Richards, Laura E 1850-1943. Laura E. Richards Page 1 of 8 Laura E. Richards Laura Elizabeth Richards was born February 27, 1850, at 74 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts, to distinguished parents and a home life that would early introduce her to the delights of language and fine arts as well as to a range of people and experiences. Her father, Samuel Gridley Howe, "a restless social reformer [who] later gain[ed] fame as an abolitionist," [1] was also "the practical founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind" in 1832. [2] Howe's star pupil -- and Green Peace Laura's namesake -- was Laura Bridgman, a child who had been left blind and deaf after a bout with scarlet fever at age two. When Bridgman was seven, Howe met her and brought her to Perkins, where she became the first blind and deaf person to learn language and "finger spell." (Another Perkins student, Anne Sullivan, later taught Helen Keller.) Richards's mother, the poet Julia Ward Howe, is perhaps best known as the author of "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Laura was the youngest of four children: Julia, Florence (named for her godmother, Florence Nightingale), and Henry. A fifth child, Maud, was born a few years later, and a sixth, Sam, (who died of diptheria at age three), several years after. The family moved to various homes in and around Boston during Richards's childhood. Among them were Green Peace, a house on five acres of land, and the Perkins Institution, where Howe, as Director, had one wing for the family's use. When still quite young, Richards was introduced to languages through her mother's love of music. As she explained in her autobiography, Stepping Westward, When we [children] gathered delightedly round the piano we soon began to sing with [mother]. German songs, many of them brought back from Heidelberg by Uncle Sam Ward sparkling French songs whose gayety was enchanting Italian songs that flowed like water under moonlight; to say nothing of English and Scottish ballads without end. We never knew that we were studying French, German, Italian; that we were acquiring a vocabulary; that ear and voice were being trained by a past misterss in the management of both. (6) http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.html 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 2 of 8 Richards grew up surrounded by books. Among the works she recalled reading as a child were Grimms' and Andersen's fairy tales, Ruskin's King of the Golden River, Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring, Alcott's Flower Fables, Catherine Sinclair's Holiday House, Irving's Tales of the Alhambra, Wolfert's Roost, and Sketch-Book, and Hawthorne's Wonder Book, Tanglewood Tales, Twice-Told Tales, and Mosses from an Old Manse (remarking of the latter two "These I read over and over, till I knew them almost by heart" [39]). She also read lighter fare -- The London Doll, The Country Doll, Tales from Catland, and various adventure tales by Mayne Reid. Years later, she recalled Reid's books with particular delight, writing For Brother Harry and me, there was none like him. We loved his dashing heroes and their amazing adventures. Two of them we took for our prototypes, and as Groot Willem and Henrik Von Bloom we hunted the borele, 'fiercest of the rhinoceroses,' or had 'a brush with the brindled gnu, or thrilled at the sight of a black lion coming up the chimney Beside all this, Mayne Reid taught me most of the little I know about Natural History. (38) She was also familiar with the works of Scott and Dickens, noting "they, with the Bible and Shakespeare, seem in memory a kind of foundation for everything else" (39). None too surprisingly, she also loved poetry, or, as she expressed it "I would rather read poetry than eat my dinner any day. It has been SO all my life." She read Coventry Patmore's Children's Garland and Thalatta, as well as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Whittier, and Tennyson; at "about thirteen," she began reading Shelley and Coleridge, and, later, Robert Browning, Rosetti, and Shelley. In reviewing her experiences with books, she wrote My general idea, as I look back through the long years, seems to have been, "If you see a book, read it, especially if it is poetry!" My education woud seem to stand on a solid (!) [sic] foundation of fairy stories, romance, and poetry, with more or less history tucked in here and there by way of mortar. (44-45) About 1863, the family moved to 19 Boylston Place, next door to the Richards family, whose youngest son, Henry, would later become Laura's husband. Although she had seen Henry at dancing school, the pair had not actually spoken; the situation changed some time after the move. As one source describes it, The most memorable early contact with the family next door came when the Richards brothers helped extinguish a fire in the Howe house. [Her sister] Maud recalls Laura, flying down the stair to answer the violent ringing of the doorbell, 'her long, dark hair, a dusky veil, hanging about her.' She opened the door to find the five Richards brothers. From George in evening dress, 'I beg your pardon! Have you a fire here?' Politely from Laura, 'Yes, won't you come in?' She and Henry passed each other on the stairs carrying out possessions. [3] http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 3 of 8 At seventeen, Richards accompanied her parents and sister Julia to Europe, visiting London, Rome, Venice, Athens, and Antwerp. In the winter of 1869, she became engaged to Henry Richards, by then a Harvard classmate of her brother's. They were married on June 17, 1871, the year he graduated from Harvard. The pair honeymooned in Europe because "[a]n architect, it was then thought, must know something of European architecture" (130), first stopping in England to see Richards' family, then travelling to Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Nuremberg, Innsbruck, Venice, Naples, Florence, Rome, Athens, Constantinople, and Milan. After their sojourn in Europe, the Richards returned to Green Peace, living there with Laura's parents and younger sister. Children and books came quickly. As Richards explained, Laure E. Richards Four years saw the birth of the first three of my seven children, Alice, Rosalind, and Henry I had always rhymed easily; now, with the coming of the babies, and the consequent weeks and months of quite, came a prodigious welling up of rhymes, mostly bringing their tunes with them. I wrote, and sang, and wrote, and could not stop. The first baby was plump and placid, with a broad, smooth back which made an excellent writing desk. She lay on her front, across my lap; I wrote on her back, the writing pad quite as steady as the writing of jingles required. (155- 56) A number of those early rhymes, with illustrations by John Ames Mitchell, were then published in St. Nicholas During an economic downturn in the 1870s, her husband's architecture business floundered Henry's brother, Frank Richards, offered him a management position in the Richards's family's paper mill, and, in the summer of 1876, Laura and Henry Richards and their three children moved to Gardiner, Maine. They lived with various members of Henry's family for a time, then found "a square 'Colonial' house, with ell and barn, large chimneys, an open fireplace in every room, and even more important, an acre of lawn and garden" (251). Here, in the Yellow House (apparently so-named because the Richards soon replaced the brown exterior with yellow, a "warm, friendly pumpkin-color" [252]), four additional children were born: Henry, Julia Ward, Maud (who died circa 1885), and Laura Elizabeth II. Richards's first book, Five Little Mice in a Mouse Trap was published in 1880, as was The Little Tyrant; two additional titles, Our Baby's Favorite and Sketches and Scraps (the latter illustrated by her husband), appeared the following year. The same decade saw additional publications, including retellings of folktales such as Beauty and the Beast and Hop o' My Thumb (both 1886), and both volumes about Toto (The Joyous Story of Toto [1885] and Toto's Merry Winter [1887]). 