of pastoral poetry. I like many of 
 his Idyllia better than Virgil's Bucolica. He is much more 
 natural, and to him Virgil is indebted for many of his most 
 beautiful ideas. There is so much of nature in the Idyllium 
 I am now studying, a dialogue between two women on their 
 way to some public show, that I long to recite it to you, as I 
 do a thousand other things I meet with in the day." 
 
 " The comet is running off very fast; I shall be sorry to bid 
 him good-by forever. I seldom go to bed without looking 
 to see if the old serpent's head is still above the horizon." 
 
 " I am very much interested in Tacitus at present. He has 
 a manner so pleasant of telling his stories, he is as interesting 
 as a novelist. I am impatient for the time when you shall 
 read him. I am sometimes almost tempted to wish I knew 
 nothing about Latin, and had not a taste for studies that sub- 
 ject me to so many inconveniences ; for the time I now employ 
 
 * A friend in Boston writes, " I find by inquiry among the old stove-makers 
 that a • shoemaker's stove' was well known as a cylinder of sheet iron laid hori- 
 zontally, flattened on the upper side, with a door at one end and a funnel at the 
 other." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 127 
 
 in study I should then spend in reading books which would 
 enable me to join in the conversation and partake of the pleas- 
 ures of fashionable ladies, but now I am as careful to conceal 
 my books and as much afraid of being detected with them as 
 if I were committing some great crime." 
 
 So this fair, fragrant lily grew up in the grass of common 
 daily life, pure, peaceable, wise, lovely, of good report: "if 
 there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," she was not 
 found wanting. No desire to evade the lowliest household 
 task which duty or affection laid upon her ever shows itself 
 in her letters. And the same lowly, sincere acceptance of the 
 daily order of Providence in life remains characteristic to the 
 last. 
 
 The War of 18 12-14, and other causes, brought such in- 
 terruptions to her father's occupations — which were still con- 
 nected with commerce, although he had left the sea about 
 the year 1808 — that it became expedient for him, in 18 13, to 
 accept the office of Warden of the State Prison in Charles- 
 town. After some time he removed his family from Boston 
 to that town. But Sarah's intimacy with Miss Emerson and 
 her young nephews was not broken by this new necessity of 
 crossing a bridge. Their communication by letters, as will 
 have been seen, had begun early, and it was still continued 
 whenever the friends were separated. 
 
 miss bradford to miss emerson. 
 " Dear Friend, — 
 
 "I spent last night with your little darling.* We vied with 
 each other in telling stories : the little budget of learning and 
 fancy was all emptied, nor were its contents so inconsiderable 
 as the aunt would sometimes represent them. — I have before 
 me a rare banquet of reason and taste, if I had but leisure to 
 enjoy it, — Butler, Tasso, Sophocles, and Euripides. You will 
 
 * It is not known which of the nephews is here referred to. 
 
128 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 enjoy Butler's Analogy with me. I believe I told you I have 
 Milton's minor poems. With what majesty and sublimity his 
 old-fashioned epithets grace his style! They remind one of 
 the rich brocades and substantial ornaments of our grand- 
 mothers, contrasted with the gauze and ribbons of modern 
 bards. In the second book of Paradise Lost, Satan's journey 
 through the realms of Chaos and old Night, — one knows not 
 which most to admire, the sublimity of his thoughts, or their 
 expressive garb of diction : 
 
 ' Who shall tempt with wandering feet 
 The dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss, 
 And through the palpable obscure find out 
 His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight, 
 Upborne with indefatigable wings, 
 Over the vast abrupt.' 
 
 " Every word is an idea, and an idea it seems no other word 
 could so forcibly express. How could Johnson talk about 
 blank verse being unfit for English epic? Your friend E. says 
 he has colored our theology. No wonder! Poets were the 
 mythologists of ancient days. Inspiration was attributed as 
 their peculiar gift, and, in their language, for poet and prophet 
 one word sufficed. 
 
 " Why can't you be disinterested enough, after you have 
 inhaled the fragrance of autumnal wild flowers, to press some 
 of them for me ? Taylor's Holy Dying will be just the book 
 to entomb withering beauty. The modes of decease, too, in 
 the vegetable world are not destitute of variety: the green 
 brier which taints the gale while it lives, and loses when dry 
 its offensive odor, may comment on 'the wicked cease from 
 troubling;' the fragrance of the faded rose is a good name 
 left behind; and the pappous tribe go off on gossamer wings 
 of immortality. Do write, whether consistent or inconsistent 
 with your pursuits: in the latter case I make the appeal to 
 benevolence. 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, Sarah." 
 
AIRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 129 
 
 Among the letters to Miss Emerson I find one addressed 
 to Ralph Waldo Emerson, then eleven years old, — beginning 
 with a translation from Virgil, which she challenges him to 
 finish: 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 1814. 
 
 " My dear young Friend, — 
 
 * ********** 
 
 "You love to trifle in rhyme a little now and then : why will 
 you not continue this versification of the fifth bucolic? You 
 will answer two ends, or, as the old proverb goes, kill two 
 birds with one stone, — improve in your Latin, as well as in- 
 dulge a taste for poetry. Why can't you write me a letter in 
 Latin ? But Greek is your favorite language : epistola in 
 lingua GrcEcd would be still better. All the honor will be on 
 my part, to correspond with a young gentleman in Greek. 
 Only think of how much importance I shall feel in the literary 
 world. Tell me what most interests you in Rollin ; in the 
 wars of contending princes, under whose banner you enlist, 
 to whose cause you ardently wish success. Write me with 
 what stories in Virgil you are most delighted : is not that 
 a charming one of the friendship of Nisus and Euryalus? I 
 suppose you have a Euryalus among your companions ; or 
 don't little boys love each other as well as they did in Virgil's 
 time ? How beautifully he describes the morning ! Do write 
 to your affectionate friend, Sarah." 
 
 Thus adjured, her young friend returns in answer a ful- 
 fillment of the task assigned him, in a translation of the fifth 
 bucolic from the nineteenth to the thirty-fifth line : 
 
 May 6, 1814. 
 " Mop. Turn now, O youth, from your long speech away ; 
 The bower we've reached recluse from sunny ray; 
 The Nymphs with pomp have mourned for Daphnis dead ; 
 The hazels witnessed, and the rivers fled. 
 The wretched mother clasped her lifeless child, 
 And gods and stars invoked with accents wild. 
 Daphnis ! the cows are not now led to streams 
 Where the bright sun upon the water gleams, 
 9 
 
130 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Neither do herds the cooling river drink, 
 
 Nor crop the grass upon the verdant brink. 
 
 O Daphnis ! both the mountains and the woods, 
 
 The Punic lions, and the raging floods, 
 
 All mourn for thee, for thee who first did hold 
 
 In chariot-reins the spotted tiger bold. 
 
 Daphnis the Bacchanalian chorus led, 
 
 He placed himself at the mad dancers' head. 
 
 'Twas Daphnis who with beauteous fingers wove 
 
 The stems of leaves he gathered from the grove. 
 
 As the great beauty of a tree is seen 
 
 From vines entwining round its pleasant green, 
 
 As vines themselves in grapes their beauty find, 
 
 As the fair bull of all the lowing kind, 
 
 As standing corn cloth grace the verdant fields, 
 
 So to thy beauty every rival yields." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 " Charlestown, Nov. 9th, 1814. 
 
 " Dear Friend, — 
 
 " You will have me write — what ? the interesting detail of 
 mending, sweeping, teaching? What amusement can you 
 reasonably require at the hand of a being secluded in a back 
 chamber, with a basket of stockings on one side, and an old 
 y heathen on the other ? Musty! reiterates father Homer, 
 ning through his gilt cover. . . . Well, dear Mary, if 
 you will have aught of me this evening, you must be content 
 to pass it with Ariosto or Tasso, for we are inseparable. . . . 
 Ariosto gives free rein to an imagination luxuriant, wild, 
 brilliant as his own enchanted domes with airy touch that 
 fancy fires; Tasso's genius chastised by correctness of taste 
 appears in picturesque description, accurate delineation of 
 character, various and entertaining incident. Novelty bestows 
 their charm on visions of unrestrained fancy, but nature 
 pleases always. The gondoliers of Venice, their oars beat- 
 ing time, are heard nightly chanting Tasso's stanzas, — rarely 
 Ariosto's. The poet of nature is a practical metaphysician, 
 acquainted as it were by inspiration with those combinations 
 of passions and affections common to our race, that form all 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 131 
 
 the varieties of individual character, — skilled to touch those 
 delicate strings of sentiment that find concordant notes in 
 every soul. Our age, I believe, consents to place the English 
 epic poet in the niche with Homer; Tasso dares not aspire so 
 high, yet (though never in sublimity) in beauty of description 
 he might dispute the palm with Milton ; and even this tower- 
 ing genius sometimes condescends to borrow a fine simile 
 from his Italian predecessor. 
 
 "I dispatched a letter by post this morning: this is for a 
 private conveyance; George stands waiting with his Homer; 
 Betsey teasing to know how the meat is to be dissected ; the 
 wind blowing books and papers Jn every direction; but ca- 
 coetlies scribendi, — I keep on. ' Write, if consistent with your 
 pursuits.' You will be obliged, when tired of paying postage 
 and breaking seals, to explain yourself in more direct terms." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 " Charlestown, April 19th, 1815. 
 
 ive been 
 
 tleJI^ 
 
 "Dear Abba, — 
 
 " I had hoped our next communication would ha ve bee n 
 oral, but, as the Fates do not seem disposed to exte 
 thread to Duxbury, I come again in the form of episth 
 How is it with Greek, Latin, and French? Have you con- 
 quered Sallust? and do you meditate an attack on Horace next? 
 If this is your intention, you may prepare for a tight conflict, 
 for it is something more than play, even after Tacitus has nerved 
 the arm and exercised the skill. This last waits your command. 
 Your friend is listening again to the Doric muse of Theocritus, 
 and anticipating the period when we shall enjoy her harmony 
 in company. Virgil is happier than Thomson in the picturesque 
 of poetry: the dazzling splendor of the latter blends his ima- 
 gery in indistinct confusion, while Virgil's expressive diction 
 throws a soft shade about his 
 
 'jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant 
 Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbras,' 
 
I3 2 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 and marks each object with distinctness. Theocritus excels 
 them both in this master-art of description. Vivid conception 
 of the grand and beautiful in nature, and a talent of discrimi- 
 nating selection, are the gifts of the poetic imagination. Who 
 cannot measure a verse and conclude it with the jingle of 
 rhyme ? but to see with a poet's eye and color with a poet's 
 pencil — hie labor est /" 
 
 " March 19th. 
 
 " My dear Friend, — 
 
 " We have been turning over the leaves of a German gram- 
 mar for the last week ; have the promise of books, but can 
 procure no dictionary; transition rather harsh from Italian, in 
 which every word ends with a vowel, to consonant upon con- 
 sonant in schramme and geschwult. One meets in limine primo 
 with many words like the English, which is accounted for by 
 the Teutonic derivation of both. Mme. de Stael says that it, 
 the German, resembles the Greek language in its construction ; 
 which is certainly observable in the number of its declensions 
 and the variations of its articles. Perhaps the similarity of 
 structure may be accounted for by peculiar circumstances in 
 the early state and progress of the two nations. Homer pre- 
 sents us with a picture of the primeval polity and manners of 
 his country, numerous independent tribes, each electing its 
 own chief, dignified in heroics with the royal title, frequently 
 embroiled in petty contests with each other, all uniting for 
 the purpose of public defense or retaliation. In this state 
 they continue to make progress in arts and civilization, un- 
 conquered by any foreign power, till the memorable invasion 
 of the Persians serves but to exercise their military talents and 
 confirm the national spirit of freedom. Tacitus gives nearly 
 the same account of the manners of ancient Germany, which, 
 however, is but a general description of the early history of 
 every nation, the natural or rather the simple form of govern- 
 ment founded on the universally acknowledged right of pa- 
 rental authority. Germany seems neither to have been civil- 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 133 
 
 ized nor corrupted by its intercourse with the Roman soldiery; 
 the regular construction of its language and the gradual re- 
 finement of its manners to have been its own work, — like those 
 of Greece, the natural progress of society. . . . Perhaps I shall 
 tell you when I know more of the crooked letters the analogy 
 between the two languages is as imaginary as the attempt to 
 account for it is fanciful. And now we come to the matter in 
 hand, to thank you for your entertaining letter, to entreat you 
 not to sit up too late nor rise too early, not to wet your feet 
 or fatigue yourself through too violent exercise; in short, to 
 take care of your health. I suppose by this time the cpigcca 
 rcpens begins to peep through the withered leaves. Do press 
 me a bunch, as I have never examined it particularly. 
 
 " Wedn. week. — A German dictionary ! We begin to think 
 our own language has the best claim to relationship to the 
 German : the verb is commonly the concluding word in the 
 sentence, which will make it fine for poetry. You do not tell 
 me where to find you in Greek. You will probably begin the 
 Iliad after ' Minora.' I long to hear what you think of the 
 venerable (Samian or Chian) bard. Has not Tacitus yet de- 
 scribed anything worthy of a mark ? In May I am to see 
 your mother and yourself. Do not disappoint 
 
 " S. A. B." 
 
 " There is indeed a striking analogy between the German 
 and Greek in the number of compounded words: abstract and 
 general terms are composed of words expressing the simple 
 ideas included, and thus explain themselves without definition. 
 From this peculiarity the Greek has become the source from 
 which every modern science has drawn its nomenclature; and 
 indeed it must be a marked feature in every idiom which, 
 without being indebted to foreign or ancient languages, has 
 grown out of the necessities and improved with the taste and 
 science of the age. We are now laboring at one of Klop- 
 stock's dramas, the subject of which is the famous destruction 
 by the Cherusci of Varro's three legions, whose remains were 
 afterward found in the sacred forests of the Germans by Ger- 
 
134 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 manicus's army, — which Tacitus finely describes, I think, in 
 his first book. . . . My mother is very sick to-day, and I have 
 cake in the oven to take care of: so good-by. — Saturday. — 
 George has been reciting from one of Sallust's prefaces. 
 What a philosopher he would fain be ! he has moralized us all 
 to sleep. His motto, 'Nobilitas sola est atque wiica virtus', and 
 his inference, of course, that it is better to be an historian than 
 a consul. He traces with a masterly hand the causes of great 
 revolutions and events to the secret passions of the human 
 heart. He can draw a striking portrait — witness Jugurtha's ; 
 but how insufferably affected in style !" 
 
 TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 " Do you read the Greek Testament? It will take many a 
 rainy Sunday to exhaust the new ideas one may acquire by 
 divesting one's self of the prejudices of education and the 
 peculiar sanctity distant and superstitious time has thrown 
 around the epistolary parts of these records of our faith ; with 
 a distinct idea of the character of their author to place our- 
 selves at Corinth, Athens, or Jerusalem, as they really existed 
 in the time of the apostle, — not as seen with the glass of faith 
 through the long postern of eighteen centuries; to find full of 
 interesting meaning, passages which appear obscure, extrava- 
 gant, or contradictory to those who receive every epistle as 
 applicable in toto to the Church at the present day." 
 
 The " having picked up Lowth's Isaiah" is the occasion of 
 a lively statement of "the general identification of poet and 
 prophet among ancient nations. It was natural," she adds, 
 " to ascribe to supernatural influence the utterance of genius 
 which untaught by man soared far above the common level, 
 and the solitary taste of the bard for nature in her sublime 
 and awful attitudes might have strengthened the persuasion. 
 
 Ztbq ds dewv dyoprf; Ttoirjiraro xtpray.ipau^oq 
 dxpordrrj xoputprj izokudeipddoq OuXu/jlsoio. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 135 
 
 ". . . What of all this ? I was going to add, I know not 
 what, about divine truth coming with superior authority from 
 lips already, without the evidence of miracles, believed to be 
 touched with celestial fire." 
 
 " Brilliant imagination is all Ariosto has to boast, but so 
 wild and extravagant as rather to astonish and entertain than 
 to interest the feelings. Sympathy seldom goes beyond the 
 bounds of nature." 
 
 " We are expecting you daily. When you come you shall 
 be treated to a peep at Herodotus in green and gold : ' dulcis 
 et fusus et candidus Herodotus' Margaret is waiting to say 
 her lesson. Do make haste, — May is almost past." 
 
 " I have found a French work on chemistry and natural his- 
 tory in five volumes, quite elementary, perfectly intelligible, 
 and am up to the mind's elbows in carbon." 
 
 After comparing the style of Cicero with that of Tacitus, she 
 says, — 
 
 " A nation's taste as well as literature has its rise and de- 
 cline. It seems to be the fate of humanity that, arrived at the 
 height of eminence in any attainment, it must begin to descend 
 again ere it has time to view the goodly prospect. Happily, 
 the heights of natural science are ' Alps on Alps.' " 
 
 " My dear Friend, — 
 
 " You have become Tacitus ad unguent. Excuse me if 
 once and again I break in on your retirement, disturb your 
 reverie, or add a provoking third to your society. What a 
 striking feature in the delineation of Tiberius's character are 
 those ambiguous letters to the Senate, — the arbitrary tyrant 
 
136 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 under the specious garb of deference to pristine manners ! 
 Gothic ignorance, or Father Time's more barbarous hand, has 
 provokingly made bonne prise of some dozen pages in the 
 latter part of this Emperor's history : this gap is admirably 
 supplied by Juvenal's tenth satire. 
 
 " By the way, I have a new Delphini edition of Juvenal, 
 with notes explanatory to every sentence ; at your service, of 
 course. It will be hard labor, but in a diamond mine. The 
 originality of his ideas will surprise and the fine strokes of 
 nature will delight you. The poet of genius who can distin- 
 guish between artificial manners modified by local and occa- 
 sional circumstances, and those genuine springs of feeling and 
 principles of action which mark man's fraternity to man, writes 
 for every age, — raises a monument to his fame ' pcrennhis cere! 
 Novelty and a splendid imagination may throw a momentary 
 halo around forms unnatural and extravagant ; but the emo- 
 tion of surprise is transient, and it can never boast the charm 
 of sympathy. Nature speaks to every heart ; we view the 
 pictures of antiquity which her pencil traces, with the traveler's 
 delight who recognizes well-known features in a distant land: 
 they please if common ; but if genius animate them, what is 
 the emotion ! 
 
 " Your Greek was grateful as a milestone on a long journey 
 to mark the distance gone ; as to its critical merit, you are as 
 well qualified to judge as your humble servant, who blesses 
 her stars if she can by dint of digging arrive at the ideas with- 
 out pretending to analyze the soil which covers them. Gam 
 just enters, and calls for toast and coffee: so good-night. . . . 
 Do you know it is almost three months since you have en- 
 tered into the detail of books and business ? If Procyon, who 
 keeps a steady eye upon you, were but a looking-glass to re- 
 veal your secret doings ! Do note him peeping in at your 
 eastern window every evening between seven and eight. 
 Daniel has attacked Thucydides and Juvenal ; Martha, Italian ; 
 I distill and calcine with Fourcroi, smile with Voltaire at the 
 superstitious follies of barbarous times, and now and then 
 break Morpheus's head with an Italian drama, viz., Goldoni's, 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 1 37 
 
 which has not much to boast as to plot or incident, and is 
 nevertheless entertaining from the nature ease, and humor of 
 the dialogue. 
 
 "Always obliged, dear Abba, by your affectionate sympathy. 
 I am so happy as to be able to tell you that Gam is on the 
 recovery, has a good appetite, and appears to be free from any 
 symptoms of disease. He is, however, extremely weak, and 
 unable to sit up more than five minutes at a time. ... I have 
 had a dainty morsel in ' Eichhorn on the Apocalypse :' he 
 considers the book as a drama, imagines a plot, lays the action 
 in heaven, and adorns and illustrates the scenes with treasures 
 of ingenuity and curious learning. But the hour of twilight 
 in a dark chamber, where the only glimmerings are those that 
 peep through certain longitudinal crevices in the window- 
 shutters, is neither the most convenient nor inspiring for epis- 
 tolizing, whatever it may be for friendly chat. No doubt you 
 are as poetically sentimental as 'rocking winds' and 'heaven's 
 pure expanse' can make you ; while I am content if one vagrant 
 ray of Phcebus makes its way by noon through my key-hole. 
 In short, I have not been out of doors since the 1st November ; 
 but of this no complaint, while I converse ideally — that is, not 
 in fancy, but in black and white — with worthies both dead and 
 living; above all, since anxious suspense and distressing appre- 
 hension have been dispelled by returning hope." 
 
 MISS BRADFORD TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 1816. 
 
 " My dear Friend, — 
 
 " Charles's understanding and manners do his instructress 
 much credit, but sincerely I fear the dear little boy must yet 
 through much tribulation become initiated into the mysteries 
 of hie, hac, hoc. He has not yet formed a habit of application, 
 if I can judge from this morning's lesson. The labor of turning 
 over his dictionary wearied him ; and, as he came for a visit of 
 
138 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 pleasure, I had not the heart to tease him. Nothing but the 
 responsibility of an interested instructor or the anxiety of a 
 parent can reconcile one to the tedious labor of thoroughly 
 perfecting a child in all the minutiae of a language without 
 the aid of emulation or fear, the moving springs of a public 
 school. To the last you would be unwilling to expose a 
 darling so early as seven ; but I really think that unless 
 Charles's time could be profitably occupied at home with the 
 elements of some natural science, to inspire a taste for which 
 would again require much time and affectionate assiduity, he 
 ought to go to school. We will together make one more 
 desperate effort for a good private one, if your ladyship shall 
 see fit to attend to my remonstrances. Poor little fellow, he 
 is looking at pictures beside me, little imagining I am plotting 
 against his peace ; but so it is — the bitter root must be tasted 
 before the sweet fruits of learning can be obtained. He has 
 behaved perfectly well, and is quite contented ; but I have let 
 the children play nearly all day. 
 
 " Yours, Sarah." 
 
 " I shall bring this myself, but I had rather write, than talk, 
 with the air of a counsellor." 
 
 "Your present shall purchase a Pindar,* not a pin-cushion. 
 I have long wanted him to fill a niche on my shelf of classics, 
 but not as a token to remember a friend who has had more 
 power and influence over me than any other being who ever 
 trod this earth or breathed this vital air. You have sometimes 
 been so unjust as to impute it to pride that I have so seldom 
 protested how much I loved you, while the true cause was 
 the incredulous smile with which the expressions of affection 
 were repulsed." 
 
 * This " Pindar" — a small Oxford edition of 1808, with the inscription " Sarah 
 A. Bradford from her friend M. Emerson" — is still in the possession of Mrs. 
 Ripley's family. She was fond of telling an amusing story of her search for it. 
 "Pindar?" the booksellers would say, one after another; "Pindar? you mean 
 Peter Pindar, I suppose ?" 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. ! 39 
 
 "Dear Mary — 
 
 " The severity of your remarks drew a few tears and shed 
 a temporary gloom over meditation. But you will accuse 
 me of pride again when I tell you an emotion succeeded 
 somewhat like resignation for the loss of earthly friendship 
 at the recollection of being amenable alone to a higher tri- 
 bunal, — though just and holy yet infinitely merciful, where an 
 unguarded expression will not condemn. Have I led you to 
 believe I consider myself faultless ? I am daily conscious of 
 much offense in thought, word, and deed, but I have not 
 thought it necessary to pain or disgust you by the recital of 
 defects. I live only on the hope of amending. Dearest friend, 
 remember that language of reproof much less harsh would 
 find its way to the heart and conscience of your affectionate 
 
 " Sarah A. B." 
 
 "June 12th, 1817. 
 
 "My dear Mary — 
 
 " I am on the eve of engaging myself to your brother. Your 
 family have probably no idea what trouble they may be en- 
 tailing on themselves. I make no promises of good behavior, 
 but, knowing my tastes and habits, they must take the con- 
 sequences upon themselves. You will be amused if a long 
 epistle should reach you, written a week since and lost in the 
 street on its way to Boston. Said letter contained an answer 
 to your question, and, as the chance is that it will be put in 
 the office, I will not trouble you with a duplicate. 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 " Sarah." 
 
1 4 o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In 1818 Miss Bradford was married to the Rev. Samuel 
 Ripley, and for the next twenty-eight years her home was in 
 the parsonage at Waltham. In coming there she entered at 
 once Jnto the labors of a house where fourteen boys were kept 
 at a boardirtg--school, and these labors continued during all 
 her life there : she was the sole matron of the establishment. 
 Here all her children were born and all but the two youngest 
 grew up ; and here one daughter was married. 
 
 The first letters in my possession from her Waltham home 
 are addressed to her brother Daniel, who had gone to seek 
 his fortune in Kentucky. They begin in 1819, when her 
 eldest daughter was a few weeks old, and come to an end in 
 1 82 1. They abound, of course, in details of neighborhood 
 and family affairs; but, like "the orange tree, that busy 
 plant," even the leaves share the aroma of the flower and fruit, 
 and the tree is never without blossoms, — if in this ripening 
 season they must needs be fewer. 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO DANIEL BRADFORD. 
 
 [1819.] 
 
 " Dear Brother, — 
 
 " The greatest difficulty in an undertaking is surmounted 
 when you have begun, for then the desire to finish, which 
 Lord Karnes, who is over-fond of multiplying original prin- 
 ciples, makes one of our nature, comes in to aid other reasons 
 for doing the business. So I always put another letter on the 
 stocks when I have finished and folded one. 
 
 " Waltham, Oct. 6th, 18 19. — The baby daily receives addi- 
 tions to her wardrobe, with notes which require all one's in- 
 genuity for variety to answer. Miss L. is making an India 
 muslin dress trimmed with lace, which she intended for its 
 christening dress; but I prefer its making its debut before the 
 parish in plain cambric. We decided the matter amicably, 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. I4I 
 
 however, by putting it on the score of pride. The baby is 
 crying for me. Good-evening." 
 
 After much lively social comment, she continues, "Nov. 13. 
 — I have just finished Electra; the last scene, the murder of 
 Clytemnestra, is very great. The Greek dramatists were in 
 the right to have this business out of sight. Clytemnestra's 
 voice in broken sentences adds much to the horror of the 
 scene. Her body is brought out covered, and yEgisthus thinks 
 it is Orestes till he lifts the veil and discovers. Do you recol- 
 lect Electra's lamentation when she receives the news of the 
 death of Orestes? I think this is the best of Sophocles' plays 
 that I have read yet. The first part of Antigone is fine, but it 
 grows stupid toward the last. yEmon proses. The chorus is 
 fine. 
 
 "Abba is still with us; we enjoy ourselves right well. We 
 have been going over the old ground of the ideal and common- 
 sense philosophy. We quarrel with Stewart's labored periods 
 and critical, desultory style, and think him indebted to Reid 
 for ideas not a few. 
 
 "On Thursday the baby made her debut in the city; was 
 visited and complimented by all her relations ; we left her in 
 state at Aunt Polly's, dressed in Miss Lowell's cap and Ann 
 Dunkin's robe, and set out ourselves on the very interesting 
 business of doing up our calls for the winter. . . . 
 
 "When facts drop from my pen like so many peas from a 
 pod, I console myself by calling to mind a remark of Gam's, 
 that George's epistolary list of insulated events was the most 
 entertaining communication he received during his absence." 
 
 "Jan. 17th, 1820, 11 p.m. 
 
 " Walker* came up on Saturday and stayed till this morn- 
 ing, being Monday. He gave us two masterly discourses ; he 
 is a powerful man, a metaphysician; studies mankind in books 
 
 * Rev. James Walker, of Charlestown, afterwards President of Harvard 
 College. 
 
142 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of general philosophy, and by the application of general prin- 
 ciples to the multitude of facts which present themselves from 
 observation and experiment. You will smile at me for talk- 
 ing about James Walker in this style, but he really does grow 
 astonishingly. Did you ever read any of Hartley's works ? 
 He is the first man I ever talked with who regarded Hartley 
 as the prince of metaphysicians. 
 
 " The fear that our communication, which has been one of 
 the pleasantest circumstances in my life, might be drawing to 
 a close, has induced me to commence with such zeal the busi- 
 ness of epistle-making. I'm afraid you will laugh at me for 
 being sentimental ; but the doctor* has been singing the 
 ' Ruins,' and I have wanted to-day to show you some passages 
 in Ajax." 
 
 "March 31st, 1820. 
 
 "We have just obtained Ivanhoe; happier he who writes 
 than he who dares enunciate the Saxon's name, which, like 
 Giaour and Goethe of old, sticks between one's teeth till one 
 is assured how the present company are minded. 
 
 " I suppose you have devoured Ivanhoe ere this. What 
 variety of horrors in Front-de-Bceufs castle, from Isaac in the 
 dungeon to Ulrica on the flaming battlement ! Front-de- 
 Boeuf's death is masterly; the union of heroism in humility 
 in Rebecca's character is admirable : Ivanhoe kills his giant, 
 and that is all ; the scene in the hermitage of the clerk of 
 Copmanhurst is one of the most amusing. The bcau-monde 
 are loudest in their admiration of the tournament; but that 
 as well as various encounters in the book are no novelties to 
 those who have read Ariosto." 
 
 "June, 1820. 
 
 " We are busily engaged in preparing for commencement. 
 One poor wight is studying for dear life, and trembling in his 
 shoes, looking forward to the day that shall fix his destiny for 
 four years or five; while if your old friend S. should fail, it 
 
 * Dr. Samuel L. Dana. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 143 
 
 will not be from any distrust in his own qualifications. The 
 two boys are the very antipodes to each other: one, in his 
 efforts to express the force of every particle, becomes bar- 
 barous, and the other in his ambition to be elegant, sometimes 
 gives any sense rather than that of the author. Oh, the misery 
 of correcting Latin in which there is no indictable mistake 
 and yet all is wrong ab initio ! 
 
 "August, 1820. — It is delightful weather with us: plenty of 
 ripe melons remind us of old times. I have made no accession 
 to my stock of botanical science this summer; the wild flowers 
 enjoy their retreats unmolested. Next week comes commence- 
 ment. The last numbers of the Edinburgh and Quarterly 
 and various other new publications lie on the table almost 
 unopened. We are so much engaged in gossiping and drilling 
 boys for college that we find but little time for reading. Mr. 
 Francis supplies me with German theology. The last author 
 I looked at, Gesenius, adduces some very weighty reasons 
 for believing that the five books ascribed to Moses were com- 
 posed as late as the golden age of Hebrew literature, which 
 he places in the reign of David and his successor. Who shall 
 decide when doctors disagree? I wish I could read Hebrew 
 and its sister dialects." 
 
 " Walthau, October 5th, 1S20. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — 
 
 " You allude to the popular language of the New Testament : 
 had our Lord delivered discourses on abstract virtue, had he 
 talked of the Creator of the universe being its moral governor, 
 that his government was administered by general laws, that in 
 its constitution virtue and happiness, vice and misery, were 
 inseparably and eternally connected, that every step in the 
 one was a step toward felicity, and in the other toward degra- 
 dation and suffering, that consequences were connected with 
 actions exactly proportioned to their merit or demerit, his 
 words would have fallen like empty sounds upon the ears 
 of a morally debased, superstitious, and ignorant multitude, 
 who could be impressed only through the medium of the 
 
144 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 passions, and who had no idea of any suffering but physical 
 suffering. In all ages and states of society a revelation or 
 system of religion intended equally for the philosopher and 
 the peasant must admit the greatest latitude of interpretation 
 in its phraseology. The peasant needs its guidance and con- 
 solations most; it seems but fair, therefore, that its language 
 should be suited to his comprehension: from the apologue 
 and the allegory the philosopher will easily infer the general 
 truth or moral. As to the passage in Isaiah, critics say 'a 
 mighty God, a father of the age' is the most correct trans- 
 lation of the original ; and in the Hebrew idiom these are by 
 no means extravagant expressions as applied to distinguished 
 personages. The question at issue between trinitarians and 
 their opponents involves such a multitude of others, meta- 
 physical, ethical, historical, philological, and critical, that it 
 seems to be no easy day's work to determine it. One of the 
 principal reasons why the war is protracted without any prog- 
 ress toward a conclusion appears to me to be that the dis- 
 putants are continually on the same old ground, adducing and 
 explaining Scripture passages, while the most important point, 
 the nature of inspiration, and the degree of it attending the 
 sacred records, is almost entirely kept out of sight. — Well, I 
 think I have given you theology enough : so I will take up 
 my work. But first I will mention a curious appearance on a 
 bough of black alder which the boys brought in just now: it 
 looks verily like white down, and seems to be a collection of 
 singular insects of different sizes, some with wings and some 
 without. Dr. Dana calls them a species of aphis, a genus 
 which naturalists consider a sort of anomaly. The sweet 
 exudation on plants called honeydew is supposed to be pro- 
 duced by them. I intend to look out for them next summer. 
 I have been reading Ricardo on Political Economy, a sensible 
 work on that most complicated of all sciences. He dissents 
 from Adam Smith in some important points on the subject of 
 rent, wages, and profit; and if his opinions are correct, which 
 he makes out very much to the satisfaction of a reader who 
 is blessed with no greater stock of general or particular knowl- 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. ^ 
 
 edge in this science than myself, he has detected some errors 
 of considerable importance in their practical influence on the 
 subject of taxation and other questions in legislation. 
 
 " I have adopted your advice of making George write Latin 
 every day; and his pieces are so excessively Latin that an old 
 Roman would be puzzled to make it out. I know no better 
 way of correcting the faults than making him write from a 
 translation of Cicero and then compare with the original. I 
 have been traveling slowly through Sophocles ever since you 
 left us ; began his last, Philoctetes, to-day, with the aid of a 
 Hedericus which Mr. R. brought home last Thursday. I think 
 the Trachiniae is the poorest of his dramas. — I have just looked 
 out to admire the unclouded brightness of an October moon, 
 and return to bid you good-night. . . . 
 
 "Ajax is a good play: there is one scene between him and 
 his wife and child very great. One of the chief difficulties in 
 the choruses is, words you cannot find in the dictionary, and 
 the translations take such license in rendering they afford you 
 very little help. 
 
 "Gam was commending Wells's philosophical essays to me; 
 one of them a solution of the problem why having two eyes 
 we see objects single. One set of philosophers refers it to 
 the judgment of the mind, the perception of touch correcting 
 those of sight. He proves mathematically that it must be so 
 and cannot be otherwise. 
 
 "There is a good article in the N. A. Review on Tudor's 
 book, by Everett. It is curious to remark the change that 
 has taken place in sentiments and opinions since a few years. 
 What would have been stigmatized some half-dozen years ago 
 as rank democracy is now regarded but as the honest ex- 
 pression of American feeling, and a just estimation of the 
 superior privileges of our own free and rising republic." 
 
 " Waltham, January 12th, 1S21. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — 
 
 "After many weeks of anxious expectation, to our great joy 
 we received this evening yours from Greenville, a place not 
 
 10 
 
146 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 considerable enough to occupy a point on a map half a yard 
 square, the largest we could find in the house. After reading 
 over each other's shoulders, — we had hurried through the 
 letter with breathless speed, — to our great disappointment we 
 were referred for exact particulars to father, who was here 
 yesterday and may not be here again this fortnight. — Omnia 
 mutantur is my text, and the subject is so full I scarce know 
 what particulars to select. If you could transport yourself 
 to Waltham, you would perchance find yourself in a nursery 
 surrounded with cribs, cradles, guards, etc., your path im- 
 peded with dolls and playthings, the joint property of three 
 little girls : your second niece made her entree some seven 
 weeks since; the third is little Sarah E. You have probably 
 heard that a malignant fever has swept off her whole family 
 except the three boys and this baby : she was named for me, 
 and we have adopted her. The family is broken up. The two 
 youngest boys are at Duxbury. The babies make so great 
 demands on my time and attention that I have more excuse 
 than ever for scraps and dry detail. Good-night : you will 
 hear from me again when they are all safe in bed to-morrow 
 evening. January 18th. — Since I wrote the above, my baby has 
 been dangerously ill, and is not yet well enough to be out of 
 my arms: so I have left the remainder of the paper to be filled 
 by the younger ones." 
 
 "Waltham, February 2d, 1821. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — 
 
 " With Caesar's Commentaries at hand I might perhaps 
 reply to your first question. I will answer the second after 
 the Yankee fashion, by suggesting other queries. And, first, 
 is there not good reason to believe that the cruel superstition 
 of Druidism was familiar to the islanders before the time 
 when you suppose it to have been introduced by Hengist and 
 Horsa ? It appears from Tacitus Ann. lib. xiv. 30, that the 
 soldiers of Suetonius were so terrified by its horrid rites at 
 their landing on the island Mona, " ut quasi hcereiitibus mem- 
 
A/XS. SAMUEL RIPLEY 
 
 1 47 
 
 bris, immobile corpus vulneribus pr&berent" For the second 
 query, as it is an aphorism in ethics that we always hate most 
 bitterly those from whom we differ least, is it not equally true 
 that the hatred and ambitious rivalship of petty princes has 
 always been superior to the dread of the ambition of a foreign 
 power? Did not the mistress of the world call in the Goths 
 to decide the contest between her political factions ? If I 
 mistake not, the Vandals got footing in Africa by the same 
 means; and I dare say the historical treasures of your memory 
 have many illustrations of the same general position. I want 
 to see you, to rub up my history and chronology: facts in my 
 head which cannot be generalized are like so many beads ; 
 if the string once be broken they are all in a loose heap. I 
 am reading Malthus on Population. You do not like works 
 on political economy, but I promise you, — from his perspicu- 
 ous and convincing general reasoning, and copious induction 
 of interesting facts and illustrations, you will find him as en- 
 tertaining as any novel, Scott's not excepted. I suppose you 
 will retort upon me, ' Chacun a son gout' At any rate, you 
 have no dislike to a good piece of reasoning on any subject." 
 
 " May 5th, 1 82 1. 
 
 " Last week father and I took a trip to Duxbury: we spent 
 a day going the rounds, and took tea at Mr. Partridge's; in 
 his small parlor was collected more good sense and soul than 
 would save all Waltham, — scilicet, Mr. Partridge, Dr. Allyn, 
 Mr. Frazier, Uncle Gershom, and father. It seemed indeed 
 like liberty to roam at large once more over barren hills and 
 heaths, where there is no need of looking around you at every 
 turn lest you should be trespassing on somebody's ploughed 
 field or meadow-land. Scenes associated with the delightful 
 recollections of youth charm the more, the more they differ 
 from one's present situation : the soldier, the mariner, and the 
 statesman, when in after-life they visit their native spot, the 
 pond where they first put to sea their little bark, the hill they 
 first climbed to behold the rising sun, enjoy more than the 
 
148 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 ploughman, who was born and will be buried at its foot, ever 
 dreamed of. 
 
 " Professor Stuart has been publishing some essays upon 
 the study of the Oriental languages, translated from the 
 German : he is very desirous of exciting a taste for the study 
 of these languages at Andover. His enthusiasm discovered 
 in the notes is very amusing: you feel on reading them as 
 if everybody must be an ignoramus who is not versed in the 
 crooked letters of the East. He would make you believe that 
 the Arabic, for its copiousness and variety of inflexions and 
 the treasures of literature to which it is a key, is infinitely 
 more deserving the attention of the scholar than the Greek. 
 I doubt whether the institution in future time will not bear 
 away the palm before Cambridge in biblical criticism. They 
 make nothing but theologians at Andover, but they make 
 lawyers and doctors too at Cambridge. I have added this 
 spring to the blank leaves of Bigelow a low species of juniper. 
 
 " I am reading a German chemistry, in which, instead of 
 the convenient nomenclature derived from the Greek, one is 
 obliged to contend with barbarous German compounds, salz- 
 sauer for muriatic acid, seiners toff {ox oxygen, and zvasser-stoff 
 for hydrogen. The German language must be an interesting 
 subject in philology : it seems to be the only modern one 
 which has arrived at such a point of refinement as to be the 
 vehicle of science, — a natural growth without having been 
 graffed from a foreign stock. 
 
 " I believe I shall exceed my term of four weeks this time; 
 but I find very little leisure during the day, and you know 
 how we gossip away summer evenings at Waltham." 
 
 "June 30th, 1821. 
 
 " You complain in your last of long silence; and I fear the 
 complaint will be reiterated. Our family is so numerous that 
 I find no time to write by daylight, and it is the fashion in 
 Waltham to spend the summer evenings basking in the moon- 
 beams. . . . 
 
Jl/HS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 149 
 
 " I find some time to read yet, but little to think. Pindar, 
 with your pencil-marks, lies on the table where I am writing. I 
 wish there were more of them, though I cannot always decide 
 whether they denote beauties or difficulties. I have opened 
 at the uypov vwzw aiwfieT: it is certainly beautiful, but the Eng- 
 lish bard does not fall far short of it, ' with ruffled plume's and 
 flaersinsr wins,' etc. I know not what I would not give for 
 one of our old discussions; yet we should not enjoy it in so 
 much peace as we used to do, for one must have the voice of 
 a Stentor to be heard above the clamor the little trio make, 
 whether in mirth, in sorrow, or in anger. 
 
 "July $th. — Yesterday being the 4th of July, and our boys 
 being dispersed in various directions, we proceeded to Boston 
 to do up various ceremonious visits. We went into town over 
 the mill-dam, an immense work, from which the posterity of 
 the speculators will probably reap some advantage. It lands 
 you in Beacon Street, the court end of the town, instead of 
 dirty and retired lanes. The day was cool and uncommonly 
 fine for the celebration. Charles Loring gave a sensible ora- 
 tion, and Mr. performed a performance (why not, as 
 
 well as run a race ?), miscalled a prayer, which did violence to 
 the good taste and religious feeling of his audience : it was 
 perfect histrionism, an appeal to the Deity in behalf of perse- 
 cuted debtors, who were denied the privilege of joining in the 
 festivities of the day. 
 
 " Another Saturday night finds my page unfinished ; it is 
 twelve o'clock, and I have just made the last preparation for 
 the Sabbath, that I, as well as my four-footed brethren, may 
 enjoy comparative leisure for one day at least, — if it can be 
 called leisure to rise at half-past six, wash three babies before 
 breakfast, look after the tidiness of fifteen boys, and walk half 
 a mile to meeting under a burning sun. 
 
 " We were amused in looking over Mather's Magnalia to 
 find the words of one Dr. Arrowsmith, to this effect : ' Faxit 
 Dens Optimus, Maximus, tenacem adco veritatis Jianc Acade- 
 mician {sell. Almam Maty em) ut dcinccps in Anglid lupum, in 
 
150 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Hibernia bufonem invenire facilius sit, quam aut Socinianiim 
 nut Arminianum in Cantabrigia! The reckless winds, alas ! 
 must have dispersed in empty air the pious wishes of the godly- 
 man. 
 
 " I have been reading old Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, 
 one of the most calm and placid books I ever looked into." 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MISS ALLYN. 
 
 " Waltham, New Year's Eve, 1822. 
 
 " My dear Abba, — 
 
 " My husband and Margaret have gone to a party, and I 
 have been amusing myself with the senseless, superstitious 
 dreams of the Jewish Talmudists about the advent of the Mes- 
 siah, resurrection, etc., and, having fairly nodded, I was awaked 
 by the idea of yourself flitting before the fancy: so I will e'en 
 throw by the drowsy book and wish you a happy new year ; 
 and never, surely, did one open with brighter auspices for you. 
 We sympathize in the ' predisposition to low spirits' of which 
 you speak, and of which we can give scarce a better account 
 than the modern sons of Esculapius who so often use the term. 
 Whatever may be the cause of said low spirits, one thing is 
 certain as to their removal, they vanish at the shadow of 
 a real evil. Elizabeth has been quite unwell for two or three 
 days, and the bare thought that death may have set his eye 
 upon her would in a trice exorcise a legion of demons that 
 might have possessed the imagination. 
 
 " Jan. 8t/t. — I am again alone, if it can be called alone with 
 half a score of boys and three babies; the babies have already 
 yielded to the influence of the dull god who 'on the high 
 and giddy mast seals up the ship-boy's eyes and rocks his 
 brains in cradle of the rude imperious surge,' and I have been 
 balancing between Ned Search* and yourself, but the later 
 acquaintance has kicked the beam : so now enlarge the circle 
 of your fireside and make room for a visitor. You need not 
 
 * See Tucker's "Light of Nature." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. x ^ r 
 
 polish up the Lares, sweep the hearth, adjust the ruffle: it is 
 a visitor who asks nought but the flattery of a friendly shake 
 and brightened eye. Oh that there were no other intercourse 
 than that of perfect confidence ! Sophia sent me word to-day 
 when you were to be married ; I put on an air of incredulity, 
 which mightily amused Martha, that I should appear so jeal- 
 ous lest any one should know more of your arcana than my- 
 self. I shall not see Mr. Francis again before you see him. 
 
 " Have you read Valerius ? It gives you a picturesque view 
 of the great city, and a lively one of Roman manners ; but I 
 think there are few fine touches in character: some appear to 
 me strained, and others tame. I have not finished it, however. 
 Read Juvenal's fourteenth satire. I just went to the table to 
 see what was the number of the one I was reading last even- 
 ing, and it produced such a burst of ridicule that I should be 
 obliged to have recourse to the Roman satirist to study out 
 an epistle, that I dare not make an extract. There is such 
 an agreeable buzz on the other side of the room that my mind 
 is abstracted from my fingers, and I must bid you good-even- 
 ing and bear my part. So we shall not see you at Martha's 
 wedding? 
 
 " Your most affectionate friend, S. A. R." 
 
 In 1822 Mrs. Ripley's sister Martha was married to Dr. 
 Josiah Bartlett, of Concord, Massachusetts, — ten miles from 
 Waltham. Dr. Bartlett still lives in that town, respected and 
 beloved by all. Her friend Miss Allyn in the same year was 
 married to the Rev. Convers Francis, then minister of Water- 
 town, a town adjoining Waltham, and afterwards a professor 
 in the divinity school of Harvard University. Mr. Francis, 
 an eminent scholar, took equal delight with his wife in the 
 society of her friend, and their names recur often in the record 
 of visitors who were always welcome. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that Mrs. Ripley's letters fur- 
 nish so slight material for any record of her life during the 
 
152 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 greater part of her residence at Waltham. For twenty years 
 after the date of her latest letters to her brother Daniel there 
 are but few of which I have any knowledge. This period of 
 her life was full of arduous labors in the rearing of her family, 
 the care of her household, and the teaching of pupils in her 
 husband's school, or private pupils of her own, both boys and 
 girls. During these years two sons and four daughters suc- 
 ceeded the "little trio" in the nursery, while those elder chil- 
 dren grew up to share, each according to her gifts, the cares 
 and labors and friendships of the busy house. One of the 
 younger daughters, born in 1822, died very young. A letter 
 dated in 1835, from a friend who had passed a night at the 
 Waltham parsonage, says, " The children in this house, — what 
 a charm there is in their naturalness ! Mary is a sort of 
 household fairy ; a temper hers and a wit that raise and make 
 light the daily bread of housewifery. Elizabeth walks aloof, 
 pleased with still hours and books. Gore lives in an ideal 
 world, and very comic in the boy is the occasional crazed look 
 with which he suddenly re-enters the actual upon compulsion. 
 The rest time must marshal." And again he says, " Sitting 
 down with Mrs. Ripley, — ' leaped the live thought,' and two 
 noble hours of genuine conversation had we, quite alone. 
 Never did I love her so well, for never did I see her so nearly. 
 It is good to find the contrarieties of fortune fused, as it 
 were, by the genius of the individual, — the 'Dais in nobis' 
 asserted and returned to continually." 
 
 Mrs. Ripley was little of a traveler. She went once with her 
 husband to Waterford, in Maine, where her friend Miss Mary 
 Emerson lived, and once, for her health, to Burlington, in Ver- 
 mont. It was probably on occasion of this last journey that 
 she went as far as the city of New York, where she saw La 
 Fayette. The journey, therefore, must have been in 1824 or 
 1825. 
 
 The transcriber of these letters first saw Mrs. Ripley in 
 1834, when she was about forty years old; but I had heard 
 of her all through my youth, as a lady who united all house- 
 hold and motherly virtues to very uncommon learning. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 153 
 
 Looking back to my visits at the Waltham house, I recall 
 with pleasure that pure atmosphere of intelligence and sin- 
 cerity, where the flowers of thought opened, and the circle of 
 friends brought their best to a mind so quick to appreciate 
 and so eager to learn, — to a heart so ready to sympathize with 
 any genuine experience. 
 
 The house was pleasant and well ordered. With entire 
 simplicity in the household details, no guest ever missed any 
 comfort or refinement; while at times of unusual festivity, as 
 the wedding of a daughter, or a party given by the young 
 people, it was the delight of their wealthier neighbors to send 
 graceful and abundant offerings of rare fruits and flowers to 
 decorate the occasion. The mother's dress was as simple as 
 possible, in so far as her own hand was concerned in the 
 arrangement of it ; and one might well be ashamed of the 
 anxieties of the toilet who saw how distinguished and attract- 
 ive, in the absence of all that belonged to changing fashion, 
 was the nobility of form and radiance of expression which 
 made ornament superfluous. 
 
 Her scholars and children have pleasant pictures of her, 
 sitting in summer under the shade of trees near the house, — 
 the boys, with their books, about her, reciting in the open air 
 Her hands were often busy with some household task while 
 the Virgil or Homer was set up open before her : " she did 
 not," says one of her scholars, " keep her eyes upon the book ; 
 she seemed to know it by heart, and always set us right, or 
 asked us questions, or pointed out her favorite passages with 
 enthusiasm, without interrupting the sewing, or the shelling 
 of peas;" and he adds, "she was always sweet and serene." 
 
 I remember going with Mrs. Ripley and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Emerson from Concord to Cambridge, to meet some distin- 
 guished foreigners at a party where many eminent persons 
 were present. I had never before seen her in society except 
 in her own house or in family meetings surrounded by inti- 
 mate friends. I was struck by the marked and joyful attention 
 shown her, as one person after another eagerly recognized her 
 presence ; and also with her own animated and responsive 
 
154 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 enjoyment. It seemed to me that to old and young the 
 meeting with Mrs. Ripley was the crown of the occasion. I 
 remember thinking, too, that no one was so lovely, or, with 
 whatever aid of wealth or fashion, so becomingly dressed, as 
 she, in her plain black robe, and the simple lace cap which 
 marked in delicate outline her beautiful silver hair and noble 
 face. 
 
 There is hardly any satisfactory portrait of Mrs. Ripley. 
 Her family have a picture by Alexander, taken when she was 
 about thirty years old, which is liked by some persons who 
 knew her then. Cheney took a crayon likeness of her in the 
 year 1845, but he was dissatisfied with it and refused to allow 
 it to go out. It is, however, still in existence. Another 
 small portrait, in oil, is in possession of the family, which was 
 painted in 1857. It is, in most respects, a good likeness. 
 There are also several photographs taken within a few years 
 of her death ; but they would give to a stranger small means 
 of forming any accurate impression of the original. 
 
 A lady who was one of the most dear and valued friends 
 of Mrs. Ripley during her life in Waltham writes, — 
 
 " My most intimate associations with Mrs. Ripley are with 
 her Waltham life, — associations with the most gifted woman, 
 morally and intellectually, it has ever been my happiness to 
 enjoy. But they were of so intimate and private a nature that 
 it seems almost a breach of trust to speak of them openly. 
 All of her was seen through a veil of modesty such as I have 
 never seen in any other. We would not say that she was un- 
 selfish; she never thought of self; it was real unconsciousness; 
 goodness and kindness were so natural to her that she seemed 
 only to breathe it. I do not think I was capable of estimating 
 her intellectual power or her attainments; but when I saw 
 her in communion with persons of superior intellect I was 
 quite aware of her gifts. She would say to me — I always 
 thought, to comfort me, — 'One ounce of good feeling is 
 worth all the learning in the world.' 
 
 " But to see her in her daily life was an education. She 
 accomplished more than any other, but it was the subtle influ- 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 155 
 
 ence of her sweet, loving, unconscious nature that gave her 
 the place in our hearts and lives. I know I owe her more 
 than I can ever express. In all the annoyances of an over- 
 taxed life I never saw her temper touched. She did not know 
 resentment; she seemed always living in a sphere far above 
 us all, yet in perfect sympathy. Go to her, and, at the name 
 of some wild flower found in a walk, every care was forgotten, 
 — the occasion was entirely yours. The next moment she 
 was attending to family matters, or, in summer, was under 
 the trees surrounded by a bevy of boys, fitting them for col- 
 lege, — boys who were full of the spirit of boyhood, but who 
 never forgot what they owed to her ; and when she found 
 them in danger of incurring censure, a loving word of caution 
 or suggestion would be spoken, or perhaps quietly conveyed 
 into a mended pocket. 
 
 " You will perceive how unworthy of the public eye are all 
 these recollections of her. I give them to you as they rise 
 before me. I have not spoken of her great social attraction. 
 Nearly all have passed away that could testify to that, but 
 none of those who are still alive can forget it. She was the 
 centre and soul of a small circle who could appreciate and 
 enjoy. Never shall we look upon her like again." 
 
 I may properly find a place here for the following sketch, 
 which has been kindly sent me by another highly valued 
 friend of Mrs. Ripley, the Rev. Dr. Hedge. I give it with the 
 heading which he himself affixed. 
 
 "A REMINISCENCE OF MRS. SARAH RIPLEY. 
 " BY F. H. HEDGE. 
 
 "The first impression she made on me and on all who came 
 near her was one of rich promise, which awakened the desire 
 of a nearer acquaintance. A wonderful attraction she was, 
 independently of her rare acquirements, which might draw 
 the scholar to seek the converse of so learned a woman, — an 
 attraction proceeding from no personal charms, but due to the 
 astonishing vivacity, the all-alivcucss, of her presence, which 
 
156 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 made it impossible to imagine her otherwise than wide awake 
 and active in word or work. 
 
 " A figure somewhat exceeding in height the average stat- 
 ure of woman, motions quick and angular without being ex- 
 actly awkward, a face not physically fair nor yet plain, but 
 radiant with intellectual and moral beauty, a constant play of 
 expression, eyes charged with intelligence, quick glancing 
 from speaker to speaker as the cup of social converse went 
 round, — such is the image she has left in my memory. 
 
 " The charm of her society to me was her perfect natural- 
 ness, the utter unconsciousness of any special claim to atten- 
 tion based on her superior learning, which was never intruded, 
 and only came to light when some student or savant wished 
 to compare notes with her or she with him. Otherwise, the 
 woman entirely absorbed and concealed the scholar. It was 
 the woman, not the scholar, that attracted, that edified, and, 
 — joined with the generous hospitality and manly qualities of 
 her husband, — made their house at Waltham so delightful a 
 place to visit for all who were privileged to be their guests.' 
 
 " In that house, between the years 1825 and 1840, I was a 
 frequent visitor, and had abundant opportunity of seeing Mrs. 
 Ripley in her domestic character, as mother and housewife, 
 as well as of listening to her converse with literary men. I 
 wondered at her indefatigable industry. With a large family 
 and scholars at board, with pupils whom she fitted for college, 
 or instructed as ' suspended' students in their college studies, 
 with imperfect health, suffering through life from severe head- 
 aches, she performed an amount of work which might have 
 taxed the combined strength of a professional school-teacher 
 and two ordinary women, — and yet had always time to spare 
 for her guests, and never, unless prevented by sickness, re- 
 fused to see her numerous visitors. 
 
 " It would be difficult to say to what branch of knowledge 
 or what class of studies she most inclined. In science and in 
 languages she was equally at home. Greek she especially 
 delighted to read and to teach ; but in her latter days botany, 
 I think, was her favorite pursuit. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 157 
 
 " Some of her friends have expressed a regret that she was 
 not a writer and has left behind no published work to give 
 proof of her powers. It was quite in keeping with her char- 
 acter that she did not rush into print and call the world to 
 witness her intellectual attainments. It did not seem to her 
 that she had anything to communicate which was not known 
 to the learned, and which the studious might not find already 
 in print. But in the hearts of those who knew her she wrote 
 a book whose substance they will remember as long as they 
 remember anything, and whose contents are a commentary 
 on the text, — 
 
 'A perfect woman nobly planned.'" 
 
 At Waltham the cares of the parish and the rule of the 
 school occupied the busy days of her husband, who writes 
 from time to time to his sister "out of the thick of the fight;" 
 and a word or two from these letters may be given here as 
 illustrative of the place the wife held in house and heart. 
 The letter which follows begins with a few lines from Mrs. 
 Ripley herself: 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 " Feb. 8th, 1828. 
 
 "Dear Mary,— 
 
 " We have another addition to the family, of four pounds 
 and a half, which has been struggling for existence for a 
 fortnight, and it appears that the vital power is near gaining 
 the victory over the tendency to decomposition. It is, in 
 truth, a respectable little girl with very proper eyes, nose and 
 mouth, not to mention the organ of mind, all comprised in 
 a compass not larger than a middling-sized apple. My hus- 
 band has to do double duty while custom confines me to the 
 great chair. I generally improve these weeks to rub up the 
 intellectual and clothe the outer man ; but anxiety for the 
 life of that before-mentioned speck of mortality has hurried 
 
158 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 away most of the two last. Do write; — a letter of congratu- 
 lation will be expected, of course." 
 
 REV. SAMUEL RIPLEY TO MISS EMERSON. 
 
 " Yes, my dear sister," adds the husband, "do write a letter 
 of congratulation ; not so much on account of the ' afore- 
 mentioned speck of mortality,' which, by the way, is well 
 worth a few thoughts and words, seeing it is a part of her, 
 who is above all praise. But, if you do condescend to write 
 in the congratulatory style, let it be that Providence has given 
 me such a wife as no other man has, or ever had, a woman 
 sui generis, the glory of her sex. But I must not write all 
 I feel, even to you who know the subject of my praise. If 
 Sarah had thought I would write thus, she would not have 
 bid me fill up her paper; but sometimes I take the liberty of 
 doing what I please, albeit usually under pretty good manage- 
 ment. Wife is uncommonly well : as for her outer man I 
 cannot say much; her dress is not very comely, for you know 
 she never paid much attention to appearance, and her hair is 
 gray, but the fire of her eye is not diminished, and the inner 
 man grows brighter and purer and soars higher daily." 
 
 "Nov. 1836. 
 " Sarah was so much pleased with her part of your letter 
 that she wished to answer it at once, but she was fatigued, 
 and I persuaded her not. She is quite well, but soon gets 
 tired with work, of which she has more than ever to do, as 
 we have neither cook nor chambermaid, — one being sick, the 
 other discharged for bad conduct. Wife has made the bread 
 for our small family twice, and excellent bread it was. Mary 
 is all in all, — never her equal in housewifery. Her mother 
 once said, ' I never open my eyes in the morning without 
 thanking God for Mary Ripley.' " 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. jcg 
 
 1S37- 
 " My dear sister, — Yesterday was my birthday, and what 
 has become of fifty-four years I know not. ... I have much 
 to be thankful for, many in whom to rejoice, and one, the 
 richest and choicest blessing that God ever gave to man, 
 to aid and bless and sustain me, — a pure, noble, exalted 
 being, whose light gladdens and cheers and at the same 
 time guides all about her. But I need not tell you of one 
 whom you know so well." 
 
 1839. 
 " Wife is very well this winter, but has much to do with 
 boys and men, in the way of recitations, etc. We all have to 
 work hard. Lizzy says she has no time to read, and Mary, 
 that she has no dancing or riding. But they enjoy themselves, 
 and make all around them cheerful and glad." 
 
 1S40. 
 " Sarah is now reading Spinoza's Tractatus Theologicus. She 
 lives in the society of Plato and others of the same school, 
 and her spirituality raises her above all the poor mortals 
 around her." 
 
 "March, 1841. 
 
 "Sarah is very well, and so high in the spiritual world that 
 nothing disturbs her serenity. She looks with perfect calm- 
 ness upon everything around her, and is the sun that moves 
 and warms and animates all within her sphere, which is not 
 very narrow." 
 
 I return again to the letters of Mrs. Ripley, going back to a 
 date some years earlier than those of her husband last given. 
 
 mrs. ripley to miss emerson. 
 "Dear Mary — 
 
 " I believe you do not know me : I would not weaken the 
 faith of the poorest, the most contemptible, the most hateful 
 
l6o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 fanatic that bears with me a common nature. God forbid that 
 I should be the fiend in the paradise of a soul so pure, so 
 elevated, so spiritual, as Waldo's !* I shall weep with him in 
 silence, sit humbly at his feet if so I may catch a spark of the 
 holy inspiration that glows within his bosom. Have I no 
 admiration for the pure, the beautiful, the good? Has the 
 pride of intellect raised its altar in my soul, and sent forth 
 into the highway for its worshipers ? Are my ears closed to 
 the music of heaven ? No, you cannot believe that it is the 
 mist of earthly passions which dims my spiritual vision. There 
 are moments when I would exchange minds with the humblest 
 being that calls for his Father and has never doubted. Without 
 faith, creation is a blank, its wonders and its glories a cipher 
 without a key, and I will not say man, but thinking, feeling 
 man, is of all beings most miserable. Humanity, if nothing 
 else, would keep me on the lookout to avoid making ship- 
 wreck of 's faith, or that of any other of the young ones. 
 
 You are fixed on a rock, and I talk with you to find its basis. 
 " Yours through existence, finite or infinite, 
 
 " S. A. R." 
 
 " Waltham, Sept. 4th, 1833. 
 
 "Dear Mary,— 
 
 " I came home from Concord last night with an ague and a 
 troublesome blister; but when Mr. R. told me there was a 
 letter from you I darted forward for it, and the privileges of 
 an invalid have given me time to respond to it. Since you 
 rest your claim on feeling, it will soon be acknowledged. On 
 that altar I sacrifice my vanity, and sit down to give you a dry 
 detail of facts. The journal of one day would serve for all: 
 the morning spent in hearing recitations, the afternoon in the 
 labors of the needle or the horrors of digestion, — in the even- 
 ing the old machine refuses any farther service, unless it be to 
 take a part in the village gossip. When you ask for a letter, 
 you expect communion with a soul penetrated with reverence 
 
 * R. W. Emerson. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. j6! 
 
 for the true in itself, warmed through and glowing with ad- 
 miration for the beautiful and good. These, alas! are the 
 visions of the lake and mountain, not of the school-room and 
 parlor. ... I too was disappointed in Sir James.* The 
 only question to me of philosophical interest in ethics is 
 whether the moral element be original or acquired : he has 
 done little to settle that question, though it is evident to which 
 side he leans. Could he possibly have persuaded himself or 
 have supposed he could persuade any one else that he had 
 lifted by so much as the weight of a finger the stumbling- 
 stone of necessity ? The only able advocates for the liberty 
 side are those who, like the Germans, boldly assume it on the 
 evidence of pure reason. To some parts of the book my 
 heart warms. He deserves a crown of gold for the justice he 
 does to the good Davidf and the minds of his stamp. The 
 metaphysics of the heart and head are equally unsatisfying: 
 the soul of the universe is the only conception which satisfies 
 my imagination ; but what have the conceptions of a finite 
 mind to do with the essence of the infinite? I would give a 
 great deal to see you for a little while ; but a visit from you is 
 like a bewitching romance which leaves the reader a dreaming 
 and unfits him for the humdrum cares and labors of real life. 
 If I might only see you when what the writer of ' Character- 
 istics' calls the ' disease of thought' comes on ! 
 
 " We have put Elizabeth into a class with two boys who are 
 fitting for college next commencement, and she keeps up with 
 them very well. In a year or two she will be able to assist 
 her father. We have lately had a delightful visit of two days 
 from Waldo. We feel about him as you no doubt do. While 
 we regard him still more than ever as the apostle of the eter- 
 nal reason, we do not like to hear the crows, as Pindar says, 
 caw at the bird of Jove ; nevertheless he has some stout 
 advocates. A lady was mourning the other day to Mr. Francis 
 about Mr. Emerson's insanity. ' Madam, I wish I were half 
 as sane,' he answered, with warm indignation." 
 
 * Sir James Mackintosh's Progress of Ethical Philosophy. 
 j David Hume. 
 
 II 
 
1 62 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In 1840 the Rev. George F. Simmons was settled over the 
 parish in Waltham as colleague to Mr. Ripley. 
 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Ripley became warmly attached to Mr. 
 Simmons, and when, after two years, he resigned his post in 
 Waltham and went to Europe for two years or more of study, 
 their whole hearts followed him with love and longing for his 
 return. The unreserved intercourse of friendship was kept 
 up by letters, and a selection from these gives material for 
 this chapter. 
 
 The " mother" so often spoken of in these letters, and 
 " Charles," are the mother and young brother of Mr. Simv 
 mons, — then residing in Boston. Between them and the 
 Ripley family a friendship had already grown up, which was 
 never interrupted while they lived. 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MR. SIMMONS. 
 
 " Waltham, Oct. 8th, 1843. 
 
 " I cannot help fastening the thread now which is to be 
 spun across the ocean. We bore the farewell courageously, 
 but we all felt as if the cloud which had been gathering so 
 long had at last closed round our horizon. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Russell came the very day you left Boston, and the 
 next morning we set out for Prospect,* on which we spent 
 most of the day, searching every shady corner for mosses. 
 The lichens he does not so much regard at present : neverthe- 
 less many were his revelations concerning the lower world of 
 vegetation. How much I thought of you, it would take one 
 to tell who has lost the friend with whom for two years all 
 that has crossed their path, beautiful in nature, new in science, 
 spiritual in thought, or true and pure and noble in life, has 
 
 * Prospect Hill, in Waltham, — a little less than five hundred feet high, and 
 about a mile and a quarter from Mrs. Ripley's house. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 163 
 
 been shared, and thereby doubled. But to return to Russell. 
 He went up the hill, looking along the ground and calling 
 out now at the sight of the reindeer moss, and then again at 
 ■the variegated leaves of the Pyrola maculata, which he said 
 was rare in this vicinity, and so on, till we reached the top of 
 the hill, when he turned round, and, without expecting it, saw 
 the extensive view which we used to look at last winter. He 
 exclaimed with admiration enough to satisfy any lover of 
 Waltham and its beauties. The lichen which you told me 
 the farmers used for dyeing he calls Parmelia saxatilis. It is 
 in color between lead and ashes, and grows everywhere on 
 the walls, mingling with the light-green P. caperata, which I 
 trust will often catch your eye on a Prussian or German rock 
 and transport you back to the village where you live in many 
 a heart. But I will not fill my paper with botany and Mr. 
 Russell. I will only tell you that he showed me in his micro- 
 scope the circulation of the sap in the cells of a small trans- 
 parent plant. You could see the current of little globules 
 passing up one side and down the other of the magnified cell. 
 This is the Eureka of modern botany : nothing was detected 
 before so like the circulation of the blood in the animal 
 economy. . . . 
 
 " I fear the secular will quite crowd out the theological, so 
 I give up the pen to Mr. Ripley." 
 
 And Mr. Ripley continues : 
 
 " Wife has given up the pen to me, and a villainous pen it 
 is; I must mend it before I can make a mark." 
 
 Then follows a statement of parish affairs and prospects, 
 ending with warm expressions of affection and desire for the 
 return of the friend "in the hope of seeing whom again so 
 many live." 
 
 " Darby-and-Joan-like, wife and I fix out a letter for you. 
 It is like the old clergyman and his wife of whom Madam 
 E. told me that they passed a night at her house, — both in 
 the habit of smoking. The minister would smoke a few 
 whiffs, then give the pipe to his better half, who would do 
 
164 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the same and hand it back again. In our case, however, wife 
 begins and almost ends the work, so that little remains for 
 me." 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MR. SIMMONS. 
 
 " Waltham, Nov. 5th, 1843. 
 
 " You are by this time in London. How does Babylon 
 the great look to you ? I should think that men as they 
 swarm in the streets of a strange city would look to one like 
 phantoms : one almost loses sight of the undying spirit even 
 on Waltham plain. If it were not for the fireside and the 
 closet we should get to regard it as a matter of very little 
 importance whether the demons fought or the brownies 
 labored. 
 
 "Sat. ev'g, Nov. nth. — The rain is descending in torrents. 
 I have just put the finishing stitch to Rufus's* socks. The 
 boys, all but two, are safe at their own firesides. The whistle 
 of the wind is mingling in soft harmony with that of the Fitch- 
 burg railroad. Gore has just arrived, with all the dignity of 
 a voter, to attend a Whig meeting. I don't know nor care on 
 whose head the honors of the republic fall ; but one thing I 
 know, — that I am quite weary of railroad men, and men that 
 play whist and drink wine. I have a stronger feeling of 
 brotherhood with the poor Irish fellow that came to the study 
 window where I was sitting yesterday to beg for work. We 
 begin to talk of Concord again ; but I suppose it will end as 
 it begins. Day before yesterday the girls and I, in council in 
 the dining-room, decided to strike, turn every boy out of the 
 house, and trust for bread to the one or two private scholars 
 which I have. The plan was all made out, notice was to be 
 given to the parents at the Thanksgiving vacation, and the 
 house was to be cleared the first of January of boys and ser- 
 vants ; no more roasted turkeys, no more sponge cake, no 
 
 * Rufus was the hired man. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 I6 5 
 
 more entry stoves, — the dinner of herbs with love was all be- 
 fore us. But alas ! when at the tea-table we proposed our 
 reform, the cheerful face with which papa had returned from 
 Lincoln was so changed that our spirits fell at once. Ezra to 
 leave college, bills at Earle's unpaid, the pleasant wood fire 
 extinguished forever, and an air-tight reigning in its stead, — 
 these, with other phantoms of labor and privation, stalked in 
 grim array past the love-feast of the dining-room, and here 
 we are, just as we were before, girding ourselves each morn- 
 ing for the battle of the day. The association is to meet here 
 next Tuesday. Mr. Ripley has been trying to smoke the poor 
 bees out of the chimney this afternoon, lest they with their 
 treasures should make part of the company ; from the buzzing, 
 there seems to be disturbance in the commonwealth. 
 
 " There came a letter from , asking to make an ar- 
 rangement for an exchange; such a letter as a genial, good- 
 humored person would write. It reminded me of what the 
 Unitarians all were in my young days. They had come out 
 from the dry bones of cant and formalism, with a message to 
 the understanding. The goodness of God and man's com- 
 fortable position in this bright and convenient world were their 
 constant theme. They sat secure under their own fig-tree, 
 with a competence for life, free from the petty jealousies which 
 competition engenders in the other professions ; and their social 
 affections in general, and especially toward their own fraternity, 
 blossomed out in great luxuriance. But times are changed. 
 The priest can no longer stand in the portico, calling out to 
 those who are passing by, blinded by superstition or hood- 
 winked by authority. The understanding has had its day ; 
 the soul is hungering for food, and he that ministers at the 
 altar must enter into the holy of holies himself, and bring it 
 forth from thence. When the poor bees were buzzing yester- 
 day with terror and dismay to find their foundations suddenly 
 undermined with sulphur smoke, the doubt occurred whether 
 superior beings might not regard the earthquakes and vol- 
 canoes which lay waste the face of our insignificant planet 
 with as much indifference as we do the smoking of a bee-hive ; 
 
1 66 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 whether the waste of individual life and happiness might not 
 be as unimportant in the economy of the great whole. But 
 the soul answers, no. It declares that its interests are eternal ; 
 that its intuitions come directly from the centre of all life. — I 
 am reading Timseus the Locrian, concerning the soul of the 
 world and of nature, the work of an old Pythagorean philos- 
 opher supposed to have been contemporary with Socrates. 
 I am refreshed by the utterances of these primitive worship- 
 ers of truth. They relieve me from the doubt whether the 
 eyes of the soul, turned by Christian culture in one direction, 
 may not see universal truths where it would have dreamed 
 of no such thing if it had lived eighteen centuries ago. I 
 return with deepened convictions to the simpler and sublimer 
 teachings of Him to whom the Spirit was given without 
 measure. 
 
 " Yesterday, being Sunday, Mr. preached, and I felt 
 
 more than ever how fast I am receding from the church of 
 which Unitarianism is the exponent, and that is the only mani- 
 festation of its power with which I am familiar. We must 
 have the life of God in the soul. If we find it in the church, 
 how venerable in its environment of olden time ! but we 
 eschew the church when it is only a mask to cover the want 
 
 of i t> Mr. preached from the text 'O wretched man,' 
 
 etc. How the bucket of the gentleman danced up and down 
 on the surface of that deep well of spiritual life from which 
 the saints have in all ages drawn living water ! But he is a 
 pleasant fellow, with warm and quick sympathies, and by 
 these I suppose enters largely into the joys and sorrows of 
 his flock. I have just returned from a walk: wind blowing 
 cold enough, but it is good to get out beneath God's pure and 
 open heaven even this wintry evening, — the moon riding in 
 mid-heaven in pure splendor, and Venus with Jupiter set like 
 two diamonds in the front of night. Does not such a canopy 
 seem a fit cover only for believing, loving souls ? Still sliding 
 into the homiletic ; some spell surrounds me." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY, 167 
 
 "January 9th, 1S44. 
 
 " I was walking the other morning with Waldo Emerson 
 in Concord, and I told him I thought the soul's serenity was 
 at best nothing more than resignation to what could not be 
 helped. He answered, ' Oh, no; not resignation, aspiration is 
 the soul's true state ! What have we knees for, what have we 
 hands for ? Peace is victory! 
 
 " Still in the faith that home detail interests you, I enter 
 into the minutiae of New Year's presents. . . . But what is 
 much better than presents from the boys is the fact that 
 William Lyman takes interest enough in Greek and Latin 
 to ride out to Waltham these frosty mornings, thermometer 
 below zero, to read Xenophon and Tacitus to me. 
 
 "February 23, 1844. — To-morrow evening Mr. Emerson 
 lectures at the Rumford. He has promised to bring a lecture 
 ' which has legs.' But I fear, after all, wings will be sprouting 
 out. at the heels. The community at Brook Farm has changed 
 its internal organization and adopted the Fourier system. 
 I do not understand the nature of the change, but only the 
 fact that some of the original settlers, finding the new system 
 too mechanical for their taste, prefer to stand on their own legs 
 as individuals, to being merged in a ' dormitory' or ' refectory' 
 group." 
 
 "April 8th, 1844. 
 
 " Dear Friend, — 
 
 " ' Partnrit almus ager, Zephyrique tepentibus aim's 
 Laxant arva sinus ; superat tener omnibus humor." 1 
 
 " Just returned from a walk ; the soft air, swelling buds, and 
 moaninsr frogs are so associated with the past that we walk 
 not alone, though the ocean separates us from the friend who 
 was wont to lay with us the first spring garland on the altar 
 of nature, — nature, dear mother, whose arms are open and lap 
 spread to receive us 'when, with low-thoughted care confined 
 and pestered in this pinfold here,' wearied and fretted, we throw 
 ourselves upon her genial bosom, and dream of the heaven 
 
1 68 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 which 'lay about us in our infancy.' Mother came out last 
 Wednesday, being the day before Fast, to spend said anniver- 
 sary with us. But she could not hold out against the fine 
 weather and our entreaties, so she stayed till this morning, 
 Monday. Fast was a most beautiful day, warm as July. The 
 boys were off in the cars, with leave to stay till the next Mon- 
 day. Soon after, Uncle George arrived, his great boots bring- 
 ing with them no small quantity of the Concord soil. He 
 joined us in the dining-room, converted, as you know, on 
 such occasions into a cooking-room, to prepare for the once 
 holy day, now become a holiday. The meat stuffed, and the 
 puddings and cake in the oven, we repair to the parlor, to look 
 out for the cars ; and soon the motley current pours past the 
 Townsends, no small part of it turning down the lane. Im- 
 mediately all heads at the windows, to determine who is who 
 in the group, and as soon as mother, Lizzy, Nannie, Susan T., 
 and Sarah are made out, a rush from the house to welcome 
 them to the joys of leisure and friendship. Next comes 
 Ezra, with the news that Dr. Francis purposes, with Mrs. 
 Francis, to take tea with us the next day. Congratulations 
 over, the evening passes swiftly and gayly away. What is 
 wanting in wit is made up in laughter. Lizzy comes freighted 
 from the halls of the great, Uncle George with radicalism 
 from Concord, and the sophomore with nonsense from Cam- 
 bridge. Uncle George and Lizzy agree that their souls have 
 no fellowship with Beacon Street. Mother is wide awake, 
 eats blanc-mange in spite of Dr. Jackson, and, after she has 
 gone through the form of retiring for the night with the girls 
 Mr. Ripley is obliged to raise his voice with the admonition 
 that ' it is time for honest folk to be asleep.' Now I am 
 again at the morning, warm as July. After a social breakfast, 
 which none can taste as those who keep boys, Uncle George 
 leaves us for Brook Farm, to visit his old friends and see how 
 Fourierism thrives. And in his stead comes Dr. Noyes, who 
 
 makes the sermon, and a young Mr. , of whom I have 
 
 told you before as ' a person to be much scrambled for both 
 by the churches and by the ladies.' . . . Mother and I set 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. i6g 
 
 forth for the hills, beguiling the way with a constant buzz, 
 which Mary somewhat ludicrously mimics. Saw the doctor 
 and his coadjutor safe in their chaise, and then mother and 
 I set forth for the greenhouse. Mr. Irish showed us all his 
 things; and when we were sated with heat and fragrance, and 
 had quenched our thirst from a broken flower-pot with the 
 bright water from the cistern at the gate, we turned our steps 
 homeward, and on the way met the party from Cambridge. 
 By this time you will be willing that the various ' groups and 
 series' should amuse and dispose of themselves as they best 
 may, leaving you, as the Germans say, to find yourself. 
 Mother and I have scoured the fields and climbed the rocks 
 every day ; and time would fail me to tell what we saw and 
 what we said. This morning, which rose in mist, took mother 
 away, and thus ends my tale. The 14th, Saturday, I spent in 
 bed with headache. Sunday morning the sun looked out on 
 the fields bright and warm as June. I rose at five, took an 
 apple in my hand, and C.'s volume of Beethoven under my arm. 
 I took the road to Prospect, sat down on a rock at the foot, 
 and was reading my book, when I heard a rustling among 
 the fallen leaves, and, turning round, a fawn laid his ' innocent 
 nose' in my lap. The picturesque, however, soon vanished, 
 with the illusion of the 'ferce natures', for a gabbling among 
 the trees announced the approach of four girls, with whom 
 the fawn joined company and left me to my book. Between 
 nine and ten I returned, so weary and red that the people 
 who met me on the road did not recognize me. Mr. Lippitt 
 preached, — a sensible, quiet man, without affectation. He 
 made a good statement of our debt to the past and consequent 
 obligation to the future, and pleased the conservatives by as- 
 serting that the community men entirely overlooked or dis- 
 owned said debt. When we reached home we found Charles 
 in the study. The evening passed most pleasantly. We had 
 music. He asked me to walk with him next morning at five. 
 Accordingly, the rising sun lighted us on our way to the 
 mountain again. We sheltered ourselves from the cool north- 
 west beneath the covert of the moss-grown rock on the top 
 
170 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of the hill. Charles warmed as he read and talked of the 
 sublime inspirations of the deaf apostle. Charles is devoted 
 to star-gazing : spends most of his evenings when here in 
 consulting the old defaced dusty globe and drawing maps of 
 the heavens. 
 
 " You recollect that stick with the liclien hebraica so beau- 
 tifully sketched upon it, that I labored with my hand and you 
 with your penknife to procure? alas! some vandal has given 
 it to the flames. I have not met with another specimen be- 
 fore or since." 
 
 " May 20th, 1844. 
 " To-day is the third day of our holidays, and I am enjoying 
 it alone. Sophia has gone to Lowell, to enact what Jean Paul 
 would call an Idyll with Fanny A. Phebe is taking lessons 
 in music again : we encourage it, as the gem in the bottom of 
 her cup of daily labors and vexations with the nine urchins 
 in the attic. Lizzy collects her tribe of pupils in Miss Cush- 
 ing's parlor. They count much on amalgamation with Phebe's 
 nine beneath the trees at recess, to eat their cakes and cut their 
 jokes. 
 
 ' Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call 
 Ye to each other make. 
 ****** 
 
 My heart is at your festival, 
 ****** 
 The fullness of your bliss, I feel, I feel it all.' 
 
 With this rapture of the poet I bid you good-night. 
 
 " May 22. — I have left a heap of stockings, — for stockings will 
 wear out even in vacations, — to spend a few moments with you. 
 I am writing in the girls' room. The fir-tree at the window 
 is covered with little red sparrows picking the seeds from the 
 cones : what preachers of faith they are ! Last Saturday Mr. 
 Ripley and myself, with the two youngest girls, went to Dux- 
 bury to pass Sunday. Duxbury is the Arcadia of my youth : 
 the sand hills and pine forests, the moss-covered grave-stone 
 of my grandfather, the very boards I used to tread on the 
 way to church, now half buried in sand, are there still, but 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 171 
 
 they tell me of that which can never return ; they reveal to 
 me what I was and what I am. All of them 
 
 ' speak of something that is gone. 
 
 The pansy at my feet 
 
 Doth the same tale repeat. 
 Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
 Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 
 
 ****** 
 What though the radiance which was once so bright 
 Be now forever taken from my sight, 
 
 Though nothing can bring back the hour 
 Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; 
 
 We will grieve not, rather find 
 
 Strength in what remains behind ; 
 
 In the primal sympathy 
 
 Which having been must ever be ; 
 
 In the soothing thoughts that spring 
 
 Out of human suffering; 
 
 In the faith that looks through death, 
 In years that bring the philosophic mind.' 
 
 " When we came home, we found mother assisting Mary 
 to dress for a wedding. The wedding, — don't you wish you 
 knew whose it was ? No other than your young brother in 
 the faith, J. W. Amiable, affectionate, domestic young people, 
 looking forward to a quiet life of duty and love in the bosom 
 of their parish, — poor things ! they little know what is in store 
 for them. But through trial come strength and wisdom. 
 Mother went into Boston; Charles to walk with me, and so 
 missed the train, but bore it tranquilly, and we sat down to 
 study Virgil's description of the plough, and went out to re- 
 alize our guesses with Rufus and his model." 
 
 " J l 'ri e > 1844. 
 
 " Charles whets his logic weapons and tries their temper on 
 me. He takes the side of the ' Utile' I the ' Honestum' The 
 other morning I was picking to pieces an old mattress in the 
 barn, and was making a most disagreeable dust. Charles 
 came from under the tree where he had been reading, and, 
 seating himself on the hay-mow, began to discuss the subject 
 
1 72 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of the dissolution of the Union. He has a clear head, and 
 
 gives me much light on questions of popular debate. 
 
 " Mr. Ripley suffers from the old enemy ; he has taken a 
 
 new post in the knee, and is not to be driven away by cotton 
 
 or colchicum. So it is time I was in bed; for I must rise at 
 
 five and work till five waiting on the boys. I have two youths 
 
 to drag through Cicero and Caesar into college in eight weeks ; 
 
 but it is not a disagreeable task, as they know the value of 
 
 instruction, and there is something like disinterestedness in 
 
 working for those from whom you hope to receive little in 
 
 return. The youths with money give me shawls and caps, 
 
 but very little satisfaction. 
 
 ********** 
 
 " Hermann, and Werther's Charlotte are a proof that the 
 man (Goethe) had an apprehension of true love and the dig- 
 nity of virtue. The scene at the fountain is excellent, — and 
 the Pfarrherr. The dignity with which Charlotte dismisses 
 for the last time the love-distracted youth is peculiarly noble. 
 It is virtue acting, not canting." 
 
 "Waltham, June 20th, 1844. 
 " Day before yesterday I went to Cambridge to meet a 
 pleasant party at Dr. Francis's, — Miss Fuller, Sarah Clarke, 
 Mrs. Farrar, the Whites, James Lowell, an artist by the name 
 of Page with his very beautiful wife, Dr. Gray, etc. The party 
 was for the Clarkes, who are soon to leave for the West. S. 
 was quiet and intelligent as usual. William White and James 
 Lowell kept the ball going in the way of conversation. There 
 was nothing said to be remembered, but the talk was free and 
 easy; no one felt any responsibility, but all were cheered and 
 electrified by the atmosphere of wit and intelligence. William 
 Tiffany's drawings were shown, who receives many compli- 
 ments from connoisseurs. I know you take an interest in the 
 fine boy, and will be glad to hear that on the same day he 
 had read in public a dissertation on the effect of Christianity 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 173 
 
 on the fine arts, for which he received the first prize. I hope 
 he will not be too much elated with success ; he seems very 
 modest still. The drawings we looked at were illustrations 
 of the Ancient Mariner, and some from Goethe. I do not 
 understand such matters, but they seemed to me full of life, 
 especially the spirit of the storm in a cloud. ... I returned 
 in the morning' cars. The engineer, a brother of Professor 
 Felton, and the contractor, Mr. Belknap, attracted my atten- 
 tion. It makes one feel alive to see the workers in the world, 
 efficient men, and believers too, though it be but in railroads ; 
 not wholly selfish either, and looking no farther than their 
 own pockets, but working cheerfully and hopefully for others 
 as well as themselves. When I saw the two aforesaid speci- 
 mens of humanity conferring together, with an expression 
 that showed life was a reality to them, I sympathized for the 
 moment with them, and thought that the champions of ideas, 
 who talk and talk while the cars fly by with bell and whistle, 
 if they would be heard must keep serene and look benevolent, 
 and not complain if the loaves and fishes fall to those whose 
 rightful wages they are. J. W. and his pretty bride took tea 
 with us this evening, looking as satisfied and happy as if they 
 had just entered into rest instead of warfare." 
 
 " August 16th, 1844. 
 " Last Saturday, thermometer nearly eighty, Ezra and I 
 set out for Duxbury at four o'clock in the morning, to follow 
 Uncle Gershom to the grave. I believe you saw enough of 
 him to be interested in the circumstances of his death. He 
 had gathered a basket of his early corn, in which he took 
 much pride, and was in the act of handing it to Mrs. Weston 
 with a smile, when his knees sank under him, and he fell at 
 the doorstep and never breathed again. A death beautiful, be- 
 cause in keeping with his life. A man most self-dependent, 
 hating all pretension and display, and living so much out of 
 doors as to be almost as much a part of nature as the trees 
 
174 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 whose fruit he gathered. I loved him like a father, for he 
 was part and parcel of my childish joys. In his youth he 
 was the very embodiment of fun. You never could calculate 
 on what he would do or say. And in his manhood, the 
 staunch supporter of every good cause, he lived a silent but 
 most efficient life, walking in his own path without fear or 
 favor. Long before the temperance movement began, he had 
 banished all liquors, even wine and cider, from his table. 
 The evening after his funeral, being Sunday, there was a tem- 
 perance meeting in the woods ; and I should rather have been 
 the subject of the tribute paid to his memory by those whom 
 he had saved, than to have been crowned in the Capitol with 
 the laurel or the oak. The grief of his children is worth all 
 the sermons on immortality I ever heard. Everything is 
 sacred which belonged to him. The old chair in which he 
 sat beneath a tree has a large stone placed in it, that it may 
 not be removed. They rejoice that the clothes he preferred 
 to wear are too old to give away. Aug. 22d. — Last Sunday, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ames, Uncle George, and Charles with us. The 
 evening better still, by the addition of Dr. and Mrs. Francis, 
 who passed the night likewise ; so there was no need to 
 look at watches to see how time wagged. George told me 
 an anecdote of Uncle Gershom so characteristic that I must 
 repeat it. He was walking in his woods, and saw a man 
 cutting down a tree ; he concealed himself, that the man 
 might not see him, and went home. When asked why he did 
 not put a stop to the man's proceedings, he said, ' Could not 
 the poor man have a tree ?' " 
 
 " On the mountain one feels like a man and not a member. 
 I would there were more of the mountain in life, — its faith and 
 freedom. You have so often taken up the gauntlet against 
 conventions that I do not fear bondage after this manner for 
 you. But if perchance the pride of learning should fence you 
 in any theological pen, I pray that the fence may never be 
 close enough or high enough to hide the mountain." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 1 75 
 
 " Waltham, Oct. 6th, 1844. 
 
 '' Dear Friend, — 
 
 " It is several weeks since I have spoken to you, not because 
 you have been absent from my mind, — oh, no ! but because 
 these fine days have brought many friends, and many boys 
 have brought cares. It is no longer, ' mother and Charles 
 came out one day and returned the next,' — for mother is one 
 of us : she has entered the penetralia, been initiated into the 
 mystery of the household gods, comes to breakfast with the 
 girls after the boys have retired, and so on. Then her diver- 
 tissement is to mend the stockings and roll them up in the 
 neatest manner, whiten sheets and napkins on the grass, watch 
 the robins as they come in flocks for the berries on the moun- 
 tain-ash tree at the west window, and take a stroll at evening 
 with me, to talk of our children, to compare our experiences, 
 what we have learned and what we have suffered, and, last of 
 all, to complete with pears and melons the cheerful circle about 
 the solar lamp these chill autumn evenings. Just now, how- 
 ever, she has gone, and the day that she went into the city, 
 Mary Emerson, a sister of Mr. Ripley, who has not visited us 
 before for many years, came at evening and has been with 
 us till to-day. She is seventy years old, and still retains all 
 the oddities and enthusiasms of her youth, — a person at war 
 with society as to all its decorums ; she eats and drinks what 
 others do not, and when they do not ; dresses in a white robe 
 such days as these ; enters into conversation with everybody, 
 and talks on every subject ; is sharp as a razor in her satire, 
 and sees you through and through in a moment. She has 
 read, all her life, in the most miscellaneous way, and her appe- 
 tite for metaphysics is insatiable. Alas for the victim in whose 
 intellect she sees any promise ! Descartes and his vortices, 
 Leibnitz and his monads, Spinoza and his unica substantia, 
 will prove it to the very core. But, notwithstanding all this, 
 her power over the minds of her young friends was once 
 almost despotic. She heard of me when I was sixteen years 
 old as a person devoted to books and a sick mother, sought 
 me out in my garret without any introduction, and, though 
 
176 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 received at first with sufficient coldness, she did not give up till 
 she had enchained me entirely in her magic circle. . . . We 
 took Miss Emerson to Brook Farm, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley* 
 being old friends of hers. Things looked comfortless to me, 
 in spite of the new buildings. Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, who 
 were once the centre about which persons united by common 
 intellectual and moral sympathies revolved, now seem to be 
 units lost in a crowd. 
 
 " I talked with J. S. D., and asked him what he was doing. 
 He said his business was to arrange juvenile industry, and 
 that he found it quite difficult and disagreeable. Poor man ! 
 I cannot make one child work ; I don't know what I should 
 do with fifty. . . . Ezra is deep in metaphysics, and brings me 
 many a case in casuistry to settle ; tells me how Dr. Walker 
 decides, and sometimes we venture to dissent from the oracle 
 when the response is for a limit instead of a great principle." 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MRS. FRANCIS. 
 
 [1844.] 
 
 " Dear Abba, — 
 
 " Ezra said you were glad to receive a note from me. It 
 gives me great pleasure to believe it. When your father, who 
 was everything to me so many years ago, said, 'Be a friend to 
 my daughter,' he could not foresee that our lot would be cast 
 so near together that constant intercourse would keep the 
 chain bright. Years have not dimmed the clear, truthful vision 
 nor chilled the warm and genial love of the beautiful and the 
 good in the friend of my youth. And now that you have been 
 and are laying me under a pecuniary obligation by your kind- 
 ness to Ezra, which perhaps I shall never be able to repay, I 
 do not feel embarrassed by the fear that I shall not, but rather 
 rejoice in the fact of my entire confidence in your love. 
 
 "S. A. R." 
 
 * Mr. and Mrs. George Ripley. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. iyy 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MR. SIMMONS. 
 
 "Jan'y 9th, 1S45. 
 " G. read me letters from his friend who is studying for the 
 Catholic Church, full of deep humility and generous Catholi- 
 cism. I would that the self-satisfied formalists who swarm in 
 Unitarian pulpits — and not in those only, I suppose — could 
 hear them. You will wonder, perhaps, that such a spirit 
 should have found its home in the Catholic Church. But the 
 form in which a soul deeply stricken by religious conviction 
 clothes the expression of its faith and love is an idiosyncrasy 
 which we cannot always understand unless we understand 
 thoroughly the person who is the subject of it. . . . Phcebe 
 comes home this morning and tells us that Mr. Clarke had 
 announced to his society his intention of exchanging with 
 Mr. Parker, and thereupon one man took up his cane and 
 marched out. I should like to be in the pulpit once, to be 
 able to say, ' I shall on the next Sabbath exchange with Theo- 
 dore Parker: first, because I believe him to be a religious man, 
 for religion I understand to be the surrendering of the soul to 
 God and to the guidance of his Holy Spirit; and secondly, be- 
 cause he is a friend of man, and Jesus was the friend of man.' 
 And if the sleek citizens with varnished boots, and souls nar- 
 rower than their purses, should take up their canes and walk, 
 I would betake myself to a more generous brotherhood in the 
 potato-field, and leave the pulpit to those willing to walk in 
 such a treadmill." 
 