1889 http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 4 of 8 produced Queen Hildegarde, which Richards described as "my first stumbling essay in books for girls" (369). This became the first of her Hildegarde series (about which she observed [circa 1930], "the later [volumes] are better written than the earlier ones; if I were twenty years younger I would write Queen Hildegarde over again" [324]). The 1890s brought more girls books, including Captain January, perhaps now best known from the 1936 Shirley Temple movie. She also published several interrelated stories: Melody (1893), Marie (1894), Bethsada Pool (1895), Rosin the Beau (1898) (In an essay on Richards, Ruth Hill Viguers notes that "Rosin is the son of Marie, the friend and benefactor of Melody, and [the teacher of] the fiddler at the dance" in Bethsada Pool.) [4a] During the 1890s, Richards also added more volumes to the Hildegarde series, though she apparently had some problems with the second volume, Hildegarde's Holiday (1891), writing, in 1890, in a letter to a friend Look here! I have written to see if Estes [the publisher] will let me off this Hildegarde thing till next year, putting Captain January in between. My dear, I have begun all wrong. Her ma never would have let them girls go stravaging [sic] across the country, with only a boy to take care of them. You know she wouldn't [4b] She concluded the series with Hildegarde's Harvest in 1897, the same year she began the Margaret series, which continued into the next decade. Three Margarets, the initial volume, was, according to one reviewer, "conceived on a new plan. The Margarets are three cousins of the same name, -- one from the East, one from a ranch in the West, and one from a Cuban plantation, -- who come together for a summer's visit to an uncle whom they have never seen." Noting that "There is here an opportunity for contrast in character, which Mrs. Richards skillfully, but somewhat melodramatically, improves," the reviewer concluded that Three Margarets was "on the whole a charming little story, with a good deal of human nature in it" but that it lacked "the beauty" of Richards's Captain January [5] In 1904, the Hildegarde and Margaret series were linked with the publication of The Merryweathers, which incorporated characters from both series. Although the two series are little known now (and Richards says little of them in her autobiography beyond the comments above and a mention that the Richards' Camp Merryweather was named after the book, not the reverse), both series were popular in their time and are fondly remembered by several early historians of children's literature. In Part III of A Critical History of Children's Literature, Elizabeth Nesbitt writes There can be little doubt that in the books in Laura Richards' Queen Hildegarde series (1889-) and Three Margarets series (1897-) character, incident and situation are drawn from life. Even the delightful anecdotes told in Queen Hildegarde may have been heard by the child Laura Howe in summers spent in The Valley To reread these books as an adult is to gain a deep appreciation of the impression made when they were read as a child; an impression made up not SO much of the details of the story, but rather of halcyon days in the country, the delights of wood and stream and planted fields of the inherent worth and dignity of simple, virtuous men and women; of the fun and frolic of a large http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 5 of 8 family like the Merryweathers, each of them an individual and allowed to be so; of the give and take of family relationship; of the joy of good talk, free and spontaneous, permitted to drift as it pleases; and not least of all, the pleasure of meeting an old friend among books, like Robin Hood, best beloved of all Hildegarde's books or the equal pleasure of being introduced to a new friend in literature, presented by one of Mrs. Richards' characters with that genuine enthusiasm which SO successfully sells a book. [6] Similarly, in "Laura E. Richards, Joyous Companion," Ruth Hill Viguers (also a co-author of A Critical History of Children's Literature) observes I doubt if Mrs. Richards realized how widely these books were read and how generally loved. A paragraph from any of them, or even mention of the titles, brings to memory a picture of five girls thirty-odd years ago relaxed in the late afternoon sunshine. In front of them are the wooded San Juan Islands But their minds are on other scenes: a secret room under a stairway where a girl of another generation had put away her dolls; a young girl dancing in the moonlight or rescuing a selfish woman's jewels from a fire; a glamorous Cuban girl's romance and adventures during the Spanish-American War; the arrival in their new home of the ingratiating Merryweather family Alexander Woollcott mentioned Anne Parrish's speaking of the 'peace' that the Hildegarde stories still brought her, and expressed surprise over the impression made on contemporaries by the wallpaper in Hildegarde's room. After forty years Kathleen Norris, whose childhood ambition had been to possess such a room, could still describe the wallpaper! [7] And in 1932, in a review of another of Richards's books, the New York Times Book Review noted in passing that "The Queen Hildegarde stories still hold 13 and 14 year olds with their very real girl characters against a background of good breeding." [8] While Richards was turning out books, her husband's family was strugging with the paper mill and the effects of technological change. As she explained, "By 1884 it became evident that if the Richards Paper Company were to live, its nature and its habitat must be changed. A pulp mill was built on the Kennebec at South Gardiner and here the new industry -- new in this country; our mill being the first to introduce it -- was vigorously carried on. Sulphite pulp took the place of rags; instead of the long, echoing sheds, and the vats and 'rolls,' came 'digesters,' huge iron containers in which the spruce logs, carefully selected, were 'cooked' to pulp" (296). Disaster struck in 1893, when "on a winter's night, the pulp mill burned to the ground" (297). Although it was rebuilt, "the paper-making world [was] changing like the shifts of a kaleidoscope, the great combination companies relentlessly strangling the small ones" (298), until, in 1900, the mill finally closed. After some thought, the Richards family considered opening a small private school. Asked his advice, http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 6 of 8 their friend, Reverend Endicott Peabody of Groton School, instead suggested a camp for boys. Henry STORY remembered "a spot that greatly took his fancy; a strip of forest bordering on Belgrade Great Pond" (301), which the owner was persuaded to sell. Camp Merryweather (so named because in the Hildegarde and Margaret books, the Merryweather Camp Merryweather family spent their summers "at a Camp somewhat resembling [the one] at Cobbossee" [302]) opened 30 June 1900, and was still in operation 30 years later when Richards wrote her autobiography. Richards was also active in designing activities for youth and in community affairs in Gardiner. In 1886, she created the Howe Club (named for her father), for her ten-year-old son Hal and his friends. The group met for ninety minutes on Saturday evenings. As Richards described it I read to them -- first a poem, then Scott or Dickens for half the time; then there were apples -- or peanuts -- and games in many varieties, all with the pill of Information heavily sugar-coated. To give the boys something that school in its crowded curriculum could not give; to enlarge first their vocabulary and then their horizon; to show them the fair face of poetry; first and last to give them a good time; this was my ardent desire. (342) The Howe Club lasted for approximately 25 years. Additionally, Richards was involved in founding the Ten Times One Club (afterschool activities for children) and the Good Comrades Club (for young girls in the workforce). Her interest in lifelong education led to her involvement with the History Class (later the Current Events club); this was an adult study group, where she and her husband "studied with ardor; wrote our papers with passion and read them before a neighborly, friendly audience" (340). [9] In 1895, she helped found the Women's Philanthropic Union (designed to correlate the activities of various women's organizations to avoid duplication of effort) and served as its president until 1921. She and her husband also were two