 "Jan. 27th, 1S45. 
 
 "A few days since came the packet by the Slow Dutchman, 
 full of interesting matter. I should hesitate about what I 
 have to write in return, if it were not that the parts of your 
 letters are devoured with most eagerness which assure us that 
 you love and think of us always. We heard they were in Boston 
 and hesitated about a ride to Cambridge, lest they should ar- 
 rive while we were gone ; home at half-past ten ; found Mr. 
 R. reading his share with a look of triumph over us ; time left 
 
 12 
 
178 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 before bed only to read, or rather glance over, the latest and 
 most loving parts. Next day all daylight swallowed up in 
 school and household ; evening, Dr. Francis. Next day, Mr. 
 Ripley absent, additional burden of boys ; evening, in bed 
 with headache; Saturday morning, boys again, with cookery 
 added ; one hour after dinner at last gained, or rather snatched, 
 for the Alps. Anna Margaretta and the flowers most pleasing, 
 — the map a great help. Evening brought divinity student, 
 Mr. White, son of Judge White of Salem ; very gentlemanly, 
 with much literary culture ; been at Calcutta, Alexandria, 
 Grand Cairo, passed fourteen months in Europe. Sunday 
 morning took him to Lincoln ; brought in his place Dr. and 
 Mrs. Francis and their son, and Mrs. Locke with an impetu- 
 ous little curly-haired fellow three years old. The divinity 
 student so agreeable that we were glad of him for a second 
 night. William White, of Watertown, at tea, oozing out at 
 every pore for the slaves." 
 
 " Feb'y, 1845. 
 
 " You write to Mr. Ripley of the preaching in Switzer- 
 land. I am more and more convinced that the past is, as the 
 boys say, 'no go' for the pulpit, any more than abstractions. 
 The philosopher finds in its facts material for induction where- 
 with to verify the principles which lie at the foundation of 
 human society; but living, feeling, acting man must be seized 
 through the present. The past can affect him only when in 
 the cycle of human experience it stands by the side of the 
 present in similitude or contrast. Galilee and Jerusalem will 
 fill the mind when they are acted over again in Waltham or 
 Boston. I think the only efficient preachers (though not at 
 all to my taste) are those who lift up their voice and spare 
 not, in spite of public opinion, against licensed violations of 
 truth and right and mercy in Church and State. The lyceum 
 may enlighten the intellect and feed the imagination, but life 
 is the province of the pulpit. I believe you will think I have 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 1/9 
 
 usurped it; but when thoughts occur as I read your letter, I 
 naturally say them to you. 
 
 " Uncle George came, and a divinity student, Thomas Hill,* 
 a distinguished mathematician, such as nature turns out of 
 her mould only now and then. Talked of La Place's theory 
 of creation, and how they used to try to find the parallax of 
 fixed stars and did not succeed, and how they tried nowadays 
 and did succeed." 
 
 " April 22d, 1S45. 
 
 " As to the theology of your last, I cannot reply to it, 
 because I have forgotten the provocation that called it forth. 
 The charge of inconsistency I think I could disprove ; but I 
 will leave it for some brighter hour. I will only say that when 
 I was eighteen, my appetite for theology was so intense that 
 I learned German without the aid of grammar, and by means 
 of a dictionary with one French word and one Russian, — 
 because I thought the store-house of its treasures was there. 
 It was an era in my life when my father gave me leave to buy 
 a Griesbach, the dry critical preface to which was far more 
 exciting than any reading can ever be to me again. And now 
 I am so changed. Religion has become so simple a matter to 
 me, — a yearning after God, an earnest desire for the peace 
 that flows from the consciousness of union with him. It is 
 the last thought that floats through my mind as I sleep, the 
 first that comes when I wake. It forms the basis of my 
 present life, saddened by past experience. It bedims my eyes 
 with tears when I walk out into the beautiful nature, where 
 love is all around me. And yet no direct ray comes to my soul. 
 Perhaps it is God's peace instead of God I seek : so I sit and 
 wait in patience for his grace, and will still wait. Earnests 
 and foretastes come ; but humble waiting in days of darkness 
 will, I trust, bring better fruits. You say we shall fight. The 
 
 * The Rev. Dr. Hill, now of Portland, Maine, — late president of Harvard 
 College. 
 
I So WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 war will, I think, be one of words. Yet how can we look at 
 things alike? You must increase, but 1 must decrease; you 
 are just entering the fullness of being, I have proved and found 
 it vain. I intended to have filled this page with other matters, 
 but to-night I do not feel like talking about persons and things ; 
 to-morrow we will meet perhaps in the phenomenal world. 
 April 2$d. — I feel half inclined to draw my pen over last 
 night's page : an experience seems untrue as soon as uttered. 
 Both seeking truth, we shall beckon each other onward to the 
 same centre, if by different paths. And now for details. To 
 begin with the parish, the first act of the new administration 
 was to secure Mr. Hedge for the month of April. It is fine, 
 you will know, for us to have him with us every Saturday 
 night and Sunday. Parish affairs bring me to Mr. Ripley, 
 who has had a long reprieve from his enemy in the foot, but 
 on whose forehead eighteen months have left many a wrinkle 
 and gray hair. Mr. Hedge remarks that he looks careworn, 
 much changed to him; no wonder, for his days are a constant 
 fight. Oh, if we ever live to see these seven great boys into 
 college ! He warms up with pleasure whenever you are men- 
 tioned, and especially whenever you mention him. . . . 
 Mother, I believe, has won Lizzy's heart from me, but I am 
 not jealous : I ask nothing from the young ones but that they 
 should be good and happy. Ezra is still exemplary for dili- 
 gence and economy. He is to appear on the stage in a Greek 
 dialogue the coming May exhibition. The girls are intolerant 
 of what they call his self-conceit ; they cannot stand the air 
 with which he swings his cane and shakes his hair away from 
 his eyes ; but I am his firm ally. They may smile and jeer, 
 but he has the satisfaction of an innocent life and virtuous 
 industry." 
 
 "May 13th, 1845. 
 " My chances to write are few, for you know at this season 
 my day is devoted to boys ; and mother and Charles, who are 
 with us now, monopolize the evening by their agreeable con- 
 versation. Besides, the trees are all bursting into life and 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 181 
 
 beauty, and the moon is just entering her second quarter, and 
 for the last two days the thermometer has stood at 8o° : so 
 of course we are under the trees and on the stone wall all 
 the play-time. ... A voice from below summoned me to 
 welcome Mr. Hedge, whom Mr. R. brought with him from 
 the association. The evening conversation easy and genial, 
 springing from friendship without a shade of distrust. I say, 
 with Horace, ' nil ego contulcrim jucundo saints aviico! 
 
 " I have no private scholars, and so spend my days in the 
 noisy school-room, aiding Mr. Ripley and ripening my plans 
 of life for Concord. I went to see Dr. Gray the other day, 
 and he showed me a splendid microscope mounted like a 
 telescope, and some very pretty phenomena of crystals seen 
 by polarized light; and told me of a beautiful work on Euro- 
 pean mosses, with magnified engravings, just received at the 
 Cambridge Library, and that I should have it next after him- 
 self." 
 
 "June 22d. 
 
 " The books that I have, speak most respectfully of German 
 lichenologists and muscologists. If you find any treatise on 
 these commoners of nature, get it for me. — It is a delightful 
 summer day, the lawn covered with hay-cocks. We are 
 spending it alone. We looked out for George, Charles, and 
 Gore till bedtime, but in vain: we must eat our cherries which 
 the girls picked amidst the wet leaves, without them. The 
 great cherry-pie, too, on which I expended my strength and 
 sugar, they will not taste, — that is, if the noon train do not 
 bring them. 25th. — The noon train brought the youths; the 
 evening, Uncle George. We had music, the piano with ac- 
 companiment on the flute, plenty of cherries and plenty of 
 wit. G. and C. act on each other magnetically, as they say 
 nowadays. C. described with all his powers of satire the 
 style of debate at the abolition meetings he attended on elec- 
 tion week, with an evident undercurrent of delicate respect 
 for the state of mind of the debaters. At last they got upon 
 
1 82 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the White Mountains, so fertile a source of travelers' diffi- 
 culties and dangers. But who can tell of the seasoning of 
 successful jokes and amusing anecdotes ! You know the 
 genial times when each loses himself in the free spontaneous 
 flow of thought and fancy. We work hard, to be sure, but 
 ' nodes ccenceque deorum' like these will offset much. The 
 other evening I met C. C, who told me ' a large man with a 
 carpet-bag had inquired the way to our house.' I hurried 
 home, and found Russell seated in the dark, in the parlor, with 
 Mr. R. We soon had a light, the box of mosses and lichens 
 and microscopes all, and he told me ever so much in answer 
 to the questions I had laid up to ask him. In my last visit to 
 Duxbury I had found a lichen composed almost altogether 
 of net-work. I searched in vain for a description of it, and 
 he tells me that it has not been described, and that Tuekerman 
 in his catalogue will call it Cladonia Russcllii. We walked at 
 five o'clock this morning, and you would be well bored with 
 barbarous names, if I did not fear that these humble denizens 
 of the forest would stand but a poor chance against Neander 
 and the fine arts. Did I tell you about a beautiful scarlet-cup 
 mother and I picked up in a rich spot near the spring on 
 Prospect ? I could not tell whether it was fungus or lichen, 
 but my botanist decided for the first. He had not seen your 
 powdery lichen, and said they were all valuable on account 
 of their ' habitat.' Don't forget to pick more : there is no 
 knowing what you may do for science. Apropos of fungi, I 
 must quote Linnaeus's description of them, it is so poetic, — 
 and you are in a region where there is faith in the trinity of 
 Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion. He characterizes the little 
 fellows as ' nomades, autumnales, barbari, denudati, putridi, 
 voraces. Hi, Flora redncente plantas Mematum, legunt relictas 
 carum qiusqiulias sordesque* 
 
 " Excuse, as before, all errors in spelling, and let the super- 
 abundance of letters in some words make up for the de- 
 ficiencies in others." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 1 83 
 
 " Sunday morning, July 20th. 
 
 "Just returned from a walk with . He talked of the 
 
 religious state of several of his friends, those who assert and 
 feel the soul's want of a mediator, — that it cannot be saved 
 but by Christ ; he disposed to consider it not an accidental but 
 a genuine part of the religious history of the soul, I not en- 
 tirely assenting. Whenever we talk together, you come natu- 
 rally to my mind. Believing in your truth as I do, I cannot 
 but look with interest to the development of your religious 
 thought, in relation to your intellectual experience in its other 
 aspects. . . . The intellect is so apt to run across the path of 
 religious thought, or rather of Christian theory, and to shroud 
 its aberrations in a mist of mysticism or untruth, imposing 
 on itself or others, and the bias is so strong on the side of 
 the position which we have taken in life, or into which we 
 have been drawn, that I am apt to distrust appeals to intuitions 
 and ultimate facts, which do not reveal themselves to my dif- 
 ferently constituted mind. The road to the Father has always 
 seemed to me direct, and, though constantly forsaken, always 
 open, always shone upon by a light from above, — the guiding, 
 helping hand ever extended to the wanderer. 
 
 " Elizabeth has gone to Lowell to watch with Mrs. Ames's 
 sick child, a dear little creature about two years old, whose 
 case the physicians have pronounced incurable. . . . We 
 should be able to endure our own troubles, if it were not 
 for sympathy with others. Poor Margaret herself, with every- 
 thing about her to make her happy, is marked with the seal 
 of death. She seems to me like one of my own children, for 
 I had almost the whole care of her in her infancy. I was her 
 only teacher, she came with me to Waltham, and was married 
 at our house. Who can call life tame when it is so full of 
 wonder and sorrow and love ? . . . You realize that it was 
 wise not to have early entangled yourself in relations that 
 would have made your present impracticable. I once thought 
 a solitary life the true one, and, contrary to my theory, was 
 moved to give up the independence of an attic covered with 
 books for the responsibilities and perplexities of a parish and 
 
1 84 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 a family. Yet I have never regretted the change. Though 
 I have suffered much, yet I have enjoyed much and learned 
 more. The affections as they multiply, spread out in rays to 
 the circumference, but the soul returns, not driven back by 
 desertion, but willingly, to its true centre, the God within. 
 
 " The time draws nigh when we are to look for mother. 
 The beans are growing finely, and we are looking forward to 
 the time when we shall gather and shell them together. She 
 will be with us at our commencement holidays, the brightest 
 days to us of all the year. I like your letters to mother much : 
 you tell her little things that transport us at once to the place 
 where you are : we meet the passengers on the road, carry 
 their bundles, and learn the secret of their life. We stroke 
 the rosy cheeks of the children as they prattle to you of the 
 flowers, and we think of Werther. Apropos of Werther, you 
 express astonishment that it should interest me. Remember 
 that I have come to the age when a piece of psychology in- 
 terests me as much as a new and curious subject for dissection 
 does the doctor. . . . Continue your laudable practice of gath- 
 ering and preserving specimens for your friends this side of 
 the ocean. The blue pond-weed is now in blossom, with many 
 an asclepias of divers hues. The large blue flowers of the 
 succory grace the corners of the road, and the spiraeas and 
 eupatoria are just about to unfold their blossoms. I am at 
 my usual seat on the benches under the locust-trees every 
 morning, listening also as usual to Horace and Virgil. This 
 morning I took the letters with me, to read and enjoy during 
 the intervals of the going and coming of the youth. William 
 L. takes an interest : so I read to him the story about the 
 peasant with the bundle, etc., that he might have something 
 to tell his mother, and explained to him what I thought were 
 the true objects of traveling. How much your interest in 
 the battle-marked fields must have been increased by having 
 so lately read Alison ! 
 
 " I have just received a beautiful edition of a French work 
 on botany according to the present mode of analysis, from 
 Dr. Gray. As far as I have read, the author has introduced 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. ^5 
 
 me to nothing new, but yet there is great pleasure in getting 
 at the mind of a man of genius through his scientific method. 
 The way in which he holds up his subject and unfolds its 
 wonders to your view is always his own. The French are 
 remarkable in this line. Their mathematics and chemistry 
 and botany are well worth reading as specimens of genius." 
 
 "The twilight has closed in upon me, so I close the book, 
 the ' Samson Agonistes,' the noble poem, so classic in its form 
 that it transports you to the grove of the avenging deities in 
 front of Athens, while its holy music and exalted sentiment 
 descend from Zion's hill, or flow from Siloa's brook, ' fast by 
 the oracle of God.' . . . 
 
 " I recognize my obligations to Christianity as the chief 
 factor in the product of my present mind. The germ of in- 
 tuition lies buried in every soul ; the inspired man speaks, and 
 it responds. Watered in youth by the silent dews of his 
 divine utterances, warmed by his image or the faint reflection 
 of it in the lives of those we love and trust, holy intuitions 
 unfold in foliage, too often unconscious of the secret source 
 by which they live. A miracle in the popular sense my mind 
 rejects. Cannot we love and disagree? I can not only love 
 but respect in you the different phases." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mr. Simmons returned from Europe in the autumn of 1845. 
 Very soon afterward he was married to Miss Mary Emerson 
 Ripley, Mrs. Ripley's second daughter. 
 
 In the spring of 1846 the Ripley family left behind them 
 the cares of parish and boarding-school, and removed to the 
 " Old Manse" in Concord, on the right bank of the Concord 
 
1 86. WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 River, and within sight of the spot where the first repulse was 
 given to the British troops in the war of our independence. 
 Their return was the event which caused the removal of Haw- 
 thorne, who had occupied the manse for a time after the death 
 of Mr. Ripley's father, the Rev. Dr. Ezra Ripley. Dr. Ripley 
 had lived there for more than sixty years, as the minister of 
 the town. The mother of Mr. Ripley, at the time of her 
 marriage to Dr. Ripley, was the widow of his predecessor, 
 the Rev. William Emerson, for whom the manse was built. 
 This lady was also the daughter of a former minister, Rev. 
 Daniel Bliss, and granddaughter and great-granddaughter 
 of the two Bulkeleys, still earlier pastors of the old town. 
 Thus the family came with every hereditary claim to the 
 respect and affection of their neighbors in Concord. The 
 presence of Mrs. Ripley's sister Mrs. Bartlett and her family 
 and the neighborhood of her kinsman Mr. Emerson, were a 
 great pleasure to her. Her youngest son, Ezra, was in his 
 senior year at Harvard College, and the two youngest girls 
 were at school in Boston. The elder children were busy else- 
 where with the tasks of life, but flitted in and out from time 
 to time with news of the world and of friends. 
 
 The simple but complete hospitality of the house was not 
 less than in Waltham, nor did " due feet ever fail" to seek the 
 blessed threshold where so cordial a welcome and such in- 
 spiring society awaited them. Mr. Ripley writes to his sister 
 at this time, " We have a quiet and industrious life in this 
 pleasant spot. I enjoy it more and more every day, and Sarah 
 is perfectly happy. She works hard all the time, but has 
 nothing to trouble or vex her." Gathering currants and 
 raspberries, or peas and asparagus, from the garden, or in the 
 house, cooking, dusting, or mending, — her mind and heart 
 were free while her hands worked ; and her friends were at 
 liberty to follow her in household tasks of which she never 
 made any secret or any boast. It was in this way that she 
 simplified very much the problems of social intercourse and 
 hospitality. 
 
 She still received scholars, one or two at a time, — but not as 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 1 87 
 
 members of her family, — to fit for college, or to carry them on 
 in advanced studies when exiled for a season from college for 
 idleness or misdemeanor. It may have been the desire or the 
 necessity of teaching others that drew her to the study of 
 mathematics and the exact sciences, of which we find little 
 mention in her early letters ; but it is certain that she was a 
 capable and inspiring teacher of these subjects, and sent her 
 youths back to college with new insight and inspiration, and 
 fit to take their places in the higher classes. 
 
 On the evening of the 24th November, 1847, the family 
 circle was gathering for the next day's Thanksgiving festival. 
 It was dark and stormy. The father had gone for the third 
 time with his carriage to bring the last installment of children 
 and kindred from the railroad, when he suddenly fell back in 
 the carriage upon the shoulder of his eldest daughter, and 
 never spoke again. " His own affectionate heart," said Mrs. 
 Ripley, " was spared the pain of parting." 
 
 The following letter to Mrs. Ripley from Mr. Emerson> 
 then in England, will show what a cordial affection her hus- 
 band had inspired in his friends : 
 
 MR. K. W. EMERSON TO MRS. RIPLEY. 
 
 " Manchester, England, 26th December, 1847. 
 " My dear Friend, — 
 
 " I heard with surprise and grief of your loss, and the shock 
 with which it came, — the greatest loss to you and to all your 
 household, — without repair; the loss to me also of a dear old 
 friend, like whom I have now few or none. He was the hoop 
 that held us all staunch, with his sympathies of family and 
 with that disinterestedness which we have hardly witnessed in 
 any other person. What rare devotion to his friends ! What 
 a cloud of witnesses I recall who will thankfully and affection- 
 ately press his claims to almost the first place among faithful 
 and efficient benefactors ! I may well say benefactor, for in 
 will and in act he was both early and late one of mine, — and 
 never otherwise. ... I know not where we shall find in a 
 
1 88 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 man of his station and experience a heart so large, or a spirit 
 so blameless and of a childlike innocence. L. writes me very 
 truly of the ' opportunity' of his death at a moment and in an 
 act so characteristic. Yes, it is so; and yet he was never out 
 of character, and, at any time, would have been found in his 
 place. How sad it is, and will be ! He had reached his 
 chosen place, and all things were taking happiest form and 
 order under his care. Tis sorrowful that such a felicity should 
 be broken up, and that you should be forced now to recon- 
 struct your home. But he has not withdrawn far. He has 
 identified himself so much with life and the living that we 
 shall find him* everywhere a presence of good omen. My 
 love to Elizabeth, and Mary, and Gore, and to all the children. 
 He has stood by them until they were sufficient to themselves, 
 and has enjoyed their security and success. — And now that 
 he has gone who bound us by blood, I think we must draw a 
 little nearer together, for at this time of day we cannot afford 
 to spare any friends. I wonder to think — here, with the ocean 
 betwixt us — that I have suffered you to live so near me and 
 have not won from the weeks and months more frequent in- 
 tercourse. I hope L. has cheered you by communicating 
 her hearty affection for all she beheld in your husband To 
 my mother he is an irreparable loss. As I look homeward 
 now, I miss a friend who constituted much of its worth and 
 attraction for me. But I must write you again with more 
 
 hope. 
 
 " Most affectionately yours, 
 
 " Waldo E." 
 
 In 1852, Anne, the youngest but one of Mrs. Ripley's chil- 
 dren, who had been married about three years before to Mr 
 George Loring, then of Concord, died in her mother's house, 
 where she was taken ill on a visit, leaving a little boy of less 
 than two years old to her mother's and sisters' care. 
 
 The next break in the circle was the death of her beloved 
 friend and son-in-law, Mr. Simmons,* who after leaving Wal- 
 
 * Of this brilliant and accomplished man bat little permanent record remains. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 189 
 
 tham had been settled successively in Springfield and Albany, 
 and who came home to die of consumption, in the house which 
 his mother had built, next to the " Old Manse." Mrs. Sim- 
 mons had been drawn thither from Boston by the friendship 
 which had grown up between the two mothers and their fam- 
 ilies. After his death his wife and children lived with Mrs. 
 Ripley in the manse, the declining health of the elder Mrs. 
 Simmons requiring quiet and freedom from the noisy life of 
 young children. In a few years Mrs. Simmons died. After 
 this the younger Mrs. Simmons removed to the house which 
 her children inherited from their grandmother. But this was 
 so near to the manse that it was hardly a separation. In the 
 year i860 the youngest of these children, a beautiful girl of 
 five years, was taken away from the little group by death, — 
 another sorrow for that sympathizing heart which more than 
 ever lived in the life of her children. The death of Mrs. 
 Bartlett, the sister of Mrs. Ripley, soon followed. And then 
 came the war, which laid such a load upon the hearts of 
 parents, and of those who, loving their country as one, coula 
 not be at peace while she was divided, or while other hearts 
 bled. Many of Mrs. Ripley's former pupils and the sons of 
 her friends and pupils, the flower of our youth, were in the 
 army. Her own youngest son, Ezra, was there, and died in 
 1863, on the Mississippi, near Vicksburg, in the service of the 
 Union, leaving a young wife tenderly loved by his family. 
 
 He graduated at Harvard College in 1832, and died in the summer of 1855. 
 He was first settled over the Unitarian Society at Mobile; but his conscience 
 moved him there to utterances upon the subject of slavery which were as coura- 
 geous as they were unwelcome, and he was forced to leave the city for fear of a 
 mob ; nor was this the only instance in which he bore brave testimony on this 
 subject. Three of his children survive, — two sons and a daughter, — children 
 that are worthy of him. During his last illness he selected a few sermons which 
 he desired should be privately printed as his latest gift to certain friends, and 
 wrote what he called a " Fragment of a Preface'' for the little book. These dis 
 courses, entitled "Six Sermons," and the words of singular beauty with whic> 
 they are prefaced, are a worthy but all too brief memorial, — thoughtful, devout, 
 and high-minded. " There is here," he truly says, " no conceit or hollow declama- 
 tion, but sincere thought, such as I am capable of; and the themes are large." 
 
IO/ o WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 All these events and anxieties laid a most heavy burden 
 upon her loving and tender heart. Her youngest daughter, 
 married* just before the beginning of the war, still remains, 
 however, " a star of hope," " a haven of rest," amid the sad 
 forebodings and sorrows of the times. The young pair settled 
 at Milton, and after a time assumed the care of the little or- 
 phan boy, their sister Annie's child, who had grown too old 
 to be left solely to feminine guidance; an arrangement for 
 which Mrs. Ripley's satisfaction and gratitude find continual 
 expression in her letters. With her daughter Mrs. Simmons at 
 the next door, the life of growing children was still a constant 
 spring of interest and hope. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, 
 now the housekeeper of the manse, gave always the same 
 hospitable welcome to old and newer friends which had dis- 
 tinguished the Waltham home, and many were the cordial 
 gatherings that kept alive the social flame — where each 
 brought some contribution of fragrant wood or spice to cast 
 upon the fire. Visits to her daughter at Milton, and the 
 hopes and joys that came into her life with the birth of her 
 daughter's two boys, of whom the grandmamma now made 
 herself the playfellow, varied her life with scenes in which no 
 sad associations bore a part. 
 
 Among the letters belonging to the period following Mrs. 
 Ripley's removal to Concord, there are two or three to Mrs. 
 Francis which may be inserted here : 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MRS. FRANCIS. 
 
 1849. 
 
 " I received, dear friend, your affectionate note and invita- 
 tion, but cannot accept, as I have engaged to prepare two 
 youths for college, and cannot leave them any day but Satur- 
 day. So, on some Saturday when baking and other cares do 
 not prevent, I shall see you, I hope. But why not come and 
 
 * To Mr. James B. Thayer, then a lawyer in Boston, now a professor in tha 
 Law School of Harvard University. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY 
 
 I 9 I 
 
 see me? I do wish you would. It seems so long since we 
 have walked and talked together, and compared notes of ex- 
 perience as we have been wont to do from earliest days. Your 
 form and face the first time I saw you are as vivid at this 
 moment as at that. How long a piece we have traveled to- 
 gether! Ere long we shall be called to set our houses in order 
 and go, we know not whither. But death is an event as natu- 
 ral as birth, and faith makes it as full of promise. But faith, 
 alas ! is denied to certain minds, and submission must take its 
 place. The Unknown, which lighted the morning of life, will 
 hallow and make serene its evening. Conscious or uncon- 
 scious, we shall rest in the lap of the Infinite." 
 
 " Concord, January 21st, 1S50. 
 
 " Dear Friend, — 
 
 " I am grieved to learn that you are not in good spirits. 
 Now that you know where the seat of the evil is, why not 
 come to Concord to refit? Here is the solid day. ' Hie focus, 
 et tczdes pingueSy hie plurinms ignis! — 'Sunt nobis mitia poma* 
 — ' Pocula * * novo spumantia lacte! Come, let us have a 
 revival in friendship ; let us realize the dreams of our youth. 
 I know you will think your place at home cannot be sup- 
 plied ; but, dear Abba, this is the form the fiend takes when 
 the pressure of the responsibilities of life is breaking down 
 the conscientious, self-devoted spirit. The balance between 
 soul and body must be restored, if you would effectually 
 help those you love, and I know they must be ready to make 
 any sacrifices which your absence from home may require. 
 Come, not for days or weeks, but till the tabernacle of flesh is 
 in thorough repair. I cannot say how much I should enjoy 
 your presence, dear friend of my earliest and best days. Did 
 not your father then smile on our union ? Let us live for a 
 while in the past. 
 
 " Yours with undying love, 
 
 " S. A. R." 
 
1 92 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 "Concord, October 28th, 1S50. 
 " Dear Friend, — 
 
 " The yearly offering of the Old Manse comes this year in 
 the shape of early apples, the russets not being in eating yet. 
 John L. Russell made me a visit yesterday with his microscope, ' 
 "and showed me the internal structure of mosses and lichens. 
 I had seen engravings of the same before, but never the beau- 
 tiful and curious organization itself. How J wished you were 
 here, you, the one among many, who have eyes and ears for 
 such things ! Dearest friend, I hope we shall see you before 
 winter shuts us in ; ever welcome will your presence be to us." 
 
 A few letters to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Gamaliel Bradford, 
 and to her niece, the daughter of Mrs. Bradford, are here 
 added : 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO MRS. BRADFORD. 
 
 " Concord, Nov. 30th, 1854. 
 " Dear Sophia, — 
 
 " Friendship is better than mince-pies : this is the text. The 
 subject is, that, friends being absent and money scarce, this is 
 the first Thanksgiving Day in my life for which we have pro- 
 vided neither turkey nor pie, and so I have time to tell you 
 how much I think of you. How could I help it on this day 
 consecrated to social festivities, when we have from olden 
 time enjoyed so much in mutual sympathies? How many 
 times our hearts have beat with joy at the sight of such a 
 glorious sunshine as is now pouring in at my window, when 
 the carriage from Lowell and that from Concord were sure to 
 bring dear Margaret and Martha with their tribe, to meet the 
 friends who had arrived the night before! What a buzz of 
 voices! what a freedom from all constraint! Surely our family 
 union has been blessed, and on its remembrance we must live, 
 as link after link is broken in the chain which once held it 
 together. You vvill be glad to hear that Manna is welJ and 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 193 
 
 expects her children. Sophy always dines with them. I was 
 so sad to hear that you had been sick again ; but those who 
 brought the tidings reported you better and cheerful. I have 
 lately received two letters from George, the first for several 
 months. Letters from Paris must have been lost in the Arctic, 
 "as these are dated from Padua and Florence. When I come 
 to see you I will bring Phoebe's. ... I must leave you to dress 
 to go to the Emersons'. We are going four, — E., G., M., and 
 myself. I suppose we shall meet Dr. and Mrs. C. T. Jackson. 
 The doctor is agreeable to me, he has so much to tell that I 
 want to know. The Lorings have had the dear little boy for 
 three or four days, else we should take him with us. A few days 
 of absence makes me sad to think that perhaps the time may 
 come when I shall lose him altogether. What should I do 
 without him ! His little roots have crept into my whole life : 
 they could not be torn out without taking a great part with 
 them; but we will not forebode. Every hour brings its blessing 
 as well as its sorrow. Dear Sophia, I could say much, but 
 have no time. Yours, with much love, 
 
 " Sarah." 
 
 " Concord, August 21st, 1856. 
 " Dear Sophia, — 
 
 " I thought you would like to hear about my Duxbury visit. 
 We found them well. We rode to the beach one day, and 
 walked to the pond another. The music of past days sighs 
 through the pines. There was my Arcadia. How my heart 
 used to beat with joy when I caught the first glimpse of 
 the old church-spire as it appeared and re-appeared through 
 the woods when I used to be at father's side in the chaise 
 which went semi-annually or quarterly to carry grandfather 
 his dividends! The old house, with its high stone steps, the 
 barrels on each side filled with morning-glories and nastur- 
 tiums, which, entwined, hung in festoons over the old door; 
 the little parlor and old easy-chair in which we always found 
 the palsied old man, who received us with tearful embraces; 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the great pear-tree at the gate, full of orange pears ; the 
 ground strewed with golden high-tops ; the girl in the corn- 
 barn paring apples to dry ; the woods filled with huckleber- 
 ries ; — how sadly they blend to connect the past with the 
 present and contrast with the future ! Why is it that we so 
 hold on to the garment that is falling from us, and look 
 behind as we go onward ? But enough of this. I was more 
 than ever impressed with the reality that we belong together, 
 this visit, than before. I hope you will never stay away from 
 us so long again. We had a letter from Gore* yesterday, re- 
 porting rather more comfortable circumstances, as his house 
 is finished ; but he has still to do his own house-work. I hope, 
 dear Sophia, you will not be sick again. Good-night, with 
 
 much love. 
 
 " S. A. R." 
 
 " Dear Sophia, — 
 
 " Phcebe reports you not well. Do take care of yourself and 
 expel the cough. Hearing that you are not well reminds me 
 what it would be to lose your loving society. We have kept 
 step together through a long piece of road in the weary 
 journey of life : we have loved the same beings and wept 
 together over their graves. I have not your faith to con- 
 sole me, as they drop one after another from my side ; yet 
 my will, I trust, is in harmony with the divine order, and re- 
 signed where light is wanting. The sun looks brighter and 
 my home more tranquil as the evening of life draws near. 
 Would to heaven that the lives of the dear ones that remain 
 could be insured to me till its end! Then I could fold my 
 hands in perfect peace, ready, if such is the law of finite ex- 
 istence, to breathe the last breath of consciousness into the 
 infinite source of light and love whence it came. 
 
 " You cannot think how much I expect to enjoy a visit from 
 you, now that I am a spare hand and so have plenty of leisure 
 
 * He had recently gone to Minnesota. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 195 
 
 to walk and talk and sympathize with those with whom I have 
 gone hand in hand through so many years of joy and sorrow. 
 ... If you are not well enough to come soon, I am all ready 
 to come to you ; I can come any day, but it would be so much 
 more to me to have you here. Don't talk about the house 
 being full; it is Mary's life to keep it full, and no one would 
 enjoy a visit from you and Sarah more or so much as Mary. 
 Dear sister, do come, if you can ; if not, I will come to you." 
 
 [1859-] 
 " Dear Sophia, — 
 
 " Can there be a possible chance that I may never look 
 upon your dear face again ? Am I to stand on the declivity 
 of life, while one after another drops from my side of those 
 who have been so long parts of myself? You are the vision 
 of my nights ; you appear to me for the first time in the little 
 parlor of the house in South Street, a graceful and bright 
 being of sixteen or seventeen, with a becoming straw hat and 
 a most agreeable smile. I still see the corner of the room 
 where you sat, though I see nothing else connected with the 
 visit. Then the scene changes to your uncle Blake's, where 
 I found you one morning practicing on the guitar before the 
 family had arisen from their beds. After your closer connec- 
 tion with us as a family, our interviews so crowd together in 
 the background of the past that I am kept awake as if solving 
 a mathematical problem to arrange them in their proper time 
 and place as they press in confusion upon the scene. How 
 much we enjoyed those evening rides to Cambridge, to the 
 house you had planned and built, where we forgot, for an hour 
 or two, the school bondage of home ! How much you did to 
 soften the pillow of decline and death for the father I loved 
 and respected so much! How can I recall or arrange the 
 happy meetings we have had together as a family in Waltham 
 or Lowell ! How much you were to dear Margaret ! How 
 much Martha has always enjoyed, and still enjoys, your society ! 
 Do you wonder that I should desire to see you now? Still, I 
 
I 9 6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 should not be willing to see you at the risk of exciting and 
 
 doing you harm. So I will try to content myself with thinking 
 
 of you with hope when I can. But sorrow, not hope, is the 
 
 color of old age. 
 
 " Your Sister." 
 
 MRS. RIPLEY TO HER NIECE MISS SARAH H. BRADFORD. 
 
 [i860.] 
 
 " Dear Sarah, — 
 
 " Crowned with the modish cap you were so kind as to send 
 me, I shall not be afraid to take a seat at your conservative 
 dinner-table, as a citizen of the rebellious town where the first 
 blood was spilt in the Revolutionary War. There is no need 
 of Christmas-presents to keep bright the chain which binds 
 me to you all. Your last visit left behind a flavor which will 
 not soon pass away. 
 
 " Tell your mother how much I thought of her on the day 
 of Mrs. Simmons's funeral. It was a consecrated hour. The 
 bright sun shone through the large window in the little parlor 
 where we have together sympathized in joy and sorrow. No 
 discordant element was mingled in the little circle which had 
 loved and served her. Mr. Clarke said to Elizabeth when he 
 took the chair by her side, ' Your mother is gone : you have 
 been a daughter to her.' Mr. Clarke said not a word too 
 much. He has known her long and intimately, her sons were 
 in college with him, and she was one of the first who joined 
 his free church. He has visited her often since she has been 
 in Concord. I cannot tell your mother in this note what I 
 want to say, and can give you no idea of our love and desire 
 to see your face among us all again." 
 
 In April, 1861, Mrs. Ripley's youngest daughter was married 
 to Mr. James B. Thayer. I am indebted to Mr. Thayer for 
 the following sketch of Mrs. Ripley as she appeared in her 
 later years : 
 
 " My acquaintance with Mrs. Ripley was confined to the 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 I 9 7 
 
 last ten or twelve years of her life. I first spoke with her in 
 1855 : it was at her own house, where I was a chance visitor; 
 and I shall never forget the simple cordiality of her reception 
 and her conversation. It was nearly four years before I saw 
 her again, and then I came to her house as one who was to 
 be her son-in-law. From that time until her death I had an 
 intercourse with her of increasing intimacy and affection. A 
 person of a more sweet, sympathetic, and feminine character 
 I never saw; she was the very soul of gentleness. And with 
 these special womanly charms, she had a masculine strength 
 of understanding. So vivacious and penetrating was her intel- 
 ligence, such wit, such learning had she, and such a cordial, 
 wide hospitality of thought, that one came to her not merely 
 for the most kind sympathy that she always gave, but for that 
 total intercourse of thought and sentiment which is the high- 
 est and most blessed thing that can take place between two 
 human beings. To sit with her through a long morning in her 
 little sunny parlor, or to walk with her on an autumn day 
 under the yellow light of the maples and talk of the subjects 
 that most engaged her kindly and elevated spirit, was perfect 
 happiness. In her sweet presence it was always 'a season of 
 calm weather;' cares fell away, and the intellect, in that beau- 
 tiful atmosphere, had sight of great and animating thoughts. 
 
 " But all this tells little that can help a stranger to any pre- 
 cise knowledge of her. How shall one convey to a person 
 that did not know her some more definite impression? 
 
 " In her bearing there was nothing of the woman of society ; 
 all was peculiarly plain and simple; and yet nothing could 
 have improved it. She was spare of figure and rather tall. 
 Her head was of a beautiful shape, and its comely, ample hair, 
 once of a dark brown, but early turned gray, was partially 
 covered with a cap. Her complexion was fair, and her face 
 full of healthy color ; her eyes were clear blue, and of a won- 
 derful quickness of movement, of a good size and rather near 
 together ; her nose was regular in shape, straight, prominent, 
 and handsome ; her mouth large, but delicate and full of sen- 
 sibility. As to the total expression of the face, it was most 
 
198 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 attractive, — brimful of sense, character, and swift intelligence; 
 but perhaps the chief charm of it, like that of her rich and 
 exquisite voice, was a certain delightful kindness. Her man- 
 ner, as I have indicated, was wholly unconventional, sim- 
 ple and friendly : without being precisely shy, she often gave 
 one the impression of an unobtrusive yet extreme solicitude 
 to be in nobody's way : it was the manner of one who wished 
 only for the pleasure of listening, and of quietly helping on 
 the comfort of others. But when she was sure of her com- 
 pany, how cheerfully and how fast she talked ! how respon- 
 sive she was to everything gay and animated, and how she 
 lost herself, so to speak, in the general soul ! Hers was no 
 meagre or starved nature, but a warm and cordial one. 
 
 " But when I speak of her ' helping on' the happiness of 
 others, I am reminded of the absence of what might seem 
 like an effort to help on anything. All things came from 
 her as the untroubled outflow of a sweet nature ; it seemed 
 that she could never proceed by the methods of labor and 
 discipline. And yet, when one stopped to consider how la- 
 borious her life had been, how dedicated to her household 
 and to her husband's school and parish, one saw embodied 
 in these quiet ways the result of a life full of self-denial and 
 steadily conformed to the law of duty. 
 
 "As to her habits of life, her letters will show how frugal 
 they were. Neither Mrs. Ripley nor her husband had in- 
 herited any property which contributed to their support, and 
 they had supplemented the small salary of a country minister 
 by the income of their boarding-school. In this way a modest 
 property had been laid by, which was the chief support of the 
 family after moving to Concord; but the comfort of Mrs. 
 Ripley during her later years was materially increased by the 
 gifts, as thoughtful as they were generous, of her friend Miss 
 Elizabeth Joy, of Waltham. For eight years after the family 
 moved to Concord Mrs. Ripley had no servant; and during 
 three of these years, while her youngest daughter went daily 
 to a school in Boston, she rose and had her breakfast ready 
 by half-past five o'clock in the morning. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 I 99 
 
 " When I first knew Mrs. Ripley, Mrs. Simmons, her well- 
 loved daughter Mary, whose husband had died in 1855, was 
 at the head of the house, and Mrs. Ripley had finally given 
 up the management of it. She was then no longer taking 
 pupils. In the summer she used to occupy herself for a while 
 in the morning with the garden, gathering vegetables and pre- 
 paring them, or in other such light labor ; generally, at least 
 in the cooler weather, she took a long daily walk, even up to 
 the later periods of her life; for the rest she betook herself to 
 the delights of her books, or helped in the care of the grand- 
 children whom she so fondly loved. If friends came in, they 
 were sure of a welcome and of the most friendly and earnest 
 conversation, whenever her health permitted. In general, her 
 health was good; she had a constitution which was naturally 
 strong and even tough ; but at Waltham her severe labors had 
 sometimes prostrated her, and during her later years at Con- 
 cord she had one or two serious attacks of illness. At Walt- 
 ham, as her letters show, she used to sit up late into the 
 night, finding in these quiet hours the best, if not the only, 
 time for her own studies and correspondence and the family 
 sewing, — for she made all the children's clothes and did all 
 the mending of the family, including that of the hired man. 
 At Concord she went early to bed, but always waked early 
 in the morning. She ate generously from a simple but ad- 
 mirably provided table, and drank both coffee and tea; nor 
 did she on occasion decline a glass of wine, although this 
 was never seen on her own table. 
 
 "Mr. Sanborn, Mr. Channing, and other friends kept her 
 largely supplied with the new books, and she read them 
 eagerly, especially some of the newer contributions to nat- 
 ural science: the writings of Darwin and his supporters she 
 cordially welcomed. She read few novels. Her letters show 
 how various her literary work had been during her earlier life. 
 She had been a student of metaphysics, but when I knew her 
 she seemed to have rested from her severer labors and turned 
 especially to literature ; she read at this time a good deal of 
 German, Italian, and French, as well as Latin and Greek; 
 
200 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Spanish, also, she studied in her last years. Of Shakspeare 
 and Milton she read much ; of Goethe, Jean Paul, Rousseau, 
 and Cervantes she was very fond ; and so of Ariosto, of Eu- 
 ripides, of Theocritus, of Tacitus. Botany, and especially the 
 study of lichens, was a life-long interest, and she was curious 
 as to the habits of animals, especially birds. Her intense sym- 
 pathy for all living creatures was remarkable : and very pretty 
 it was to see her devotion to a neglected fowl or to watch her 
 on an autumn walk as she held some chilled butterfly and 
 brought it back to life by the warmth of that kindly hand. 
 
 " She used often to visit us at Milton, and once a year went 
 for a week or two to Duxbury. At Milton she always ex- 
 plored and re-explored my little library, and delighted in find- 
 ing; now and then something that was new to her ; I remem- 
 ber especially her satisfaction in Masson's Life of Milton. But 
 she never tired of her old authors, and often called on us to 
 share her pleasure in the great phrases of the Paradise Lost, 
 in the Life of Agricola, in an ode of Pindar, or in the fifteenth 
 idyll of Theocritus ; in this last poem, the lively and natural 
 gossip of the two Syracusan women was something of which 
 she never tired. 
 
 " But why do I not speak and what shall I not say of her 
 happiness in her grandchildren, and of theirs in her, both at 
 Concord and at Milton? She was so gentle with them, so 
 sympathetic, so quick to understand them, and she entered so 
 heartily into their ways, that she became a sort of contem- 
 porary or even younger playmate. But she bred in them 
 unconsciously all the while a tenderness and sensibility akin 
 to her own ; like Wordsworth's sister, — 
 
 ' She gave them eyes, she gave them ears, 
 And humble cares and delicate fears, 
 A heart the fountain of sweet tears, 
 And love and thought and joy.' 
 
 Alas that she could be no longer with them ! 
 
 "At Concord she did not visit much, but was rather sought 
 after and visited by others, — her neighbors and her old pupils 
 and their parents or friends; on Thanksgiving Day, however, 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 201 
 
 she used to dine, with all her family, at the house of her hus- 
 band's kinsman and her own dear friend, Mr. Emerson, and for 
 many years she passed every Sunday evening there. Among 
 the visitors to her own house were many strangers who had 
 found their way to see the ' Old Manse' that Hawthorne had 
 made famous: sometimes these visits were those of vulgar in- 
 trusion ; in such cases she knew how to protect herself by a 
 cold reserve ; for affectation or servility she had no response. 
 
 " She had great happiness in the cheerful and assiduous care 
 of her children, who appreciated and loved her with the ut- 
 most affection : upon their care she grew in later years to 
 be very dependent. It was a fine sight to witness the last 
 preparations for her going out upon a call, or her Sunday 
 evening walk to Mr. Emerson's, when her children took her 
 in hand, swiftly rejecting much that she had done, shaking 
 her up, and setting her to rights, — while, with laughing re- 
 monstrances, she yielded to the cheerful breeze. 
 
 " Had, then, this sweet and wise person no defects ? Of 
 faults I know not one ; but there were, perhaps, some limita- 
 tions of thought and sympathy. In general, she inquired little 
 and cared not much to concern herself about the conduct of 
 any social or public affairs ; she would never read a newspaper ; 
 and she had little of the public spirit that gave so much char- 
 acter to the life of her contemporary, Mrs. Lyman, of North- 
 ampton, whose biography has lately been printed. An excep- 
 tion ought to be made in regard to the anti-slavery discussion, 
 in which she had great interest. The war, also, forced itself 
 most tragically upon her attention, and again and again it 
 bowed her down with sympathetic distress; for she had many 
 friends in the army on both sides, and her own youngest son 
 had entered on the side of the Union, at the beginning of the 
 contest, and died near Vicksburg, in 1863, worn out with labors 
 heroically assumed and heroically carried through. 
 
 " The reader of Mrs. Ripley's letters will see repeated allu- 
 sions to what she called, in reference to certain matters of 
 religion, a want of faith. Akin to this was another criticism 
 upon herself which I have heard her make, — that she lacked 
 
202 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. ■ 
 
 somewhat of the faculty which appreciates the imaginative 
 aspects of nature. 
 
 "As to this last, she did not indeed seem — certainly while 
 I knew her — to care much to stop in the midst of her admira- 
 tions or to go back upon them, — to discriminate and bring 
 to light the particular objects or grounds of her liking. But 
 surely she had a very keen and special delight in nature, and 
 her undiscriminated happiness in it seemed worth far more 
 than any analyzed and self-recognized appreciation of the 
 critic : it was more like that of a healthy child, who is not 
 so much a spectator of nature as a sharer with it in a common 
 impulse and a common delight. She seemed, as she herself 
 says somewhere of one of her relatives, to belong to the land- 
 scape, and to be the companion and friend of the natural 
 objects among which she walked; so that when, during the 
 night after she was brought home to the ' Old Manse,' dead, 
 one of the tall ash-trees in the front avenue fell and in the 
 morning lay prostrate on the ground, — it was like a hint of 
 sympathy in nature: easy was it then, and to the imagination 
 neither trivial nor untrue, to think that this old neighbor had 
 felt the shock of grief. 
 
 " And something of the same sort is to be said as to the 
 religious side of Mrs. Ripley's character. In her youth she 
 had been deeply impressed on religious subjects, and had 
 thought and studied much about them ; but her mind, a keen 
 and analytic one, was displeased with the shallowness of much 
 that passes current; and found more difficulties also in ac- 
 cepting some of the best-received opinions than it could meet. 
 One might think, whether rightly or not, that she was too 
 much disposed to dwell on speculative difficulties ; that she 
 undervalued certain historical and traditional aspects of the 
 question, or did not enough consider the necessary conditions 
 of all public and institutional religion ; that she was too un- 
 willing to entertain some great and ennobling, but unproved 
 and unprovable, beliefs, merely as being dear to the human 
 heart; that she lacked, perhaps, somewhat of the religious 
 imagination. Certainly her thoughtful, aspiring, eager spirit 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 203 
 
 was little disposed to follow along the ordinary lines of reli- 
 gious speculation or expression. Rut some of her letters will 
 show what a sweet and natural piety she cherished :* she had 
 thought too much and was too large-minded to dogmatize, 
 and so she always heartily sympathized with others in their 
 faith, and in their good hopes and expectations ; her own soul 
 was at peace, and rested, profoundly, in the conviction that all 
 is well. She was in harmony with whatsoever was most good, 
 most true, and most spiritual. If any noble object of human 
 aspiration or endeavor were brought to her attention, she 
 thrilled all through with sympathy for it ; if there were any 
 office of good will to be done, however humble and unwel- 
 come, she hastened to do it. And she seemed, always, as one 
 that 'lay in Abraham's bosom all the year.' " 
 
 A few out of many letters to her youngest daughter, Sophy, 
 will now be given. To this daughter are addressed most of 
 the latest letters, beginning with the date of her marriage and 
 residence in Milton, in April, ] 861, and ending only when de- 
 clining strength denied the power of written expression to the 
 love whose flame was one with life. 
 
 mrs. ripley to her daughter mrs. thayer. 
 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 " It is good to hear from you so often by your visitors 
 who report you well and happy. How could it be otherwise 
 having but one interest with a friend so worthy of his trust ? 
 I am living in the prospect of seeing you soon, but I am afraid 
 of the reaction when you go. I was so brave and disinterested 
 at first that I believed all selfishness was forever merged in the 
 thought of your pleasant and happy home. We hear of your 
 visitors still. It reminds me of our first experience of Con- 
 cord life. The weeks were marked by a constant series of 
 salutations and farewells. There is no danger even now that 
 the hinges of the doors will rust." 
 
 * See especially her letter to Mr. Simmons of April 22, 1845. 
 
204 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 " I cannot let Lizzie go to you empty-handed, though the 
 week's stockings from both houses are staring me in the face. 
 The asparagus bed, with its endless weeds, takes great part of 
 my mornings, but neither fruits, flowers, nor weeds can vie 
 with you. I am picking up some strength in the asparagus 
 bed, wrestling with the weeds. I charge you, as Dr. Allyn 
 did the old minister at his ordination, to set out an asparagus 
 bed. You can't think how little I know of what is going 
 on in the penetralia of the establishment. As I am relieved 
 from its duties, I am secure from its labors and vexations, 
 which I hope you have escaped forever, though there are al- 
 ways recruits enough in the march of life. May heaven send 
 you a niggard share and give you strength to wrestle with 
 them! If you have no more stumbling-blocks than how thick 
 to make flour starch, I fear you have not gone far in the march. 
 
 " I want all the family to see how pleasantly you are situated. 
 I do not remember particulars enough to be a satisfactory 
 narrator. It is sad to think that I am so fast becoming good 
 for nothing for society, but, thank heaven, I led a lonely life 
 of study in my youth, and return to it as rest with satisfaction. 
 Thank heaven, the flowers still bloom, the birds sing, the 
 Greek tragedies have floated down the stream of time, I can 
 love and dream still of those who are dear to me, till absorbed 
 into the bosom of the Infinite from which I came. 
 
 " You do not know how much I miss you, not only when I 
 struggle in and out of my mortal envelopes, and pump my 
 nightly potation, and no longer pour into your sympathizing 
 ear my senile gossip; but all the day I muse away, almost un- 
 conscious that I am a member still of this busy house, since 
 the sound of your voice no longer rouses me to sympathy with 
 your joys or sorrows." 
 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 "You cannot know how much I miss your affectionate 
 demonstrations. At home my position is expected to be that 
 of the philosopher ; but, alas ! the expectation is rarely fulfilled. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 205 
 
 The tears of yesterday are nearly dried up, and I hope in 
 small domestic offices to fill up the days to come. Beans and 
 stockings will come in to aid, and then there is one bright 
 spot, — Lizzie Simmons will still hold on ; and you can imagine 
 how satisfactory it will be to listen to Tacitus, a pleasure con- 
 nected with days long gone by. Humble offices will while 
 away the longest day when devoted to love or duty, and the 
 prospect of seeing you will be like the star in the east, to 
 which I shall look like the shepherds of old. There is often 
 nowadays a solitude of the heart which nothing can fill ex- 
 cept your image; but, as that is still encircled with a halo of 
 soft and sweet enjoyment, it ought to be as satisfactory at 
 least as the reality — that is, yourself — sweeping or sewing, for 
 the old house." 
 
 " G.'s letter of yesterday shows that he is disabused of his 
 first notion, — that the war is to be set down to some mistake 
 or mismanagement on the part of the President. It is strange 
 to hear him talk of joining the army. The Northern enthusi- 
 asm gives me a new idea of the love of country as an idea 
 realized. Who could have dreamed a year ago of political 
 cabals, private interests, ' hunkerdom,' as Carlyle would call 
 it, merged in one grand stream of men and money uniting to 
 preserve the Union ? I neither know nor care for politics in 
 any form, and yet I am drawn into the vortex." 
 
 [June, 1 86 1.] 
 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 " The weekly bulletin due from my den will be delayed 
 till Monday on account of Ezra's patriotism. We received 
 a message from him that on Friday he should appear at the 
 Old Manse with his company, and should expect plenty of 
 lemonade and a hearty welcome. They marched up, as the 
 Fitchburg Railroad was not patriotic enough to bring them 
 gratis ; arrived about twelve o'clock at Concord Square, found 
 
2o6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 an entertainment provided for them gratis at the town hall, to 
 which the two families contributed cake and pies. Emma, as 
 usual, was ready with sandwiches and other dainties. After 
 the repast was cheering, and Ezra introduced John Garrison* 
 to them and explained his relation to Concord and himself, 
 and so John got an extra cheer. Then they moved to the Mon- 
 ument, followed, of course, by men, women, and children. 
 There George Brooks welcomed them with a patriotic address. 
 We went through the orchard and looked over the wall. 
 After the speech was over and a salute returned, they leaped 
 over the wall and marched through the high grass, through 
 the entry, and out of the front door, where they were treated 
 to plenty of lemonade. Then Ezra showed them the minia- 
 tures of the fathers and grandfathers of the Revolution, and, 
 after a tremendous noise which they called a military salute, 
 they turned their faces homeward, to march as far as Lexing- 
 ton, and ride from there to Boston. Ezra expressed his grati- 
 tude for the entertainment, and seemed not at all disposed to 
 give up his purpose. To me it seemed anything but a merry 
 meeting. I am no Spartan mother. — I am looking forward to 
 Phoebe's vacation. It is now the great event of the week to 
 look for her on Saturday. I have not had the sick headache 
 so much as usual since I gave up tea for wine, but I cannot 
 understand why I am available for so little in the way of walk- 
 ing or working as I was a year ago." 
 
 " We are sweeping and garnishing your room for Harriet. f 
 I look forward to her coming to mingle my tears with hers, 
 for it is heresy here to be sad about the war. How undevel- 
 oped a race must be that cannot settle its affairs except by 
 blood and murder! War seems to me no better than legalized 
 
 * A colored man, who had been for many years a servant of the family, and 
 who was a much-esteemed citizen of Concord. 
 f The wife of her son Ezra. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 207 
 
 murder. But women do not know much, and their opinion 
 is only worth that much. 
 
 " I hope you will not be discouraged by hard times : the 
 hardest seem to me to be the loss of great and good men. I 
 am regarded at home as a regular ' croak.' " 
 
 " Harriet is spending the week with us. Her cheerful self- 
 sacrifice to Ezra's convictions raises her much in my esteem ; 
 he, is her idol, and I shudder to think of the chances of war 
 in her behalf. He seems to have enough to do for his fellow- 
 beings, and to enjoy his work." 
 
 " Sept. — If anything can wake me from the nightmare of 
 war, it is a letter in your handwriting. I have just now es- 
 caped from my room, beneath the window of which the boys 
 are gathering grapes ; Will is in his dancing suit, as he makes 
 his debut in the art so important to the young man when he 
 is attracted into the magic circle of grace and beauty ; he has 
 resisted manfully, but is obliged to surrender at last ; he has 
 appeared in his best suit, but cannot resist a bite at the grapes, 
 notwithstanding many premonitory admonitions. We are act- 
 ually buried beneath pears and apples. We cannot find barrels 
 or baskets to receive them ; and our neighbors are in the same 
 predicament. I believe Lizzy begins to see her way through 
 them by her administrative and philanthropic skill. 
 
 " I can no longer aid the household labors by paring apples, 
 as my fingers have made a stand : so I withdraw my dimin- 
 ished head, and give myself up to study, — study, I say, for 
 ordinary reading soon ends in ennui or gaping. I am now in 
 close conflict with a Spanish singing girl, to whom I am often 
 obliged to nod instead of an answer. I was right glad to 
 know that you are shaking hands with your old friends again. 
 I would quote Cicero if I could do it correctly, ' Hccc studio, 
 juventutem dclcctant' etc., — but you can find the sentence. 
 
208 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 How pleasant it must be for you that James's tendencies are 
 in the same direction ! I always count upon spurring up my 
 drowsing faculties by a visit at Milton." 
 
 " Things go on as usual. I am always anxious about events, 
 and make mountains out of mole-hills. Like the philosopher 
 in Rasselas, I shall imagine by and by that I have a responsi- 
 bility about the motions of the heavenly bodies. To drive 
 off hobgoblins I have taken to reading Spanish, and have de- 
 feated Belisarius and plunged into a real Spanish tale. What 
 a vista ! — a whole new language ! Mrs. Goodwin likes to hear 
 reading, so I read French novels to her and all the war mat- 
 ters, while she knits and sews for the soldiers, — and comfort 
 my conscience in that way for my shortcomings. 
 
 "This fearful, destructive war clouds my horizon, not so 
 much for what I have at stake as for what seem to me the 
 horrible results of massacre and pillage. I sit in my solitary 
 chamber 'and count the ghastly phantoms as they pass.' " 
 
 [Nov. 1 86 1.] 
 " A terrific night, rain pouring, windows rattling, but Lizzie 
 is up to all occasions, and I feel as safe under her patrol as if 
 it were a regular night-guard. Uncle George and Arly* still 
 cry hallelujah for the war, but such a sad tale as that of young 
 Putnamf and his desolate mother breaks my heart. Oh for 
 a lodge in some vast wilderness, far from the echo of human 
 sorrow ! I wish this sad topic had not darkened this page to 
 you, for the thought of you and your happy home is my star 
 by night. . . . Yesterday the boys set forth with their guns, 
 but it rained, and they returned to seek entertainment, quilt- 
 ing balls in my chamber. I contributed old stockings, and 
 they quilted each a ball, which destroyed two hours at least 
 of the enemy." 
 
 * The children's word for " Aunt Lizzie," — Miss Elizabeth Ripley, 
 f William Lowell Putnam, killed at Ball's Bluff, October 21, 1861. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 209 
 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 " I have just returned from my walk round the square this 
 splendid morning, and, now that I have recovered breath, 
 propose to devote the next hour to you. I was, or rather am, 
 afraid that you will think I have forgotten you after such a 
 blank in the line of correspondence ; but my army friends 
 have written me long letters, and they are far off and plead 
 earnestly for home news. Charles * especially writes long and 
 interesting letters, with ever and anon a flower or a weed un- 
 like what he has seen at home, and asks for its name or that 
 of its family. We shall soon lose Gore, and I am sad to think 
 how long it may be before I see him again." 
 
 " It is long since I have held converse with you, yet the 
 thought of you is my Ave and my Vigile, — with answering 
 letters from my army friends and mending stockings for both 
 houses, not to mention the additions to Gore's outfit for Min- 
 nesota. Yesterday I bade him a sad adieu, for age is naturally 
 foreboding. I cannot now imagine any errand which can 
 bring him home for many a day. He left us for Washington, 
 where he hopes to catch a glimpse of Charles. We get 
 letters almost every week from Charles or Ezra. E. says, in 
 his letter of Oct. 22d, ' Everything now looks like fighting 
 in good earnest. In addition to some fifty ships of war and 
 transports already in our harbor, to-day saw the arrival of 
 ten more steamboats loaded down with troops, making an ad- 
 dition of some ten thousand to the ten thousand here before. 
 And the busy signaling from ship to ship, the noise of the 
 steam as it is constantly kept up on board, the frequent shrill 
 whistle and the active plying of the tugs, all tell us that an 
 expedition is soon to start in earnest. 'f 
 
 * Charles F. Simmons, then Adjutant-General of the Fourteenth Massachusetts 
 Regiment, stationed at Fort Albany near Washington. 
 
 j- This was the expedition to Port Royal which sailed from Fortress Monroe, 
 at the end of October, 1861. 
 
 14 
 
2io WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 " Did you see in the report of the last defeat the familiar 
 names of several of our old scholars and acquaintances? I 
 am sad over the loss of lives of so much worth. They fill my 
 day and night dreams." 
 
 " Mrs. G. is coming to spend Sunday. Lizzie says we shall 
 not sympathize in our feeling toward England, for she is angry 
 and I am grieved. England is to me as a vindictive parent 
 to whom I owe so much that I could make almost any sacri- 
 fice. I have been from my earliest remembrance fed from her 
 table with the choicest dainties of literature and science. The 
 noble blood of her patriots and martyrs flows in my veins ; and 
 nothing that their descendants can do will cancel the debt. 
 
 " I am writing in my little den lighted by the midday sun, 
 which is shining brighter and brighter every day, foretelling 
 bursting blossoms and singing birds. I wonder if my first 
 experience of a morning in Concord can ever be repeated, 
 — the bright river which I welcomed as my own, the trees 
 covered with chattering blackbirds, good as rooks, the feeling 
 that I had at last a home. What a home indeed it has been to 
 me, which I would not exchange for all that wealth or art 
 have to offer !" 
 
 " This year with the war is to bring a new era in Christmas- 
 presents. The boys are to have their money and spend it as 
 they please. I think we shall be allowed to sleep quietly in 
 our beds till daylight at least. Yet I cannot but regret the 
 childish pleasure of unexpected surprises and noisy salutes, 
 and eager desires to see and show. Youth and manhood 
 have their joys likewise, but the spectre of distrust and dis- 
 appointment is too often in the rear. 
 
 " I am much obliged to James for the nice edition of the 
 Greek plays. We have not yet read these. They are much 
 better as to type than mine. Mr. Sanborn is still faithful to 
 Monday readings." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 2JI 
 
 " Charles has come from Detroit, with a cough and the re- 
 mains of intermittent fever, and is about to try a voyage to 
 # osome one of the West India islands, to escape our trying 
 spring. How glad I am that he can call this house his home 
 whenever he needs the affection and comforts of one! He 
 seems to me like a brother." 
 
 The reference in this letter is to Charles F. Simmons, the 
 brother of Mrs. Ripley's son-in-law, and the last survivor of 
 the family. Having entered the army, he had been obliged 
 to go to a Western State, and afterwards to the West Indies, 
 in search of health. The vessel in which he sailed — on Feb- 
 ruary 25, 1862, — was never heard from.* 
 
 In the next mention of this friend, she says, — 
 " There is a cloud over this house, for you know how long 
 it is since there has been any news of Charles. Will it not 
 be sad if the waves have closed over the last of this talented 
 and attractive family? I can say, with King David, ' Very 
 pleasant hast thou been to me.' I shall never see his place 
 filled or look back on any like association." 
 
 [April, 1862.] 
 
 " Yesterday was Fast-day, and, to my surprise and delight, 
 Mr. Hedge came. It was so good to have him come of his 
 own accord. I never saw him look better ; but it was sad that 
 I was the only one left to greet him, except E." 
 
 " May, 1S62. 
 
 "This fine morning is sad for those of us who sympathize 
 with the friends of Henry Thoreau the philosopher and the 
 woodman. He had his reason to the last, and talked with his 
 friends pleasantly, and arranged his affairs, and at last passed 
 in quiet sleep from this state of duty and responsibility to that 
 
 * A sketch of Mr. Simmons is found in the first volume of the " Harvard 
 Memorial Biographies." 
 
212 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 which is behind the veil. His funeral service is to be at the 
 church, and Mr. Emerson is to make an address. 
 
 " How pleasant it is to see the promise of the coming year! 
 The children are crazy as usual about anemones and violets, 
 and glasses are filled to a surfeit. They never look so pretty 
 as in their own first habitat, where nature has had the arranging 
 of them. 
 
 " I have had George Sand's autobiography, — to me well 
 worth readincr." 
 
 " I went to the post-office, and when I got home I found 
 Dr. Francis on his annual visit. In the evening we were all 
 together in the red parlor, and there was much laughing and 
 talking of the young people. At last he fell back on me, as 
 I had toled him by the mention of Leibnitz which Mr. Hedge 
 has lately sent me, and into the depths of which I am about 
 to dive, for want of smaller fish nearer the surface. 
 
 " To-morrow is the last day of school, and Mary is to give 
 the girls a dancing-party, if she can get a violinist, as our old 
 one is too patriotic to play in war time." 
 
 " Last evening we took tea in the kitchen, Lizzy, M., and I. 
 It seemed like primeval days, when we turned our back upon 
 the boys and winged our way to Concord. Did not we revel 
 in freedom, and washing dishes ?" 
 
 " Friendships which were the light of that dreary passage 
 of constant labor and homesick boys. But you do not like 
 to have me speak so of a home which health and freedom 
 made happy to you, and of petty trials which now seem to me 
 a cheap price for my Concord abode of freedom and rest for 
 what remains to me of life and hope." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 213 
 
 " E. is resolved that M. B. shall pronounce German right, 
 and will no doubt succeed, in spite of resistance. There is 
 nothing that I regret more than the want of that accomplish- 
 ment ; but self-education is not favorable thereto." 
 
 [Oct. or Nov., 1862.] 
 " Gore's communications are not very exhilarating. He 
 wishes he were in the army ; would be willing to go as a pri- 
 vate in Ezra's company, but feels obliged to stay where he is. 
 The Indians in the country where he is, have taken advantage 
 of the war to ravage the neighborhood. They have, he says, 
 murdered hundreds of women and children." 
 
 " Harriet sent us Ezra's last letter. He is stationed at Har- 
 per's Ferry, where the Fury laid the first egg of this dire war. 
 There seems to be quiet now, but all the interim is ' like a 
 phantasma or a hideous dream' to me. With what bright 
 sunny days nature shines on this blood-stained earth! I am 
 looking forward to your promised visit, and hope for a day or 
 two at least to look on a brighter side of things. I go as usual 
 one or two days in the week to reconnoitre Mary's stocking- 
 basket. She gets but little time to sew, and is glad of a lift. 
 
 " Lizzie Simmons with her Latin and Greek fills an hour or 
 so. I never nod in the presence of Homer and Tacitus. 
 
 " We have been reading a book of very interesting travels 
 in the interior of Africa, a subject in which I did not think I 
 ever could take any interest, but this traveling object was 
 natural science, and the stories of African life and manners we 
 have found very agreeable, besides having made acquaintance 
 with full-grown and baby gorillas, not to mention other sin- 
 gular animals as well as plants." 
 
 In these days, however, friends came and went, as of old. 
 She says, " Lizzy keeps the hinges of the old doors still bright. 
 
14 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 I never could have believed that she would have made the old 
 house such a place of resort for such a variety of guests, and 
 assort them so well together." 
 
 "We did not expect our visitors, but Lizzy is inexhaustible 
 in resources; her larder is never failing in dainties of some 
 sort and served with the best grace." 
 
 [January, 1863.] 
 " To see your dear image is next to seeing your dear self. 
 It does not quite come up to the mark, but it is very good, 
 and I shall treasure it among the other shadows of the beloved 
 ones from whose realities the waves of time are fast removing 
 me. I wish I could see your dear mother and yourself, but I 
 have no spirits left for visiting in these dreadful days of anxiety 
 and destruction. How generous Gam's contribution to Ezra 
 was! If he knew how much I thought of it, he would need 
 no thanks. ... I was alone all day at Milton the day of 
 Sidney Willard's funeral,* and sad indeed it was. We should 
 not mourn so, if lives did not seem thrown away by mis- 
 management and mistakes." 
 
 " My dear Sophy, — 
 
 " How kind you were to write me such an interesting ac- 
 count of your whereabout and what you were doing, at such 
 a busy time ! I know your energy and zeal for labor at home 
 and abroad. I must tell you about my present from Abby 
 Francis. She wrote to ask which of her father's books I 
 should like, as she wished me to have a choice. She has sent 
 
 * Sidney Willard, the son of old and valued friends of Mrs. Ripley, was 
 killed in battle at Fredericksburg, in December, 1S62. He was Major of the 
 Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, and was in command of it at the time 
 of his death. A sketch of him is given in the first volume of the " Harvard 
 Memorial Biographies." 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY 
 
 215 
 
 me an elegant set of Plato, with other valuable books. I 
 never dreamed of such a present. The old books on the 
 shelf have descended, and my eyes rest with such delight on 
 the visions of the immortal Greek that perchance I may 
 forget my mission in this modern world. If I dreamed of 
 the old inspired one, it was in a rusty garb, moth-eaten ; but 
 in such gilt and bright apparel I shall be unwilling to have 
 unconsecrated hands placed upon him. 
 
 " Orisons ascend daily for those nearer and dearer to whom 
 I am so much indebted. I have but one ardent wish, that I 
 may see the object of your care and kindness* worthy and 
 grateful for what you have done for him. The sun is so bright 
 that Davy's flowers are basking in it at my window. The little 
 orange-bush still puts forth new leaves. Ask him if he will 
 not some day refresh grandma's old eyes with a sight of his 
 handwriting. I hope he is a good boy. 
 
 " I read Fanny'sf letter this morning with much pleasure. 
 No one can know how dear she is to me. I hailed with great 
 joy her mother's advent, tended and watched over her feeble 
 childhood, and closed her eyes in death. Now I have nothing 
 to do but think of those who are gone. 'My brothers, where 
 are they? and the prophets, do they live forever?' But dear 
 ones still are left: if I could insure their happiness I would 
 ask for nothing more. 
 
 " Don't think I am sad beyond measure; far from it, in this 
 sunny room, with David's nursery of plants before my sunny 
 window, and in my mind his happy home. Sunday is no 
 longer a bugbear; I am not listening to hear what he is doing 
 or where he is wandering that he should not. I am sure I 
 can never repay James or yourself for making such a change 
 in his present environment and future prospects. 
 
 " Tell Davy his flowers flourish, and the little rose-bush, so 
 unwilling to yield to the sweet influences of the light from my 
 
 * David Loring, the son of her daughter Ann. 
 
 f The daughter of her sister Margaret, now Mrs. Francis Howland, of Engle- 
 wood, New Jersey. 
 
2i6 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 sunny window, has at last sent forth six new leaves, small, to 
 be sure, but precursors of future beauty. 
 
 " I hope he gives you no more trouble than the name boy 
 necessarily carries with it." 
 
 " I arrived home safely on Saturday, I cannot say with joy, 
 for the image of the dear little boy behind, and the long time 
 I might be without him, filled my mind. I hope he will not 
 forget me. 
 
 " Mr. Sanborn more than keeps us up in books. He brought 
 a story by De Foe, — ' Colonel Jack,' — the most melancholy 
 picture you can conceive of the suffering of poor neglected 
 beings, who beg or steal from their earliest years, know no 
 parents, sleep in glass-houses buried in warm ashes, have no 
 companions better off than themselves, and yet a vital spark 
 of principle innate, or rather sympathy, keeps them from utter 
 ruin. 
 
 " What should I do without books in these latter days ? 
 'Nam cetera neque temporum sunt ncquc cctatum omnium, ncque 
 locorum. At Jicec studia adolcsccntiam alunt, senectutcm oblcc- 
 lant, secundas res ornant, adversis pcrfugium ac solatium prcz- 
 bent ; delectant domi, non impcdiunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, 
 percgrinantur, rusticantur.' So says Cicero, and I subscribe ; 
 and so will you, if you live to be old and feel lonely." 
 
 " You cannot think how I miss David in these bright days. 
 The other day at noon I looked out of the window and saw 
 the ridge of the barn covered entirely with a row of doves. 
 They seemed as if they had come to inquire for their old 
 master and ask why the usual treat of corn was no longer 
 there." 
 
 " Mr. Sanborn came to see me last night. He is faithful to 
 his old friends, and I look for Mr. Channing with a new book 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 217 
 
 every day. The Don still continues my chief resource. I 
 am far advanced in the third volume, and can read quite well, 
 — that is, to myself. I wish I knew how to pronounce it. I 
 am quite proud to add it to French and Italian, and have 
 some insight into the wit, which is considered so rare. It is 
 narrated in the life of Pope, that a gentleman was advised by 
 a nobleman to study the Spanish language, and when the 
 said gentleman reported his progress, instead of being ap- 
 pointed to some mission, as he expected, he received for his 
 answer that he envied him the pleasure of reading Don Quix- 
 ote in the original. Those who read to kill time are not sub- 
 jected to such disappointments. 
 
 " Mr. Sanborn announced his determination to give up his 
 school last night when he came to read with me. He is to 
 join Mr. Conway in editing a paper. We are all very sorry 
 to lose him." 
 
 There is no letter of Mrs. Ripley's which makes any 
 express reference to the death of her youngest son, Ezra, in 
 the war, in the summer of 1863. Painful as that event was 
 to her, she seemed to lose the thought of her own sorrow 
 in grieving over that of her daughter-in-law, childless and 
 now a widow. The body of her son was brought home, and 
 lies buried in the Concord cemetery.* 
 
 " I am looking forward in the hope of seeing Gore once 
 more, and imagining him in a happy home for the future. I 
 have but one hope left, — that I may not survive all who are 
 dear to me. I wish I could discuss with you divers questions 
 on the subject of Gore's wedding.f I think I shall go, when- 
 ever and wherever it is, though I risk taking cold, and brave 
 fashion in my apparel. Concord is awake, as usual at this 
 
 * A sketch of Ezra Ripley is given in the first volume of the " Harvard 
 Memorial Biographies." 
 
 f Mrs. Ripley's eldest son was married in December, 1863, to Mrs. Frances 
 Gage, of Boston. 
 
2i8 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 period of the year. When Mr. Sanborn got up his school he 
 founded with it an institution for collecting together a shoal 
 of agreeable young ladies, who continue to convene together 
 at this season of the year, the train lessening as time passes 
 on, thinning their number by marriage or death. 
 
 " I should write a longer answer to your note, which I was 
 so glad to get this morning, if Mr. Channing had not brought 
 me an interesting book on the fructification of flowers by in- 
 sects, which I must read." 
 
 " D. is keeping up her lessons with Uncle George. Like all 
 bright girls when they first leave school, she feels the need of 
 something to fill up the gap between the past and present. 
 The desire soon dies out with most young ones, but it is good 
 to see it and foster it while it lasts, and there is always the 
 chance and hope that it may be lasting and decide the char- 
 acter for higher aims than fashion and frivolous amusement." 
 
 At the birth of Mrs. Bradford's grandson Gamaliel, the 
 sixth of that name in the direct line from Governor William 
 Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, Mrs. Ripley writes to her 
 sister-in-law : 
 
 MRS. RIPLF.Y TO MRS. BRADFORD. 
 
 [Oct. 1863.] 
 
 " Dear Sophia, — 
 
 "Though it is Sunday morning, before church-time, I cannot 
 wait, my sympathy with you all is so earnest, to welcome the 
 dear little stranger. How proud you all must be that he has 
 hit the mark, and does not intend that the name of the first 
 emigrants for liberty and truth shall die out! Nevertheless 
 he must remember his responsibilities, likewise, for a blot on 
 his escutcheon would be worse than no escutcheon at all. I 
 shall not live, perchance, to criticise the result, but send the 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 219 
 
 best wishes of an aged aunt, to those most interested in his 
 debut and future success. I hope we shall see you all again 
 under happier auspices than these dark days have been to me." 
 
 In February, 1866, a second son was born in the household 
 at Milton, and she writes to her daughter as follows : 
 
 mrs. ripley to mrs. thayer. 
 " Dear Sophy, — 
 
 " Many a time and oft I have been homesick for the dear 
 little boy, but I did not think his place would be so soon filled 
 by another, as good and pretty, no doubt, but not the one we 
 know and love. How I wish I were not so old, that I cannot 
 help you take care of and comfort him when another has 
 taken his place ! I don't think, however, any one can take 
 his place in my heart. The new-comer is to take Ezra's name. 
 I long to see him. Ever so much hope and love from your 
 affectionate mother and to your dear husband." 
 
 At another time she writes, — 
 
 " Lizzy advises me to write to you this morning. The wind 
 is blowing so furiously that I dare not venture on a walk. 
 How I long to see the dear little boys together ! In spite of 
 predilections and disappointments as to sex, I love him al- 
 ready, and shall stand by him in spite of his dark locks. How 
 I count the hours till Concord is made rich to me by a sight 
 of the dear ones !" 
 
 In August, 1866, she made her last visit to Duxbury, the 
 home of her ancestors, and of dear friends and cousins still 
 living. She had been to Milton on the way, and wrote from 
 Duxbury to her son-in-law thus : 
 
 "Duxbury, August 15th, 1866. 
 
 " Dear James, — 
 
 " I was delighted to see the face of the dear little boy and 
 
220 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 to know that you are all safe at home and thriving. I found 
 the friends all well at Old Colony, and was received with a 
 hearty welcome. Everything looks bright and flourishing. 
 The early apples are fit for baking, and the odor of the pine- 
 cones sweet as in former days. I took a walk in the pine 
 grove near the cemetery yesterday morning, and crept down 
 the hill into a deep ravine we used to call the bowl, covered 
 with decayed leaves, where we used to play tea with acorns 
 for fairy cups : the acorns and the cups remain, but the charm 
 is gone, never to return. Nevertheless love and friendship 
 still remain, and will as long as the heart beats and those 
 that look out of the windows are not utterly darkened. I 
 hope to see you all before long, when I hope I shall be quite 
 well, and able to help you, or rather Sophy, in the care of the 
 little ones. I begin to miss Phcebe and David, and hope 
 soon to be at home to hear their story at first and not at 
 second-hand. Sarah Ellison is still at Duxbury. I have 
 made no visits as yet ; the old folks are all gone, and the 
 young ones ' know not Joseph,' but the dream of the past 
 comes up with sweet odor, and will as long as life shall last. 
 " Your affectionate mother, 
 
 "S. A. R." 
 
 Early in 1867 she began to write to her little grandson, 
 Willy, then three years old, but had written only a few lines 
 when she changed the address. The letter is as follows : 
 
 " flow we will run about and pick the fresh flowers, and 
 Gamma will tell you their names and put them in the glass 
 vases ! Now the fair days are coming, I think we shall like 
 the flowers in the field better than those in the garden ; but 
 both are beautiful in their time. If grandma wants a garden, 
 you will be willing to help her, like a kind little boy. — Dear 
 James and Sophy, I hope to be with you before long and 
 finish this romance which has given me such pleasure. You 
 cannot think how much I have enjoyed in my childish com- 
 positions : they have helped off and whiled away many a 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 221 
 
 weary hour. I am afraid I shall be very jealous when others 
 come to take their share. 
 
 " Mary is an angel of promise, and makes me as happy as 
 any old worn-out being can expect to be. 
 
 " Oh, how I count the days till the dear little fellows will 
 be here ! I have plans for their amusement. I hope they 
 will have a good time. Every day will bring a flower. How 
 pleasant.it will be to be with you and the dear ones! I shall 
 live another life. I may be childish, but there are no limits 
 to love. 
 
 " Your affectionate mother, 
 
 "S. A. R." 
 
 And with these beautiful words, ends her last letter. Grad- 
 ually failing strength brought now a short eclipse. She re- 
 mained at Concord, in the house of her daughter Mary, and 
 there, in the arms of her children, in the summer of 1867, 
 she fell asleep. Of these last days her friend Mr. Sanborn 
 has beautifully said, "At length there came a time, after many 
 shocks to her health and her affections given by bereaving 
 age, when even such unselfish pleasures were denied to this 
 sweetest of human souls. He who drops or withdraws the 
 veil at the gates of mortal life was pleased to make her re- 
 moval hence after the joys of earth had ceased to touch her 
 with delight, and when the spectacle of her affliction recon- 
 ciled those about her to the interposition of death. She has 
 carried with her beyond these shores of anguish and doubt 
 the love of a thousand friends and the enduring record of 
 well-spent days." 
 
 Five of Mrs. Ripley's children survive her, — the three oldest 
 daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Phcebe; her oldest son, Chris- 
 topher Gore, — for many years a lawyer in Minnesota, and 
 chief justice of that State at the time of his retirement from 
 business ; and her youngest daughter, Sophia. 
 
 On the stone which marks Mrs. Ripley's grave in the beau- 
 
222 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 tiful cemetery at Concord, her children placed an inscription 
 containing a part of the passage with which Tacitus ends his 
 Life of Agricola. It was a passage which was specially dear 
 to her: many of her friends will recall the fine glow of feel- 
 ing with which she has read or quoted it ; and to these it 
 will always be associated with her memory. I cannot better 
 close this imperfect sketch of her life than by giving the 
 whole of it : of no one was it ever more worthily spoken 
 than of her. The words inclosed in brackets are those which 
 are on her gravestone. 
 
 " Si quis piorum manibus locus ; si, ut sapientibus placet, 
 non cum corpore exstinguuntur magnae animae ; [placide 
 quiescas, nosque, domum tuam, ab infirmo desiderio et mulie- 
 bribus lamentis ad contemplationem virtutum tuarum voces, 
 quas neque lugeri neque plangi fas est: admiratione te potius, 
 temporalibus laudibus, et, si natura suppeditet, similitudine 
 decoremus.] Is verus honos, ea conjunctissimi cujusque pietas. 
 Id filiae quoque uxorique praeceperim, sic patris, sic mariti 
 memoriam venerari, ut omnia facta dictaque ejus secum revol- 
 vant ; famamque ac figuram animi magis quam corporis com- 
 plectantur : non quia intercedendum putem imaginibus, quae 
 marmore aut aere finguntur, sed ut vultus hominum, ita simu- 
 lacra vultus imbecilla ac mortalia sunt, forma mentis aeterna, 
 quam tenere et exprimere non per alienam materiam et artem, 
 sed tuis ipse moribus possis. Quidquid ex Agricola amavi- 
 mus, quidquid mirati sumus, manet mansurumque est in 
 animis hominum, in aeternitate temporum, fama rerum. Nam 
 multos veterum, velut inglorios et ignobiles oblivio obruet: 
 Agricola posteritati narratus et traditus superstes erit." 
 
 Out of a number of tender and appreciative notices of 
 Mrs. Ripley's death which were written at the time, it seems 
 well to add here one by Mr. R. W. Emerson, which has al- 
 ready been referred to, and another by Mr. Henry Lee, of 
 Boston, one of her old pupils, for whom she always cherished 
 a most cordial regard. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 223 
 
 Mr. Emerson's notice was printed in the Boston " Daily- 
 Advertiser" of July 31, 1867, and is as follows: 
 
 " Died in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 26th of July, 1867, 
 Mrs. Sarah Alden Ripley, aged seventy-four years. The 
 death of this lady, widely known and beloved, will be sin- 
 cerely deplored by many persons scattered in distant parts of 
 the country, who have known her rare accomplishments and 
 the singular loveliness of her character. A lineal descendant of 
 the first governor of Plymouth Colony, she was happily born 
 and bred. Her father, Gamaliel Bradford, was a sea-captain 
 of marked ability, with heroic traits which old men will still 
 remember, and though a man of action yet adding a taste 
 for letters. Her brothers, younger than herself, were scholars, 
 but her own taste for study was even more decided. At a 
 time when perhaps no other young woman read Greek, she 
 acquired the language with ease and read Plato, — adding soon 
 the advantage of German commentators. 
 
 "After her marriage, when her husband, the well-known 
 clergyman of Waltham, received boys in his house to be fitted 
 for college, she assumed the advanced instruction in Greek 
 and Latin, and did not fail to turn it to account by extending 
 her studies in the literature of both languages. It soon hap- 
 pened that students from Cambridge were put under her 
 private instruction and oversight. If the young men shared 
 her delight in the book, she was interested at once to lead 
 them to higher steps and more difficult but not less engaging 
 authors, and they soon learned to prize the new world of 
 thought and history thus opened. Her best pupils became 
 her lasting friends. She became one of the best Greek 
 scholars in the country, and continued, in her latest years, the 
 habit of reading Homer, the tragedians, and Plato. But her 
 studies took a wide range in mathematics, in natural philoso- 
 phy, in psychology, in theology, as well as in ancient and 
 modern literature. She had always a keen ear open to what- 
 ever new facts astronomy, chemistry, or the theories of light 
 and heat had to furnish. Any knowledge, all knowledge, was 
 
224 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 welcome. Her stores increased day by day. She was abso- 
 lutely without pedantry. Nobody ever heard of her learning 
 until a necessity came for its use, and then nothing could be 
 more simple than her solution of the problem proposed to 
 her. The most intellectual gladly conversed with one whose 
 knowledge, however rich and varied, was always with her 
 only the means of new acquisition. Meantime, her mind was 
 purely receptive. She had no ambition to propound a theory, 
 or to write her own name on any book, or plant, or opinion. 
 Her delight in books was not tainted by any wish to shine, 
 or any appetite for praise or influence. She seldom and un- 
 willingly used a pen, and only for necessity or affection. 
 
 "But this wide and successful study was, during all the 
 hours of middle life, only the work of hours stolen from sleep, 
 or was combined with some household task which occupied 
 the hands and left the eyes free. She was faithful to all the 
 duties of wife and mother in a well-ordered and eminently 
 hospitable household, wherein she was dearly loved, and where 
 
 ' her heart 
 Life's lowliest duties on itself did lay.' 
 
 She was not only the most amiable, but the tenderest of 
 women, wholly sincere, thoughtful for others, and, though 
 careless of appearances, submitting with docility to the better 
 arrangements with which her children or friends insisted on 
 supplementing her own negligence of dress; for her own part 
 indulging her children in the greatest freedom, assured that 
 their own reflection, as it opened, would supply all needed 
 checks. She was absolutely without appetite for luxury, or 
 display, or praise, or influence, with entire indifference to 
 trifles. Not long before her marriage, one of her intimate 
 friends in the city, whose family were removing, proposed to 
 her to go with her to the new house, and, taking some articles 
 in her own hand, by way of trial artfully put into her hand a 
 broom, whilst she kept her in free conversation on some spec- 
 ulative points, and this she faithfully carried across Boston 
 Common, from Summer Street to Hancock Street, without 
 hesitation or remark. 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 
 
 225 
 
 " Though entirely domestic in her habit and inclination, she 
 was everywhere a welcome visitor, and a favorite of society, 
 when she rarely entered it. The elegance of her tastes recom- 
 mended her to the elegant, who were swift to distinguish her 
 as they found her simple manners faultless. With her singular 
 simplicity and purity, such as society could not spoil, nor 
 much affect, she was only entertained by it, and really went 
 into it as children into a theatre, — to be diverted, — while her 
 ready sympathy enjoyed whatever beauty of person, manners, 
 or ornament it had to show. If there was conversation, if 
 there were thought or learning, her interest was commanded, 
 and she gave herself up to the happiness of the hour. 
 
 " As she advanced in life, her personal beauty, not remarked 
 in youth, drew the notice of all, and age brought no fault but 
 the brief decay and eclipse of her intellectual powers." 
 
 The following article, by Mr. Lee, appeared in the Boston 
 " Evening Transcript" of August 8, 1867 : 
 
 " The following tribute comes from one who speaks from 
 experiences which he treasures in his memory as among the 
 richest blessings of his life. There are many with like grate- 
 ful remembrances who will respond with all their hearts to his 
 every word, and thank him for giving expression to their 
 esteem and love for one who, whilst she was their teacher, 
 was also the truest and kindest of friends, — almost a mother 
 in the gentleness of her disinterested devotion to their best 
 welfare. 
 
 " ' Weep not ; she is not dead, but sleepeth.' 
 
 "And surely she needeth sleep; for if time is measured by 
 sensations, her life has been prolonged beyond the mortal 
 span ; if we consider the work accomplished, who has achieved 
 so much, for herself or for others? or if we meditate upon the 
 Christian graces, the beatitudes of meekness, purity of heart, 
 the charity which suffereth long and is kind, vaunteth not 
 itself, seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth in the 
 truth, whose character was more complete, whose spirit more 
 ready for its flight, than hers ? 
 
 15 
 
226 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 "The wife of the minister of a large country parish whose 
 parochial labor she shared, the mother of a large family, the 
 mistress of a household increased by boarding scholars, 
 neither the heavy exactions of parishioners, nor importunate 
 maternal pains and anxieties, nor household economies faith- 
 fully attended to, exhausted her: she still found time and 
 strength to devote to two or three school-boys preparing for 
 college, or more advanced students rusticated for idleness or 
 academic misdemeanors. And what a wealth of learning and 
 thought and feeling she poured out for these pupils ! Illu- 
 mined by her clear intellect, the knottiest problem was dis- 
 entangled ; embellished by such a lover of learning, the driest 
 subject was made interesting. The veriest scapegrace was 
 reduced to thoughtfulness, the most hopeless dullard caught 
 a gleam of light; her faith in their intuitions and capabilities 
 lifted them and shamed or encouraged them to efforts impos- 
 sible under another instructor ; for she did not merely impart 
 instruction, she educated all the powers of the mind and 
 heart. Many scholars now eminent can date their first glimpse 
 of the region above, their first venture upon the steep path, 
 to the loving enthusiasm, the cheering assurances, of this 
 inspired teacher and friend ; and they who fainted or strayed 
 without fulfilling her confident predictions must look back 
 with astonishment at this brilliant period of their lives and 
 regret that her influence could not have been extended over 
 a longer period. 
 
 " A mind alive to all the beauties of art and science and 
 nature, a heart which warmed to the most unpromising pupil 
 and kindled at the faintest ray of hope, naturally craved the 
 company of kindred men and women of learning and thought, 
 as they delighted in hers: this was Mrs. Ripley's true recrea- 
 tion after the toil and trouble of the day. And what pleasant 
 parties used to gather round her hospitable fireside ! what 
 ambrosial nights, fondly remembered by the privileged per- 
 sons who enjoyed them as actors or spectators ! There were, 
 probably, books she had not read, languages and sciences she 
 had not learned, but she seemed to have explored every region 
 
MRS. SAMUEL RIPLEY. 227 
 
 and to have intuitive ideas on every subject of interest. And 
 over all these gifts and acquirements was thrown a veil of 
 modesty so close that only by an impulse of sympathy or 
 enthusiasm was it ever withdrawn; with a simplicity equally 
 amusing and touching, she impressed you so little with her 
 own wonderful powers, and referred so much to your sayings 
 and doings, that you really went away wondering at your own 
 brilliancy and doubting how much you had given, how much 
 received. 
 
 " The eloquent lips are silent, the flashing eye is dull, the 
 blush of modesty has faded from the cheek, the cordial smile 
 will never again on this earth welcome the friends, old or 
 young, humble or famous, neighbors or strangers, who sought 
 this inspired presence. But the puzzled brain is clear again, 
 the heavy heart joyful, immortal youth returned. With those 
 she loved on earth she is seeing face to face what she here 
 saw darkly. 
 
 " ' Learn the mystery of progression duly ; 
 
 Do not call each glorious change decay; 
 
 But know we only hold our treasures truly 
 
 When it seems as if they passed away.' " 
 
 Elizabeth Hoar. 
 
THE WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE IN 
 THE EARLY DAYS: 
 
 WHAT THEY WERE, AND WHAT THEY DID. 
 
 " Many hamlets sought I then, 
 Many farms of mountain men. 
 Rallying round a parish steeple 
 Nestle warm the highland people, 
 Coarse and boisterous, yet mild, 
 Strong as giant, slow as child." 
 
 In looking for a New Hampshire woman, of the early days, 
 who shall furnish the subject of a biographical sketch to 
 stand as a type of the womanhood of the State, one is dis- 
 heartened at the outset by the extreme meagreness of the 
 record. Yet it is of these women of the early days that one is 
 most strongly moved to write, since they have left their mark 
 on the places and times in which they lived, as their descend- 
 ants have not had the opportunity, even if they had the ability, 
 to do. A few incidents, here and there, are all that can be 
 found, treasured up, for the most part, in the memories of the 
 older people; but these all tell the same story, and, taken 
 together, furnish an impressive picture of a group of faithful, 
 helpful wives, and devoted, often heroic, mothers. 
 
 These are, emphatically, the roles they played. The " spirit 
 of service" was never more fully developed. They seem to 
 have had a positive genius for self-sacrifice, and it is as they 
 impressed themselves on the children who came after them 
 that their biography is best written. 
 
 One who looks at all into the history of New Hampshire 
 
 cannot fail to notice how large a part of the fair fame of this 
 
 229 
 
230 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY 
 
 small State, derived as it is from the noticeably large number 
 of great men who have gone out from it, is a direct inheritance 
 from the mothers. 
 