of the founders of the Gardiner Library Association and participated in assorted fundraising activities for a library building (which her husband designed). [10] Laura E. Richards In the twentieth century, Richards continued to write children's stories and verse, including the two- http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 7 of 8 volume Honor Bright series (Honor Bright: A Story for Girls [1920] and Honor Bright's New Adventure [1925]), and an unsuccessful sequel to Captain January (Star Bright [1927]). Her best- known collection of verse was Tirra Lirra: New Rhymes and Old from 1932 (reissued in 1955 with a preface by May Hill Arbuthot), which incorporated early verses, many of which had been published in children's magazines, along with new material. During this period, Richards also wrote biographies, some of family members or friends, including Florence Nightingale: Angel of the Crimea (1909), Two Noble Lives: Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe (1911), and Laura Bridgman: The Story of an Opened Door (1928) Richards and her sister Maud Howe Elliott co-authored Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 (1915), for which they received the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1917. Her final book, What Shall the Children Read, was published in 1939; the following year, the Gardiner Public Library Association issued Laura E. Richards and Gardiner, a compilation of Richards' poems and articles which had been previously published in local newspapers. Richards died on 14 January 1943. Notes [1] Jennifer K. Ruark, "Unearthing 'the Original Hellen Keller," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 April 2001. Online at http://www.connsensebulletin.com/keller.html [2] Laura E. Richards, Stepping Westward (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1932), 1. It shoud be noted that the webpage for The Perkins School for the Blind (formerly the Perkins Institution) cites 1929 as its founding date. Stepping Westward, the second of Richards's autobiographies (the first, When I Was Your Age, was for children and was published by Estes & Lauriat in 1893), serves as the source for most of this essay and the images accompanying it. Citations for all future quotations from Stepping Westward are parenthetical in the text. [3] Ruth Hill Viguers, "Laura E. Richards, Joyous Companion," pt. 1, Horn Book Magazine (April, 1956), 94. Quoted material within the passage is attributed to Maud Howe Elliott's Three Generations (Little, Brown & Company, 1923). [4a] Viguers, pt. 3 (October, 1956), 383. [4b] Laura E. Richards, letter to Elizabeth Thorndike Thronton. Quoted in Viguers, pt. 2 (June, 1956), 170. [5] The Dial (16 December 1897), 401. Quoted in "Laura E. Richards," Children's Literature Review, vol. 54, 166. [6] Cornelia Meigs, Anne Thaxter Eaton, Elizabeth Nesbitt, and Ruth Hill Viguers, A Critical History of Children's Literature, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1969) , 351. http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 Laura E. Richards Page 8 of 8 [7] Viguers, pt. 3, 380-81. [8] Review of Tirra Lirra. NYT Book Review (23 October 1932), 13. Quoted in CLR, 169. [9] Viguers credits her with founding this club (pt. 2, 173). [10] Viguers, pt. 2, 171-73. Copyright 2002 - Deidre Johnson Return to main page http://www.readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.htm 7/6/2004 From : Yellow House Peoples 6/13/05 Pg. 146 Col. Someel Word (1756-1832) - 10 offspung WM. Green Ward Samel ward Ann was (un Man) Henry was Phoebe Heary Hall was ward Richard . Ray was Samel word III Banker John M. Julia Cutler was wm Great was Henry Julia Saint Word IV died Louise Cutler died Anne Ware young going M. Emily Astor Eliza Was m.A. Maillard Julia Romansa Howe Florence Marion Have Julia ward Henry Marion Howe m. Dr. Someol Gridley Howe Laura Elizobeth Have Mar. HenryRichards Maud Herve Sound gudh Hnee Jr 11 P 208 The Richards Formed Papers. John Richards V. aquet ford Ashburton and the Bauing Brother of hondon / Edin burgh Collection National Lbray of Scotland (ps.217). 2/ Baing Paper Mucotilm made by Public Record office in London from papers the Archives ofth Baing Broten banking house. Copy in L c, topether T a calendar. These poper mg he suppleated s examination of the Rubilications of te Colonial Society vols, 1954. 3/ Harrigon abs Gray Otis papees at MHS. 4/ he lta hook covery the sale of Maine land 1790 to 1810 - perseson of fail descadete. Richard Paper John Richal (1884-1975) Engled fept. check- - at St.Paul T. Laura E. W. 'ggen (sister) placed some of his papers then p-209 Ward foref Paper 1. Paper S gov. Sourcel word, GGF of Telec Vow at RI tist Soc., Provides ocye Conesponde of governor Someal Word, May 1778- March 1776 2. Paper at N. YORK HISTOREGAC societ "you Wm. Ward, second cousin If L all aa E. Richards. 3. Paper of Sovall Word the Booke (father of Julia Word Home) t Samul Ward the Sinner at ny Dub. Lib. Oney part of Astor Lbrage (1819-1910) Paper of Illea Word Here at L.C. 10 Ms. boxes. AMC[laura e.richards[1,1017,2,3,3,3,4,6,5,100,6,1]] (3-1) Page 1 of 2 Records 3 through 3 of 26 returned. Author: Howe family. Title: Papers of the Howe-Richards family, 1840-1950. Description: 6 boxes (3 linear ft. ) Notes: Julia Ward Howe was the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and other works and a women's suffrage and club leader and lecturer; her daughters were Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards and Maud Howe Eliot, and her granddaughter was Rosalind Richards. Primarily correspondence of Maud Howe Eliot, Julia Ward Howe, Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, and Rosalind Richards. Correspondents include Hester Alington, Henry Beston, Margaret (Terry) Chanler, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth, Olivia Howard Dunbar, and Annie (Ward) Mailliard. Includes photographs of Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, Maud Howe Elliott and others. Deposited by Miss Rosalind Richards, 1953; gift 1976. Formerly restricted until 1976. Electronic finding aid available http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3: FHCL. Hough:hou014 Unpublished printed finding aid available in the Houghton Accessions Records, 1952-1953, under *52M-301. Papers of the Howe-Richards Family (MS Am 2215). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Subjects: Eliot, Maud Howe - - Portraits. Howe family. Richards family. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943 -- Portraits. Photographs. aat Other authors: Alington, Hester, correspondent. Beston, Henry, 1888-1968, correspondent. Chanler, Margaret Terry, 1862-1952, correspondent. Coatsworth, Elizabeth Jane, 1893-, correspondent. Dunbar, Olivia Howard, correspondent. Eliot, Maud Howe, recipient. Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910, correspondent. Mailliard, Anne Eliza (Ward) , 1824-1895, recipient. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943, correspondent. Richards, Rosalind, 1874-, recipient. Richards family. Location: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Control No. MAHV03-A217 Tagged display | Previous Record | Next Record | Brief Record Display | New Search http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?pres...rlinamc3.html,zinc.rlg.org,200%26AUTH%3drlinam 7/6/2004 AMC[laura e.richards[1,1017,2,3,3,3,4,6,5,100,6,1]] (1-1) Page 1 of 2 Records 1 through 1 of 26 returned. Title: The Yellow House papers : the Laura E. Richards collection, [19--]-2002. Description: 70 linear ft. Notes: Literary mss., transcriptions and typescripts, genealogical and family records, charts, correspondence, photographs and photograph albums, music, secondary school and camp memorabilia, memorial tributes, and books. Papers span several generations, including both ancestors and descendants of Laura Elizabeth Howe and her husband Henry Richards and their siblings, based in Gardiner, Me. Hallowell, Me., Boston, Mass., and at several boarding schools in New England. Persons represented include Laura Richards' parents, Julia Ward Howe and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe and literary figures such as Edward Arlington Robinson and Edgar Allen Poe. Subjects represented include writing and publishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, children's literature and