 In the histories of New Hampshire one must read between 
 the lines to find the women. Indeed, it very soon becomes 
 impossible not to so read ; for when one finds that " every able- 
 bodied man in the town of Peterborough, New Hampshire, on 
 the 19th day of April, 1775, was at the rendezvous at ten 
 o'clock in the morning, with such arms as he might happen 
 to have [Tom McCoy had a flail, with which "to give the 
 Britishers a literal threshing"], ready to march to Lexington," 
 one can but ask who was to do all the men's work, in this 
 land of toil, during their absence. Who, indeed, but the 
 women ? 
 
 The testimony of one who is an authority in matters of 
 New Hampshire history is that " none of the women were 
 conspicuous, and all were faithful." Perhaps, in these days, 
 one may be pardoned for thinking that the womanhood of a 
 State where none were " conspicuous" is sufficiently distin- 
 guished, without the crowning tribute that " all were faithful." 
 A daughter of the State, a little anxious, perhaps, for the 
 credit of these silent but heroic toilers, raises her voice to 
 remind us that " those are the best women of whom nothing 
 is reported." Judged by this standard the women of New 
 Hampshire were pre-eminent. Another one writes, — but this 
 is a scoffer, — "The chapter on the distinguished women of New 
 Hampshire is likely to resemble the celebrated chapter on the 
 snakes of Iceland : ' There are no snakes in Iceland' !" 
 
 Judge Fowler writes of them, " The women cast bullets for 
 their husbands, sons, or brothers to carry to Bunker Hill ; and 
 throughout the Revolution the women carried on the farms, 
 cut and hauled the wood, and 'kept the wolf from the door.'" 
 This last statement is emphasized by the record of the wife 
 of one Ebenezer Cobb, of Dublin, New Hampshire, who de- 
 fended her precious pig from the assault of a bear, by means 
 of a broom, with which she belabored the beast, calling for 
 help the while in a truly feminine and ladylike manner ; but — 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 23 1 
 
 let women not fail to testify — she drove the bear away before 
 help (men) arrived. 
 
 From this same Dublin the dauntless wife of William 
 Greenwood set out one morning in winter with a half-bushel 
 of corn, in a bag, over her shoulder, and walked on snow-shoes 
 through the woods, guided by marked trees, to Peterborough, 
 where the corn was ground, and whence she returned the 
 same day, — sixteen miles ! It is of a native of this picturesque 
 and romantic part of the State that one has written, "to him 
 was natural the mountaineer's freedom of thought, and a hill- 
 side species of worship." It could hardly be otherwise with 
 people who dwelt, like these, under the very brow of " the 
 grand Monadnock," of which Starr King writes, "it would feel 
 prouder than Mont Blanc, or the frost-sheeted Chimborazo, or 
 the topmost spire of the Himalaya, if it could know that the 
 genius of Emerson had made it the noblest mountain in 
 literature." 
 
 " Ages are thy days, 
 Thou grand affirmer of the present tense, 
 And type of permanence ! 
 Firm ensign of the fatal Being, 
 Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, 
 That will not bide the seeing ! 
 
 " Hither we bring 
 
 Our insect miseries to the rocks ; 
 
 And the whole flight, with pestering wing, 
 
 Vanish, and end their murmuring, — 
 
 Vanish beside these dedicated blocks, 
 
 Which who can tell what mason laid? 
 
 ********* 
 " Complement of human kind, 
 
 Having us at vantage still, 
 
 Our sumptuous indigence, 
 
 O barren mound, thy plenties fill! 
 
 We fool and prate; 
 
 Thou art silent and sedate." 
 
 Most highlanders will claim that their mountains have a 
 language of their own, teaching lessons understood fully only 
 by their own children. If the poet is right in his reading, it 
 
232 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 may be truly said of the women of New Hampshire that they 
 early learned their lessons, and "by heart" 
 
 Dr. Holmes sums up the lessons learned of the hills, in this 
 wise : 
 
 " Dumb patience in trouble, persistent fortitude against ob- 
 stacles, the triumphant power of character, rooted in truth, over 
 the hardships of life and wrath of the world." 
 
 A worthy descendant of one of these well-taught moun- 
 taineers writes, " Both my grandmothers were heroines. I 
 think so because they lived in the wilds of New Hampshire 
 and were always loyal to their country and their God." 
 " They lived in the wilds of New Hampshire !" One must 
 know what this means, to have any just appreciation of these 
 women. This was the land where the mercury fell to thirty- 
 odd degrees below zero, where a bucket of water, standing in 
 the chimney-corner, froze solid during the night, and where 
 the mothers of the great men of the future were wont to step 
 out of their beds of a morning into a picturesque little snow- 
 drift which had sifted in through the crevices of the log house 
 during the night. Here, also, withering frosts lasted into 
 June and began again in September. Life to the women of 
 New Hampshire in the early days, the mothers, often, of from 
 ten to twenty children, was one long self-sacrifice, often a 
 ceaseless struggle for existence, as for the preservation and, 
 mirabile dictu ! the education of their children. Who shall 
 say that they were not heroines, to live in such a land, in 
 such days, loyal to conscience and keeping alive always the 
 noblest aspirations for, not themselves, but their children? 
 They were very old-fashioned in their notions, these women 
 of New Hampshire. They went away back to very old and 
 very high authority for their belief in the doctrine that he 
 who would be greatest should be the servant of all. 
 
 A well-known New England woman of distinguished men- 
 tal gifts, whose heart is as strong as her head, has said that 
 the only desire she ever had for the right to vote came from 
 an ambition to strengthen the hands of her husband. This 
 woman was born a hundred years too late. She belongs to 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 233 
 
 1776, with those women of New Hampshire whose whole 
 lives were passed in strengthening the hands of their men ; 
 forever in the background themselves, but sending to the 
 front sons wortby of the mothers that bore them. There was 
 no such thing as comfort for any of these people in these 
 days ; least of all for the mothers. The days were filled with 
 toil ; poverty stood always at the door, as well as occasional 
 Indians, — " that thorn in the flesh to the Puritan," as Mr. 
 Parkman says ; wild beasts of the forest were not strangers to 
 them ; accompanying all of which, and intensifying all forms 
 of hardship and suffering, was the dreadful, pitiless, almost 
 interminable cold. One sympathizes with Starr King when 
 writing of the White Mountain people, — those who had wan- 
 dered " into the more lonely aisles and the side chapels of 
 the grand cathedral district of New Hampshire," — he says : 
 
 "When there was so much land within the bounds of civil- 
 ization already unoccupied and unclaimed, what could have 
 induced families eighty years ago to move from a great dis- 
 tance in order to colonize the banks of the Ellis River, etc. ? 
 The very horses of the settlers on the Bartlett meadows in 
 1777 would not stay, but struck over the hills due south, in 
 the direction of Lee, from which they had been taken. They 
 all perished in the forest before the succeeding spring." 
 
 Mr. King's picture of Ethan Crawford and his wife Lucy 
 is so striking an illustration of what seems to have been the 
 
 mission of all New Hampshire women in the early days 
 
 to rear or sustain men — that a part of it must be given 
 here. 
 
 "This Jotun of the mountains," Mr. King calls him, "whose 
 life furnishes most vivid suggestions of the closest tug of man 
 with nature, of rare courage and muscle against frost and gale, 
 granite and savageness." 
 
 Pie was a giant in point of size and strength, nearly seven 
 feet in height, and could lift five hundred weight into a boat, 
 carry home a live buck on his back, or catch a load of hay on 
 his shoulder, to save it from toppling over a precipice ; and 
 yet he was a helpless baby without his wife Lucy. A deli- 
 
234 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 cate woman, but the source of all the moral strength of this 
 Hercules, Lucy's home at first was a rough log house, having 
 a stone chimney, " in which, during the cold spells of winter, 
 more than a cord of wood was burned in twenty-four hours." 
 " Ethan's life," says Mr. King, " was perpetually set in re- 
 markable contrasts. From struggles with wild-cats in the 
 forests of Cherry Mountain to the society of his patient, faith- 
 ful, pious wife, was a distance as wide as can be indicated on 
 the planet. Mount Washington looked down into his un- 
 couth domicile, and saw there 
 
 • Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart.' 
 
 " Lucy taught him how to meet calamity without despair 
 or repining. When his house burned down and left them no 
 property but one cheese and the milk of the cows, his wife, 
 though sick, was not despondent. When his debts pressed 
 heavy and he staggered under difficulties as he never did under 
 the heaviest load in the forest, she assured him that Provi- 
 dence had some wise purpose in their trouble. When his 
 crops were swept off and his meadows filled with sand by 
 freshets, Lucy's courage was not crushed. He knocked down 
 a swaggering bully once on a muster-field in Lancaster, and 
 was obliged to promise Lucy that he would never give way 
 to an angry passion again. When death invaded their house- 
 hold and his own powerful frame was so shaken by disease and 
 pain that a flash of lightning, as he said, seemed to run from 
 his spine to the ends of his hair, his wife's religious patience 
 and trust proved an undrainable cordial. And after he be- 
 came weakened by sickness, if he stayed out long after dark 
 Lucy would take a lantern and go into the woods to search 
 for him. He was put into jail, at last, for debt, as was the 
 barbarous custom in those days in other States besides New 
 Hampshire. Lucy wrote a pleading letter to his chief creditor, 
 but without effect. ' This,' said Ethan, ' forced me, in the jail, 
 to reflect on human nature, and it overcame me so that I was 
 obliged to call for the advice of a physician and a nurse.' " 
 
 It is evident that Lucy was not at hand now ! 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 235 
 
 " Other forms of adversity befell him, and he left the plateau 
 at the base of Mount Washington, at last, accompanied by 
 Lucy, whose faith did not allow her to murmur." 
 
 We are told that this tamer of wild beasts had an absolute 
 passion for flowers, and that he liked to collect " the rare 
 Alpine plants from the snowy edges of the ravines on the 
 ridge, where, he used to say, nature had put them ' according 
 to their merits.' " 
 
 Is this the influence of the refining hand of Lucy ? Or is 
 not, rather, the selection of Lucy — herself a typical Alpine 
 plant, with her sweet purity, combined with a pleasant whole- 
 someness and stoutness of heart which fears not winter 
 weather, and which comes of being rooted on a rock — a 
 proof that this vein of tenderness was inherent ? 
 
 There might have been seen in some of the New Hamp- 
 shire farm-houses, even within the memory of this generation, 
 a few lingering representatives of the heroic women of the 
 early days, or those upon whom their mantles had fallen. A 
 certain fine scorn of physical comfort, together with a lofty 
 but patient toleration of their men, to whom they considered 
 indulgence as " natural," always characterized them, together 
 with great reverence for the Almighty, for " his word" and for 
 the works of his hand, as became dwellers among the ever- 
 lasting hills, and — perhaps the most distinguishing trait of all, 
 when one remembers the surroundings — an intense, undying 
 respect, a positive hunger and thirst, for education. 
 
 They " took comfort" — poor creatures ! they had to take 
 it by force, as they obtained everything else — in overcoming 
 all obstacles presented by fate, or overworked and discouraged 
 husbands, in the way of sending the boys to school and to 
 college. One boy, at least, must go. They begged and en- 
 treated, and finally insisted upon the privilege of having a little 
 less food, a little more work, a little less clothing (in that cli- 
 mate !), that the boys might have an education. Can we un- 
 derstand a little, now, why there were giants in those days ? 
 These are some of the sons, — Wentworth, Langdon, Stark, 
 Cilley, Jeremiah Smith, the Sullivans, the Bells, the Masons, 
 
236 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Daniel Webster and his brother, Cass, Chase, the great Dr. 
 Amos Twitchell (leading a secluded life, but whom Dr. 
 Bowditch calls " one of the most exalted members of my 
 profession :" " an aboriginal Christian" he names him), Amos 
 Kendall, the Bartletts, Horace Greeley, the saintly Peabodys, 
 and the poet Bryant. Many more there are. " Verily by 
 their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 There was nobody to write about these women. The pen 
 was not mightier than the sword just then and there : indeed, 
 the picture of a woman in the act of writing a neat little 
 account of her own heroism would hardly move one, even 
 now, when greatness seems, somehow, inseparably connected 
 with a pen, as contrasted with another, sitting at that restless 
 spinning-wheel, with resolute eyes fixed on the long thread, 
 and feeling that, within her, which transforms it into a mighty 
 cable strong enough to lift her boy to almost any height 
 among the great and the good. It is not the lack of heroic 
 women among the rocks and forests of New Hampshire, 
 which makes it so hard to find one of whom to write a bio- 
 graphy, but it is much like the search for the native " May 
 flower." One must go over rough roads, on to barren hill- 
 sides, through snow and ice perhaps, to a poverty of soil 
 where nothing else will consent to live, and there they are 
 indeed, but held to their places by a stem tough as a relentless 
 purpose, and one has to turn over hundreds of ugly brown 
 leaves to hunt them out of their hiding-places, where they are 
 content forever to abide, filling the pine woods with what a 
 child of New Hampshire might perhaps be allowed to call "an 
 odor of sanctity." 
 
 It is true that there were living at Portsmouth, even one 
 hundred years ago, many distinguished and elegant people. 
 They were surpassed by none of their compatriots in their 
 devotion, or in the value of their service to the country. The 
 beautiful old houses still adorn those quiet, charming streets, 
 and it is most satisfactory to find many of them still occupied 
 by the direct descendants of the original owners. This is not 
 the place for a description of them; but it is hard to resist the 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 237 
 
 temptation to say a few words of that enchanting relic known 
 now as the Sherburne House, which was built in 17 18 by- 
 Alexander McPheaderis, and inherited by his daughter, Mrs. 
 Molly Warner, whose christening-blanket of cloth of gold 
 still lies in undisturbed folds of dignified magnificence under 
 this protecting roof, and whose portrait by Copley hangs on 
 the identical nail where it was placed at least one hundred and 
 twenty-five years ago, vis-a-vis to the counterfeit presentment 
 of her stately mother by the same master's hand. One feels 
 constrained to walk through this house, up and down the fine 
 staircase, hat in hand, doing reverence; and even after the 
 massive old oak door is passed and closed, with its great bull's- 
 eye lights overhead, and its brass latch which only the initiated 
 have the power to raise, it is found that the century is still 
 looking down upon us, — for on this wall rises a lightning- 
 rod placed there under the directing hand of Benjamin 
 Franklin. 
 
 One may still see in the beautiful garden of Mr. Alexander 
 Ladd a rose-bush from which seven generations of ladies and 
 children have gathered roses. This family also hold an estate 
 here, of which ten generations have had uninterrupted pos- 
 session, dating from their ancestor the original patentee of 
 the State of New Hampshire. 
 
 Portsmouth is rich in relics. Here may be seen scores of 
 familiar and confidential letters from some of the most inter- 
 esting people of the last century, — some from Martha Wash- 
 ington to her friend Mrs. Tobias Lear, which are reverently 
 preserved by her grand-niece, as well as those of Washington 
 himself written to his private secretary Colonel Lear (in whose 
 arms Washington died), with others from many of the most 
 famous people of the period. It would be pleasant to linger 
 here, where faithful patriotic service was not necessarily com- 
 bined with all the hardest conditions of life. 
 
 Here is where the Marquis de Chastellux had the curiosity 
 to enter a church on Sunday morning, November 10, 1782, 
 and, although " the audience was not numerous, owing to the 
 cold," he saw some " handsome women elegantly dressed." But 
 
238 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 these were not representative women of New Hampshire. 
 These were too near to civilization, too near the sea, which 
 mitigated the climate, and, with it, all the hardships of life. 
 Those others lived, many of them, in the depths of the forest 
 primeval, and toward the north, in log cabins, like that 
 of Abigail Webster, of which her great son writes, " When 
 my father built his log cabin and lighted his fire, his smoke 
 ascended nearer the North Pole than any of His Majesty's 
 New England subjects: his nearest neighbor on the north was 
 at Montreal." Here is where the cradle of Daniel Webster 
 " hung high in the air, like the eyrie of an eagle," as Mr. 
 Charles March describes it. It was the lady of this establish- 
 ment who, her husband being old, an invalid, and " not in 
 easy circumstances," must be consulted about sending a second 
 son to college, at the solicitation of his brother, since "it would 
 take all the father was worth," and there was no one left at 
 home " to carry on the farm and take care of the family." 
 
 "I ventured on the negotiation," says Daniel Webster, "and 
 it was carried, as other things are, often, by the earnest and 
 sanguine manner of youth." 
 
 Ah, it was the man who drew that picture ! " It was carried" 
 by the heroic dauntless courage of an unselfish mother, to 
 whom the near possibility of a dependent, comfortless old age 
 did not weigh in the balance with the advancement, the always 
 longed-for education, of her sons. 
 
 " Your mother has always said that you would be some- 
 thing or nothing," seems to be the earliest recorded prophecy 
 of Webster's greatness, and this in spite of the taunt of the 
 half-brothers that " Dan was sent to school that he might get 
 to know as much as other boys." 
 
 A picturesque figure of the early days is that of Mary Wil- 
 son, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, described as "a tall, 
 graceful woman, with polished manners for those days, and 
 somewhat famous for her taste in dress." After having tried 
 every resource of her Scotch-Irish wit to induce and then to 
 frighten her husband (a good fighting officer in Stark's army, 
 but not distinguished as a student of belles-lettres) into send- 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 239 
 
 ing her oldest son to college, dwelling eloquently on the evi- 
 dent ill effects of bean-porridge and the wearing of a leather 
 apron on the health of her first-born, she at last accomplished 
 her object, and in 1785, and for several years later, this "tall, 
 graceful woman," with her " polished manners," arrayed 
 doubtless in the scarlet cloak of the period, made the journey 
 from Peterborough, New Hampshire, to Boston, a distance 
 of sixty miles, on horseback, and alone, finding her way by 
 " blazed trees," since " for a large part of the way there were 
 no open roads," leading a pack-horse laden with great pieces 
 of linen, woven from her own flax, together with other 
 produce of her farm, which she sold in Boston, carrying the 
 money to Cambridge, to pay the college expenses, besides en- 
 abling her son to be, as one of his class-mates pleasantly re- 
 membered years afterward, " the best-dressed man in college." 
 
 This attractive and efficient woman was a stanch patriot, 
 but she never quite gave up an inherited faith in the right- 
 eousness of the law of primogeniture. It is recorded of her 
 that at a certain Leap-year ball in the year 1808, when she was 
 seventy-three years old, she walked the whole length of the 
 hall, looking for her partner, and then, with great stateliness, 
 led out the eldest son of her eldest son and with him opened 
 the ball. 
 
 It is said that never were more " fine steps" put into a 
 contra-dance; and, although the boy of eleven years old did 
 his very best, he has acknowledged that his grandmother 
 beat him. 
 
 The town of Hollis, New Hampshire, furnishes at least one 
 historic heroine, as it was the birthplace of Prudence Cum- 
 mings, who became the wife of David Wright, of Pepperell, 
 Massachusetts. It was she who, at the head of a band of 
 women clothed in the apparel of their absent husbands, 
 sallied forth, in 1775, to defend the bridge over the Nashua 
 River, between Pepperell and Groton, aroused by the rumor 
 that the regulars were approaching, and fired with a deter- 
 mination that " no enemy to freedom should pass that bridge." 
 The opportunity for the exercise of their prowess approached 
 
240 WORl^HY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 in the form of a notorious tory, on horseback, one Leonard 
 Whiting, himself also, strangely enough, a native of Hollis. 
 It was poetic justice that it should be given to his towns- 
 woman and possible school-mate Mrs. David Wright, in her 
 assumed character of " sergeant of the guard," to give the 
 order that he should be seized, taken from his horse, searched, 
 and detained as a prisoner. Dispatches were found in his 
 boots, and the Amazons had the satisfaction of giving over 
 this " enemy to freedom" to the " Committee of Observation" 
 at Groton. 
 
 The history of New Ipswich furnishes a striking story il- 
 lustrative of the spirit of the women of the early days. This 
 time it is not a mother, but a sister, a girl of fifteen years old, 
 who goes home to find that her " darling brother" has been 
 selected to make one of the fifteen soldiers who are " wanted," 
 and who are to march "next day after to-morrow, at sunrise." 
 The poor tired mother is broken-hearted, chiefly because 
 her boy will suffer for proper clothing. " The sight of my 
 mother's tears brought all the hidden strength of mind and 
 body into action," says the daughter. It evidently was not 
 an every-day spectacle. A pair of warm trousers was the 
 especial need. The young girl suggested spinning and 
 weaving the cloth, and making them, on the spot. " There 
 is not time," said the mother: "the wool is on the sheep's 
 back, and the sheep are in the pasture." " Take the salt- 
 dish and catch a white sheep," said the girl; and a little 
 brother obeyed. " There are no sheep-shears within three 
 miles," mourned the mother. " I can use my small shears," 
 replied the girl, — which she did, with such good effect that 
 half a fleece was soon sent into the house to another sister, 
 who had made ready " the wheel and cards." The white 
 sheep was now released, shorn of half its fleece, and " Luther" 
 was dispatched for a black sheep, which he brought, and 
 held while the enterprising young manufacturer secured 
 enough of the black fleece for the " filling," and another 
 member of the flock ran, half clad, to join his astonished 
 companions. It is cruel to relate that, at this point, this 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 24 1 
 
 spirited girl of the period was met by her mother, — no fairy 
 godmother was she, but rather one of those disheartening 
 mortals of whom it has been said that " the very tones of 
 the voice were saturated with misfortune," — who announced 
 that the whole enterprise must now be abandoned, as there 
 was a long web of linen in the loom ! " I will find an empty 
 loom," said the voice of Youth and Hope. And she did! 
 A neighboring farm-house supplied this want, and the spin- 
 ning, weaving, cutting, and making were all accomplished 
 within forty hours of the catching of the first sheep, without 
 the help of one of the modern labor-saving appliances. 
 
 The girl, who lived to tell this story after many years, re- 
 membered no fatigue, only deep satisfaction in the relief of 
 her mother, the secured comfort of her brother, and a little 
 pardonable pride in having helped to equip a young warrior 
 for her country under difficulties. She concludes the relation 
 of her achievement, however, with the confession that after 
 all was well over, and the brother sent away with cheerful 
 God-speeds, she did retire to a solitary place and have " a 
 good cry." 
 
 One of the strong characteristics of most of these women 
 was an utter intolerance of that indescribable disease, that 
 bane of modern life, known as " nervousness." An illustration 
 of the good effect of growing up in this atmosphere of " nerve," 
 as distinguished from " nervous," was given by a New Hamp- 
 shire woman, less than fifty years ago, who, when an alarming- 
 looking wound was laid open almost entirely across the palm 
 of her own left hand by the slipping of the knife on a loaf 
 of bread, calmly asked for a fine needle and thread, and called 
 her husband to hold the sides of the wound together while 
 she herself took the necessary stitches. It is perhaps not 
 surprising that the husband proved wholly unequal to the 
 emergency, except in calling the doctor. The heroic patient, 
 however, succeeded in finding another woman, nearly as 
 plucky as herself, to assist at this feat of domestic surgery, 
 and had accomplished it all before the arrival of the physician. 
 Of this woman a daughter wrote, at last, summing up the 
 
 16 
 
242 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 impressions of a whole life in few words, "She confronted 
 life with heroic courage, and met death with a Christian 
 hope." 
 
 No sketch descriptive of the women of New Hampshire 
 would be complete which should fail to make especial men- 
 tion of those long-headed and light-hearted Scotch-Irish 
 people of Londonderry, with their deep religious feeling, 
 combined with an amazing love of fun, "which mingled 
 strangely with the most serious concerns." It was of these 
 people that Judge Smith used to say that " they went to 
 church on Sunday, practiced all that was good in the sermon 
 during the week, and laughed at all that was ridiculous" 
 
 " A Scotch race," says Dr. Morison, " who had been 
 for two or three generations in Ireland; and they bore the 
 marks of their double origin. There was a grotesque humor 
 about them which, in its way, has never been excelled. It 
 was the sternness of the Scotch Covenanter softened by a 
 century's residence abroad, amid persecution and trial, wedded 
 there to the pathos and comic humor of the Irish, and then 
 grown wild in the woods, among our New England moun- 
 tains." 
 
 A woman of this race was Mary Woodburn Reid, wife of 
 General George Reid. During more than seven years, while 
 her husband was engaged in military service, she took entire 
 charge of the family and of the farm at Londonderry. She 
 is spoken of as a woman " of rare endowments and most in- 
 teresting character ;" and much stress is laid upon the equa- 
 nimity of her temper, which, in connection with a vigorous 
 intellect and great cheerfulness of disposition, gave her a 
 powerful and beneficent influence over the more excitable, 
 strong passions of her husband, a gallant officer and useful 
 citizen. 
 
 It is gratifying to find that even in those days, when written 
 words seem to have been too precious to use in the cause of 
 women, it was thought worth while to record the fact that, 
 in his public life, General Reid was " much indebted to the 
 wisdom and prudence of his wife." 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 243 
 
 A few extracts from the letters of these two remain, — his 
 bearing the significant headings " Ticonderoga," " Valley- 
 Forge," and " White Plains," written often as if to a brother 
 officer, in a style most complimentary to the understanding 
 of his wife, — and hers tender and true, but to the point, re- 
 porting, " with the acuteness of one who knew," facts and 
 plans relating to the farm, the stock, etc., concluding, how- 
 ever, with the wifely words, " all this with your advice, not 
 otherwise," ending one letter, like the God-fearing woman she 
 was, in this quaint fashion : " May the good will of Him who 
 dwelt in the bush rest and abide with you." 
 
 There is an undercurrent of trouble and sadness in these 
 letters, which tells of heavy burdens bravely borne, although 
 it never gets put into words ; and it is a comfort to reach at 
 last the letter from General Reid, when the war is over, telling 
 his wife to be prepared for the arrival of a chest containing 
 the old regimental colors and the standard of the regiment, 
 " which you will take especial care of." It is safe to believe 
 that she was worthy of the trust, for it was of her that her 
 friend General Stark said, " If there is a woman in New 
 Hampshire worthy to be Governor of the State, it is Molly 
 Reid!" She justified this confidence also, after the manner 
 of the New Hampshire women of her day; for the State has 
 to thank her for a most popular Governor, in the person of 
 her grandson the late Hon. Samuel Dinsmoor. 
 
 Elizabeth Morison Smith, mother of Hon. Jeremiah Smith, 
 Chief-justice of New Hampshire, was, in most respects, a 
 typical Londonderry woman, — a woman of energy and spirit, 
 of strong sense and good principles, who had ten children in 
 twelve years, but who found time for a prodigious amount 
 of work, both in-doors and out. 
 
 Would that a picture of her had been preserved as she 
 entered the village church of Peterborough about the year 
 175 1, attired in one of "the only two silk gowns she ever 
 owned," which are still preserved by her descendants ! She 
 only wore them on " sacrament days" and when her children 
 were baptized ! Then her costume was completed by the 
 
244 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 addition of a finely-plaited white linen apron, put on as she 
 entered the church, and taken off and folded up in "the last 
 singing." She was a strict disciplinarian; and her children 
 never forgot the throwing down of a certain shelf by "Jerry" 
 in the midst of some unusual merry-making, when the con- 
 sistent mother, undeterred from the path of duty by the 
 presence of company, left all, to administer the canonical 
 whipping; and when, after a little while, she discovered that 
 neighbor Miller's punch-bowl, borrowed for the occasion, had 
 been broken in the scrimmage, feeling that the punishment 
 had been wholly inadequate to the occasion, she at once 
 whipped him again, conscientiously and thoroughly. She 
 never allowed her children to ask what they were to have 
 to eat, and they grew up, men and all, like Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, " with great indifference to such things." She was, never- 
 theless, a kind-hearted, loving mother, and Jerry did not 
 remember more than two or three whippings. Perhaps there 
 were no more punch-bowls left to break ! 
 
 When the neighbors' children taunted one of the little 
 girls of this family because she did not wear a jerkin, she 
 remembered, years afterward, that her mother comforted her 
 by saying, doubtless with the canny smile peculiar to her 
 race, "Never mind, ye'll hae jerkins when they hae nane;" a 
 prophecy which was remembered, because, thanks to the 
 frugal industrious mother, " it came true." The chief-justice 
 himself was proud to remember a pose in which she must 
 forever have stood in his memory. On an occasion when 
 he had made a little progress on the road which was to 
 lead to fame, after he had got only a little learning, he pre- 
 sumed to correct his mother's vigorous but not always 
 grammatical language,— -when the self-respecting old woman, 
 with her masterful spirit, stepped on to the maternal throne 
 at once, and silenced him with the words, in which one seems 
 to hear a certain quiver of tone in spite of the sternness, 
 " Wha taught you language? It was my wheel ! and when 
 ye'll hae spun as mony long threeds to teach me grammar 
 as I hae to teach you, I'll talk better grammar." 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 245 
 
 How glad she would have been to know that her children 
 would always remember the " sweet Christian charity" dis- 
 played by her when a poor young relative, a girl who lived 
 in her house, had been guilty of some backsliding of so 
 serious a nature as to cause the calling together of a family 
 council to see what should be done ! A relative of the family, 
 considered to be " one of the elect," advised concerning the 
 poor creature, represented as " half-witted and friendless," 
 that they should " gar her into the barn, to pray," as not fit 
 company for such as they ; a proposition instantly and indig- 
 nantly rejected by this mother in Israel, who took her stand 
 at once by the side of the offender. This woman, with a 
 soul as white as the linen apron she folded up in the last 
 singing, rose up then, and stands forever before her descend- 
 ants, a genuine follower of Him who came to save that which 
 was lost. 
 
 These were not at all akin to that class of women of whom 
 Mr. Kingsley sings : they never seem to have felt called upon 
 to " weep" while the men were at " work." On the contrary, 
 they had not only great powers for work themselves, but a 
 most delightful capacity for laughing over their tasks, and 
 even singing, the while. " All the children of the neighbor- 
 hood crowded about to hear Mrs. Smith sing Scotch songs," — 
 perhaps while she was harvesting the corn, which she always 
 helped to do. 
 
 Dr. Morison tells a story to illustrate the almost uncon- 
 trollable sense of humor which characterized these cheery 
 people. It is of a mournful occasion when an intemperate 
 relative of some of them was found dead by the roadside. 
 The friends were all assembled, and in a truly sorrowful frame 
 of mind, when " the coroner made some ridiculous blunders 
 in reading." One by one the company was overcome by the 
 ludicrousness of it, until at last all gave in, and the whole 
 group of mourners joined in a burst of irrepressible laughter. 
 Some worthy descendants of these hard-working laughers 
 may still be found in New Hampshire. Thank God for the 
 perpetual sunshine they shed about them ! 
 
246 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 However much the modern methods of education and do- 
 mestic discipline may differ from those which guided these 
 primitive people, there can be no doubts concerning the purity 
 and unselfishness of the motive, nor the brave fidelity to what 
 they saw as duty, which seems to have distinguished these 
 mothers from first to last. That the results are so good 
 seems only another of the many proofs of the superiority of 
 example over precept, and of character over all things. 
 
 There is something especially satisfactory in the spectacle 
 of transmitted virtues, as much so, perhaps, as the reverse is 
 disappointing and painful. An unusually happy illustration 
 is furnished in the person of Judge Smith, himself one of the 
 wisest, best, and most attractive of men, and in that of his 
 daughter, Ariana Smith. In the son one finds the fine, strong 
 intellect, integrity, and energy of the mother, — the same gen- 
 erous temper also, the same dignity and simplicity, and the 
 same humor, which, " like the foam and phosphoric light in 
 the wake of a man-of-war, often marked the progress of his 
 mind through subjects the most profound." It is impossible 
 not to recognize the combination of traits as the mother's 
 own, although lending dignity and grace now to the character 
 of a chief-justice. The same insignia of nobility were worn 
 by the granddaughter. And here the fine, sound old root 
 blossoms into such grace and charm and sweetness that her 
 most faithful and loving chronicler and kinsman, Rev. Dr. 
 Morison, to whom the world owes much for the picture of 
 this remarkable family trio, evidently dares not trust himself 
 to put into words what is in his heart and memory, without a 
 curb. 
 
 She was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1797, and she 
 lived only about thirty years. Her mother, whose name was 
 Eliza Ross, — a gentle, lovely woman, — was a daughter of Mrs. 
 Ariana (Brice) Ross, of Maryland, from whom, through a line 
 of grandmothers of Bohemian extraction, Ariana Smith in- 
 herited her uncommon name. 
 
 There are a few people still living who remember how she 
 looked and what she was. Twenty years ago there were 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 247 
 
 many, who were never tired of telling of the graces of her 
 person, mind, and heart. It must have been a rare counte- 
 nance which left so vivid and precious an impression. 
 
 " Her face was full of contrasts and contradictions," says 
 one. It typified well, then, the admirable balance of her char- 
 acter. Soft black hair, with a surpassingly white skin, great 
 earnest blue eyes which looked out from under quite black 
 lashes, and a brow of that peculiar conformation which tells 
 of great quickness of perception. The exceptionally animated, 
 almost eager expression of the eyes was most striking, taken 
 in connection with the reposeful, self-contained lines about 
 the mouth. " Her voice, subdued and passionless, contrasted 
 strangely with the fervor of her words." 
 
 United to rare personal beauty were uncommon dignity and 
 grace of manner. It was the dignity of complete simplicity 
 and self-forgetfulness, and, with it, she had the art of putting 
 all sorts and conditions of persons entirely at ease in her pres- 
 ence. One of the most significant tributes to her memory is 
 the oft-repeated and most grateful acknowledgment of men, 
 many of them afterwards famous and honored in various 
 walks in life, who, while they were students at the well-known 
 Exeter Academy, at the unformed and unattractive age, were 
 first aroused to new, higher, and happier views of life by this 
 beautiful, gifted woman. It is said that the most awkward 
 boy, struggling with that exquisite suffering which grows out 
 of excessive shyness, was made to forget himself at Judge 
 Smith's hospitable table by the altogether indescribable sym- 
 pathy, grace, and tact of his daughter Ariana. Some of them 
 have said that it was in her presence, and under the influence 
 of her exquisite courtesy, that they learned their first lessons 
 in self-respect. This tender consideration for the feelings 
 of others was quite in keeping with what has been called the 
 most striking feature of her character, — that charity which 
 " thinketh no evil," and which always inclined her to look at 
 people in the light of their virtues rather than of their faults, 
 although she had far too much keenness of perception to con- 
 found the two. Her life was almost wholly uneventful, but 
 
248 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 she was one of those rare people who, without any great op- 
 portunity for action, succeed in making a very unusual and 
 lasting impression on all those about them. It is not what she 
 did, but what she was, which has put a glory about her name 
 and handed it down through at least two generations of her 
 neighbors and kindred. 
 
 It is impossible to improve on Dr. Morison's description 
 of her, in his biography of her charming and distinguished 
 father : 
 
 " Her devotion to domestic duties, and particularly to her 
 mother through years of painful disease, might, but for the 
 peculiar elasticity of her mind, have worn her down, yet to 
 the last she was like one whose life had been a perpetual sun- 
 shine. Her enthusiasm might have betrayed her into indis- 
 cretions, but for the prudent self-control that never forsook 
 her; and the rare good sense that ran through all her conduct 
 might have made her commonplace, but for the enthusiasm 
 of her nature. The great extent of her reading, and the accu- 
 racy of her knowledge in the more solid as well as in the 
 lighter branches of literature, might have made her pedantic, 
 were it not, as her father said, that she was more studious to 
 conceal than to exhibit her accomplishments. ' She had,' he 
 said, when his heart was wrung with the anguish of bereave- 
 ment, ' a mind intelligent and ingenuous, having learning 
 enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste 
 to make pretensions to learning. She had a feminine high- 
 mindedness.' 'She often. shined in conversation, but never 
 strove to shine.' ' As far as regards literature, she never (in 
 conversation) aimed at doing her best; and yet she was not 
 indifferent to the opinion of her father and her friends.' Her 
 almost passionate love of society, and the attentions with 
 which she was loaded, when in the fashionable world, by those 
 whose attentions are most flattering to a woman of sense and 
 refinement, might have made her giddy ; her love of nature, 
 of rural life, and the simple intercourse of the country, might 
 have made her shy and timid, but for the genuineness of her 
 feelings and the simplicity of her character. ' I rely,' said her 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 249 
 
 father, ' with entire confidence on your good taste and discre- 
 tion, — two things oftener united than is commonly thought.' 
 At a large party, in the city, it might seem as if she had no 
 heart or thought for anything else; but she gladly returned 
 to the quiet home, where almost all her time was spent, and 
 there appeared as if she had never been absent, or had gone 
 abroad only to bring back new treasures for the enjoyment 
 of her friends. Substantial books were read, kind acts and 
 serious duties performed, as if they were only a pastime or 
 amusement. Nothing was ever said of them, and therefore 
 her letters and her usual intercourse with society gave only 
 the most superficial view of her mind. Her charities, like the 
 charities of heaven, came often without revealing the hand 
 that brought them." 
 
 The characters of father and daughter were formed on the 
 same model, and a positively romantic devotion and intimacy 
 existed between them. There was complete sympathy of 
 taste and feeling, and very charming are the glimpses of their 
 almost constant companionship. 
 
 In May, 1820, she writes to a young friend, " I particularly 
 like, the end of May or first of June, to receive my friends, 
 because my father is then certainly at home." 
 
 "April, 1 82 1. — My father leaves us next Monday for many 
 weeks. I hope you will pity our desolate state, and enliven 
 it by frequent letters." 
 
 " May, 1 822. — I am writing with a pen of my father's. What 
 gallant and sincere things it would say if guided by its mas- 
 ter's hand !" 
 
 Again, she writes of his appearance coming out of church, 
 how she knew him first in the crowd by the flowers in his 
 button-hole, " which are freshly put there twice a day." 
 
 During seven years' service in Congress, Judge Smith had 
 made the acquaintance of many of the best people in the 
 country, who remained life-long friends. It was in their soci- 
 ety that his daughter was appreciated and much admired. 
 
 It is pleasant to be told that she enjoyed this thoroughly. 
 Thus, she writes of a ball at Boston where she danced every 
 
250 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 dance, " I admired my own ingenuity in talking to my partner 
 while I was actually dancing, and at every pause listening to 
 Mr. M., who stood behind me and was very agreeable." 
 
 The same letter discloses another side of her character, for 
 she writes that before going to the ball she had been reading 
 a new number of the North American Review, and had de- 
 cided that Mr. F. C. Gray, whom she calls "the first young 
 man of Boston," must be the author of an article which had 
 greatly pleased her. She adds that she learned in the ball- 
 room, from Mr. Gray himself, that the article was written by 
 his brother. 
 
 It may perhaps have been in such an hour that one of her 
 admirers was inspired to write of her, in a birthday ode, which 
 still exists, — 
 
 " Such beauty and such strength of mind 
 Were ne'er so happily combined." 
 
 The fragments of a youthful correspondence which remain 
 to us are full of proofs of a genuine love of literature, as well 
 as a cultivation of taste not altogether common in the women 
 of Ariana Smith's day. It is also interesting as it calls our 
 attention to the wholesomely frugal literary diet of the period. 
 
 " We are daily expecting from Boston a box of books, which 
 came in the London packet, all that are readable for a lady, — 
 ' Hallam's Middle Ages,' ' Nichols's Anecdotes,' and, I blush 
 to write such discordant names, Miss Porter's new novel." 
 
 To another friend she writes of her eager anticipations of 
 the forthcoming " Edgeworth memoir," calling her friend's 
 attention to a pleasant similarity between Miss Edgeworth 
 and Mme. de Stael, — "their blind devotion to their fathers." 
 Ariana Smith was surpassed by neither of them in this filial 
 grace. 
 
 To her intimate friend Miss Holmes, an elder sister of Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, she writes, — 
 
 " My dear Mary,— 
 
 " I did not intend to answer your letter so very soon, but I 
 have just finished reading one of Barry Cornwall's 'Dramatic 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. z c\ 
 
 Scenes,' which is so very tragical that I cannot think of sleep- 
 ing unless I can contrive, by writing to you, to give my 
 thoughts an entirely new direction. Few things give me 
 such pleasant reflections as Cambridge and you ; and you, to 
 whom I so often repair to borrow animation, will excuse me, 
 I hope, for resorting to you now for composure." 
 
 These letters were evidently written in the days of golden 
 leisure, before the era of postal cards and spasmodic para- 
 graphs, before the coming of that date " when time shall be 
 no more," as a woman of 1876 cleverly designates our own 
 day. That they were carefully-written letters on both sides, 
 worthy of two readings, we may infer from the fact that 
 "Ariana" writes to " Mary," "I have dispatched to Charlotte 
 your last letter, after having tacked some of my linsey-woolsey 
 to your silver tissue." 
 
 Ariana's letters give constant proof of an admirable ca- 
 pacity for enjoyment, and of that enthusiasm of nature out of 
 which it grows. She writes of having had delight in the 
 acting of Kean in the primitive days when the selectmen of 
 the town of Boston were driven to active measures to prevent 
 a riot resulting from the mad rush for tickets. During the 
 same visit to Boston she writes, " Sunday was the most de- 
 lightful day possible to imagine. Mr. Channing gave us a 
 noble sermon upon Christian zeal ! but how did that and 
 all other discourses vanish from my mind when I heard the 
 splendid effusions of Professor Everett's genius ! Such bril- 
 liant ideas, so novel and profound, such beautiful imagery, 
 such eloquent gestures. I never before knew what genius 
 could effect. We were well rewarded for our walk through 
 wet streets to the North End." Again she refers to this 
 sermon which so aroused her youthful enthusiasm : she says 
 of an exciting book, " it makes me thrill as much as Mr. 
 Everett's description did yesterday of ' the chariot-wheels of 
 judgment rolling down the courts of heaven.'" 
 
 It is pleasant to find entire freedom from all sectarian nar- 
 rowness in this vigorous young mind. " I know not when I 
 
252 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 have been more interested in a preacher," she writes, " than I 
 was in the eloquent and truly devout Bishop Cheverus," — the 
 first Roman Catholic bishop in Massachusetts. 
 
 She was a favorite and an ardent admirer of her father's 
 friend Daniel Webster ; and it is not surprising that she very- 
 much enjoyed the journey to Hanover, to attend the Dart- 
 mouth Commencement of the year 1819, with her father and 
 this great man, whose personal fascination has perhaps never 
 been surpassed, for traveling-companions. " Mr. Webster was 
 in high spirits, — talked, laughed, and sang the whole way," 
 she writes. Mr. Webster disported himself in this wise only 
 in very congenial society. She was only about twenty years 
 old at this time, but it was a discriminating judgment which 
 led her to select the performance of a certain young Mr. 
 Choate, of the graduating class, as the one most worthy of 
 note; "really admirable," she calls it, adding that "this 
 young man is a fine scholar, a hard student, and uncommonly 
 interesting!' This was, of course, no other than the great 
 Rufus. 
 
 It has been said that perhaps the greatest single pleasure of 
 her life, if one may judge from her frequent recurrence to it 
 afterwards, was found in listening to Mr. Webster's great oration 
 at Plymouth in December, 1820. "The Godlike man!" was 
 her exclamation. This was the occasion of which Mr. Ticknor 
 wrote, " When I came out, I was almost afraid to come near 
 him. It seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might 
 not be touched, and that burned with fire." Mr. Ticknor 
 adds that after the oration was off his mind Mr. Webster 
 became " gay and playful as a kitten." Ariana's letter to her 
 mother describing this eventful day contained a few words 
 to the same effect. "The great orator was standing in a circle 
 of gentlemen, while I was promenading the room, leaning on 
 
 Mr. 's supporting arm : the moment I came opposite to 
 
 where Mr. Webster was standing, he broke from the group, 
 and, warmly seizing my hand with both of his, exclaimed, in 
 an animated tone, ' Oh, you dear little sylph from New Hamp- 
 shire, how glad I am to see you here !' " 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 253 
 
 Whenever she traveled with her father, the two are de- 
 scribed as " exploring and enjoying with an almost childish 
 zest and freshness of interest." She writes to her mother, 
 on one of these occasions, of an especially pleasant day in a 
 stage-coach, made so by the companionship of a " charm- 
 ing young married man, who has traveled, is literary, com- 
 municative, and well-bred." One can readily believe all 
 this when it is found to be Mr. William H. Prescott who 
 is thus described, and also that " father and Mr. P. kept 
 up a constant interchange of wit and humor. It was the 
 most entertaining ride we ever took." This seems no mean 
 praise when one finds that they had as traveling-compan- 
 ions during parts of this journey Chancellor Kent and his 
 family, Mr. Emmett.of New York, and Mr. Hoffman, of Balti- 
 more. 
 
 It is during this journey that the invalid wife and mother 
 at home gives, in a few words, an idea of what the home life 
 was. " I wish you could see your garden to-night," she 
 writes. " It is delightful ; but I cannot help feeling that the 
 divinities of the place are away. Do not let me see in your 
 letters that you are not enjoying yourselves; for never did any 
 one make such sacrifice as I. It seems to me that I should 
 like even to hear you [the judge] talk to the cats in your very 
 loudest tones." 
 
 She was never left again, and during the remaining two 
 years of her life Ariana's devotion to her mother was untiring. 
 She surrounded the invalid with an atmosphere of constant 
 cheerfulness and sunshine, assuming every care and lighten- 
 ing every burden for her father in his deep affliction. It is 
 not surprising that he should have written to her, during a 
 short absence, soon after her mother's death, "How good and 
 happy a thing it is that I have no anxiety about affairs at 
 home !" and again, " My dear Ariana, your letter was very, 
 very good and kind, and cheered me mightily. I am glad 
 such sentiments are in you, and that they come out. God 
 bless you ! . . . I am glad this will reach you Saturday : it 
 will come fresh from your best friend, and you will readily 
 
254 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 imagine, better than he can express, the love he bears you, 
 and always has, and ever will." 
 
 No picture of the daily intercourse between Judge Smith 
 and his daughter would be complete which should omit the 
 element of fun which is constantly appearing in it, — the 
 mixture of playfulness and seriousness which had come 
 straight down from the Scotch-Irish mother and grand- 
 mother, and which gave an indescribable charm and flavor 
 to life. 
 
 At one time Judge Smith writes to his daughter of the pet 
 cats, of which there were five, " The fifth member of our 
 fireside party says, or seems to say, that she wishes you 
 were at home, and regrets she was not taught to write, that 
 she might communicate with you in Boston. So, you see, 
 you are kindly remembered by all." 
 