music, daily lives of women in Gardiner, Gardiner High School, Camp Merryweather (North Belgrade, Me. ), the Episcopal Church, Maine paper industry, Harvard College, Perkins Institution for the Blind, and several New England boarding schools. Brought together by Gardiner Library Association in 1988 and deposited at Colby College Library (1990-2002) when they were deposited at Maine Historical Society. Deposit; Gardiner Library Association; 2002- Portions of original correspondence and mss. at Houghton Library, Harvard University. Finding aid in the repository. Smith, Danny D. The Yellow House papers : The Laura E. Richards collection, an inventory and historical analysis (Gardiner, Me. comp. for Gardiner Library Association and Colby College, 1991) Subjects: American literature Women authors - - Maine. Architecture, Domestic Maine -- Gardiner. Dwellings -- Maine - - Gardiner. Authors, American -- Maine -- Gardiner. Children's literature, American. Camps -- Maine. Education -- New England -- History. Preparatory schools -- New England. Liberalism -- New England. High school students -- New England. High school teachers -- New England. Social reformers -- Maine. Women authors, American -- Family relationships. Women authors, American -- Correspondence. Boston (Mass. ) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century. Gardiner (Me.) -- Social life and customs. Gardiner (Me.) Genealogy. http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?pres.../rlinamc3.html,zinc.rlg.org,200%26AUTH%3drlinam 7/6/2004 AMC[laura e. richards[1,1017,2,3,3,3,4,6,5,100,6,1 1]] (1-1) Page 2 of 2 New England -- Biography. New England Social life and customs. Hallowell (Me.) North Belgrade (Me.) Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910. Howe, S. G. (Samuel Gridley), 1801-1876. Poe, Edgar Allen, 1809-1849. Robinson, Edwin Arlington, 1869-1935. Gardner family. Gardiner family. Harvard College (1780- ) -- Students -- 19th century. Camp Merryweather (Me.) -- Photographs. Richards Paper Mill (Gardiner, Me. ) Yellow House (Gardiner, Me. ) Gardiner Area High School (Me.) Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Groton School. Noble and Greenough School (Dedham, Mass. Pomfret School (Pomfret, Conn.) St. Paul's School (Concord, N.H.) Other authors: Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943. Richards, Henry, 1848-1949. Richards family. Shaw family. Ward family. Wiggins family. Smith, Danny D. Yellow House papers. Location: Maine Historical Society (Portland, Me. ) (Coll. 2085) Control No. : DCLV04-A1077 Tagged display | Next Record | Brief Record Display | New Search This display was generated by the CNIDR Web-Z39.50 gateway, version 1.08, with Library of Congress Modifications. http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?pres.../rlinamc3.html,zinc.rlg.org,200%26AUTH%3drlinam 7/6/2004 AMC[laura e. richards[1,1017,2,3,3,3,4,6,5,100,6,1]] (6-1) Page 1 of 2 Records 6 through 6 of 26 returned. Author: Howe family. Title: Additional papers, 1863-1942. Description: 1 box (.3 linear ft.) Notes: Julia Ward Howe was the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and other works, and a women's suffrage and club leader and lecturer; her daughters were authors Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards and Maud Howe Elliott (and others), and her granddaughter was Rosalind Richards (the donor) First part of the collection consists of letters written to Maud Howe Elliott by various correspondents, discussing daily life, literature discussions, and the literary works of the Howe family. Several letters from William Henry Hurlbut written while he was in Europe discuss the details of his life there and the welfare of mutual acquaintances. The second part of the collection consists of an 1863 diary of Julia Ward Howe, recording her expenditures and daily activities, a folder of contemporary translations of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and a composition by Julia Ward Howe about the Massachusetts governor. Electronic finding aid available http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL. Hough: hou01103 Unpublished printed finding aid available in the Houghton Accessions Records, 1949-1950, under *49M-158-49M-164F. Howe Family Additional Papers (MS Am 2128). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Restricted until June 2001. Gift of Miss Rosalind Richards, 1950. Subjects: Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910. Howe family. Literature. Women authors, American. United States - - Social life and customs -- 19th century. Europe -- Social life and customs -- 19th century. Diaries. aat Translations. aat Authors. lcsh Composers. lcsh Other authors: Elliott, Maud Howe, 1854-1948, recipient. Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910. Hurlbert, William Henry, 1827-1895, correspondent. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943, recipient. Other titles: Battle hymn of the republic. Location: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?pres.../rlinamc3.html,zinc.rlg.org,200%26AUTH%3drlinam 7/6/2004 AMC[laura e.richards[1,1017,2,3,3,3,4,6,5,100,6,1]] (5-1) Page 1 of 1 Records 5 through 5 of 26 returned. Author: Howe family. Title: Additional papers of the Howe-Richards family, 1843-1957. Description: 1 box (.3 linear ft. ) Notes: Julia Ward Howe was the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and other works and a women's suffrage and club leader and lecturer; her daughter was author Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, and her granddaughter was Rosalind Richards. Collection pertains to both the Howe and Richards families. Includes mostly letters to them from friends and colleagues, and a few other items. Gift of the children of Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards: Henry Howe Richards, John Richards, Rosalind Richards, Julia Ward Shaw, and Laura Elizabeth Wiggins, 1959. Electronic finding aid available http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:Fhcl. Hough:hou01385 Unpublished printed finding aid available in the Houghton Accessions Records, 1959-1960, under *59M-120. Additional Papers of the Howe-Richards Family (bMS Am 2189). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Subjects: Howe family. Richards family. Other authors: Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910, recipient. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943, recipient. Richards, Rosalind, 1874-, recipient. Location: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Control No. : MAHV02-A122 Tagged display | Previous Record | Next Record Brief Record Display New Search This display was generated by the CNIDR Web-Z39.50 gateway, version 1.08, with Library of Congress Modifications. http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?pres.../rlinamc3.html,zinc.rlg.org,200%26AUTH%3drlinam 7/6/2004 FirstSearch: WorldCat Detailed Record Page 1 of 2 OC LC FirstSearch SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIV WorldCat Detailed Record Click on a checkbox to mark a record to be e-mailed or printed in Marked Records. Staff View Options Comments Exit Home Databases Searching Results Hide tips List of Records Detailed Record Marked Records Go to page ...I ? WorldCat results for: ti: captain and ti: WorldCat Subjects Libraries E-mail Print Export Help january. Record 2 of 213. 2 Mark: Prev Next Captain January Shirley Temple; Buddy Ebsen; Guy Kibbee; David Butler; Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 1994, 1936 Colorized version. English Visual Material : Videorecording : VHS tape 1 videocassette (76 min.) : sd., col. ; 1/2 in. [Beverly Hills, Calif.] : FoxVideo, ; ISBN: 0793985684 : Four year old Star has been happy living with Captain January in the lighthouse since he rescued her from a shipwreck. But when the town's new truant officer tries to take her away from the captain so she can have a "proper" home, her idyllic existence falls under a cloud. GET THIS ITEM Availability: Check the catalogs in your library. Libraries worldwide that own item: 218 FIND RELATED More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author | Advanced options Find Items About: Temple, Shirley, (max: 166); Ebsen. Buddy, (max: 1); Kibbee, Guy, (max: 2); Butler, David, (max: 24); Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, (max: 16); Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. (74) Title: Captain January Author(s): Temple, Shirley.; 1928- ; Ebsen, Buddy, 1908- ; Kibbee, Guy, 1882-1956. ; Butler, David, 1894-1979. ; Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943. Corp Author(s): Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. Publication: [Beverly Hills, Calif.] :; FoxVideo, Edition: Colorized version. Year: 1994, 1936 Description: 1 videocassette min.) : sd. col. :: 1/2 in. http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=sp0.... numrecs= 7/30/2004 FirstSearch: WorldCat Detailed Record Page 2 of 2 Language: English Series: The Shirley Temple collection ;; 11; Family feature; Standard No: ISBN: 0793985684 : Abstract: Four year old Star has been happy living with Captain January in the lighthouse since he rescued her from a shipwreck. But when the town's new truant officer tries to take her away from the captain so she can have a "proper" home, her idyllic existence falls under a cloud. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Film adaptations. Video recordings for the hearing impaired. Feature films. System Info: VHS. Note(s): Based on a story by Laura E. Richards./ Originally released as motion picture in 1936./ Hi-fi stereo, mono compatible./ Closed-captioned for the hearing impaired./ Rated G./ "This is a colorized version of a film originally marketed and distributed to the public in black and white. It has been altered without the participation of the principal director, screenwriter, and other creators of the original film."/ Participants: Shirley Temple, Guy Kibbee, Buddy Ebsen. Class Descriptors: Dewey: 766 Responsibility: Twentieth Century Fox. In charge of production, Darryl F. Zanuck ; screenplay, Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehman, Harry Tugend ; producer, Joseph M. Schenck ; associate producer, B.G. De Sylva ; director, David Butler. Material Type: Videorecording (vid); Videocassette (vca); VHS tape (vhs) Document Type: Visual Material Entry: 19950116 Update: 20040214 Accession No: OCLC: 31821943 Database: WorldCat WorldCat results for: ti: captain and ti: WorldCat Subjects Libraries E-mail Print Export Help january. Record 2 of 213. English Español Français Options Comments Exit OC C 1992-2004 OCLC LC Terms & Conditions http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=sp0... :numrecs= 7/30/2004 FirstSearch: WorldCat Detailed Record Page OC LC FirstSearch SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIV WorldCat Detailed Record Click on a checkbox to mark a record to be e-mailed or printed in Marked Records. Staff View Options Comments Exit Home Databases Searching Results Hide tips List of Records Detailed Record Marked Records Go to page .... WorldCat results for: ti: captain and ti: WorldCat Subjects Libraries E-mail Print Export Help january. Record 12 of 213. 12 Mark: Prev Next Captain January / Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 1902 English Book : Fiction : Juvenile audience 78 p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. Boston : D. Estes, GET THIS ITEM Availability: Check the catalogs in your library. Libraries worldwide that own item: 68 FIND RELATED More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author | Advanced options Find Items About: Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, (max: 16) Title: Captain January / Author(s): Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943. Publication: Boston : D. Estes, Year: 1902 Description: 78 p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. Language: English Series: The Captain January series; Class Descriptors: LC: PZ86.1 1902 Responsibility: by Laura E. Richards. Material Type: Fiction (fic); Juvenile (no specific ages) (jau) Document Type: Book Entry: 19770407 http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=sp0...:numrecs= 7/30/2004 MINERVA /All Locations Page 1 of 4 MINERVA PREVIOUS Ne38 Reduced AROTHER MAK- 258800 RECORD ROSS EXPRESS RXPORT REQUEST Search Info Net TITLE yellow house papers All MINERVA Locations Search Title The Yellow House Papers : the Laura E. Richards Collection. Publisher [19- --2002] LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS Maine Historical Society Coll. 2085 LIBR USE ONLY Phys descr 70 linear feet. Note Literary manuscripts, transcriptions and typescripts, genealogical and family records, charts, correspondence, photographs and photograph albums, music, secondary school and camp memorabilia, memorial tributes, and books. Mrs Available to researchers at the Maine Historical Society Research Library during regular library hours. oil An annotated copy of the 2002 inventory, giving folder and item numbers, is 7/8/04 to available at the M.H.S. The Papers were brought together by the Gardiner Library Association in 1988 and placed on deposit at the Colby College Library in Waterville, Me., from ferry Feb. 1990 until Nov. 2002, when they were deposited with the M.H.S. in Portland The Papers span several generations, including both ancestors and descendants of Laura Elizabeth Howe (1850-1943) and her husband Henry Richards (1848-1949) and their siblings, based in Gardiner, Me., Hallowell, Me., Boston, Mass. and at several boarding schools in New England. Important persons represented in the collection include L.E.R.'s parents, Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and literary figures such as Edward Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) and Edgar Allen Poe (1809- 1949). Subjects represented include writing and publishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; children's literature and music; the daily lives of women in Gardiner; Gardiner High School; Camp Merryweather, North Belgrade, Me.; the Episcopal Church; the Maine paper industry; Harvard College; Perkins Institute for the Blind; and New England boarding schools. Permission to publish and reproduction requests are managed by M.H.S. Photocopying is not permitted. On deposit at Maine Historical Society from Gardiner Library Association, Nov. http://ursus2.ursus.maine.edu/search/tyellow+hou.../frameset&FF=tyellow+house+papers&1,1 7/7/2004 MINERVA /All Locations Page 2 of 4 2002- Laura Elizabeth Howe was born Boston, Mass., 1850; moved to Gardiner, Me. in 1876; died in 1943; married Henry Richards (1848-1949), son of Anne Hallowell Gardiner and Francis Richards. Their daughter Laura Elizabeth Richards was born in Gardiner, Me., 1886; married Charles Wiggins; died in 1988. Owner: Gardiner Library Association, c/o Gardiner Public Library, 152 Water Street, Gardiner, ME 04345. Portions of the original correspondence and manuscripts are at Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. In addition to the 1991 and 2002 inventories (x, 297 p., 87 p.), a five-page finding aid is available at the M.H.S. Smith, Danny D., The Yellow House Papers : The Laura E. Richards Collection : an inventory and historical analysis (Gardiner, Me.: comp. for Gardiner Library Association and Colby College, [1991]); 2d ed. (Gardiner, Me.: Gardiner Library Association, 2002); Gardiner's Yellow House: a tribute to the Richards family [...] (Gardiner, Me.: Friends of Gardiner, C. 1988); and Preliminary study of the ancestors and descendants of Dr. Silvester Gardiner, 1708-1786 (Gardiner, Me.: Gardiner Library Association, 1996). Laura Elizabeth (Howe) Richards won the first Pulitzer Prize for biography. Subject Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910. Howe, S. G. (Samuel Gridley), Dr., 1801-1876. Poe, Edgar Allen, 1809-1849. Richards, Henry, 1848-1949. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943. Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943 -- Correspondence. Robinson, Edwin Arlington, 1869-1935. Wiggins, Laura Elizabeth Richards, 1886-1988. Gardner family. Gardiner family. Howe family. Richards family. Richards family -- Photograph collections. Shaw family. Ward family Wiggins family. Wiggins family -- Photograph collections. Laura E. Richards Collection. Harvard College (1780-) -- Students -- 19th century. North Relarada Me \ Photorranhe http://ursus2.ursus.maine.edu/search/tyellow+hou.../frameset&FF=tyellow+house+papers&1,1 7/7/2004 MINERVA /All Locations Page 3 of 4 Camp weather Richards Paper Mill (Gardiner, Me.) -- Records and correspondence. Yellow House (Gardiner, Me.). Gardiner Area High School (Gardiner, Me.). Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Groton School. Noble and Greenough School (Dedham, Mass.). Pomfret School (Pomfret, Conn.). St. Paul's School (Concord, N.H.). American literature -- Women authors -- Maine. Architecture, Domestic -- Maine -- Gardiner. Authors, American -- Maine -- Gardiner. Children's literature, American -- History. Imprints (Publishers' and printers' statements) -- Maine. Camps -- Maine -- North Belgrade. Dwellings -- Maine -- Gardiner. Education -- New England -- History. Family -- Maine -- Kennebec River Valley -- History. High school students -- New England -- Correspondence. High school teachers -- Maine -- Gardiner -- Correspondence. Liberalism -- New England -- History. Paper industry -- Maine -- Gardiner. Preparatory schools -- New England -- History. Social history -- New England. Social reformers -- Maine. Women -- New England -- History. Women authors, American -- Family relationships. Women authors, American -- Correspondence. Photographs -- Albums -- Maine. Photograph collections -- Maine -- Gardiner. Boston (Mass.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century. Gardiner (Me.) -- Genealogy Gardiner (Me.) -- Social life and customs -- History. Hallowell (Me.) North Belgrade (Me.) New England -- Biography. New England -- Social life and customs -- History. Alt author Smith, Danny D. Yellow House Papers : the Laura E. Richards Collection : an http://ursus2.ursus.maine.edu/search/tyellow+hou.../frameset&FF=tyellow+house+papers&1,1 7/7/2004 Maine Historical Society MHS + Timeline 6/15/00 7/14/05 Yellow House Repers. Call 2085. R. R65A,F.1 4k to La 876 -Boslon, - 6/28/ 76 is Connectent recerson spent time c Freddy Bowdites. 1876 letter are richly illustrated c t almost cant exception from Boston, time spert c Julia many poems R65A, f. 2 7/80 880 - HR letter 1/12/80 no mentia of Dorrs. Caulici, HR is have, LER is not. Othe letter for Jach ate. R65A 1879-82 -2 letter, / for HR LER. RC 18 f.7 Julia Ward Hove to hanfait fuels - To brother Henry. 1838. Copy. Refer to "pefer to "a clandes time correspondance. would appear a had argument of it it were found out [with Many ?J + those they do come to leyll free satury, sincheres a then Den May speaks Apr you fo Confident in he letters if I her sinned shoutame = use / this If use capable of driapperat She is too pree too love to beloy to any Non t D don't know what you have done to deserve her. Be a good be debit L Reekie and love, Your un, Dudy". / Jan.?? Julia wad to us May 6 ward Two 10th ?? -She is "Aadly neglectfully in not write to you - -"Now do not freeze me by a long silence or worse still, is cold ad monitors letter - - fetter finef for NYC. Set at 200 imples to cream INVOSCE for parts. - If is u come lto pays) John C.S. will Bey you be is now in Bo ton or June, faurence, who has provest cme on." Refer to new fullay @ everyt of Jeanic to William story since she is swy not thorough bred." As to hizzie Lynan, Julia wishes herjoy. As to Tim, l wish you joy & thish you neyth do worse - as to Myself, I am not engaged to no good man, who will Polar can of Rel on but I My be - l have a sweet & most truch letter for San Eliot " but hs is Leaving, from child. 10 shall will again Dearest Mally where shall I see gn typed, lopaed take aya ? Sisned "Jules" 3. fells to my Deared llolly." Tued 1the Use glad little, "when was as had as it an short, Refer to Ber fun as "an asis in the des Fert, R place when the layer proposts ab of people are loving National, old happy. I long for lts green pas stares to sull waters its pure intelle cloud atrippers & its " of hindness t truth Look fereia to Boston visiti For nsit is "the resting point of the whole winter, & motes it underful shorter." update may one party -went off beautiful Dember "fen tailet (attire). 1 1/2 pp. ; typed, dable appred RC 9B, F 18. LER Sideshous near End of day in emp, lable 'S de Shares refer to her gustallule, John Ward. 4 month long "The Soman Relation, her be ag, in priver of "Side Shore. " she sgo want what she her "not the heart to beep for children x gradehelders -4- - -Uncle Sam 1814 1884. " @ 10 pp my mother's eldest brother," -the Have Relatives - great levele, John ward Credit live : X Yellow Hour Papers : the hour E. Richards Collection, Gardine hibra Arrociation and Main Histould Sweet call 2085, Record # . 4 Yellow Ham Puper There shecked call Antirectors J P2, Day D shite 2nd edd 1 2002. Julia Ward Howe. 1819-1910. Vol. I. Page 2 of 4 India Bood team /Title Page JULIA WARD HOWE 1819-1910 BY LAURA E. RICHARDS AND MAUD HOWE ELLIOTT ASSISTED BY FLORENCE HOWE HALL With Portraits and other Illustrations (Sand VOLUME I BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY matter Chous, The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916 was The |Page/ COPYRIGHT. 1915. BY LAURA E. RICHARDS AND MAUD HOWE ELLIOTT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March 1916 /Page/ TO HENRY MARION HOWE /Page/ /Page/ CONTENTS http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/richards/howe/howe-I.htm/ 11/11/2002 Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Vol. I. Page 3 of 4 I. ANCESTRAL 3 II. LITTLE JULIA WARD 1819-1835 15 III. "THE CORNER." 1835-1839 41 IV. GIRLHOOD 1839-1843 56 V. TRAVEL. 1843-1844 79 VI. SOUTH BOSTON. 1844-1851 101 VII. "PASSION FLOWERS." 1852-1858 136 VIII. LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR. 1859-1863 173 IX. NO. 13 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON. 1864 194 X. THE WIDER OUTLOOK. 1865 213 XI. NO. 19 BOYLSTON PLACE: "LATER LYRICS." 1866 235 XII. GREECE AND OTHER LANDS. 1867 260 XIII. CONCERNING CLUBS. 1867-1872 283 XIV. THE PEACE CRUSADE. 1870-1872 299 XV. SANTO DOMINGO. 1872-1874 320 XVI. THE LAST OF GREEN PEACE. 1872-1876 339 XVII. THE WOMAN'S CAUSE. 1868-1910 358 /Page / ILLUSTRATIONS. MRS. HOWE, circa 1861 (Photogravure) Frontispiece From a photograph by J. J. Hawes SAMUEL WARD 16 From a painting in the possession of his grandson. Henry Marion Howe JULIA RUSH WARD 16 From a painting in the possession of her granddaughter. Mrs. Henry Richards "THE CORNER" THE HOUSE BUILT BY MR. WARD IN 1835 AT THE CORNER OF BOND 22 STREET AND BROADWAY JULIA, SAMUEL, AND HENRY WARD, circa 1825 30 From a miniature by Miss Anne Hall JULIA WARD, AET. 22 68 From the bust by Clevenger now in the Boston Public Library SAMUEL G. HOWE IN DRESS OF A GREEK SOLDIER 74 From a drawing by John Elliott MRS. HOWE IN 1847 126 From a painting by Joseph Ames SAMUEL G. HOWE, circa 1859 174 From a photograph by Black MRS. HOWE, circa 1861 186 From a photograph THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 190 Facsimile of the first draft MRS. HOWE IN LAWTON'S VALLEY, circa 1865 236 From a painting THE CHILDREN OF SAMUEL G. AND JULIA WARD HOWE, 1869-1874 296 SAMUEL G. HOWE, WITH HIS GRANDCHILD, ALICE RICHARDS, 1873 340 http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/richards/howe/howe-I.htm 11/11/2002 [composed 1924.] MARY WARD DORR (Mrs. Charles H. Dorr) It is very probable that someone else of my generation may attempt a sketch of this remarkable woman, but it would be Irom a different angle, and perhaps I know some things that other people don't, so here's for the attempt. Mary Ward was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Ward of Boston, middle name, if any, unknown to me. He was not of our Wards, but from a different branch, to the best of my knowledge and belief, of the original stock. He was a merchant of substance and repute. He had three children that' I know of, very likely more: Samuel G. Ward, John, and Mary. Samuel, I believe, was the eldest, a man of brilliant parts, a lifelong friend of my mother and of her brothers and sisters; friend and correspondent of Emerson; a very remarkable man who somehow accomplished less, to the outward eye, than was to have been expected. This may have been partly owing to a gibing and sarcastic humor. He married the beautiful Anna Barker of Rhode Island, daughter of a Quaker family, who became an ardent Roman Catholic, and a great saint, not canonically, of that Church, also a great invalid during the greater part of her long life. This may have had something to do with Mr. S. G. Ward's bitterness. He never became a Catholic, though all children did. John was desperately in love with my Aunt Louisa. She was engaged to him and would doubtless have married