 It was a family custom to carry on, or report, imaginary 
 conversations with the cats, over the breakfast-table, treating 
 often of the trials of cats, their loves and griefs and views of 
 life. "The humor of these extempore fables," says Dr. 
 Morison, " was often irresistible. Not a little sly satire and 
 instruction, as well as amusement, was administered by the 
 sagacious cats to other members of the household." 
 
 Another vein is touched in a fragment of a letter from 
 Judge Smith to Ariana during an absence of her own, — this 
 when she was a school-girl : " I hope you attend church 
 regularly, my dear: it is no matter what the form of religion 
 is, but it is absolutely necessary that we should have the sub- 
 stance; and though church-going is not religion, it is a means 
 of becoming religious." 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine that these words produced a 
 deep impression, coming from one of whom it is said, 
 " Though for many years the member of a church, he was 
 never loud in his religious professions. Indeed, he was so 
 disgusted by the levity with which the most sacred of names 
 and the most solemn of subjects are sometimes bandied about 
 by religious people, and he so shrank from every semblance 
 of ostentation and cant, that it was not easy to see at once, 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 255 
 
 from his conversation or outward conduct, how deeply these 
 things entered into his character." 
 
 Very soon after the death of her mother, from consumption, 
 the only brother of Miss Smith fell a victim to the same dis- 
 ease. And now, again, her days were passed in carrying 
 peace and comfort to a sick-room ; but, even now, the even- 
 ings were spent in the charming library with her father. All 
 the latest books were read together, enjoyed together, and 
 criticised together. An occasional game of chess gave variety 
 to the evenings, and conversation never flagged. The father 
 was now seventy years old. It was not surprising, therefore, 
 that " it had never occurred to him that she might be taken 
 from him," — the light of his eyes, the last one of his five chil- 
 dren, whom he had always counted upon as the one to be left 
 to him. 
 
 At the beginning of one of the cruel New Hampshire win- 
 ters, a little cloud, not larger than a man's hand, hung over 
 the beautiful home in Exeter. They called it a violent cold, 
 and nobody was alarmed, — least of all the patient. Nothing 
 was given up, and there was still sunshine in the house ; but 
 the enemy was always at work, and early in March she gave 
 up the evenings in the library, — in fact, could not leave her 
 room. 
 
 How soon she began herself to realize the truth none will 
 ever know ; but the following words, found among her last 
 papers, copied by her hand, tell their own story : 
 
 " It has often been said that a slow, wasting disease of the 
 body must press heavily upon the soul, which sees its depart- 
 ure from the friendly world step by step, and counts, as it 
 were, the leaves of bloom which drop one after another. 
 When, however, no distorting pains interfere, and when the 
 departing one does not love too much that which is called 
 life, nor hate too much that which is called death, it may not 
 be so bad as is imagined. If we drink the last flask of a noble 
 wine with a pleasure which we did not know before, why not 
 also these last drops of the earthly being? In thus gliding 
 quietly downward we meet with few of the cares and shocks 
 
256 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of this lower world; we have little more to do than to pluck 
 its flowers ; a foretaste of the disembodied state is breathing 
 around us ; those who love us have more thought and more 
 affection for the departing one; and those who do not love 
 us we more lightly and easily pardon, regardful of the text, 
 Forgive as we would be forgiven, as well as mindful of the 
 short time which we have to pilgrimage together; and when 
 a tear flows from the eye, it flows almost as visibly as seed- 
 pearl into the life of paradise. Whoever has experienced such 
 gentle suffering will not deny us his assent." 
 
 Through all, thoughtfulness for her father never failed. 
 She did not like him to see her suffering, and had for him still 
 " pleasant looks," " smiles," and even " lively conversation." 
 Very few were her words concerning herself. " That reticence, 
 before the high problems of being, which belongs to a healthy 
 nature," as one has well said, was hers to a remarkable de- 
 gree. She said just enough to show that she knew all, and 
 had no fears, and no regrets except for her father. Once she 
 said to him, " How many times have I formed schemes of the 
 future, when I was to take care of you, nurse you, amuse you ! 
 How many thousand little comforts I have planned for you !" 
 But this was talk which neither of them could endure, and it 
 was never repeated. Toward the end of June she asked to be 
 carried to the window, and looked out, with delight, upon 
 the beauty which she loved, — all around her. " Such softness 
 of coloring !" she said; "such intermingling of shades! such 
 variety of green !" 
 
 At sunset of the next day, a perfect day in June, as the 
 breath of the clover and the roses was blowing in at the win- 
 dows, with perfect composure and peace, she died. 
 
 Even now the house was not quite desolate : the influence 
 of her cheerful, triumphant spirit seemed to fill the places 
 which should know her no more forever; and, after a very 
 short conflict with himself, her father asked his clergyman to 
 give thanks " that she had been spared so long." Truly it 
 might have been said of her, — 
 
WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 257 
 
 "God sent his messenger of faith, 
 And whispered in the maiden's heart, 
 Rise up, and look from where thou art, 
 And scatter with unselfish hands 
 Thy freshness on the barren sands 
 And solitudes of Death." 
 
 It has been impossible to do justice to this character here. 
 Time and material for anything like a biography have both 
 been wanting ; but this imperfect sketch will perhaps serve as 
 an illustration, in one family, of what might be found in many 
 others, of the characteristic traits of those sensible, strong, 
 good women of New Hampshire of the early days, under the 
 refining influences of comfort and culture. It was a good 
 stock ; and, after years of patient growth and self-development 
 in obscure places, and under lowering skies, this is the flower 
 of it in the sunlight. 
 
 Annie Wilson Fiske. 
 
 17 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 In the oldest part of one of the oldest streets of Charleston 
 stands a house so different from those around it, so exactly 
 the counterpart of an old-fashioned comfortable English home 
 in some quiet cathedral town, that the stranger pauses invol- 
 untarily to inquire how it came there, and, while he glances 
 from the ivy-matted brick wall that shuts off the garden to 
 a wide-spreading magnolia at the gate to dispel the illusion 
 of his being on English ground, is nowise surprised to learn 
 that this house dates back to colonial times, and that the 
 massive stone-work of the porch and windows, nay, even the 
 old red bricks of which it is built, were, in truth, brought 
 from the mother-country more than a century ago. The very 
 name of King Street recalls this loyalty of another time and 
 rule. 
 
 As we pass, with a delightful sense of roominess, from the 
 flagged space in front, up the wide granite steps, and note the 
 solid masonry, our thoughts go back respectfully to the days 
 when men did not work so fast as in this our day, but worked 
 how much more honestly, how much more faithfully! Let 
 us go through the long stone-floored passage that extends 
 from front to rear of the house, and take our seats in the 
 arched piazza, while we listen to the story which the whis- 
 pering old garden and the echoing walls seem ready to pour 
 into our ears. It is a story with no poetry in it but what the 
 realities of a life nobly spent must always yield; and if time 
 has already come to cast an illusive veil over its events, here, 
 at least, in the scene where much of it was passed, we may 
 succeed in throwing aside the deception, and may see for our- 
 
 259 
 
260 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 selves whether the old past in its nakedness is not even fairer 
 than it seems through far-off mists. 
 
 A hundred years ago this house had become the property 
 of Mrs. Rebecca Motte, and here she lived with her husband 
 and daughters. Her father, Robert Brewton, an Englishman 
 of good family, settled in Charleston in the early years of the 
 last century, and, marrying Miss Mary Griffith, became the 
 father of four children, the youngest of whom was Rebecca, 
 afterwards Mrs. Motte. She was born in 1738; but of her 
 earliest years we know little. There is a quaint old painting 
 of her mother, Mary Griffith, with great, soft, liquid eyes, and 
 auburn hair; a peculiar face, the gentle tenderness of brow 
 and eye contrasting with an expression of strength about 
 the mouth and decidedly aquiline nose; just the face for a 
 wise and loving mother who would know well how to train 
 up her children to be good and noble. Under such maternal 
 guidance Rebecca Brewton grew up, developing year by year 
 the special gifts and graces which matured in after-life. Even 
 as a child she was remarkable for a certain gentle firmness 
 of character which never forsook her in the most trying 
 moments of her existence. The educational advantages of 
 Charleston at that time were not great ; but the most was 
 made of them in her behalf, and the seed, falling on rich soil, 
 bore good fruit; so that as the young girl approached woman- 
 hood she was noted then, as ever afterward, for her charming 
 refinement of tone and manner, — that last best seal of good 
 education. Her personal appearance, as represented in one 
 or two old pictures carefully preserved, corresponds well with 
 the description we have of her character. She was below the 
 medium height, but with a bearing so full of sweet, self-con- 
 tained dignity and composure that her want of size never 
 conveyed the faintest idea of insignificance. The oval face 
 and arched eyebrows almost atoned for a want of strict regu- 
 larity of feature, while blond curling hair, blue eyes, and 
 bright complexion modified an expression of countenance 
 that without them would have been almost too grave and 
 serious. Looking at the face you would say at once that 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 2 6l 
 
 it indicates a wonderful earnestness and determination of 
 character, full of force, yet entirely removed from unfeminine 
 boldness. These pictures were taken of her in youth. Those 
 who remember her now — none but the youngest of her 
 many grandchildren and their contemporaries — recall but 
 the shadow of all this, unlike as age is to youth. We, with 
 our modern eyes, wonder a little, gazing on the likeness, to 
 see how unadorned the young woman is, except by what Dame 
 Nature gave her. The dress, it is true, is rich ; but there is 
 no other ornament. The hair is drawn completely off the 
 forehead, a la Chinoise, and curls behind only because it 
 would curl. 
 
 As we realize the influences under which Rebecca Brewton 
 grew to womanhood, we see more and more clearly how dif- 
 ferent was the Charleston of her day from the town we are 
 familiar with. The building of a city was not then, as now, 
 the work of a few years. South Carolina itself, that part of 
 it at least which was inhabited by Europeans, was far smaller 
 than we find it now. Looking over the few historical records 
 that remain of Charleston as it was during the first century 
 after its foundation at Oyster Point in 1679, we see how great 
 the change has been ; for, though the commercial activity 
 created by the new agriculture was all centred in Charleston, 
 the limits of the town were very small, and the best and most 
 ornamental part of it, along East and South Battery, did not 
 exist. What now goes by the name of White Point Garden 
 was nothing but a marsh, subject to the constant ebb and 
 flow of the tide in Ashley River. The people, too, although 
 many of the most respectable citizens bore the same names 
 that still belong to prominent families, were in great part 
 European by birth, English, French, and Scotch, with all the 
 national characteristics of the countries from which they had 
 so recently come. The American type, as it is now called, 
 which was to be the outgrowth of a great blending of various 
 elements acted on by new circumstances, had not yet come 
 into being here, — if, indeed, anywhere, at that time. 
 
 This, then, was the atmosphere in which Rebecca Brewton 
 
262 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 developed and displayed a character the good qualities of 
 which are happily confined to no time or place ; yet she had 
 surely inherited, with her full English blood, what we are 
 accustomed to look upon as essentially English character- 
 istics, — undaunted firmness under trial, and cool steadfastness 
 of purpose. Association with a large and attractive circle of 
 companions of her own age, of whom we catch occasional 
 glimpses in such sketches of the time as are to be found, 
 must have told strongly on one so formed for friendship and 
 its influences. Many of these early friends and acquaintances 
 became men and women of note in the days of the Revolution, 
 showing by their actions then how admirable they must always 
 have been. 
 
 Hers was a nature, at the same time, too thoughtful not to 
 be greatly acted on by what was passing around her in the 
 political colonial world; and we may well believe that the 
 germ of that patriotism which distinguished her even among a 
 host of patriots was not lying dormant, but grew and expanded 
 steadily with the growth and expansion of liberal ideas in the 
 country throughout the earlier half of her life which preceded 
 the great struggle for liberty. When it began, the enthusiasm 
 of girlhood was already strengthened in her by the ripe judg- 
 ment of full womanhood. 
 
 But to return to where we left her. In 1758, when her 
 school-days had not very long been left behind, Rebecca 
 Brewton was married to Jacob Motte, the eldest son of a large 
 and highly-respected Huguenot family. De La Motte, their 
 progenitor, had been forced out of France with numbers of 
 his countrymen whom the Edict of Nantes rendered homeless 
 in the year 1685. He took refuge in Holland; and his son 
 John, after being for some time Dutch consul in Dublin, 
 crossed the water and settled in Charleston in 1709. It was 
 the grandson of this gentleman who wedded Rebecca Brew- 
 ton. Three daughters were born to them, but no son: so 
 that with this pair the two family names of Motte and Brewton 
 became extinct, or are found only linked with those to which 
 the various remaining female branches connected them by 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 263 
 
 marriage. The years that followed this early union were 
 quiet but not unimportant ones in the life of our heroine, 
 made happy as they were by the sweetest and most engross- 
 ing occupations that come to fill a woman's lot. Yet they 
 need not be long dwelt on ; for we can easily picture them to 
 ourselves, and realize, too, how each of them in passing added 
 further maturity of thought and experience and interest to 
 one whose active and energetic nature was capable of con- 
 stant growth and improvement. 
 
 One incident which happened in the early years of her 
 married life may be worth mentioning, bringing her into rela- 
 tion for the first time, as it does, with a well-known historical 
 personage. In 1762, Admiral Anson, whose fame as a navi- 
 gator had been acquired a good many years previously by his 
 voyage around the world, visited Charleston and became a 
 guest in Mrs. Motte's house. She lived at that time in the 
 upper part of the town, and after the admiral's visit that quarter 
 went for a long time by the name of Ansonborough. When 
 he was taking leave of his hostess he presented her with a 
 large and very handsome punch-bowl of India china, which 
 had traveled round the world with him. This relic of the old 
 days, a beautiful specimen of its kind, is still in the possession 
 of one of her descendants, being originally left to the eldest 
 grandchild. 
 
 Quietly and peacefully the years went on, with only occa- 
 sional vague mutterings of the storm which was approaching 
 but was yet unforeseen, at least by the happy household over 
 which Mrs. Motte presided. The three little girls passed from 
 babyhood to childhood ; and their mother, comparatively at 
 leisure from her maternal cares, became more and more a 
 favorite in the society in which she moved, not only admired 
 for the sweet, attractive grace which made her hospitality 
 charming, but beloved for her active benevolence and self- 
 sacrificing goodness to the poor and afflicted. 
 
 But with the opening of hostilities sorrow and trouble 
 seemed to come first to her door. In 1775 her brother, Miles 
 Brewton, whose strongly patriotic sympathies had made him 
 
264 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 an ardent promoter of the cause of liberty, sailed from Charles- 
 ton for England with all his family, intending to leave them 
 with relatives there and return to the post of duty. But the 
 vessel was wrecked on its outward voyage, and not one pas- 
 senger saved : so that Mrs. Motte was left to mourn the loss 
 of a fondly-loved and only brother. A constant source of 
 anxiety, too, from this time, was the condition of her husband's 
 health. Mr. Motte lived through the first years of the war, 
 a martyr to gout, and died shortly after the occupation of 
 Charleston by the British. When the war broke out, his 
 wife, knowing that it was impossible for him to enter the ser- 
 vice of his country, and lamenting that she had neither hus- 
 band nor son to contribute to the cause that was so dear to 
 her, declared she must do what she could, and immediately 
 ordered down to the city her entire plantation force, that they 
 might be set to work on the fortifications which were to be 
 erected for its defense on the land-side. Nor did she content 
 herself with this. Through the long, weary years that fol- 
 lowed, no heart went out more freely than hers in sympathy 
 for the suffering, no hand was more busy in making and sup- 
 plying clothing and necessaries of all kinds for the soldiers, 
 as far as her opportunities and means would allow. 
 
 After Sir Henry Clinton's failure to gain possession of 
 Charleston by the water-approach, in June, 1776, the enemy 
 confined their operations for a time entirely to the more 
 northerly portions of the country, and during the next two 
 years and a half South Carolina escaped the calamities of 
 war in her midst. The English attempted, it is true, to give 
 trouble by inciting the Indians to fight; but vigorous measures 
 were taken for their suppression, and in the course of a few 
 months all resistance on their part came to an end. It was 
 not till the winter of 1779 that General Prevost began his 
 march from Savannah with the design of capturing Charles- 
 ton ; and this, too, ended in defeat and disappointment to the 
 enemy, for, after being gallantly repulsed by Count Pulaski 
 with a small force, they did not long persist in their attempt, 
 but, fearing the speedy arrival of reinforcements for the town, 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 265 
 
 fell back on the islands, and gradually made their way south- 
 ward again. 
 
 After considerable successes in Georgia, however, Sir Henry 
 Clinton was emboldened to make a third attempt on Charles- 
 ton. Slowly and cautiously during the whole of the winter 
 of 1780 he made his preparations to invest the town, and late 
 in the spring he finally brought it to surrender. 
 
 On her brother's death Mrs. Motte had fallen heir to his 
 property, and this old King Street house, built by him, became 
 her home. It was immediately chosen as headquarters when, 
 in the month of May, the British entered the town, and was 
 occupied by Sir Henry Clinton and other officers until the 
 evacuation at the end of 1782. Almost every room in the 
 house has its separate story relating to what happened in it 
 during that time. On the marble mantel-piece in one may be 
 seen a caricature of the English general, scratched apparently 
 with a diamond-point on the hard polished surface, and with 
 the name " Sir H. Clinton" appended in small letters. It is 
 only visible from a very oblique point of view and in a partic- 
 ular light, and was probably drawn by some lounging aide- 
 de-camp in a moment of idleness or irritation. Be that as it 
 may, and be it caricature or correct likeness, the whole pose 
 and air and cast of countenance are so unmistakably English, 
 and so military at the same time, that a glance at it carries 
 conviction that the person it represents was veritably present 
 in the flesh at the moment it was taken. 
 
 This same room witnessed the fruitless presentation to 
 Lord Rawdon of the petition signed by the patriot women 
 of Charleston for the pardon of the unfortunate Isaac Hayne. 
 Mrs. Finley, who delivered it, was a relative of the unhappy 
 prisoner, and brought with her his two little children, in the 
 hope that their forlorn and pitiful condition would melt the 
 heart of the British commander. Long years afterward, the 
 son, grown to manhood, entered the room again, for the first 
 time since that bitter day, and described to a bystander the 
 scene which it so vividly recalled to his memory. 
 
 In a room opposite this one, across the broad stone-floored 
 
266 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 passage-way, was to be seen in those days, sunk into a panel 
 over the mantel-piece, a portrait of Miles Brewton, the de- 
 ceased brother of the lady of the house, — a painting of no 
 mean merit, for it was by the hand of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 But that did not avail to save it from the vandalism of the 
 English soldiery, one of whom struck his bayonet through 
 the canvas, by way of insult to the dead rebel. The picture 
 is still preserved, and the rent still visible, although an attempt 
 has been made to conceal the injury done by it. 
 
 Let us go into yet another room, teeming even more than 
 these with recollections of the past. This was the only room 
 in the house which the British officers, on installing them- 
 selves, allowed its occupants to retain for their own use ; and 
 here Mrs. Motte, her daughters, and Mrs. Brewton (a widowed 
 cousin of the family) locked themselves in during the first 
 hours of confusion and disorder, whilst the soldiers, with 
 clanking swords and boisterous talk, were pervading every 
 other part of the premises. After a while some one knocked 
 at the door ; but the ladies dared not open it. At first they 
 would make no answer even ; but the knock was repeated 
 again and again, with the half-whispered assurance that it was 
 a friend who asked admittance. At length a black finger was 
 thrust through the keyhole, to convince them there was no 
 reason to doubt this assertion ; and they opened the door, to 
 find outside a faithful negro servant, who, when she got fairly 
 in, sank on the floor, exclaiming, " Oh, missis, such a time, 
 such a time as I had to git to you !" Then she called for a 
 pair of scissors, and, raising her skirt, ripped open a patch 
 made in it to conceal a letter which had been intrusted to 
 her care, and which, with great difficulty, she had succeeded 
 in bringing through the enemy's line, and thus faithfully de- 
 livered. 
 
 Throughout the summer and autumn of 1780, Mrs. Motte 
 continued to occupy with her family a small part of her own 
 house in Charleston. She would gladly have taken refuge at 
 her country-place on the Congaree River, to which the enemy 
 had not at that time penetrated ; but her husband's con- 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 267 
 
 dition of health precluded the possibility of such a move. 
 The disease, which terminated his life early in the following 
 year, was making rapid progress ; and his wife nursed him 
 with the untiring devotion of her unselfish nature. Under 
 these trying circumstances her calm dignity of demeanor 
 exacted unfailing respect from her unbidden guests. Every 
 day she presided at the long dinner-table, which was laid in 
 the big drawing-room and always crowded with officers. 
 The three pretty daughters never appeared on these occa- 
 sions. Meal-time was the signal for them to steal noiselessly 
 and dutifully up the narrowest, darkest, and most crooked 
 of little staircases into a dingy garret, where mamma locked 
 them up safe from the eye of the British lion. Not for worlds 
 would the good lady have suffered a daughter of hers to run 
 the risk of possible flirtation with the enemies of her people. 
 In those days of public gloom and depression, the patriotic 
 women of Charleston — the Whig ladies, as they were called — 
 always appeared on the streets dressed in deep mourning. 
 Some of them, in their unavoidable intercourse with the 
 English, made good use of the well-known woman's weapon; 
 and among the most prominent in this kind of warfare was 
 the Mrs. Brewton before mentioned as a connection of Mrs. 
 Motte's. She bullied the officers unmercifully, and so much 
 excited their ire that they finally exiled her to Philadelphia. 
 On one occasion, when she had recently returned from the 
 country, an officer inquired of her anxiously how things were 
 going on in the interior of the State. She immediately an- 
 swered that all nature smiled, for everything was Greene 
 down to Monk's Corner. At another time she was walking 
 down Broad Street, in her full suit of black, when one of the 
 garrison joined her; and just at that moment something 
 caught her dress and a part of it was torn off: she took up 
 the fragment of crape, and, passing the house of John Rut- 
 ledge, occupied at that time by the English Colonel Moncrief, 
 she hung the symbol of mourning on the railing in front, ex- 
 claiming, " Where are you, dear Governor? Let your house 
 mourn for you, as your friends do !" 
 
2 68 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 No feeling could be more natural than the honest hatred 
 which many women of the Revolution felt toward their foes 
 and were at no pains to conceal. Yet wherever in the scant 
 records of her day we read of Mrs. Motte's relations with 
 English soldiers, there we read also of her quiet courtesy and 
 unalterable dignity of bearing toward them ; in the same 
 paragraphs in which her strong and unfaltering patriotism is 
 insisted on, and of which, indeed, her actions give highest 
 evidence, the respect and even attachment she inspired them 
 with are declared. Nothing excites in us such reverence for 
 her liberal and high-minded character as this entire freedom 
 from petty feelings of personal enmity toward those who had 
 injured her. 
 
 But to return to the summer of the year 1780. It was a dis- 
 astrous time for the American cause, and a season of painful 
 anxiety in Mrs. Motte's family. The eldest daughter, Eliza- 
 beth, had married, a year previously, Major — afterward 
 General — Tom Pinckney ; but? her husband being constantly 
 with the army, she continued to live with her mother for 
 several years after her marriage. When the battle of Camden 
 took place, in August, 1780, Major Pinckney was severely 
 wounded. The excessively hot trying weather made his 
 chance of recovery a poor one ; but, thanks, it was said, to his 
 own placid fortitude as well as to his wife's unwearying devo- 
 tion in nursing him, he was restored. Many years after, as 
 he was passing near the battle-field, he drove with his chil- 
 dren to the spot, and told them how, as he lay helpless on the 
 ground when the battle was over, an English ammunition- 
 wagon happening to pass near, he was picked up and con- 
 veyed, at his own request, to the house of a friend in the 
 town. As the wagon jolted along, another wounded Amer- 
 ican was discovered, and lifted to a place at his side. Not 
 long after, they came upon an English soldier who had also 
 received a wound ; and the last poor wretch was immediately 
 put out by the driver and his companions to make room for 
 their own countryman. Major Pinckney besought them to 
 have pity on the sufferer, and not leave him behind to perish, 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 269 
 
 but was roughly answered, " Shut up, or we'll throw you 
 out !" He happened to have on a pair of gold buckles at- 
 tached to the knee-breeches which were the fashion of the 
 day ; and the soldiers, eager for booty, proceeded to rob him 
 of them. They got off one, and were about disturbing the 
 wounded leg to secure the other, when an Irishwoman be- 
 longing to the camp interfered, and, with the rough humanity 
 of her class, swore that whoever touched the shattered leg 
 should feel her nails ; and therewith she displayed a set of 
 most formidable talons, the sight of which effectually turned 
 the villains from their prey. 
 
 Mr. Motte died in January, 178 1 ; and not long after this 
 sad event Mrs. Motte obtained permission to leave Charleston, 
 and retired at once to her plantation on the Congaree, thirty 
 or forty miles from Columbia. The house was a large and 
 comfortable one, beautifully situated on a rising ground, 
 commanding a fine view of the river and the surrounding 
 country. 
 
 Here for a short time the widow and her daughters re- 
 mained in undisturbed seclusion. But the situation of the 
 place, so admirably suited for defense, soon recommended it 
 to the English as a proper point for erecting one of the line 
 of military stations by which for a long time they completely 
 controlled a large portion of the State. It was on the direct 
 road from Charleston to Camden, and was used at first as a 
 stopping-place in conveying supplies of all kinds to various 
 parts of the interior. At length the British threw up earth- 
 works around the house, which went by the name of Fort 
 Motte ; but the family were allowed for some time longer to 
 retain the use of a few rooms. The British officers, indeed, 
 treated the mistress of the house with much deference, and 
 as long as she remained in the fort pretended, at least, to per- 
 mit no molestation of her personal property. It is even said 
 that a civil and formal request was invariably sent to her by the 
 commanding officer for leave to appropriate to the use of the 
 garrison each separate pair of fowls that was abstracted from 
 her poultry-yard. Yet their conscientious scruples apparently 
 
270 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 did not extend beyond the hen-coops; for it is very certain that 
 their presence entailed far more serious losses on Mrs. Motte. 
 A letter from Colonel Tarleton, still extant, refers to the fact 
 that some of the soldiers had taken off her horses, but de- 
 clares his willingness to return them. Long afterward he 
 was made to suffer for at least conniving at this act. General 
 Thomas Pinckney, when Minister from the United States to 
 England, happened to meet Tarleton, and was introduced to 
 him as the son-in-law of Mrs. Motte, " whose horses," added the 
 introducer, " you know, you stole when you were in Carolina." 
 The American troops having succeeded in capturing one 
 of the enemy's posts nearest to Fort Motte, Major Mc- 
 Pherson, the British officer in command, afraid, perhaps, to 
 harbor so declared an enemy, desired Mrs. Motte to remain 
 no longer in his camp. She therefore betook herself, with 
 her family, to a small house within the limits of the planta- 
 tion. It was a rough structure, weather-boarded, but only 
 partially lined, with no attempt at plastering. The ladies, 
 knowing that they would be subjected to marauding parties 
 of the English, were at first at a loss where to conceal such 
 valuables as they had brought with them from Fort Motte. 
 It was impossible even to bury their silver without the ser- 
 vants knowing of it; and Mrs. Motte wisely decided against 
 putting their fidelity to any unnecessary test. At length some 
 one suggested that the unfinished state of the walls of their 
 sitting-room afforded a convenient hiding-place ; and they set 
 to work to avail themselves of it. Nailing tacks in the 
 vacancy between the outer and inner boarding, and tying 
 strings around the various pieces of silver, they hung them 
 along the inner wall. Shortly afterwards a band of marauders 
 did actually invade the premises ; and one more audacious 
 than the others jumped on a chair and thrust his bayonet 
 into the hollow wall, saying he would soon find what they 
 had come in search of; but, rapping all along on the floor 
 within the wall, he did not once strike against anything to 
 reward his bad perseverance. A quaint little sugar-dish of 
 highly-wrought English silver is still shown by a great-grand- 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 271 
 
 daughter of Mrs. Motte's, as one of the relics preserved by 
 her ingenuity. 
 
 The American troops, under Marion and Lee, advanced 
 rapidly to the siege of Fort Motte, and were joyfully received 
 and hospitably entertained by Mrs. Motte in her new quarters. 
 Meantime a reinforcement of the enemy were reported to be 
 on the way to relieve Major McPherson, and, that object once 
 effected, there would be no further thought of surrendering 
 the fort. The siege had lasted several days, and there re- 
 mained but one way of ending it speedily and successfully. 
 It occurred to General Marion that by firing the roof of the 
 house which served at once as headquarters and centre of the 
 British fortification this end might be attained ; and, with many 
 regrets at the military necessity for destroying the home and 
 valuable property of his kind hostess, Light-Horse Harry 
 Lee told her of his design. Curiously enough, on the day 
 that the family were ordered out of Fort Motte, one of them, 
 as she left the house, picked up and carried off for safe keep- 
 ing a small quiver of arrows which had many years before 
 been presented to Mr. Miles Brewton by a captain who had 
 brought them from the East Indies, and who declared that 
 they would set on fire any wooden substance against which 
 they struck. It is also said that they were poisoned, and 
 that a British officer handling one incautiously was warned 
 of the fact. Be this as it may, these arrows deserve a place 
 in history. Mrs. Motte's reply to Colonel Lee's proposal was 
 characteristic. " Do not hesitate a moment," she said. " I 
 will give you something to facilitate the destruction." And 
 then she went in search of the three East India arrows. 
 There was no bow : so they were shot from a gun. With in- 
 tense excitement the flight of the first was watched. It fell 
 quietly and harmlessly. The second had no more effect. 
 Then some one suggested that they should wait until later in 
 the day, when the roof had been well dried by the rays of the 
 sun. At length, about midday, the third and last arrow was 
 dispatched, and in a little while a thin curl of smoke rising 
 from the shingles told the watchers that it had well done its 
 
272 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 work. The garrison soon discovered their new danger, and 
 made vigorous efforts to extinguish the flames, so that it be- 
 came necessary for the besiegers to direct the fire of their 
 guns on the point where the staircase gave access to the roof. 
 In a short time a white flag took the place of the British 
 colors, and Fort Motte fell into the hands of its wily besiegers. 
 It was not too late to save the house even then ; and the 
 American soldiers showed their appreciation of the patriotic 
 spirit of their countrywoman by making the most strenuous 
 exertions to save her property, so that only thk roof was 
 consumed. Seven years later, however, an unfortunate acci- 
 dent burnt the house to the ground. 
 
 The quiver, emptied of its fateful arrows, but ever after kept 
 with laudable sentiment, hung in Mrs. Motte's parlor, holding 
 no longer weapons of any kind but harmless knitting-needles. 
 Whenever, in after-time, Mrs. Motte's part in the surrender 
 of the fort was alluded to in her presence, she would say, 
 simply, "Too much has been made of a thing that any Ameri- 
 can woman would have done." 
 
 The day after the surrender she entertained the British and 
 American officers at the same table, and won golden opinions 
 from them all. Years afterward she received a pleasant token 
 of the esteem in which she was held by those of the enemy 
 who learned to know her. An English officer to whom she 
 had extended some kindness happened to see in a book-stall 
 in London a Bible and prayer-book which had been presented 
 by Mrs. Motte to the old Episcopal church on the Santee. 
 Her name and this fact were inscribed on the books, which 
 had doubtless been carried off by some sacrilegious thieves 
 who despoiled the church during the war. The officer im- 
 mediately bought the books, and sent them once more across 
 the water to the original giver. 
 
 The prayer-book was, of course, laid aside, as unsuited to 
 the new order of things; but the old Bible is still read in the 
 queer little brick church where Mrs. Motte worshiped during 
 many years of her long life. 
 
 After the taking of Fort Motte the tide of war gradually 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 273 
 
 turned, and success declared at last on the side of the Ameri- 
 cans. But it was not till December, 1782, that the incubus 
 of British occupation was finally removed from Charleston. 
 
 When the war at length ended, Mrs. Motte's large estate 
 had become much incumbered by debt, incurred principally 
 on behalf of various friends of the family; and with character- 
 istic energy and determination she set herself the task of 
 managing and, if possible, clearing the property of this heavy 
 burden. She built a large and handsome house on her Santee 
 lands, and there she lived for some years through autumn, 
 winter, and spring, repairing in the sickly summer season to 
 Murphy's Island, a small strip of land where the Santee falls 
 into the ocean, some miles below her winter residence. 
 
 This whole Santee neighborhood is full of stories and recol- 
 lections of the days of the Revolution. One of the most 
 picturesque old places on the river was owned at that time by 
 Mrs. Horry, the sister of Charles and Thomas Pinckney, and 
 a great friend of Mrs. Motte. On one occasion General 
 Marion, when hard pressed by the British, sought refuge in 
 her house. But he had not been there long when the good 
 lady, who had gone to prepare dinner for him, rushed in, cry- 
 ing, " Fly for your life, general ! The red-coats are upon 
 you." Marion had taken the precaution of hitching his horse 
 by the river-side; and the spot is still shown where he leaped 
 into his saddle and swam across stream to an island in the 
 broad Santee, out of reach of his pursuers. 
 
 All the stories are not equally dramatic. Another, which 
 has a strong touch of the burlesque, attaches itself to the 
 Pinckney place, situated a little farther down the river. It 
 tells of a certain Colonel or Major Pendleton, who was carefully 
 wrapped up for concealment in a roll of carpets in the garret. 
 The Britishers searched the house from loft to basement, and 
 found no trace of their game. But Colonel Pendleton had 
 one incurable weakness : it was for turkey-giblets ; and when 
 from his hiding-place he, in an evil hour, overheard the cook 
 killing a turkey in preparation for dinner, he lost all prudence 
 in his desire for this favorite dish, and called out from the 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 window, "Save the giblets for me!" The soldiers caught his 
 words, flew immediately up-stairs, and bore off their prisoner 
 in triumph. 
 
 The Santee church, of which mention has been made, was 
 built in great part by the liberality of Jacob Motte; and a 
 document is still to be seen assigning one of the pews to him 
 in recognition of this. The old-fashioned church stands by 
 the road amidst the great pine forest that extends for many 
 miles southward from the banks of the Santee. There is still 
 to be found in the uninclosed church-yard a grave which, 
 with its warning inscription, must have been familiar to the 
 eyes of Revolutionary generations. It is said to be the rest- 
 ing-place of a carpenter who fell from the roof of the church 
 while it was being built. It is marked by a cypress head- 
 board so old and weather-beaten that the letters long ago 
 marked on it are rendered legible now by being raised from 
 the surrounding wood, which, left unpainted, has been more 
 rapidly worn by the constant action of sun and rain. The 
 words run, — 
 
 " Stranger who now are passing by, 
 As you are now, so once was I; 
 As I am now, so shall yon be : 
 Therefore prepare to follow me." 
 
 There is perhaps no private sphere of life affording a wider 
 field for the constant exercise of all the Christian and humane 
 virtues than a large Southern plantation ; and here, more even 
 than in the other scenes of life, Mrs. Motte's peculiar excel- 
 lences shone forth in all their brightness. Here her liberality 
 displayed itself in unfailing attention to the comfort of those 
 dependent on her. In sickness her place was ever at the 
 bedside, carrying out the doctor's directions herself, and con- 
 tributing her own experience and rare good judgment to alle- 
 viate suffering and hasten recovery. " I well remember," says 
 one of her great-grandchildren, speaking of Mrs. Motte's plan- 
 tation-life, "the gifts at Christmas, when old and young, even 
 babies, would come up to the house to wish Old Mistress a 
 merry Christmas, and none returned empty-handed to their 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 275 
 
 dances and merry-making for three days." The place she 
 held in the affection of her negroes was shown for many and 
 many a year after her death by the pride with which the old 
 men and women would boast that they had belonged to and 
 well remembered the dear old Missis. Her relations with all 
 classes of her inferiors were ever most kindly; and the wide 
 charity which was her most prominent trait gained her un- 
 bounded influence with them, which was always judiciously 
 exercised. 
 
 She was entirely successful, not only in paying off the 
 debts of her husband's estate, but in improving it for the ben- 
 efit of her children. The two younger daughters married re- 
 spectively Mr. John Middleton and Colonel William Alston ; 
 and in the course of years the house in King Street grew merry 
 again with the voices of numerous grandchildren, the youngest 
 of whom still graces the old home with her sweet presence. 
 
 There are now living more than a hundred descendants of 
 Mrs. Motte, belonging to the most respectable families of 
 Carolina. 
 
 That Mrs. Motte had great practical capacity may be in- 
 ferred from her management of her affairs. Until within a few 
 years her business correspondence was extant, bearing witness 
 to her unusual administrative powers ; but it perished with 
 most of the family records and heirlooms. A few letters 
 written in her old age to one of her daughters remain, and 
 give evidence in every line of her tender thoughtfulness of 
 others, her active interest in what concerned the welfare 
 of her friends and neighbors, and the energy with which she 
 still attended to her daily duties. As we reverently turn the 
 old, embrowned pages, the simple beauty of the unselfish life 
 they bear witness to strikes us more and more forcibly. 
 
 "Saturday, September 10th, 1S06. 
 
 " I received your letter, my dear Child, by Scipio, on Wed- 
 nesday last, with the Shawl, which is very handsome, and I 
 shall wear it for your sake ; pray don't work any more cap 
 cauls, for I have enough by me. I send by Scipio two pairs 
 
276 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of socks for Mr. Alston,* and will send the others when done: 
 pray when you write let me know if they fit him. . . . Tell 
 B.f I am sorry to hear she is so lazy and indolent ; you must 
 let her come and stay with me the winter, and I will endeavor 
 to make her more active : I expect to be a good deal alone. 
 I am glad to hear you all keep well. I hope it may continue. 
 Kiss your little girls for me, and tell them I have nothing to 
 send them on this Island ; but when I go to town I will send 
 them some goodies by a schooner." 
 
 " I was rejoiced, my dear Child, to hear by Flora you were 
 all well. I hope Mr. Alston is quite recovered. Don't dis- 
 tress yourself about not coming to see me. I did not expect 
 it ; for from all the sickness you have had in your family this 
 summer, and the removal from the sea-shore to Clifton, and 
 the loss of your house, and the confusion it must have thrown 
 you in, it was impossible for you to leave home. Therefore, 
 my dear Child, I did not expect it. But whenever Mr. Alston 
 goes to town you can then come. But I think you must want 
 to go to town yourself to get some necessaries after your 
 loss. Now, my dear, I would have you go to town with Mr. 
 Alston, and leave the girls with me until your return. I am 
 very sorry to hear poor old Bess| is so ill: she will be a great 
 loss to you. . . . Mrs. Horry's family are all at Hampton, and 
 well ; she desires her love to you. They dined with us on 
 Christmas day : sixteen sat down to dinner. My love to M. 
 and C. and B. and the dear little girls and boys. ... I send 
 a few hops, and am sorry I have no more : the rains have 
 destroyed all ours and Mrs. Horry's." 
 
 "El Dorado,§ 1S06. 
 
 " Now I have told you all the news I know of, I will inform 
 you about my crop. I have a better prospect of a good crop 
 than I ever had ; there were more pains taken in planting : 
 
 * Her son-in-law. 
 
 f A granddaughter who grew up to be remarkable for energy and diligence 
 as well as amiability. 
 
 % An old slave. \ The plantation. 
 
REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 277 
 
 all my seed-rice was hand-picked ; and if rice is but a good 
 price next year I shall pay all my debts, I hope. Five large 
 ships arrived yesterday and to-day. I have not heard where 
 they came from. . . . My love to M. and C. and my dear B. 
 I hope when I see her next I shall find her much improved, 
 and all the dear boys. Kiss L. and H. for me, and am your 
 affectionate 
 
 " Mother, 
 
 " R. MOTTE." 
 
 We have glanced at the picture of Rebecca Motte in her 
 youth. Here is a sketch of her as she appeared in age to the 
 eyes of a far younger generation. It is penned by one of her 
 great-grandchildren, to whom she was always the impersona- 
 tion of indulgent motherly kindness and love. " She was 
 rather under-sized and slender, with a pale face, blue eyes, and 
 gray hair that curled slightly under a high-crowned ruffled 
 mob-cap. She always wore a square white neckerchief pinned 
 down in front, tight sleeves reaching only to the elbow, with 
 black silk mittens on her hands and arms ; a full skirt with 
 huge pockets, and at her waist a silver chain, from which 
 hung her pin-cushion and scissors and a peculiarly bright 
 bunch of keys." 
 
 Respected and beloved by all around her, thus she lived on 
 through the gathering years, whose weight she hardly seemed 
 to feel, so bright and strong her mind continued, so sweet 
 and loving her temper, so firm her bodily health. 
 
 A character like hers, so made up of all good things, and 
 in which whatever flaws originally existed were so overlaid by 
 prominent virtues as to be invisible, will appear to many un- 
 natural. Others, more happy in their experience of human- 
 ity, and whom personal acquaintance with natures rare as 
 hers has convinced of their existence, look trustfully to them 
 in hours of depression, despondency, and darkness, as the one 
 shining link left always visible that connects our poor sad 
 earth with heaven. 
 
 Rebecca Motte was laid to rest in the old St. Philip's 
 
2; 8 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Church, which was burnt many years ago, but which occupied 
 the site on which the present church of that name stands. 
 A slab with the following inscription was placed in honor 
 of her : 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF REBECCA MOTTE. 
 
 IN HER THE MEEKNESS AND FERVENT PIETY OF THE CHRISTIAN, 
 
 THE MOST BENEVOLENT OF HUMAN HEARTS, 
 
 AND THE MOST HUMBLE AND UNOBTRUSIVE DEMEANOR, 
 
 WERE HAPPILY BLENDED WITH THE FIRM PATRIOTISM 
 
 OF THE SPARTAN MATRON. 
 
 ************* 
 
 THE TEARS OF THE INDIGENT, TO WHOM SHE ACTED AS A SISTER, 
 
 TESTIFY HER UNBOUNDED CHARITY. 
 
 THE UNFEIGNED SORROW OF THE CIRCLE IN WHICH SHE MOVED, 
 
 AND OF WHICH SHE WAS THE ORNAMENT 
 
 AND THE DELIGHT, PROCLAIM HOW AMIABLE AND UNASSUMING 
 
 WERE HER SOCIAL TALENTS; 
 
 AND HER BEREAVED AND DISCONSOLATE CHILDREN 
 
 DEDICATE THIS MARBLE TO COMMEMORATE THE EXCELLENCE 
 
 OF THE DOMESTIC CHARACTER OF THEIR PARENT. 
 
 Those who have followed her story as far as it has been 
 possible to give its outline in these brief pages will hardly 
 question the merited genuineness of this tender praise. But 
 far more enduring than this monument to her worth has 
 proved is the loving and proud reverence in which her 
 memory is held by her many grandchildren and their chil- 
 dren, some of whom still have their home in the old house 
 and beautiful garden which Time and her name have done so 
 much to render venerable. 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN, 
 
 THE QUAKER LADY. 
 
 To all conversant with the early history of Pennsylvania 
 the names of Norris and Logan are well known. The founder 
 of the former family came as a lad to this country from Ja- 
 maica in 1690, whither his father had immigrated from the 
 Isle of Wight. Returning to the West Indies after two years' 
 absence, Isaac Norris found that his home and family had 
 been engulfed by the memorable earthquake which destroyed 
 Port Royal : the vessel which bore him out actually sailed 
 over the site of his father's house. He gathered together the 
 remnants of his fortune, and, wi£h hardly more than a hun- 
 dred pounds sterling, came back to America, being then about 
 twenty-one. This terrible beginning of life was followed by 
 nearly half a century of unbroken prosperity. He married a 
 daughter of Governor Lloyd, of Pennsylvania, by whom he 
 had fourteen children. He had the happiness of revisiting 
 his birthplace and friends in England ; he made a beautiful 
 home for himself near Philadelphia, on a fine estate, which he 
 called Fairhill; he filled a number of important public posi- 
 tions with distinction, among which were those of member of 
 the Council, Speaker of the Assembly, and Chief Justice of the 
 State, until death overtook him in the Friends' Meeting-House 
 in Germantown, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. What a 
 singular career, so stripped at its outset, so successful, so full 
 of honors at its close ! He comes before us with the awful 
 catastrophe at Jamaica, and passes calmly out of sight from 
 the house of God on a summer Sabbath morning, June 4, 1735. 
 When the sudden stroke fell, he was carried at once to Stenton, 
 the seat of his friend James Logan, which was nearer than 
 
 279 
 
280 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Fairhill, in the vain hope of restoring him ; and thus in this 
 final scene the ancestors of our heroine and her husband ap- 
 pear together under the roof which in course of time was to 
 be hers. 
 
 James Logan's early life had not been without vicissitudes. 
 His father, destined for the Church of England, became a 
 Quaker, and relinquished his profession and country for the 
 sake of religious independence. He settled in Ireland, but 
 was forced to leave it by the war of 1689, his family following 
 him in his wanderings, first to Scotland, then to England. 
 His son James was about twenty-five when William Penn was 
 attracted by his ability and acquirements and proposed taking 
 the young man to America as his private secretary. Logan's 
 family opposed his accepting this offer, and he was obliged 
 to sail without their consent, which he did in September, 
 1699. His character and intelligence soon won the entire 
 confidence of Penn, who on his return to England, two years 
 after their arrival in America, left Logan secretary of the prov- 
 ince. As years went on, he filled other high posts, including 
 that of President of the Council, and, like his friend Isaac 
 Norris, died Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, October 31, 175 1, 
 having reached the age of seventy-seven with undiminished 
 mental powers, although his bodily strength and health had 
 suffered during his latter years from a severe fall he had got 
 in riding. Learning and philanthropy had a large share in 
 this life which was so filled besides with cares of business and 
 state : his house was the resort of men of letters and science ; 
 his correspondents at home and abroad were those of the 
 same pursuits ; in days when books were rare and dear, 
 brought with trouble and cost from the Old World, he collected 
 a noble library, which he bequeathed to his townsfolk, who 
 had shortly before made their first public attempt in that di- 
 rection. In the following generation a member of the family 
 enriched the Philadelphia and Loganian Library by a dona- 
 tion of two thousand volumes: yet still books gathered at 
 Stenton. Like Penn, he was the friend and protector of the 
 Indians, who sometimes paid him visits of several weeks at a 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 28 1 
 
 time, encamping round his house three and four hundred 
 strong. 
 
 Such were the commencements of the Norris and Logan 
 families in this country, where by the middle of the last cen- 
 tury they had taken firm root and thrown out numerous off- 
 shoots. Deborah, the subject of our memoir, was the second 
 child and only daughter of Charles, a younger son of Isaac 
 Norris, Jr., and Mary Parker, of Chester, Delaware County, 
 whose parents had come over from Yorkshire early in the 
 eighteenth century. Charles Norris had built a fine residence 
 in Chestnut Street below Fifth, on the site of the present 
 custom-house. It was more like a villa than a town-house, 
 with tiers of piazzas and a beautiful garden. There were 
 greenhouses and hothouses, among the products of which, 
 most unusual for that day, were pineapples. The garden 
 reached to Fifth Street, and the State-house grounds extended, 
 as now, along the opposite side. Beyond, on the same side of 
 the way, there were but two buildings, both of wood. It was 
 the western extremity of town. In our day, when the city 
 west of the Schuylkill is almost thrice as populous as that 
 west of the Delaware was then, it is hard to form an idea of 
 the Philadelphia of Deborah Norris's childhood. There is a 
 curious old wood-cut in the National Museum at Independence 
 Hall, showing a mere strip of houses along the river's edge, 
 backed by densely-wooded hills, with a little fort, whence 
 flies the British flag in one corner. 
 
 Deborah was born October 19, 1761, in the fine house at 
 Fifth and Chestnut Streets. She lost her father when she 
 was between four and five years old, and the charge of her 
 and three brothers (all four born between July, 1760, and 
 July, 1765) devolved upon her mother. Whatever the quali- 
 ties and merits of Charles Norris may have been, it is certain 
 that his daughter inherited much of her strong, well-balanced 
 nature and studious turn from her mother. She grew towards 
 girlhood amid the thickening troubles of the country, of which 
 Philadelphia was the centre. She was early used to meeting 
 all sorts of people. At her mother's house she saw many 
 
282 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 members of that Congress whose roll is the American peerage. 
 John Hancock, Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, a brilliant, 
 striking man, and others hardly less distinguished, were drawn 
 to the Quaker widow's fireside by the lively common sense 
 of her talk. At Fairhill, too, where her Norris cousins lived, 
 she met most of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and in after-life jotted down some fragmentary recollec- 
 tions of them. Francis Lightfoot Lee made a lasting impres- 
 sion upon her by his " Roman physiognomy." She was 
 rather hard upon John Penn, who struck her as an insignifi- 
 cant person whose decisive steps were the result of the press- 
 ure of circumstances, not of natural force : " he seemed to me 
 a very foolish person ;" but she adds, " he used to pretend 
 to be an admirer of mine. He was very homely, and wore a 
 tie-wig. Now, my little tittering hussies, you all laugh at 
 your great-grandmother's admirer in his tie-wig !" A touch 
 of girlish disdain may have affected her opinion of this worthy. 
 " I was very young then, but somewhat observant." So it 
 appears. She was full of spirits long unsubdued to demure- 
 ness by her Quaker training. She was sent to school to the 
 philanthropic, eminently humane Anthony Benezet, who gov- 
 erned his pupils by studying their dispositions and appealing 
 to their higher qualities. He discovered that the only curb 
 which could hold in check Deborah's sense of fun was her 
 sense of honor. For some reason, the Quaker practice of 
 using the Christian name, which on the lips of some Friends 
 has an almost apostolic simplicity and sweetness, was not in 
 force at Mr. Benezet's school, and the rough custom (though 
 he must have made it sound gentle) of calling the girls by 
 their family names prevailed : when he left the school-room 
 he found that the best way of keeping order and keeping 
 " Norris" in order was to appoint her monitress. She con- 
 fessed afterwards that she had not made the best of her time 
 and his teaching. Shortly after leaving school she became so 
 conscious of her deficiencies that she undertook a course of 
 reading and study, which she pursued with so much energy 
 that in a short time she acquired more than she had done 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 283 
 
 during all her school years. Such a resolution and so much 
 steadiness in carrying it out would be creditable to a young 
 girl of the present day. To value it fully in Deborah, we 
 must remember how differently the whole question of educa- 
 tion, especially female education, was considered a hundred 
 years ago : it was pretty much summed up in the sampler 
 and the spelling-book, and, to judge by the orthography of 
 many a fine lady, the latter was held of minor importance. 
 The standard was immeasurably low; women of fashion were 
 required to be agreeable and amusing, and for the most 
 part were so by dint of mother wit ; with Quakers in this 
 countiy mental cultivation has always been an individual dis- 
 tinction, and the fair Friends were expected only to be do- 
 mestic and notable. None of the ambition of the present day 
 v/as awakened, which stirs up every clever girl to show that 
 against wind and tide she can make as much headway as a 
 boy of her age. Add to this the difficulty of obtaining 
 masters, the comparative fewness of books, the absence of 
 the intellectual element in conversation and correspondence, 
 when the best minds were engrossed by passing events. Nev- 
 ertheless, the brave and spirited girl put herself to work, and, 
 besides speedily making up for lost time, formed habits of 
 literary occupation which lasted throughout life. 
 
 She was about fifteen at the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, of which she was an ear-witness. She had clam- 
 bered upon the garden-fence to get sight of what was going 
 on ; but the view was shut off by a low frame building in In- 
 dependence Square which had been put up for astronomical 
 purposes. These are her recollections of that momentous 
 morning. " Plow a little time spreads the mantle of oblivion 
 over the manner of the most important events ! It is now a 
 matter of doubt at what hour or how the Declaration was 
 given to the people : perhaps few remain who heard it read on 
 that day; of those few I am one, being in the lot adjoining to 
 our old mansion in Chestnut Street, that then extended to 
 Fifth. I distinctly heard the words of that instrument read 
 to the people (I believe from the State-house steps, for I did 
 
284 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 not see the speaker). ... I think it was Charles Thomson's 
 voice. It took place a little after twelve at noon, and they 
 then proceeded down the street (I understood), to read it at 
 the court-house. It was a time of fearful doubt and great 
 anxiety with the people, many of whom were appalled at the 
 boldness of the measure, and the first audience of the Decla- 
 ration was neither very numerous nor composed of the most 
 respectable class of citizens." We look back now and picture 
 to ourselves a united multitude, wrought up by enthusiasm 
 and ardor beyond misgivings, listening to the words of the 
 majestic group who had decided the destinies of the nation, 
 and then sweeping onward to proclaim and spread the great 
 news to a rejoicing land. Here is the real scene : a knot of 
 men oppressed by the sense of consequences ; a small and 
 somewhat shabby crowd ; one figure whose face, like the heads- 
 man's, is forever hidden, standing on what John Adams called 
 " that awful platform ;" an eager school-girl clinging to the wall 
 of her father's garden, drinking in the words of the invisible 
 speaker. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year she again comes before us, 
 in the pages of a young friend, Sally Wister, another lively 
 little Quakeress, whose family left Philadelphia, apprehending 
 the entrance of the British troops, and retired to a farm in 
 North Wales, a district about twenty miles from town, in the 
 direction of Valley Forge. During this exile, which lasted 
 nearly two years, she kept a journal for the future perusal 
 of her " dear Debby Norris," as they had no means of ex- 
 changing letters. North Wales was settled by an exodus 
 from the old country not long after the first immigration 
 under Edward Jones, who took up the townships of Upper 
 and Lower Merion in his own name for the numerous cousin- 
 hood who accompanied him. They were all families of sub- 
 stance and respectability in their native Merionethshire, and 
 have remained so through succeeding generations in the land 
 of their adoption. It was no doubt in consequence of their 
 taking so kindly to the new soil that a few years later, at 
 the very beginning of the last century, arrived more Welsh 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 285 
 
 colonists, Davids, Ffoulkes, etc., who settled east of the Schuyl- 
 kill, near the rise of the Wissahiccon, and called their villages 
 by the old names of the motherland, Gvvynedd and Penlyn. 
 The Wisters, of a German stock who had intermarried with 
 them, now sought a quiet retreat in the midst of their Kelt- 
 American kinsfolk; but there was no nook so secluded within 
 the meridian of a large city but that some signs and sounds of 
 war found their way thither. Officers of the American army 
 were quartered on many of the inhabitants of North Wales, 
 and the young girl's journal relates the alarms and affrights of 
 herself and her cousins " Liddy and Prissa" from tipsy militia, 
 marauding light-horse, and imaginary Hessians, — the terror of 
 all country neighborhoods. The charms of our own officers 
 provoke her utmost eloquence, — although she always writes 
 from the comic point of view, making fun of her fears and 
 laughing at her sentiment ; but could a position be fancied 
 more dangerous to the peace of a Quaker-bred damsel ? 
 " How new is our situation ! I feel in good spirits, though 
 surrounded by an army, the house full of officers, the yard 
 alive with soldiers ! — very peaceable sort of people, tho' ; they 
 eat like other folks, talk like them, and behave themselves with 
 elegance, so I will not be afraid of them, that I won't ! Adieu. 
 I am going to my chamber, to dream, I suppose, of bayonets 
 and swords, sashes, guns, and epaulets." 
 
 She takes so much pride in being invincible that one sus- 
 pects she now and then felt her heart of fifteen in peril. The 
 Virginians are the prime heroes and favorites. One day a 
 new party arrives, and Miss Sally, struck with the appearance 
 of the commanding officer, inquires his name. " ' Captain 
 Dyer.' Oh ! the name. . . . Take a circumstantial account 
 of this afternoon and the person of this extraordinary man. 
 His exterior first. His name is not Dyer, but Alexander 
 Spotswood Dandridge, which certainly gives a genteel idea 
 of the man. I will be particular. His person is more 
 elegantly formed than any I ever seen (sic) ; tall and com- 
 manding ; his forehead is very white, though the lower part 
 of his face is much sunburnt ; his features are extremely 
 
286 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 pleasing ; an even, white set of teeth ; dark hair and eyes. I 
 can't describe him better than by saying he is the handsomest 
 man I ever beheld. Betsy and Liddy coincide in this opinion. 
 . . . The moon gave a sadly pleasing light. We sat at the 
 door till nine. Dandridge is sensible, and (divested of some 
 freedoms which might be called gallant in the fashionable 
 world) he is polite and agreeable. His greatest fault is a 
 propensity to swearing, which throws a shade over his ac- 
 complishments. I asked him why he did so. 'It is a 
 favorite vice of mine, Miss Sally.' At nine he went to his 
 chamber : sets off at sunrise. 
 
 " Fourth day mom., 12 dclk. — I was awakened this morning 
 with a great racket of the captain's servant calling him, but 
 the lazy fellow never rose till about half an hour eight ! 
 This his daylight ride ! I imagined they would be gone be- 
 fore now, so I dressed in a green skirt and dark short-gown. 
 Provoking ! So down I came, this captain (wild wretch !) 
 standing at the back door. He bowed, and called me. I only 
 looked, and went to breakfast. About nine I took my work 
 and seated myself in the parlor. Not long had I sat when in 
 came Dandridge, — the handsomest man in existence, at least 
 that I had seen. But stop here while I just say, the night 
 before, chatting upon dress, he said he had no patience with 
 those officers who every morn before they went on detach- 
 ment would wait to be dressed and powdered. ' I am,' said 
 I, ' excessively fond of powder, and think it very becoming.' 
 ' Are you?' he replied. ' I am very careless, as often wearing 
 my cap thus' (turning the back part before) ' as any way.' I 
 left off at where he come in. He was powdered very white, 
 a (pretty-colored) brown coat lapelled with green, and white 
 waistcoat, etc. ; his 
 
 ' sword beside him negligently hung.' 
 
 He made a truly elegant figure. ' Good-morning, Miss Sally. 
 You are very well, I hope ?' ' Very well : pray sit down,' — 
 which he did, close by me. ' Oh, dear !' said I, ' I see thee is 
 powdered ?' ' Yes, ma'am. I have dressed myself off for 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 287 
 
 you.' Will I be excused, Debby, if I. look upon his being 
 powdered in the light of a compliment to me? Yes, Sally, 
 as thee is a country maid and don't often meet with compli- 
 ments. Saucy Debby Norris !" 
 
 She constantly introduces imaginary dialogues between 
 herself and her absent friend, in which the latter always gives 
 her good advice in a bantering tone. Sally Wister was a 
 stanch patriot, and repudiates Captain Dandridge's accusa- 
 tion of being a Tory. She will not even write the hateful 
 term in full, but speaks of them as T — y and T — s, which 
 many of the Society of Friends undoubtedly were. But not 
 Mrs. Norris and her young daughter, who watched the 
 progress of the struggle for liberty with intense interest and 
 sympathy, their house, as we have seen, being open to the 
 leaders of the Revolution, while the fair Shippens and Chews 
 were smiling on the British officers. School-days were over, 
 and, while industriously following the plan of study she had 
 laid out for herself, Deborah took her place in her mother's 
 drawing-room to aid in receiving the curiously-mixed society 
 which met there. A little story remains of that period, illus- 
 trating the good feeling and good breeding which, when com- 
 bined as in her, make the perfect hostess. One day the 
 Chevalier de Ternan* (a young Frenchman in our service, 
 distinguished for wit, talent, and acquirement) happened to 
 call on Mrs. Norris when the room was full of old friends 
 and persons of their own religious persuasion, between whom 
 and the accomplished foreigner there seemed little in common. 
 Deborah looked anxiously round, and presently singled out 
 Humphrey Marshall, a distinguished naturalist, but a man 
 of the plainest address, and presented them to each other, 
 adroitly turning the conversation upon botany, which she 
 knew to be a favorite science of De Ternan's, and then left 
 them, to look after other guests. After a long talk, De Ternan 
 came up to her with the inquiry, " Miss Norris, have you many 
 such men as this Mr. Marshall among you ?" Of the cheva- 
 
 Vide Travels of the Marquis de Chastellux, vol. i. 
 
2 88 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 lier she afterwards made mention on some rather unfavora- 
 ble remarks upon him in Sir John Sinclair's correspondence, 
 where, however, he is spoken of as a " very able and insin- 
 uating man, speaking English perfectly well." She says, 
 after quoting the passage, " I was well acquainted with 
 Ternan, and thought him a very agreeable, as he certainly 
 was a very accomplished, man. He meant to have settled 
 here, and was engaged to be married to Betsey Cadwalader, 
 one of Dr. Cadwalader's daughters, who was neither young, 
 beautiful, nor rich, but a sensible, agreeable woman. She 
 died, and he soon after left the country." 
 
 Deborah did not long remain at home to help her mother's 
 guests out of their little difficulties. During the last year of 
 the Revolutionary War, when not quite twenty, she married 
 Dr. George Logan, the grandson of the Secretary and Chief 
 Justice of Pennsylvania. Of their acquaintance and court- 
 ship there is no record ; but they had probably always known 
 each other, as both belonged to the old Quaker stock of 
 Philadelphia, their ancestors had been friends and neighbors, 
 and there had been an intermarriage between the families in 
 the previous generation. Nor do we know whether this was 
 the sprightly though discreet young lady's first love; but 
 there is every reason to believe so. In after-years his was 
 the only name, the only image, her heart ever recalled : as we 
 follow her history, we come to the conviction that Deborah 
 Norris had loved but one man, and him she loved with her 
 whole heart for her whole life. 
 
 Dr. Logan was born at Stenton, 9th September, 1753. He 
 went to England first to school as a little boy, later to study 
 medicine, completing his course in Edinburgh and Paris. He 
 was in the latter city while Franklin was on his diplomatic 
 mission to France, and was treated with much friendliness by 
 the great man, who in his own early days had received kind- 
 ness from James Logan, the young Philadelphian's grand- 
 father. On his return to America, in the autumn of 1780, 
 Franklin gave him letters to various prominent citizens, com- 
 mending his ability, worth, and especially his patriotism. Dr. 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 289 
 
 Logan had pursued the study of his profession under diffi- 
 culty and opposition : his elder brother was a physician, and 
 their father wished the younger son to go into business. He 
 went through the necessary training, but gave every spare 
 moment to books on the healing science, and at an early age 
 had sufficient knowledge and skill to inoculate himself for 
 smallpox. At length the strength of his vocation, seconded 
 by the urgency of his brother, prevailed with his father, and 
 he was allowed to follow his natural bent. But circumstances 
 were too strong for him in the end. When he reached home 
 from his studies and travels, brother and parents were gone : 
 they had died within a short time of one another. The farm 
 of Stenton had been pillaged, and the house had narrowly 
 escaped burning at the hands of the British. A party detailed 
 by Colonel Tvvisleton, afterwards Lord Saye and Sele, to de- 
 stroy the property of leading rebels, came to the house, then 
 occupied only by an old family servant, and told her, as a 
 special favor, that she might remove anything of her own she 
 wished to save, as they were going to set fire to the building. 
 In spite of her entreaties, they went to the barn to fetch straw 
 for the purpose ; but at this moment an officer, with drawn 
 sword, galloped up, to inquire about deserters. She answered 
 promptly that there were some now hiding in the barn. He 
 routed them out, and drove them off before him, notwith- 
 standing their protestations. Thus that beautiful, venerable 
 mansion was saved from the fate of Fairhill and sixteen other 
 fine country-places in the neighborhood. The farm, however, 
 was devastated, "and," says Dr. Logan's wife, writing his 
 memoir nearly half a century afterwards, " when its owner 
 returned to Pennsylvania, the war and its consequences had 
 left him nothing to receive at the hands of his father's execu- 
 tors but wasted estates and piles of utterly depreciated paper 
 currency." During the winter of 1781-82, Stenton had 
 been placed by Dr. Logan at the disposal of the refugees 
 from Charleston, which was then occupied by the British. 
 Among others, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, his 
 brother, Major Thomas Pinckney, and Edward Rutledge, 
 
 19 
 
290 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 afterwards Governor of South Carolina, with their families, 
 found a haven under this hospitable roof, and fire-wood from 
 the noble timber of the estate roared in the great tiled chim- 
 ney-places, to give these exiles such warmth of cheer as the 
 North affords. " They were most of them persons of com- 
 petent estates," says the memoir, "but the situation of their 
 country, in possession of the enemy's forces, rendering it im- 
 possible for them to command money, they found themselves 
 in very distressing circumstances at that period. ... It is 
 difficult now to conceive the distresses and embarrassments 
 which attended this period of our affairs. Dr. Logan found 
 it difficult to obtain a small sum on loan, notwithstanding the 
 ample security which he had to offer." It was at this juncture 
 of his fortunes that Dr. Logan married, in September, 1781, 
 being twenty-eight years old, his bride, eight years younger. 
 It is consistent with the invariable absence of egotism and 
 concern about what merely regards herself that Mrs. Logan, 
 as we must henceforth call her, does not mention where her 
 home was immediately after her marriage. Her absorbing 
 thought was her husband. This is the portrait of him which 
 her fond pen traced in after-years when she lived only in the 
 memory of the blessed past. " His person was formed with 
 exact symmetry, about the middle size, erect and graceful in 
 his demeanor; his countenance would not easily be forgotten 
 by any person who had once seen him; it had an expression of 
 thought, benignity, and of open, unsuspecting honesty that was 
 very remarkable. He walked and rode extremely well : indeed, 
 when on horseback his air and appearance was noble ; and in 
 his youth he was remarkably active. His mind was wholly 
 unpolluted by avarice. His heart was tender, and he was often 
 led to sympathize with others in their distress and difficulties. 
 Yet he had a quickness of temper, and could show, on occa- 
 sion, the utmost spirit and resolution, for his personal courage 
 was great. He was a most true republican, contemning luxury 
 and despising false glory. I may be asked for the reverse of 
 this picture. To me he had no reverse, but was exactly the 
 kind, good, upright man which I have here represented him." 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 291 
 
 Nobody has given us a portrait of the writer ; nor did she, 
 like her fair contemporaries in France, leave us a flattering 
 likeness of herself in pen-and-ink. There is no one left 
 to tell us how " saucy Debby Norris" looked at twenty — 
 whether she was blonde or brunette, pale or blooming. Some 
 still remember her as a beautiful, dignified old lady, with a 
 manner of infinite kindliness and suavity, wearing her plain 
 dark skirt and short-gown, cap, and kerchief, with a great air. 
 The picture of her by Connarroe, in the possession of Miss 
 M. N. Logan, taken when she was seventy or upwards, shows 
 a fine oval face, long aquiline nose, slightly prominent under 
 lip, bright, steady brown eyes, a remarkable harmony in the 
 whole countenance, a sweet habit of physiognomy which 
 yet is not a smile, and a girlish freshness and delicacy of 
 complexion which she kept until the last: the benignity and 
 urbanity of expression are most winning. It is evident that 
 she must have been a very handsome young woman. But if she 
 had been the plainest of her sex the heart that shone through 
 her features would have irradiated them with loveliness. 
 
 She chose poverty and privation when she left her easy 
 home for this needy young heir, and, although under his 
 excellent management and the returning prosperity of the 
 country his affairs were soon in a satisfactory condition, for 
 some reason or other her means never seem to have exceeded 
 a competency. But in those days, with a few exceptions, 
 wealth and a liberal scale of living in Philadelphia did not 
 imply luxury or extravagance ; and this child of rich parents 
 either brought with her, or soon acquired, habits of thrift and 
 frugality which enabled her to live in comfort, with no un- 
 worthy and uneasy preoccupations about household matters. 
 The condition of Dr. Logan's property compelled him to 
 give up the idea of practicing his profession, and less than a 
 year after their marriage they moved to Stenton. This fine 
 old seat was built in 1728, by James Logan, in the midst of 
 a wide tract of undulating land, through which winds a small 
 stream, the Wingohocking, an Indian name said to mean 
 " crooked water." He reclaimed his acres from the primeval 
 
292 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 forest, of which some grand survivors still linger amid the 
 tracks of streets which have been opened through their realm, 
 as one might fancy the Indian chiefs, the original masters of 
 the soil, standing silent, but stricken to the heart to behold 
 the doom of their race gradually closing round them. The 
 bricks of which the house is built were made on the place, 
 and in one of them, before the hall door, the print of a child's 
 hand is visible, — perhaps an Indian papoose's, for there were 
 not many little white children to play and stray among the 
 woods, then still haunted by the red man : there it remains, 
 an emblem of benediction, a symbolic blessing of innocence, 
 on the house in which the history of human lives had not 
 yet begun. When Mrs. Logan went to live there, the estate, 
 already divided, stretched from Fisher's to Nicetown Lane, 
 and from the Germantovvn turnpike to the Old York Road, — 
 miles of softly swelling meadow, over which were scattered 
 magnificent oaks and maples, standing alone in perfect devel- 
 opment and dignity, groups of graceful beeches, and, the pride 
 of the place, an avenue of grand hemlocks, said to have been 
 planted by William Penn. The wide brook twisted through 
 an open valley, towards which the land slopes from the house, 
 sometimes between smooth green banks, sometimes with a 
 narrow reach of soft sand on one side, and on the other little 
 hollows thatched with the roots of tall trees ; half its abundant 
 purling water was diverted into a mill-race, as clear and glassy 
 as the parent stream, which took a straighter course along the 
 farther side of the meadows, the grassy footpath beside it shaded 
 for its whole length by lofty, wide-spreading maples and but- 
 tonwood trees ; brook and race met at last, near one extremity 
 of the place, in a pretty little pond, bordered by woodland, at 
 the foot of the curving vale, near an old stone mill, where the 
 Logans ground their own corn. Besides the great house and 
 its dependencies which clustered about it, there was no other 
 building on the place, except a small farm-house near the head 
 of the vale. The sweetest rural solitude brooded over these 
 meadows, whether one sought them on a May morning, when 
 the grass was springing and the woodland bursting into early 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 293 
 
 leaf, the ground covered with blue and white anemones and 
 tufts of the bright, red, slender, nodding columbine, the air 
 ringing with the notes of the shyest birds; or on a summer 
 noon, when a humming silence possessed the fields, and the 
 only creatures stirring were the dragon-flies darting about 
 over the new-mown hay, or the cattle leaving the shade of the 
 great trees to straggle slowly down to drink at the fords of 
 the brook ; or when an autumn sunset was shedding double 
 splendor on the maples, and setting a halo round the dark 
 heads of the hemlocks, and the ground beneath them was 
 strewn with gold and crimson leaves, scattered there by the 
 brisk October breezes. Round the house there was the quiet 
 stir and movement of a country-place, with its large gardens 
 full of old-fashioned flowers and fruits, its poultry-yard and 
 stables. The latter were connected with the house by an 
 underground passage, which led to a concealed staircase and 
 a door under the roof, like the " priest's escape" in some old 
 English country-seats : this was a means of concealment or 
 flight from Indians ; and it was probably for the same ob- 
 ject that the offices surrounded the main building, connected 
 with it by brick courts and covered ways. They were all at 
 the back, and so disposed as to enhance the picturesque and 
 dignified air of the old mansion, the interior of which is as 
 curious to modern eyes as it is imposing. One enters by 
 a brick hall, opposite which is the magnificent double stair- 
 case, while right and left are lofty rooms, covered with fine 
 old-fashioned wood-work ; in some of them the wainscot 
 being carried up to the ceiling above the chimney-place, 
 which in all the apartments was a vast opening set round 
 with blue and white Scripture tiles of the most grotesque 
 devices. There are corner-cupboards, and, in some of the 
 rooms, cupboards in arched niches over the mantel-pieces, — 
 capital show-cases for the rare china and magnificent old 
 silver which adorned the dinner-table on state occasions. 
 Half the front of the house in the second story was taken 
 up by one large, finely-lighted room, — the library of the book- 
 loving masters of the place. 
 
294 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 To this beautiful, venerable, romantic, yet withal most home- 
 like abode, came the young wife, with a field for all her natu- 
 ral tastes, love of the country, of flowers, animals, study, and 
 of society too, for during her husband's life it was the resort 
 of all the distinguished people whom the times brought to 
 Philadelphia, and few strangers, whether from abroad or from 
 other parts of America, passed through town without present- 
 ing themselves at the hospitable threshold of Stenton. Happy 
 years opened before the young couple. Next to medicine, 
 agriculture was Dr. Logan's favorite pursuit, and, being forced 
 by necessity to devote his attention to it, his farm soon became 
 a model of successful scientific husbandry. " I think I never 
 saw finer fields of clover and timothy than were at that time 
 to be seen at Stenton," writes Mrs. Logan : " he was also one 
 of the first who used gypsum as a manure, and its success at 
 the beginning was wonderful. Perhaps at no period of his 
 life did he experience greater happiness than at this, his in- 
 tervals of leisure being employed in reading authors of the 
 greatest utility in agricultural and political science, and he was 
 one of the foremost and most zealous advocates in whatever 
 he thought would promote the public good. The Agricultural 
 Society of Philadelphia, and a similar one for the county, were 
 among those objects. That for the county was first brought 
 together at Stenton. . . . Domestic manufactures, rightly 
 so called from being indeed the production of the farmers' 
 families, were a favorite subject of their encouragement; and 
 this gave scope to the ingenuity and industry of their wives,' 
 and introduced us in a social and pleasant manner to each 
 other's acquaintance. I have not forgotten the agreeable in- 
 terchange of visits, the beneficial emulation, and the harmless 
 pride with which we exhibited specimens of our industry and 
 good management to each other. The spinning-wheel was 
 going in every house, and it was a high object of our ambition 
 to see our husbands and families clothed in our own manu- 
 factures (a good practice which my honored husband never 
 relinquished), and to produce at our social dinner-parties the 
 finest ale of our own brewing, the best home-made wines, 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 295 
 
 cheese, and other articles which we thought ought to be made 
 among ourselves rather than to be imported from abroad." 
 
 Mrs. Logan's intercourse with her humbler neighbors was 
 marked by a true sense of human brotherhood, as well as the 
 most unusual and unselfish benevolence. In her diary there 
 is a minute of a visit to a cottage not far off: " The wife is a 
 pleasing, cleanly woman ; she presented me with a piece of 
 nice, pure bees'-wax, which I accepted, having myself felt the 
 disposition which is unwilling to let those we are pleased with 
 depart without some token of its regard, even if it is small." 
 The sweet, unconscious graciousness with which she obeyed 
 these impulses must have added greatly to the charm of her 
 manner, to which everybody who ever saw her bears witness. 
 A lady who was once, when a very little child, taken to see 
 her, remembers that, on parting, Mrs. Logan, then an elderly 
 dame, gave her a little pincushion, saying, " Thee is a nice 
 little girl, and I give thee this to make thee remember thy 
 visit." These simple acts rose from a deep well of kindliness 
 in the nature, whence at need came strength for the greatest 
 and most generous self-abnegation. Mrs. Logan tells, in illus- 
 tration of her husband's humanity, an anecdote of his bringing 
 home a young farm-laborer who was stricken with smallpox 
 to be nursed at Stenton. The young man lodged with kins- 
 folk, who at the first hint of the nature of the disease rushed 
 out of the house, leaving him to his fate. Thereupon Dr. 
 Logan, with most exalted philanthropy, brought the poor 
 fellow home and tended him through the attack, which turned 
 out to be of the most malignant type, — confluent, — bringing 
 him back to health from the brink of a ghastly and hideous 
 death. The date of this incident is not given, but, in view of 
 the circumstances of Dr. Logan's life and some of the details 
 which are mentioned, it could hardly have happened before 
 his marriage; so that the fair young wife must have been 
 exposed to the contagion, even if she did not assist in the 
 nursing, and the credit is at least half hers ; but of herself she 
 says not one word in the matter. 
 
 Mrs. Logan was a very early riser, to which and a remark- 
 
296 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 able order and system in the arrangement of her occupations 
 must be ascribed the almost incredible number of things she 
 accomplished without worry or flurry, or even the conscious- 
 ness of being a very busy woman. One of her daily duties 
 was to oversee the work of her maids ; another was the visit 
 to the kitchen, where she herself prepared the dishes preferred 
 by each member of her family, and made " cakes and mince- 
 pies, for which I have a great reputation in the neighborhood," 
 she says in her diary ; she also did her own clear-starching, 
 for the fine lawn Quaker caps and kerchiefs require as light a 
 hand as lace; and gardening was another constant source of 
 employment. " In the morning I was busily employed in the 
 every-day recurring work which must be performed if we 
 would live in comfort, yet which leaves no trace of our in- 
 dustry for the morrow." But all this was dispatched before 
 the noonday dinner. In the leisure and repose of the after- 
 part of the day came the thimble or knitting-needles, the book 
 or pen, the interchange of friendly visits, for she was never 
 slack in her social duties, and, as we shall see, the cares of a 
 hostess were among those which constantly devolved upon 
 her. Yet there was time for gathering flowers and decorating 
 the rooms with them ; even for feeding the squirrels, who 
 made their homes in the trees surrounding the house and 
 were on the friendliest terms with its inmates. Her husband 
 shared her love for animals, and tamed one squirrel so com- 
 pletely that it would come down from its high perch as he 
 sat at his door-step, eat from his hand, and search his pockets 
 for provender. To these dumb pets were soon added more 
 precious objects of tenderness and affection: sons were born, 
 — one in the autumn of 1783; a second three years later; a 
 third in 1791. 
 
 If we may judge by the love and respect, bordering on 
 adoration, with which Mrs. Logan inspired her grandchildren, 
 her relations with her own offspring must have been unusually 
 close and sacred. She promoted all their interests and pleas- 
 ures as far as lay in her power, and trembled lest her solicitude 
 for their happiness should interfere with her graver responsi- 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 297 
 
 bilities to them. When the days of dependence were past, 
 she still strove to bind them to her by ties which should with- 
 hold them from temptations and dangers which she could not 
 avert. "Up at three o'clock on Second Day morning, in order 
 to expedite Algernon's setting off on his shooting expedition 
 with Alban before daylight. He left me affectionately, and it 
 is almost needless to say what I always feel at parting with 
 either of them, if it is to go to a distance. All my earthly 
 hope is centred on them, and most earnestly do I beg for a 
 blessing upon them and pray for their preservation. I think 
 I do not say enough to them in the way of caution and advice ; 
 but I fear to make them shun my company if precise and lec- 
 turing." But this is anticipating. 
 
 During the first ten years of her married life she continued 
 to see, as at her mother's house, many men of mark and im- 
 portance, who were drawn to America by sympathy with her 
 struggle for independence, or brought from other parts of this 
 country by their connection with the government. Among 
 the former was Kosciusko, who stayed at Stenton, and found 
 among those rural scenes some of that balm for the incurable 
 hurt of his noble heart which the companionship of Nature 
 only could administer. His kind hosts saw him again when 
 he was last in Philadelphia. He was ill, and Dr. Logan, who 
 knew him very well, went frequently to look after him, and 
 on one occasion took his wife. " His lodgings were in South 
 Third Street, nearly opposite to Governor McKean's ; here, 
 in a small and but indifferently furnished room, I saw him on 
 his couch, and I do not think any one who had ever seen him 
 could ever forget his appearance. My heart was softened and 
 affected, and yearned towards him with mingled emotions of 
 admiration, respect, and pity. There seemed a halo round his 
 emaciated form that inspired both awe and tenderness. Yet 
 he was very cheerful; and I can remember particularly he 
 commended the love of animals and cultivating their attach- 
 ment as a source of innocent pleasure. I told him of the 
 gentleness and attachment of my Thetis, who was then in her 
 prime, and he was pleased in recollecting instances of their 
 
298 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 sagacity and good qualities. He spoke of the pleasure he 
 derived from drawing, and produced a crayon of Jefferson, — 
 an exact likeness, — the attitude one I had often seen the 
 philosopher assume, but which I had never before seen 
 copied. When we rose up to take leave, he took my hand 
 and would have kissed it, but I bent over and offered him my 
 cheek." 
 
 The learned and witty Portuguese, Abbe Correa, was an- 
 other of the visitors, the author of half a dozen epigrams on this 
 country which have passed into proverbs, as that on Washing- 
 ton, " a city of magnificent distances," and " God takes care 
 of children, fools, and North Americans." His sayings are 
 quoted with so many variations that one cannot be sure of 
 having the correct version. The foreign ministers were 
 among her guests : she mentions Genet, who afterwards mar- 
 ried Miss Clinton, as " very pleasing in his address and much 
 of a gentleman in appearance and manner;" although by his 
 conduct at a public dinner in Philadelphia, one of his closing 
 scenes in this country, he left a deep disgust behind him. 
 
 Of her own distinguished countrymen no one probably 
 interested her as much as Dr. Franklin. " His conversation 
 was easy, and appeared to grow entirely out of the circum- 
 stances that presented themselves to the company; yet I ob- 
 served that if you did not find you had acquired something 
 by being with him, it must be placed to the account of your 
 own want of attention. His familiar letters give you a good 
 idea of his conversation; a natural, good-humored (not sar- 
 castic) wit played cheerfully along and beguiled you into 
 maxims of prudence and wisdom. ... I have often thought 
 that Dr. Franklin must have sensibly felt the difference be- 
 tween the eclat which he enjoyed at the court of France and 
 the reception which he met with upon his final return to his 
 native country. The elements of two parties were then fer- 
 menting themselves into the form which they afterwards 
 assumed. The mass of Pennsylvania was, as it has ever been 
 since (and may I not say ever was ?), decidedly democratic, 
 but there was a contrary spirit then dominant, and thinly 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 299 
 
 diffused over the surface of society, who rejected the philoso- 
 pher because they thought he was too much of that stamp. 
 The first Constitution of our State after the Revolution, which 
 was his work, though adopted by the great body of the peo- 
 ple, was disliked. And I well remember the remark of a Fool, 
 though a fashionable party man, at the time, that it was by no 
 means ' fashionable' to visit Dr. Franklin. . . . My husband 
 was in the habit of visiting him very often, and in his last ill- 
 ness frequently watched with him and spent many hours by 
 his bedside, and, finally, was one of those who, in compliance 
 with our ancient usages, assisted to bear the corpse of this 
 eminent man to the place of interment, the city watchmen 
 who were in attendance being set aside in favor of a still 
 more primitive custom, and their places supplied by some of 
 the most distinguished citizens." In these and other mentions 
 of Franklin Mrs. Logan shows delicacy and magnanimity, as 
 in the posthumous publication of his works the community 
 was surprised by most unwelcome censure of the conduct 
 of James Logan in his management of the colony. Her only 
 reference to this, after paying a tribute to his genius, is to 
 say, " What a pity there should have been any ' Errata' in 
 his moral conduct ! What a pity he should have stooped to 
 dishonor his pen by the false statements and glosses of the 
 ' Critical Review of the Government of Pennsylvania' !" It is 
 so customary to carry personal hostility into politics, to debase 
 differences of opinion into quarrels, to resent strictures upon 
 one's public conduct or that of a kinsman as an attack and 
 affront, and to drag such grievances before the world, that this 
 moderation is the more admirable, especially with the ven- 
 eration in which Mrs. Logan held her husband and his family. 
 Timothy Pickering was another striking figure in the group 
 which gathered beneath the hemlocks or around the hearth- 
 stone of Stenton. Among them was the amiable and accom- 
 plished Robert Walsh, whose house, graced by a large family 
 of beautiful, brilliant daughters, and sons of unusual prom- 
 ise, was in later days one of the most delightful centres of 
 society in Philadelphia,— one of the few where talent and 
 
300 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 acquirements were at a premium: he was editor of the 
 National Gazette, and Mrs. Logan's verses, published anony- 
 mously, find a place in its columns near extracts from Lord 
 Byron's last tragedy or poem. But the visitor named with 
 most pride is " The Father of his Country, then in Philadel- 
 phia officiating as President of the Federal Convention. He 
 came with his friend Daniel Jenifer, Esq., of Maryland, who 
 had often before been with us, and passed a day at Stenton in 
 the most social and friendly manner imaginable, delighted 
 with the fine grass-land and beautiful improvements. . . . His 
 praise conferred distinction. Nor did he make me less happy 
 by his pleasing attention to myself and his kind notice of my 
 children, whom he caressed in the most endearing manner, 
 placing my little boy on his knee and taking my infant in his 
 arms with commendations that made their way immediately 
 to a mother's heart." What a pretty picture ! For a back- 
 ground the fine old house and great dark evergreens ; the 
 handsome, stately figure of Washington, the childless man 
 whose heart ever warmed to childhood, with the lovely babies 
 upon his knees ; the young matron in the bloom of her beauty 
 losing all recollection of herself in her pride as a mother. In- 
 deed, Mrs. Logan's modesty is so thorough that it evidently 
 never once occurred to her that her own attractions of person 
 and mind had any share in drawing so many remarkable men 
 to Stenton; though it is impossible for her readers not to sus- 
 pect that they must have been strong ingredients in the uni- 
 versally recognized charm of the place. When her husband 
 is at home, they come for his society and conversation ; in his 
 absence, to show their respect for him. This was not General 
 Washington's first sight of Stenton : he had stopped there for 
 a few hours with his staff and suite in August, 1777, one of 
 the dreariest periods of the war. The house was not occu- 
 pied by the family at that moment, although a member of it 
 chanced to be there. The aide-de-camp and guard, preceding 
 the commander-in-chief by a few hours, had bought a sheep 
 of the tenant, which had been immediately killed and dressed. 
 The silence and preoccupation of the general and his whole 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 301 
 
 party impressed their chance host as much as their considera- 
 tion and courtesy. General Washington recalled the gloom 
 and uncertainty of that other summer's day during the pleas- 
 ant hours he afterwards spent under the same roof. A few 
 years later, Dr. and Mrs. Logan were in their turn guests at 
 Mount Vernon, and there is a lively account of the visit in 
 the diary. On their arrival the general was going over his 
 farm with some friends, and they were welcomed by Colonel 
 Humphreys and Mrs. Washington, "who was exceedingly, 
 amiable and affable, and received us with great politeness." 
 Before the return of the party from the fields, another guest 
 arrived, a Frenchman with a letter of introduction, who was 
 asked to stay to dinner. This gentleman, whoever he may 
 have been, was of the grinning, grimacing, gesticulating type 
 common in old-fashioned caricatures, more like a fop in a 
 comedy than a personage of real life, says Mrs. Logan. He 
 spoke very little English, but made up the deficiency with 
 bows and obeisances. When the general and his friends came 
 in, introductions took place, and there was some confusion, in 
 which he did not catch Mrs. Logan's name nor recognize her 
 in her riding-dress, so that he presently asked her some ques- 
 tion about the length of her stay in America, betraying that 
 he supposed her the wife of the Gallic visitor. "Eager to 
 repel the idea, I stood up, and, looking imploringly at the 
 general, said, ' I am an American, the wife of Dr. Logan.' He 
 arose, and welcomed me with the blandest courtesy. . . . 
 Soon after the cloth was removed, the French gentleman took 
 his leave, with much gesticulation and ceremony. After he 
 was gone, the general arose, and going to the door ascertained 
 that he had departed. He then smilingly addressed me and 
 said, ' Can you forgive me, Mrs. Logan, for supposing that 
 you belonged to that man ? I am astonished that I could 
 have done it for an instant.' " On their homeward journey 
 they called, in passing through Fredericksburg, upon General 
 Washington's mother. " She received us with great kindness 
 in her humble, decayed-looking dwelling, within which she 
 appeared to have things comfortable. She was quite old, but 
 
3 o2 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of a fine, majestic presence and polite manners, and the gen- 
 eral so much resembling her that she might be known for his 
 mother. She did not live apart for want of an invitation to 
 live with him at Mount Vernon, as both himself and Mrs. W. 
 informed us, but she preferred her humbler home. She spoke 
 of his kindness, and of her hope that things would continue 
 to go well with him, but not the least exultation was apparent 
 in having such a son. . . . For the general himself, never did 
 I feel such veneration and respect for any one clothed with 
 mortality as I felt for his person and character." 
 
 Dr. Logan's most intimate friend among the celebrated 
 men of America was the statesman whose aims and princi- 
 ples are the standing enigma and stumbling-block of his 
 countrymen, — Thomas Jefferson. The acquaintance began 
 when he took up his abode in Philadelphia as Secretary of 
 State, and long after his retirement from public life they kept 
 up their intercourse by letter. He was constantly at Stenton 
 during the years when he lived in Philadelphia, and his visits 
 were repeated from time to time after he left there. " His 
 conversation," we find in the memoir, " was very pleasing. 
 He had resided at the court of France, and upon his return 
 appeared in somewhat of its costume, and wore a suit of silk, 
 ruffles, and an elegant topaz ring ; but he soon assimilated 
 himself to a more republican garb, and was reproached with 
 going to the other extreme as a bait for popularity. He 
 abounded in anecdotes of great interest, and it appeared to 
 me that he did not often suffer political prejudice or party 
 spirit to warp his judgment and cause him to misrepresent 
 men and things ; yet I saw that he wanted sincerity towards 
 General Washington, whom I had always revered and could 
 not bear to hear mentioned in terms that implied the smallest 
 diminution of his character or qualities. ... I have often had 
 to regret that I did not at the time so fully appreciate the ad- 
 vantages which I have frequently enjoyed of listening to the 
 conversation of very eminent and highly-gifted men, and no- 
 ticing the profound and instructive remarks which have often 
 been made in my hearing, which, however, soon fade from the 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 503 
 
 memory unless committed to writing. But I have not forgot- 
 ten the force and expansion of Jefferson's arguments, deliv- 
 ered in a beautiful simplicity of language, and a politeness of 
 manner that disarmed offence, yet with a strength that defied 
 refutation when Reason was admitted to sit as judge." She 
 was often present at confidential conversations between Jeffer- 
 son and other members of the government and foreign minis- 
 ters, at the time when his Gallomania had made him an object 
 of odium to a large class of his countrymen. Mrs. Logan does 
 not deny his enthusiasm for the principles of the French Revo- 
 lution, which her husband shared, while she, with a little shake 
 of the head, internally demurs to " the fitness of France to 
 assume the cap and mantle of liberty," and thinks them 
 " greatly mistaken in their opinion ;" but she maintains stead- 
 fastly that Jefferson never, in moments of the utmost intimacy 
 or excitement, admitted any proposition or idea opposed to 
 the rights and interests of his own country, but vehemently 
 upheld them. " One of these conversations, I remember, ended 
 with Genet's rising from his chair, where he had been seated 
 under the venerable trees that surround our dwelling, and, baf- 
 fled in argument, but retaining his good humor and gentle- 
 manly demeanor, he exclaimed, in his (then) imperfect English, 
 ' Well, gentlemen, if my country were once happily settled in 
 peace and the enjoyment of her rights, as yours is now, I would 
 sit under my own vine and trees as you do, but I would dis- 
 claim political disquisitions altogether; I would never suffer a 
 gazette to enter my house.' ... I remember to have heard 
 Jefferson say that he greatly valued Mrs. Adams as a most sen- 
 sible and prudent woman, and he added that he had a file of 
 her letters which he much valued. The occasion of their cor- 
 respondence was the communication which her husband and 
 himself kept up when on their respective missions to England 
 and France. Mrs. Adams wrote for her husband, and fur- 
 nished the most valuable information (Jefferson said) that he 
 received." Jefferson had the highest regard for his Quaker 
 hostess, too, which in her modesty she either did not know 
 or would not mention. When the transfer of the seat of gov- 
 
304 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 ernment to Washington put an end to his visits to Philadel- 
 phia, and later still, when he had withdrawn from public life 
 to his own beloved country home, in his letters to his old 
 friend he never fails to send " affectionate remembrances to 
 his dear Mrs. Logan." 
 