him, had she not met Thomas Crawford, who whisked her off her feet and carried her off. The Ward marriage would doubtless have been more prudent in many ways, but we should have had no Marion Crawford. -2- All this, however, is by the way. I know, after all, very little about these people. It is of Mary, the only daughter and sister, that I want to speak. I am not clear just when or how she and my mother first met. They became intimate, ardent friends, and Mary became engaged to my Uncle Henry, my mother's nearest and best loved brother. Mary Ward must have been extremely attractive in her youth. Her features were very irregular; nose and mouth can never have been anything but very bad, her voice was like the quacking of a duck; but she had extraordinarily brilliant, expressive eyes, a perfect figure, and a charm, attraction, power that were not in the least dependent upon ordinary good looks. "In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie," says Shelley of Constantia. I fancy that Mary Ward's eyes may have had this power. The engagement, so far as I know, was an extremely happy one. Henry was young, ardent, beautiful. I can see his miniature now, fair-haired, dark blue eyes, rosy or boyish complexion, the very spirit of joy and life. He died at twenty-one, in my mother's arms, of typhoid, or it may have been scarlet, fever. A11 through her long life my mother never failed to mention in her diary the day and circumstances of his death. It was a perfectly crushing sorrow to both young girls. They were much together after Henry's death. It may have been at this time that Mary gave my mother the prayerbook that I so greatly treasure. In it is written, "Jules from her sister Mary". I have an impression that Mary was from the first very masterful and liked to manage the sisters-in-law elect, as she always liked to manage everybody. My wicked Skipper said once, "The best thing your Uncle Henry ever did was to die. This is perhaps too wicked to record, but still I put it down. He suffered much provocation from the lady. -3- It was some years after this, perhaps seven or eight, that Mary Ward married Charles H. Dorr of Boston, one of the gentlest, sweetest, most amiable of men. I saw him once enact the part of Joe Gargery in "Great Expectations" in one of my mother's brilliant charades. The word was "rampage" and I remember well how he said, "On the rampage, Pip, and off the rampage, Pip, sich is life." Sich was life, thenceforth, for Charles Dorr, and he was as like Joe Gargery as an intelligent and educated person could possibly be. My personal knowledge of Mrs. Dorr dates from the time when I was a very youug girl. She lived out of town in those days, in Canton or elsewhere, and was still on terms of most affectionate intimacy with both of my parents, though they did not very often meet. When we lived at South Boston, she would have Flossy out for long visits. In fact, I rather think that while attending Miss Ireland's school in Jamaica Plain, Flossy practically lived with Mrs. Dorr months at a time. I don't think she ever did Flossy any harm. Later she took up Maud in her early youth of beauty with ardor and did her, I must think, harm which might have been permanent, had Maud's nature been less strong and wholesome and noble than it is. Certainly Mrs. Dorr did her best, with the kindest intentions in the world, to make an utter worldling of the child. She had become a worldling herself, and yet by no means an ordinary one. She had wealth, I don't know whether her own or her husband's, and position. She came to have a very remarkable position, even although Aunt Henrietta Sullivan did say to me, "My dear, there are some houses in Boston where she would not have been received.' She was of an unbounded social ambition; yet ambition is hardly the -4- word, because she felt that she occupied the highest position in Boston or wherever she came or went. Arrogance is the word. She was the most arrogant person I have ever known. Brilliant, kindly, hospitable, all these in high degree. People loved her and detested her, and everybody wanted to go to her house, and one was sure of meeting there always the best and most delightful and most brilliant people, native and foreign. The spiritual life was always to her own thinking, much in the ascendant. She would say to her husband after some gay entertainment, "Dust and ashes, Charlie, dust and ashes! It is only the constant presence of the Lord that enables me to go through it. 11 This may have been one of the dinners when Charlie had to dine alone upstairs for fear of making thirteen at table. Two sons were born to her, William and George. of these she was wont to say, "Willie first, Georgie second, Charlie, my husband, third, and the dear Lord in the background." This was, I fancy, a pretty accurate statement. Willie grew up into something of a fop, a harmless, wel1-intentioned youth. They called him "Beau Dorr". He was of my set and a pleasant enough partner in dancing, et cetera. On surveying a gathering of lovely youug girls, his mother exclaimed, II A garden of roses for my Willie to choose among!" Poor Willie died before he had chosen anybody, or at least before anybody had chosen him. George is still living (1924) and is well known in Bar Harbor, where he has done much for the horticulture and so on of the place. A singular man, but I am not writing about him. I suppose there are more stories about Mrs. Dorr than about anybody of her generation in Boston. People delighted in sending round -5- the latest anecdote. She had a way at her dinner or other parties of changing the guests about which they did not like at all. She would say after a while, "Julia Howe, you have sat long enough by Mrs. Bell. Zuu go and talk to so and so! So and so, come and talk to Mrs. Bell! Then the guests would get up and change places. They generally did, at least. Occasionally one rebelled. I think it was James Russell Lowell who, on being ordered about in some such way, replied, "Yes, Mrs. Dorr, I will go and talk to Mrs. So and So, and I will never come to your house again." He probably did, though. It was a very pleasant house to go to. Or they would tell how dear Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes came to visit her at Bar Harbor, and how at breakfast, spying a pitcher of cream close beside him, he was about to pour some on his porridge, when "You can't have that, doctor, you can't have that cream, said Mrs. Dorr. "That is Fido's," Fido being the little dog. "I poured it all on, said the doctor in telling the anecdote, "and went on with my breakfast. The sympathy between her and my mother did not long, I think, outlast their marriage. It could not be. They remained familiar friends through life. Mrs. Dorr said to me once, "Your mother and I used to be like hand and glove, but I have grown There was nothing to say to this, and I don't remember that I said anything. I remember at an evening party at 241 Beacon there was a new photograph of my mother. Mrs. Dorr saw it and said, "Julia Howe, I want one of those photographs." "Very well," said my mother, "you shall certainly have one." Other friends saw the photograph, praised it, and asked for copies, my mother cheerfully consenting. Presently, "Julia Howe, said -6- Mrs. Dorr, "I don't want that photograph. 