 Dr. Logan himself first went into public life at this period 
 as a member of the State Legislature, and his wife describes 
 the conscientiousness and assiduity with which he then turned 
 his attention to the study of politics, reading the works of 
 English and French statesmen, and pondering deeply the 
 problems which the condition of his own country presented. 
 There is nothing in this whole picture of habits and uses so 
 far removed from those of the present day as the image of a 
 member of the Pennsylvania Legislature immersed in the study 
 of what concerns the common weal. Where were his railroad 
 and mining bonds? What time could he give to the quota- 
 tions of the Stock Exchange? When did he book himself on 
 the last whisky dodge ? How was he ready to snap up the fat- 
 test cuts in a contract ? What a laughable and pitiable figure 
 he would make now at Harrisburg, where they know tricks 
 worth a thousand of that ! Yet not in those days any more 
 than in these were disinterestedness and patriotism the gen- 
 eral rule, although baseness and venality did not show their 
 heads in such high places nor expose their tracks with such 
 gross contempt of common decency. Men were not charged 
 then with being bought or sold, or with having stolen public 
 property. They mutually accused each other of being enemies 
 to their country, and hated and execrated one another accord- 
 ingly, and were held up to the hatred and execration of con- 
 tending parties. Mrs. Logan, who was at every age keenly 
 interested in public events, describes the rage, which was not 
 all ignoble, by which the community was possessed. " The 
 dominant party scorned any longer to affect even the appear- 
 ance of moderation towards their opponents ; not only the 
 public acts of the Legislature were framed to keep them in 
 awe, but in the common offices and affairs of life they 
 were proscribed, friendships were dissolved, tradesmen dis- 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 305 
 
 missed, and custom withdrawn from the Republican party, the 
 heads of which, as objects of the most injurious suspicion, 
 were recommended to be closely watched, and committees of 
 Federalists appointed for that purpose. Many gentlemen went 
 armed, that they might be ready to resent any personal ag- 
 gression," Dr. Logan had become very unpopular from his 
 intimacy with Jefferson, his liberal principles, and his sup- 
 posed predilection for France : he gradually came to be an 
 object of suspicion and obloquy, and was actually put under 
 surveillance. It was at this time that he formed a project 
 which excited great commotion when he carried it out, 
 although now one cannot look at it from either side without 
 a smile and an involuntary recollection of proverbs about 
 tempests in teapots and parturient mountains. Mrs. Logan, 
 notwithstanding her full and fervent faith in her husband's 
 weight and wisdom, admits that the scheme appeared to her 
 " romantic ;" but her memoir tells the story best. " In the 
 midst of this state of things my husband formed the project 
 of his visit to France with what then appeared to me the ro- 
 mantic idea of persuading the rulers of the desultorious [sic] 
 government to alter the tone of their conduct towards the 
 United States. He thought they were not aware of our grow- 
 ing importance, and that the rashness and injustice of their 
 measures towards us would be the means of uniting us with 
 Great Britain and forwarding the views of the enemies of all 
 republics." Dr. Logan undertook this step with so grave a 
 sense of the possible consequences from the Violence of the 
 Federal party that he gave his wife a power of attorney by 
 which she might on emergency so dispose of his estate as 
 to secure it from confiscation : this paper was acknowledged 
 before the chief justice, subsequently Governor McKean, and 
 Dr. Logan explained his motives and intentions. " Thank God 
 that we possess one man who is capable and devoted enough 
 to undertake this task !" exclaimed the impetuous, imperious 
 old magistrate. " You have my best wishes in the enterprise." 
 And he drank to the success of the journey. Dr. Logan sold 
 some property to raise funds for his voyage, and sailed for 
 
306 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Hamburg on the 13th of June, 1798. He had a certificate 
 of citizenship from Governor McKean, a letter of indorsement 
 from Jefferson, and introductions to Citizen Merlin, then at 
 the head of the French government, and Talleyrand, whom he 
 had not met in this country. These credentials, although 
 unofficial, were of the utmost importance to him in his self- 
 appointed mission. The slow-sailing craft in which he had 
 embarked, with its cautious Dutch captain, arrived safely on 
 the 23d of July, after stopping for a few hours at Dover, 
 where Dr. Logan was very much struck by the coast de- 
 fenses and accumulation of forces : it was said that there were 
 over three thousand in garrison at the castle. On landing at 
 Hamburg, Dr. Logan found extreme difficulty, as a citizen of 
 the United States, in getting passports for France ; but, while 
 he was struggling with opposition and obstacles, he heard 
 that the Marquis de La Fayette was living in the neighborhood. 
 He immediately sought the acquaintance of this noblest friend 
 of America, and laid his case before him. La Fayette showed 
 him all kindness, hospitality, and sympathy, and procured 
 him a passport, by means of which he reached Paris during 
 August. He arrived immediately after the departure of El- 
 bridge Gerry, the last of our commissioners, who had with- 
 drawn without the ratification of an international treaty ; an 
 embargo had just been laid upon our shipping, and hundreds 
 of American sailors had been thrown into jail. These were 
 discouraging auspices : nevertheless he presented his letter to 
 Talleyrand, and endeavored to obtain an interview with Merlin. 
 The minister's conduct was perfectly consistent with the 
 trickiness, double-dealing, polished slipperiness, and affable 
 astuteness for which he became renowned in after-times. He 
 received Dr. Logan with civility, wasted his time with promises, 
 and set people to spy and sound him. Indignant and impa- 
 tient, the latter sought and obtained an introduction to Merlin, 
 through M. Schimmelpenninck, the Swiss and Bavarian min- 
 ister to France. Many pages of the memoir are devoted, natu- 
 rally, to this visit to Paris, the dinners at various important 
 houses, including Merlin's, significant incidents which befell 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 307 
 
 there, interviews and letters between Dr. Logan and different 
 members of the French government to whom he explained 
 his views and what he believed to be the wishes and demands 
 of the American people. He there fell in again with Kos- 
 ciusko, grateful for the kindness he had met with in America 
 and anxious to repay it by any service in his power. Dr. 
 Logan was certainly successful in obtaining the raising of the 
 embargo and release of the imprisoned seamen, which was the 
 first step to a peaceable understanding. The captains of the 
 liberated vessels at Bordeaux, nearly twenty in number, drew 
 up a testimonial expressing their grateful sense of his actual 
 services and their trust that he had prevented a war between 
 the two countries. With this satisfactory if not complete 
 result of his endeavors he took passage for home on the Per- 
 severance, Captain Gideon Gardner, of Nantucket, to sail from 
 Bordeaux. On his way down from Paris he was perturbed by 
 encountering stages full of Frenchmen just arrived from the 
 United States, where they had been imprisoned and ill used, 
 and who were so clamorous for revenge that Dr. Logan trem- 
 bled lest the Directory, depending on popularity, might be 
 driven to revoke the favorable measures he had just brought 
 about. However, nothing came of it, and with a light heart 
 he weighed anchor for home. 
 
 Meanwhile, the news of his having openly outwitted his 
 enemies by sailing away from Philadelphia under their eyes 
 had raised a storm of fury at home. Jefferson and McKean 
 were assailed with abuse and reproach by the press for having 
 given him letters, as the majority would believe nothing less 
 than that he had gone abroad in the interest of France to fur- 
 nish information to the detriment of his own country. So fixed 
 was this conviction that somebody whom Mrs. Logan calls "a 
 ffriendly Fcederalist" warned her that the government in- 
 tended searching Stenton for treasonable papers, advising her 
 to destroy anything that might compromise him. " I thanked 
 the gentleman, but assured him that in case of a search they 
 would only have to regret that they had insulted a man of 
 honor in his absence. I had nothing to secrete." The fol- 
 
308 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 lowing preposterous article appeared in Brown's PJuladelphia 
 Gazette : 
 
 " We are assured from the best authority that Dr. Logan (a 
 noted and violent Democrat) departed from this city on Wed- 
 nesday or Thursday last, in the ship Iris, for Hamburg, on 
 his route to Paris. There cannot be the least question but 
 the doctor, from his inordinate love of French Liberty and 
 hatred to the Sacred Constitution of the United States, has 
 gone to the French Directory fraught with intelligence of the 
 most dangerous tendency to this country. . . . Can any sen- 
 sible man hesitate to suspect that his infernal design can be 
 anything less than the introduction of a French army to teach 
 us the value of true and essential Liberty by reorganizing our 
 government through the blessed operation of the bayonet and 
 the guillotine ? Let every American now gird on his sword. 
 The times are not only critical, but the secret of the junto is 
 out. Their demagogue is gone to the Directory for purposes 
 of destruction to your lives, property, liberty, and holy re- 
 ligion." 
 
 What his wife's feelings and sufferings must have been 
 it is easy to guess. She hardly speaks of them in the me- 
 moir, and her reticence is very touching. " Were it proper 
 here to speak of myself, I could say a great deal with the 
 strictest truth of the infinite anxiety of mind which I under- 
 went at this period. . . . Although I knew the purity of my 
 husband's principles, and could appreciate the motives upon 
 which he acted, yet when the time drew near for him to 
 leave me I could not help being appalled with a sense of the 
 difficulties which he would have to surmount, and the clamor 
 which would be raised upon his departure ; so that when he 
 left me indeed, I was as completely miserable as I could be 
 while innocent myself and united to a man whose honor I 
 knew to be without a stain. ... I was frequently a prey to 
 the most harrowing inquietudes." The Alien and Sedition 
 Act had just been passed, and Mrs. Logan was in agony lest 
 by any imprudence her husband should lay himself open to 
 the charge of treason by the letter of this law. She was con- 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 309 
 
 sumed with anxiety to apprise him of it and put him on his 
 guard, but had no direct means of communication with him : 
 she sent two letters by roundabout ways, and, apparently, heard 
 from him but once or twice during his absence. Her mother 
 and family gathered about her, to console and cheer her: 
 she speaks of the kindness of friends and neighbors, Dr. 
 Samuel Betton, Sr., Major Pierce Butler, of Butler Place, the 
 Fishers, of Wakefield, already her connections by marriage, 
 and, what was still more deeply felt, the sympathy of old ac- 
 quaintance of the Federal party, among whom she mentions 
 Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Augustus Smyth " and the be- 
 nevolent John Vaughan." The friendliness which no doubt 
 seemed but a slight tribute of respect to those who paid it 
 sank deep into her heart, for she was told that whoever was 
 seen to enter her gates would be marked. That there was 
 no exaggeration in this may be seen by the following account 
 of a visit from Jefferson, then Vice-President, who, on the point 
 of starting for Monticello when he heard the outcry raised on 
 Dr. Logan's departure, put off his journey a week, " to see 
 what they would make of their conspiracy," as he said. " He 
 told me he had been greatly concerned for me on account of 
 the obloquy and abuse which had been freely bestowed on 
 Dr. Logan's character, and advised me to evince my thorough 
 consciousness of his innocence and honor by showing myself 
 in Philadelphia as one not afraid nor ashamed to meet the 
 public eye. He said that he could not have believed it pos- 
 sible that the utmost bitterness of party spirit could have in- 
 vented or have given credit to such unfounded calumnies ; that 
 he was himself dogged and watched in the most extraordinary 
 manner ; and he apologized for the lateness of his visit (for 
 we were at tea when he arrived) by saying that in order 
 to elude the curiosity of his spies he had not taken the direct 
 road, but had come by a circuitous route by the Falls of 
 Schuylkill along one of the lanes to Germantown, and, passing 
 by the house and gates, had come in by the entrance on the 
 York Road." (A detour of five or six miles.) "He spoke of 
 the temper of the times and of the late acts of the Legislature 
 
3io 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 with a sort of despair, but said he thought even the shadow 
 of our liberties must be gone if they attempted anything that 
 would injure me." The brave woman soon followed his ad- 
 vice by going to town, where without flinching she ran the 
 gauntlet of cold looks, rude remarks, expressions of surprise 
 that she could seem gay and cheerful, or that she would be 
 seen at all. But she was not daunted, and continued to go 
 out and pay visits to her friends as if her life were flowing 
 with its former even tenor. One afternoon she was calling at 
 Roxborough, "at the seat of our worthy ffriend ex-Chief-Jus- 
 tice Smyth ; he was an Englishman and a Tory who had held 
 an office under the Crown during the Colonial government, 
 but he was a man of great honor, candor, and goodness, and 
 tho' they differed in politics, had a sincere friendship for my 
 husband. Here I found as usual a large circle of company, 
 amongst whom was George Clymer, Thomas Fitz-Simmons, 
 and several other Fcederal gentlemen. I observed that they 
 talked together with much earnestness ; and at length one of 
 them (Fitz-Simmons) came to me and inquired, if he might ask 
 me, had I received letters from Dr. Logan? and if so, what, 
 was the state of things in France ? I told him briefly and 
 modestly what I had heard ; that the embargo was raised, 
 our seamen liberated and returning in our vessels, and a dis- 
 position for peace manifested on the part of France. (But 
 I imputed nothing to the exertions of my husband.) He re- 
 plied, that it was extraordinary news indeed, and he sincerely 
 congratulated me upon it. And our kind neighbor the judge 
 exulting exclaimed, ' You know, gentlemen, I have always 
 said that Dr. Logan would never disgrace himself nor injure 
 his country !'" 
 
 Her quiet attempts to put her husband's conduct in its true 
 light were not generally so successful. She sent an extract 
 from one of his letters to the Philadelphia Gazette, with a fuller 
 account of the circumstances of which she had given the party 
 at Judge Smyth's a synopsis : it was published with a sneer- 
 ing comment by the editor, wresting it from its evident pur- 
 port to a confirmation of public suspicion, though he is forced 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 311 
 
 to lower his tone from talking of a French army and the bay- 
 onet and guillotine, to " a train of French diplomatic para- 
 phernalia" and " delusive hopes of French justice." Cobbett 
 recommended that in case of Dr. Logan's return (which was 
 generally doubted) he should be put in the pillory, and his 
 wife with him. 
 
 It was in the midst of these cruel anxieties and humiliations 
 that Mrs. Logan had a new and terrible cause for alarm : the 
 yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia and spread over the 
 whole region with horrible rapidity. Mrs. Logan's aged 
 mother, Mrs. Norris, who had now for years lived in her 
 early home of Chester, had gone back thither after her visit 
 of sympathy to her daughter; but, as the pestilence raged 
 there with extraordinary virulence, she was persuaded to re- 
 turn to the purer air of Stenton. Her eldest son came with 
 her, and other members of the Norris and Logan families, 
 with their servants, sought refuge there from the plague- 
 stricken city, so that Mrs. Logan had more than twenty people 
 under her roof daily to provide for. " But this was better for 
 me than to be left in solitude." It is difficult for us to imagine 
 the condition of Philadelphia that autumn : all communica- 
 tion from without was forbidden ; a cordon saiiitairc was es- 
 tablished round the city, on which a palpable curse seemed 
 to rest. I have heard an old gentleman of Germantown de- 
 scribe his walking to town — which did not then extend beyond 
 the Northern Liberties — with a young comrade, as a sort of 
 dare-devil escapade ; but when they saw the silent and empty 
 streets barred from approach, a sort of awe fell upon them, as 
 if the form of the destroyer might be met stalking amid the 
 desolation, and they turned back to their fields and lanes. 
 Mrs. Logan's eldest brother was laid low with the disease 
 directly after his arrival, and a period of intense dread fol- 
 lowed ; but by careful nursing he surmounted it, and the 
 contagion did not spread to the household. The first frosts 
 checked the course of the epidemic, which disappeared as 
 mysteriously as it had come, and people returned to their 
 homes, many, many of which, alas! were left to them desolate. 
 
312 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Mrs. Logan's family scattered in their various directions, 
 leaving her torn by the most opposite emotions. The autumn 
 was advancing, and she was in daily expectation of her hus- 
 band's return ; but the joy with which she looked forward to 
 their reunion was poisoned by her fears for what might ensue, 
 as she believed that he would be thrown into prison as soon 
 as he arrived ; moreover, she heard that two vessels called the 
 Perseverance were to sail from Bordeaux on the same day, 
 one new and seaworthy, the other old and unsafe, and she 
 had no means of knowing in which her husband would em- 
 bark. Strange to say, both vessels came up the Delaware on 
 the same day. Rumors of their arrival reached Stenton. 
 Mrs. Logan received messages and visits of congratulation, 
 but still the day wore on, and she was in suspense. " My 
 sons, who were young mountaineers in their fearless habits 
 and love of the chase, had that morning taken out their favor- 
 ite spaniel, and by accident had wounded her. She was 
 brought to me to be nursed, and was accommodated with a 
 cushion near the fire. My youngest boy was put to bed, and 
 the others were reading with me in the dining-room, when a 
 step was heard on the piazza. The wounded animal raised 
 herself, and, instinctively knowing the sound, strove to get to 
 the door. It opened, and in a moment the restored husband, 
 father, friend, and master found himself in the bosom of his 
 happy family, for our affectionate old Dinah,* who had like- 
 wise taken care of him in his infancy, hearing the joyful ex- 
 clamations, had brought Algernon from his bed to share in 
 his father's caresses, and, herself embracing his knees, blessed 
 God that she had lived to witness his return !" 
 
 This happy meeting took place in November, 1798. Con- 
 gress was about to assemble at Trenton, Philadelphia still 
 being considered unsafe in consequence of the recent pesti- 
 lence. The President was already there, and the heads of the 
 departments were on their way. Dr. Logan immediately pre- 
 
 * The servant whose presence of mind saved Stenton from being fired by the 
 British. She is buried in the family grave-yard. 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 3*3 
 
 sented himself at the seat of government to report himself, and 
 exhibit his papers, if it should be thought worth while to ex- 
 amine them. On his way he fell in with his old friend General 
 C. C. Pinckney and his family, who were very glad to see him, 
 and they all breakfasted together at an inn, where others 
 bound in the same direction had halted. There was some 
 surprise manifested on seeing his cordial terms with these 
 high-toned Southerners. A great many people expressed 
 their astonishment on seeing him at large ; but a revulsion in 
 public feeling had begun, and he met with tokens of good 
 will on all sides: an inn-keeper who furnished him with a 
 horse and gig refused to be paid for it. He was received with 
 courteous coolness by the President, who did not approve of 
 self-appointed envoys, and other members of the government 
 intimated disapprobation of his course. Congress on assem- 
 bling passed a law providing against such cases in future, 
 wdiich was popularly known as Logan's law. But there were 
 no reflections on his probity or patriotism, and he himself was 
 too profoundly penetrated with satisfaction at what he had 
 done to be disturbed by superficial annoyances. As the at- 
 tacks of the press continued, however, Dr. Logan thought it 
 due to himself and his family to meet them by a succinct 
 account of his journey to France, its motives and results, pub- 
 lished in the form of an address to his fellow-citizens. The 
 happiness of his loyal and devoted wife on his return was pro- 
 longed by a series of little excursions which they made to- 
 gether : to Chester, to see her mother ; to Wilmington, Dela- 
 ware, to shake hands with their cousins the Dickinsons, who 
 had been among her kindest, stanchest friends during the 
 trying six months which had just passed; to Morristown, 
 New Jersey, where Dr. Logan owned property, and where the 
 leading citizens waited upon him to thank him for his services 
 and tender him a public dinner, which, however, he gratefully 
 declined. We can fancy Mrs. Logan's exquisite enjoyment in 
 these short journeys : it was Indian-summer time, and she and 
 her husband jaunted about the smooth high-roads or hedge- 
 row lanes beside the Delaware, either in the family coach or, 
 
314 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 what she would have liked better, with a horse and gig. The 
 fears, separation, and sorrow of the last half-year were over, 
 and she sat secure in her love, trust, and pride beside the 
 man who was her ideal of human excellence. But her inno- 
 cent triumphs were not to end in the private recognition of 
 her husband's worth. On their return from Morristown he 
 was waited upon by a deputation to ask him if he would ac- 
 cept the nomination for a seat in the State Legislature, just 
 fallen vacant. He was out at the time of the visit, and the 
 committee requested to see Mrs. Logan and inquire her hus- 
 band's mind of her in the matter. He accepted, and was 
 elected by a large majority, the first Republican victory, ex- 
 citing great exultation in the party. The Legislature then 
 sat at Lancaster; and he formed some new and valued friend- 
 ships among the members, chief of whom was "the venerable 
 I Ienry Muhlenberg." Dr. Logan represented the agricultural 
 interests of the community, and carried out his theories con- 
 sistently by his habit of wearing homespun clothes. " My 
 heart while I write," breaks out his wife in the memoir, " is 
 sensibly touched with the recollection of these minor but 
 most endearing traits of patriotism and regard for the welfare 
 and comfort of all classes of his fellow-citizens." 
 
 The next ten years of Dr. Logan's life were given up to 
 politics : at the expiration of his two years in the State Legis- 
 lature he was elected to the United States Senate, and re- 
 mained through the Seventh and Eighth Congresses, from 
 December, 1801, until March, 1807. Jefferson's change of 
 tactics upon his election to the White House was a disap- 
 pointment to the Logans; but who ever saw their hero raised 
 to the eminence which their enthusiasm claimed for him with- 
 out some after-reflections on the vanity of human expecta- 
 tions ? Dr. Logan, whose friendship with the President was 
 well known, was besieged by applicants for office, begging 
 for his influence in their behalf. It is refreshing to read of 
 the cool stiffness of candidates and politicians of those days 
 who did not subsist on the fear of constituents or the whims 
 of the crowd. Dr. Logan declined signing one petition in 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 315 
 
 favor of the bearer, on the ground that he did not know the 
 latter. " ' Oh, sir, that is of no consequence : you know the 
 gentlemen who have already signed.' 'True, sir; but I do 
 not knowjw/, and therefore you must excuse me.' The peti- 
 tioner went away in a very bad humor at his fastidiousness in 
 being determined to recommend none that he did not know." 
 Mrs. Logan does not appear to have accompanied her hus- 
 band in any of the temporary migrations and changes of abode 
 which were necessitated by his political life. There is no al- 
 lusion to any absence from Stenton, where home duties still 
 bound her and her boys were growing towards manhood. 
 Her existence among its tranquil cares and pleasures was 
 broken in upon by two heavy sorrows. At the close of the 
 year 1799 she lost her aged mother, who had ever been not 
 only an honored parent but a beloved and sympathizing friend. 
 Mrs. Logan drew a little sketch of her mother's life and char- 
 acter for the benefit of her descendants which gives a pleasant 
 account of her girlhood in Chester. " I have frequently heard 
 her speak of the ^happiness of her early life: the state of soci- 
 ety, sociability, kindness, good neighborhood that was among 
 them seemed to realize the Golden Age. . . . My mother was 
 an excellent woman, and of very good abilities; she had re- 
 ceived a much better education than was usually bestowed on 
 daughters ; when she was young her mind was enriched by 
 an acquaintance with the best authors ; her memory was un- 
 commonly good, her disposition cheerful, and her conversation 
 instructive and entertaining. She was solid, prudent, affec- 
 tionate, and benevolent. The manner in which she conducted 
 herself after the decease of her husband, and the very able 
 manner in which she investigated and settled his affairs, se- 
 cured her the kindest friendship of his family and the esteem 
 and applause of all who knew her." But a far more tragic 
 grief came upon her the next year, one which always seems 
 to violate the appointed order of nature, and therefore to carry 
 an excessive and intolerable weight in its blow : her son Gus- 
 tavus died, a boy of such uncommon gifts that his mother 
 will not dwell upon them, lest " her pen might be thought to 
 
316 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 be transformed by a parent's partiality into a flattering pencil." 
 He was nearly fourteen, and already showed great maturity 
 of judgment joined with courage, generosity, truthfulness, and 
 tenderness of heart ; he was, too, the youthful image of his 
 father; perhaps her favorite child. The circle of early friends, 
 too, now began to lose its links. The death of John Dickin- 
 son, her husband's kinsman and intimate friend, was deeply 
 felt by them both. It happened about the same time that 
 Dr. Logan withdrew from public life, declining renomination 
 to the Senate. His activity in behalf of his country, however, 
 did not abate. The signs of the times were already pointing 
 towards troubles which ended in the War of 1812. Encour- 
 aged by the belief that he had been formerly instrumental in 
 averting a war with France, Dr. Logan now determined on a 
 journey to England for a similar purpose, despite the special 
 legislation of which he had been the object on the previous 
 occasion. This time, indeed, he went under very different 
 auspices, for although, as before, he had no official capacity, 
 President Madison approved of the undertaking, and sent him 
 warmly recommended to our minister at the Court of St. 
 Jameses. The minister possibly did not relish the arrival of 
 a self-constituted plenipotentiary, whose position was certainly 
 anomalous, and did nothing to further Dr. Logan's views and 
 wishes. Although foiled and disappointed in the object of 
 his voyage, his visit to London was full of social interest and 
 enjoyment: he was received, to quote the words of one of his 
 English friends, " in the most suitable manner by the first 
 men both in and out of power." Besides seeing such as re- 
 mained of his boyhood's friends, the Barclays, etc., he made 
 the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 Sir John Sinclair, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Teignmouth, the 
 Duke of Bedford, Clarkson, Wilberforce, Vansittart, and many 
 others connected with the government, among the rest Arthur 
 Marquis of Wellesley, whose note asking for an interview is 
 preserved with a quantity of valuable autograph letters re- 
 ceived by Dr. Logan at the same time. His own deep con- 
 cern on the question of negro emancipation must have lent a 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 3^ 
 
 keen edge to his pleasure in meeting the champions of the 
 abolition of the slave-trade. He also indulged his ruling 
 taste by attending many agricultural meetings, one at Woburn 
 Abbey, and another at Holkham, in Norfolk, the seat of T. 
 W. Coke, Esq. At many of these the warmest feelings were 
 expressed for the United States, and the heartiest hopes that 
 the friendly intercourse between the two countries might not 
 be disturbed. However, when Dr. Logan came home, near 
 the close of 18 10, matters were slowly drawing to a crisis. 
 
 This return to his country was final. He never left it again, 
 nor mixed in public affairs, though so actively interested in 
 them that he corresponded constantly with many leading 
 men, and went several times to Washington, still in hopes 
 that the war with England might be prevented. It was a 
 source of extreme distress to both himself and his wife, who 
 says that their emotions " could be compared only to the fear- 
 ful state of watching and distress which we feel when we see 
 a beloved individual struggling through the paroxysms of a 
 fever." To describe the condition of the public mind she uses 
 the admirable expression, " national happiness was suspended." 
 They were intensely interested, too, in European politics, fol- 
 lowing the career of Bonaparte with an attention and excite- 
 ment which seem, strangely enough, to have died out with 
 the days of tri-weekly steamers and hourly cable-dispatches. 
 Suspense is now limited to what will happen, not to what has 
 happened, and events known as soon as they occur impress 
 the imagination less than when they have been speculated 
 upon for a month. 
 
 After the peace of Ghent, in February, 181 5, an era of calm 
 and placid enjoyment opened for Mrs. Logan, which must 
 have recalled the halcyon days of her early married life. She 
 had passed from the agitating events and emotions of her 
 youth and early middle age across the boundary of elder life, 
 keeping her freshness of heart and brightness of mind in un- 
 sullied transparency. Her husband's health, it is true, was 
 declining, but so gradually that there was nothing to startle 
 or alarm her, and they pursued the alternation of peaceful 
 
3i8 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 seasons gladdened by all the cherished pleasures. Many old 
 friends were left to gather as of yore round the fireside or 
 under the hemlocks ; strangers of note still came to bring 
 variety and vivacity into the tranquil routine. Peter Dupon- 
 ceau was a frequent visitor, bringing Mrs. Logan supplies of 
 books; Dupont de Nemours, who had shown her husband 
 civility and kindness on his memorable visit to France, came 
 out to this country in 1 8 1 5, and Dr. Logan hastened to pay 
 his respects to him at Wilmington and invite him to Stenton, 
 whither he afterwards came ; Colonel Pickering, too, past dif- 
 ferences forgotten, was often at their board ; John Randolph 
 of Roanoke once came for a day and night, impressing his 
 hostess very much. 
 
 She still performed her part in her neighborly circle with 
 alacrity, still made little excursions in the pleasant autumn 
 weather to see friends beyond an afternoon's drive. One of 
 these was Charles Thomson, known by his contemporaries as 
 " the Man of Truth," her life-long friend, he whose voice her 
 girlish ears had fancied they recognized in the reader of the 
 Declaration of Independence. He was now ninety years old, 
 but his faculties were unimpaired. She gives many of his 
 recollections of Revolutionary times, among which one of the 
 liveliest is the story of how he became secretary of the first 
 Congress : 
 
 " I was married on a Thursday, and the following Monday 
 came to town to pay my respects to my wife's aunt and the 
 family. Just as I alighted in Chestnut Street the doorkeeper 
 of Congress accosted me with a message from them, request- 
 ing my presence. ... I bid my servant put up his horses and 
 followed the messenger myself to Carpenters' Hall, and en- 
 tered Congress. ... I walked up the aisle, and, standing 
 opposite the President, bowed and told him I awaited his 
 pleasure. He replied, Congress desires the favor of you, sir, 
 to take their minutes. I bowed in acquiescence, and took my 
 place at the desk. After a short silence, Patrick Henry rose 
 to speak." 
 
 Mrs. Logan was extremely fond of history and study bearing 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 
 
 319 
 
 upon it. In one of the roomy garrets of Stenton she found 
 a mass of papers relating to the early history of Pennsylvania. 
 " They had been very much neglected, and treated as useless 
 waste-paper, and were piled away in the garrets as worthless 
 rubbish, the very room they occupied being bestowed reluc- 
 tantly. She was not, however, to be discouraged by their 
 unpromising appearance and mouldy, worm-eaten, tattered 
 condition, nor the difficulty of deciphering that which ap- 
 peared at first as unintelligible as Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
 She devoted many years of her life in collecting, arranging, 
 systematizing, and copying these papers. Many thousand 
 pages of original letters relating to the colonial history were 
 neatly copied, with remarks and annotations." * 
 
 The beauty of her manuscript is remarkable. The hand- 
 writing is rather small, without being cramped ; as regular and 
 legible as the best type ; unlike a woman's writing, yet in no 
 wise masculine; the last word of each page has a line to itselC 
 and is repeated at the top of the following one ; there is a wide 
 margin ; the paragraphs are distinctly broken ; the numerous 
 foot-notes are separated by heavy double lines from the page 
 above ; where letters, quotations, or extracts are introduced, 
 the difference is carefully designated ; the title or date, ad- 
 dress, signature, are all clearly indicated on separate lines. 
 It is the performance of one who thought emphatically that 
 whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and who be- 
 stowed her utmost pains on whatever she undertook. These 
 were afterwards published by the Historical Society of Penn- 
 sylvania under the name of the Penn and Logan Correspond- 
 ence, with a preface by Edward Armstrong, Esq., the editor ; 
 an account of the Penn family, by John J. Smith, Esq. ; a 
 short notice of Mrs. Deborah Logan, by Isaac Norris, Esq.; 
 and a memoir of James Logan, from her own pen. She also 
 undertook a series of biographical sketches or reminiscences 
 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, but un- 
 fortunately gave up the idea, dissatisfied with the faintness 
 
 * Extract from notice of Mrs. Logan in the Penn and Logan Correspondence. 
 
320 
 
 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 of the outlines upon her memory after the lapse of so many 
 years. She amused herself by writing verses which are 
 smooth, flowing, and very prettily turned, generally suggested 
 by the beauties of nature or some sentiment or feeling of her 
 own inner life. She kept a copious diary, which became by 
 degrees a companion and confidant, to which she resorted 
 often through the day, and in this she registered her poetical 
 effusions. In one place she says that, although she was fond 
 of the sonnet, it had always seemed to her " like putting the 
 muse into corsets." However, "on one of Anna Seward's 
 recipes" she very neatly executed a sonnet to Stenton, with 
 apostrophes, allusions to Flora, Zephyr, Eurus, and all the 
 old-fashioned figures and flowers of style. Several others fol- 
 low ; but, to tell the truth, although Mrs. Logan's poetry was 
 as good as a great deal which was printed and vastly admired 
 in that day (as indeed was some of her own), it reads now too 
 much as if it had all been written by Anna Seward's recipe. 
 Yet her taste in poetry, to judge from her quotations and 
 remarks, was for what was best of the best : she delighted in 
 Childe Harold, which she says " has in parts of it the very 
 soul of poetry : he transports me to the grand and impress- 
 ive scenes he so beautifully describes. . . . He clears the 
 rubbish from the antique fountain and bids its fresh and crystal 
 rill again sparkle in the sunbeams ; and oh ! there are many 
 passages that speak so indescribably to the heart and feelings 
 as to awaken a deep and powerful sympathy for the being who 
 could so gloriously express what you and himself have felt." 
 Milton was constantly in her thoughts, suggested by dawn, 
 by sunset ; and once in her diary she exclaims that " the 
 associations of poetry embellish life." 
 
 Her industry was unchecked by advancing years, and she 
 became interested in astronomy, lamenting that she had not 
 the apparatus necessary for pursuing the study seriously. She 
 alludes to this in an entry for January I, 1817, a wonderfully 
 mild day, when she has been able to collect a small nosegay 
 in the garden, — violets among other flowers. " Surely the 
 benevolent and all-wise Creator has decorated our earthly 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 321 
 
 habitation with a profusion of delights and beauties, and 
 opened a source of the most delightful entertainment to the 
 mind in the discovery and contemplation of the laws by which 
 He governs the universe. What may we not expect of felicity 
 will be prepared for the good in a more advanced state of 
 being? This is the first dawn of existence, and we are to 
 progress in virtue and knowledge through eternity." 
 
 This vein of piety pervaded her whole nature, rising from 
 its most hidden depths to its sunny surface. In the memoir 
 of her husband, although she keeps herself in the background 
 throughout, unconscious expressions of a devout and fervent 
 faith are constant ; in her diary aspiration is half her life. She 
 says that her books of devotion are " the Bible, Thomas a 
 Kempis, No Cross No Crown, Archbishop Tillotson, Fenelon, 
 and the Apology." The time was at hand when she would 
 need all the support and consolation which religion could 
 give, all the resources of her well-disciplined mind and stead- 
 fast, submissive character. In April, 1821, she lost her hus- 
 band, her paragon of men. He died after a long illness which 
 had succeeded to a slowly lowering state of health. From 
 that time her life was chiefly in the past. Her kindly sympa- 
 thy for others, her cheerful unselfishness, which kept her own 
 regrets and longings out of sight, her happy habit of constant 
 occupation, above all, the total absence of egotism in her com- 
 position, led the juniors who knew her in her widowhood. to 
 hold her an unusually gay and lively person for her years. 
 And so serene and rational old age is often judged by a 
 younger generation. It is hard for those who are still in the 
 thick and heat of life, with present joys, griefs, hopes, fears, 
 love, and hate thronging about them, to believe that those for 
 whom to-day and to-morrow can bring but one last change 
 should know anything of the keen and eager emotions which 
 fill existence with impatience and unrest. Resignation is 
 taken for satisfaction, tranquillity for indifference, silence for 
 oblivion. Such an unselfish and serene old age was Deborah 
 Logan's, but it was so because she had striven for self-control 
 and submission in earlier years, and endeavored so to keep 
 
322 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 the balance between spiritual and outward demands that the 
 hands should mark the hour, the heart and conscience chime 
 in concert, up to the very last. She outlived her husband 
 many years, during which she found some consolation in 
 writing his biography and retreading in memory the long 
 path they had traveled hand in hand. She never ceased to 
 mourn him, and, amid the calm routine which her diary 
 records, her thoughts turned to him perpetually. A few ex- 
 tracts will illustrate the beauty of her character and life better 
 than pages of comment and eulogy. Rather a curious cen- 
 sorship was exercised upon this journal after it had been 
 gathering volume for many years. Mrs. Logan had. the prac- 
 tice of noting down the interesting or amusing conversations 
 which took place in the varied society in which for so many 
 years she took part; but when all the more conventional inter- 
 course had ceased, and her circle had slowly narrowed to a 
 few old friends of quiet antecedents, one of them, a strict 
 Quakeress, persuaded Mrs. Logan that these reminiscences 
 savored of worldliness and frivolity and were inconsistent 
 with " our peaceable testimony." Accordingly, the two went 
 carefully over the manuscript, erasing with laborious thor- 
 oughness all mere chit-chat. Mrs. Logan testifies to her 
 lively relish for general conversation by a sly reference to 
 having had, in company with some friends, " a blameless cup 
 of tea, — that is, without scandal." This revision destroyed 
 what would have been no doubt a most delightful collection 
 of anecdotes and ana of a highly interesting period in Amer- 
 ican society, when its centre was at Philadelphia and its 
 leading figures were historical personages. But we must be 
 thankful for the pictures of political and domestic life which 
 are left. 
 
 "November 30. — A dormant jerboa was brought me to-day, 
 which one of our men ploughed up. Its nest was pretty deep, 
 and very comfortably and curiously made of dry grass and 
 pieces of small stubble. I covered it and put it into a closet 
 where I have had another one living for some time, well fed, 
 and not yet fallen asleep. The dormant one is very fat. The 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 323 
 
 next day the little creature, having been so disturbed by its 
 removal, gradually awakened, but did not appear to have 
 regained its usual activity; however, it afterwards made its 
 escape down to the other one's habitation in the closet, where 
 they continue to take the food I provide for them." 
 
 " August 8. — I had several walks and rambles out of doors 
 to-day, and saw my poor little ground-squirrel busily em- 
 ployed in fetching nuts from a distant tree for his winter 
 store ; at which I assisted him by leaving a heap at his door- 
 way: and it called to my mind the beautiful little fellow that 
 my husband tamed so completely." On a winter morning 
 she describes the little family assembled round the stove, — 
 Bear, the big dog, Jerry Lodge, the little black cat, and a 
 young chicken, all demeaning themselves with propriety and 
 harmony ; adding, " To have the animal world about you 
 happy and inoffensive to you and each other makes no in- 
 glorious part of paradise, in my opinion." 
 
 " October 6. — It is a cold north wind and a silvery-looking 
 sun. I am fearful of frost. My neglected garden looks sadly; 
 but still it affords double balsam, nasturtions, and Queen 
 Margarets for Flora's altar and the parlor-table. An old- 
 fashioned glass pyramid set up in the corner of the hall above 
 the triangular table, and filled with glasses of flowers fanci- 
 fully disposed, constitutes the altar. No one can tell how 
 much innocent enjoyment I have derived from flowers." 
 
 " October 18. — It is now autumn, daily fading into ' the sere 
 and yellow leaf;' the sun is seen through a haze ; the air is 
 so bland and temperate that it might be mistaken for spring ; 
 but the days are shortening apace. The wasps are flying 
 against the windows in pursuit of some sheltered situation 
 for winter ; a few birds with dissonant notes instead of song, 
 among which I discover the blue-jay and the robin ; the 
 afternoon sun seems impatient to reach his goal in the west ; 
 and the nights are long and chilly and dark. It all answers 
 to myself; and to-morrow, if I live to see it, I shall have 
 completed the sixty-first year of my age. Let me not do it 
 without an act of devotion." 
 
324 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 " Thursday morning, before daylight. — I am up thus early 
 to accompany my dear children to see our venerable connec- 
 tion and friend Charles Thomson once more. It is all silent 
 round me. Jupiter, just below the Seven Stars, is brightly 
 shining overhead ; the Dogstar sparkles with prismatic ray, 
 the morning moon is up, and the attendant lamp of Venus 
 hangs below her in the east; the cocks all over the neigh- 
 borhood are ' scattering the rear of darkness thin.' " 
 
 " I have done my usual morning work, and had my dinner, 
 and yet it is not much beyond the hour of noon, — an hour 
 of quiet, generally, in the country : people pause and rest a 
 little before they again go to their labor. There is often a 
 stillness in nature, I imagine, at the hour of noon, and I ex- 
 perience it delightfully now: nothing but the clack of a distant 
 winnowing-fan interrupts the solemn and sweet breathing of 
 Zephyr on the strings of my yEolian harp. I often want words 
 to express my feelings, and I am sure I do at this time. The 
 thought of other years, and the remembrance of dear and 
 loved friends, — and one tender and cherished affection which 
 now mingles with all my thoughts and visits me in everything 
 I meet. — Several hours have passed : it is a sweet and solemn 
 afternoon ; dark and bright clouds intermingle with patches 
 of bright blue sky. Part of the family are gone out, and the 
 rest are very quiet. The house is clean and shut up ; the 
 hall dressed with wild flowers and grasses and Catalonian 
 jessamine." 
 
 " June 6. — First Day was spent pleasantly, though partly 
 alone. I passed the afternoon in the library, which is my 
 most agreeable apartment in summer, where I am quiet and 
 retired from noise and interruption, cool, and shaded in the 
 most delicious manner by the fine old trees that surround our 
 venerable dwelling, — the glycene and ivy forming the most 
 beautiful festoons and drapery around the southern window, 
 which emits a softened light over my writing-table. Or, if 
 I choose to read, the easy and low seat of an old sofa brought 
 by my grandmother from England in 1708, and surrounded 
 by books, most of them, indeed, in unison with everything, 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 325 
 
 and savoring more of the past than the present. Here and 
 alone I like best to be ; not but that the society of my friends 
 gives me real pleasure, and I am sure it is useful, conversation 
 eliciting many things from the mind that I have not found in 
 books, and rendering life much more pleasant by binding us 
 to each other." 
 
 She frequently speaks of sitting round the dining-room 
 table in the evening with the " damsels" or " little maids," 
 who quilted or sewed while she read aloud to them, while 
 Poll, her parrot, perched on the handle of her work-basket. 
 Sometimes the name of some famous stranger fell into the 
 quiet round of her daily existence and broke its surface with 
 memories and regrets. When La Fayette paid his last visit 
 to this country, a sorrowful unwillingness that he should pass 
 by without a greeting from Stenton stirred Mrs. Logan to 
 write him a letter, a sort of tribute to represent the welcome 
 he would have had from her husband had he been upon earth. 
 At another time she writes, " The Governor of New York, 
 De Witt Clinton, who is at present on a visit to this State, 
 is to breakfast to-morrow at Reuben Haines'; and there has 
 been a time in which I too should have seen him. It seems 
 as if it were hardly right for strangers of distinction to be 
 unnoticed at this house ; but there is nothing now to attract 
 their notice, unless it is the grave of one of the best of men 
 and most patriotic of citizens." In her habitual modesty and 
 low estimate of herself, it never occurs to her how glad these 
 fine birds of passage might have been to see and speak with 
 her if she had only given them the opportunity. She thought 
 that whatever interest or consequence had ever been hers 
 came from her husband and expired with him. The affec- 
 tionate reverence of a whole neighborhood gave her no higher 
 idea of herself. 
 
 "April 1. — I have been employed to-day in getting some 
 improvements made in the inclosure where the remains of 
 my dearest love are deposited. There is something very 
 touching in this resting-place, the source of his pleasures in 
 childhood. A pewit continues to build her nest in the case 
 
326 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 below attached to one of the large hooks drove into the 
 roof of the vault, the old hereditary place, if not nest, for I 
 have heard him say one had always built there when he was a 
 boy. I long to have the place completed, and perceive it will 
 be a most acceptable place of musing to me, and where I hope 
 to lay beside him, the beloved friend and companion of my 
 life, whose removal has made life more like a desert than 
 the cheerful, pleasant existence which it used to be." 
 
 " As to suitable reflections, I trust I am somewhat the better 
 of those I have made ; but of good resolutions which I have 
 not kept I am ashamed, and, humble and doubtful of myself, 
 can do no more but hope that I shall endeavor, though at the 
 eleventh hour, to labor more earnestly. Life recedes — eternity 
 advances." 
 
 "December 29, 1832. — The season and my own age have 
 suggested the following : 
 
 " Oh, say not Time, with sweeping wing, 
 
 Damps the best feelings of the mind, 
 Say not his scythe, that sweeping thing, 
 
 Can level thought, or fancy bind. 
 I cannot bear to see Decay 
 Usurp the place where Reason lay. 
 
 " Methinks it might the wizard please 
 
 To stamp his ruin on the face, 
 To mark his grasp the victim seize, 
 
 And the fine form bow in disgrace. 
 Were this his aim, he'd welcome be, 
 So he would leave my mind to me, — 
 
 " Leave me the dreams of other years, 
 
 Leave me the free expansive thought, 
 The courage which supports from fears, 
 
 The kindness kindred feelings wrought : 
 Then could I bear Time's spoils to see, 
 So he would leave my mind to me." 
 
 This fervent prayer was fully answered. The years passed^ 
 and life ebbed gently away, taking only the physical powers 
 with it, — although one deep grief came between her and the 
 ~°tting sun. In 1835 she lost her youngest son, Algernon 
 
DEBORAH LOGAN. 327 
 
 Sydney, in the prime of manhood; but her gaze had long been 
 fixed on the goal, and while she sorrowed she knew it could not 
 be for long. Younger and still younger generations grew up in 
 affectionate respect of the old lady who had heard the Decla- 
 ration of Independence read, and who still, far on in another 
 century, sat at her tea-table under the hemlocks, all dignity 
 and benevolence, in her cap and short-gown, not more alive 
 to the recollections of that by-gone time than to the charities 
 and courtesies of the present. John Watson, Esq., author of 
 the Annals of Germantown, while compiling his work, used 
 daily to stroll down to Stenton, to draw reminiscences and 
 verifications from that untroubled well of memory. In the 
 spring of 1838 there is a charming description in her diary 
 of a visit from a neighbor's baby, a little thing not a year old 
 who woke every maternal chord in that gentle breast, and 
 lighted up the day with a gleam of pleasure which marked it 
 with a white stone. Late in October of the same year she gives 
 a long account of a visit from an ardent young Englishwoman 
 who lived in her neighborhood, and who discoursed to her 
 first about the condition of Ireland, "and then, by a natural 
 transition, as it seemed to me, adverted to the condition of 
 the slaves in the West Indies and in this country, and 
 said things which might have commanded audience in the 
 senate of her own country, and — shall I add ? — might have 
 abashed mine." The topic leads Mrs. Logan back to recall 
 and compare the views of the anti-slavery leaders of her 
 youth and speculate on the results of the policy of expe- 
 diency pursued by our government on this question. Her 
 mind is as clear, her interest as deep, as when she used to 
 listen to Jefferson and Madison and hold her peace while she 
 kept her own opinion. 
 
 Three months later the spirit fled from its enfeebled case 
 back to the Hand which sent it forth, as undimmed and spot- 
 less as in the hour when it came upon earth. Sorrow and 
 love and reverence followed her to her resting-place in the 
 beautiful little burying-ground at Stenton, where she lies 
 beside her adored husband, among the children who went 
 
328 WORTHY WOMEN OF OUR FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 before and followed her. But one survived, — Albanus, the 
 eldest, who married his kinswoman Miss Dickinson, and left 
 four children: Elizabeth, first wife of Dr. Thomas Forrest 
 Betton, and Gustavus, who are dead, Miss Mary Norris 
 Logan, and Dr. Jonathan Dickinson Logan. 
 
 By her unambitious industry she has erected a monument 
 to herself in her valuable contributions to the history of the 
 State, the MSS. of which belong to the Philadelphia Library 
 and are in the archives of the Pennsylvania Philosophical So- 
 ciety. Her memory lives on as a tradition of charm and 
 worth, a lovely impersonation of female excellence, a lady of 
 the old school, a pure, ideal Quakeress. 
 
 Sarah Butler Wister. 
 
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