11 "Very well, Mary," said my mother. Mrs. Bell said once of Mrs. Dorr, "She spanks us handsome all round, but still we're fond of her." 11 She was mostly very kind to me. When I was in my early girlhood, she used to have me to stay at Canton quite often. I enjoyed going there, had delightful times, was fond of her, as one is fond of a handsome cat that may scratch at any moment. She wanted Phillips Brooks to fall in love with me and had us to stay together there once or twice. He didn't, dear man,but it was very delightful to be there with him. I was at the time engaged to the Skipper. I made a very great the DMV mistake in not writing beforehand to tell her of my engagement. It was very stupid, very ignorant of me not to do so, but I didn't know any better, and my blessed mother didn't tell me, for some reason. Perhaps it wasn't done so much then as it is now. Anyway Mrs. Dorr took it in great dudgeon and I think she never forgave me. I never saw much of her after that, but she took mightily to my Skipper and employed him to build her new house at Bar Harbor. This was in the year 1879. The house is still considered one of the most beautiful on the island. I must always feel that your father had a great future in architecture before him, but we need not go into that now. At all events he built the house, and very beautiful it is. Concerning the building he and he alone could write the story, but as it is not very likely he will, I will tell a few things. He learned to know Mrs. Dorr as perhaps f ew people have ) and to manage her as few people have. Most people were afraid of her. He was not. He was always ready for her, always calm and cheerful to her, perfectly courteous, paying just as -7- much attention as he thought proper and no more. Jordan, the builder, could tell many a tale. When the house was nearly finished and the paper hangers and so on came down, Skipper thought it advisable to give them a gentle hint. So he said after the first day, "You will find that Mrs. Dorr sometimes changes her decisions." "Oh, yes," said the man, "lies like the devil. Found that out the first hour." It was Jordan, the builder, who was the first and, so far as I know, the only witness of the worm's turning, the worm being the long suffering and patient Charles Dorr. Mrs. Dorr had given directions about setting out certain plants, had changed them a dozen times, then gone off and left the directions with her husband. She came back ,and having meanwhile changed her mind or forgotten the directions, I know not which, attacked Charles fiercely, Jordan being within hearing behind a clump of shrubbery. Finally, after rating him soundly, she said, "I thought you had some sense!" "I had," replied Charles Dorr, "before I married you. 11 With all this she was intensely religious, attending Trinity Church, worshipping Phillips Brooks, and - never forget this - full of good deeds, helping lame ducks constantly. Ungracious kindliness it was. Some people could not accept it, finding the manner of it too detestable, but it was kindness none the less. When her husband died, she was inconsolable for a long time. My mother went to the funeral, which was in the little reception room. Going home, she told Rosalind how in the tiny room there were only half a dozen people, mother Perkins herself, Mrs. Charles Parks, FannM Bruen, 1 a lifelong intimate friend of Mrs. Dorr and of my Aunts Annie and Louisa, George Dorr, the minister, -8- and perhaps one other. "My dear," 11 said mother, "I knew she would do it, and she did. She came into the room and- gave us one glance and changed us all round. 'Fannie, you sit there; Julia, you sit so; George, you sit there. I She had to do it." I do not know whether she had begun to develop before his death any of the psychic tendencies which formed so important a part of her later life. She became an ardent spiritualist and lived much with her husband's spirit. She came to have a great influence over a great many young people, an influence which they felt to be highly spiritual and beneficial. I am speaking of her later life. I seldom or never saw her in these years, but people certainly did think that she had some very remarkable powers. I think she always loved mother in a way, she always was profoundly jealous of her, but unconsciously so. She thought she felt herself entirely superior to Julia Howe, intellectually, morally, spiritually, but I cannot help it; she was jealous all the same. Well, so she died, and I don't know what will remain, or what the final influence of that ardent spirit may be. She wholly meant, wholly desired, to do good, a great deal of the highest good to the best kind of people. She was wholly unconscious of any mean or base or unworthy feeling. That is a great deal to say, and yet she was a very worldly and extremely arrogant and domineering woman; but as she observes, the dear Lord was in the background and knows all about it. d.smith poin 625 04348 (from : 207-582-0632 11 r Col. Someel word (1756-1832) - 10 offspring WM. Green Waid Ann Car Janual Ward Ward (un Man) Henry ward Phoeles Heary Hall Was ward Richard Ray was Samiel word III I Banker John in Julia Cutler was Wm Great Greey was Henry Julia Saunt Word IV died died Louise Cutler ware young going M. Emily Astor Anne Eliza m. was Julia Romana Howe Maillard Florence Marion Have Henry Marion Howe Jolia ward m. Dr. Someol Gridley Howe Laura Elizabath Have Mar. Henry lichests Maud Herve Sound guddy Hnee Jr. 193 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY THE ANCESTRY AND COLLATERALS OF LAURA E. RICHARDS For genealogical connections through the ancestry of Julia Ward Howe to several prominent citizens of Rhode Island, see Joel Osborne Austin, Ancestry of Thirty-Three Rhode Islanders (Born in the Eighteen Century) (Albany, N.Y.: Joel Munsell's Sons, 1899), Welcome Arnold, merchant, 5; William Ellery Channing, clergyman, 17; James Fenner, governor, U.S. Senator, and Chief Justice, Supreme Court, R.I., 23; Nathaniel Greene, Major General in the Revolutionary War, 25; Ray Greene, Attorney General of R.I. and U.S. senator, 27; Stephen Olney, captain in Revolutionary War, 43; Oliver Hazard Perry, commodore, U.S. Navy, 45; Wilkins Updike, lawyer and author, 55; Samuel Ward, Lt. Colonel in Revolutionary War, 57; and John Whipple, lawyer, 61. The direct line of descent from Abraham Howe, an early seventeenth-century settler of Roxbury, Masschusetts, is traced in Daniel Wait Howe, Howe Genealogies, ed. Gilman Bigelow Howe, (2 vols.; Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1929) in volume 2: 1-6, 10-11, 19, 32-33, 63, and 100-103. In the present collection see Laura E. Richards, "Three Illustrious Howe Sisters," The Christian Register, 16 March 1933, 163-164 and 174. The entries for this branch of the Howe family in the Dictionary of American Biography are numerous: Robert C. Canby, "Henry Marion Howe," 9:289; Marguerita S. Gerry, "Julia Ward Howe, 9:291-293; Edward E. Allen, "Samuel Gridley Howe, 9:296-297; S.I. G.B., "Florence Marion Howe Hall,: 9:126; Jean MacKinnon Hall, "John Elliott," 6:97-98; Edward Ellis Allen, "Michael Anagnos, : 1:261. On Anagnos see also the memorial pamphlet in the present collection, Anna Gardner Fish, Michael Anagnos 1837-1906 (Watertown: Perkins Institution, 1937). On Laura E. Richards' only surviving rother, see Arthur L. Walker, "Henry Marion Howe, The School of Mines Quarterly 34 (4) (July 1913) and pamphlets in the present collection. On the ancestry of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, see James Truslow Adams, "Jeremiah Gridley," Dictionary of American Bioraphy 8:611 and Frank Edward Ross, "Richard Gridley, " ibid. 611-612. The United States Army Corps of Engineers recognizes Richard Gridley as their founder in Aubrey Parkman, Army Engineers in New England: The Military and 195 William Francis Ward whose correspondence with Laura E. Richards bulks large in the present collections) is The Life and Services of Governor Samuel Ward, of Rhode Island, A Member of the Continental Congress in 1774-1775, and 1776 (Providence, R.I.: J. A. & R. A. Reed, printers, 1877). On the sinner uncle, Samuel Ward IV, see Maud Howe Elliott, Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1938); Margaret Butterfield, "Samuel Ward, Alias Carlos Lozey," The University of Rochester Library Bulletin 12 (12) (Winter 1957) : 23-33. The most recent and comprehensive work on him is Lately Thomas [pseud. Richard Steele] Sam Ward: "King of the Lobby" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1965) and by the same author, A Pride of Lions (1971) traces the twelve Chandler grandchildren of Samuel Ward (they were the orphaned offspring of Sam's only surviving daughter Maddie) The early part of this work is weak recapitulation of Louise Hall Tharp, Three Saints and a Sinner (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1956) but picking up the thread of Sam's life as he emerges into adulthood, much is made known for the first time. All of Samuel Ward IV's descendants continue through the lineage of the famous Chanler family of New York, for a tracing of them through 1938 see the aove cited works by Elliott, Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle and Thomas, Pride of Lions. In the present collection are two works by Margaret Terry "Daisy" Chanler, Winthrop Chanler's Letters (New York, 1951) and Gertrude Le Foet, Hymmns to the Church (London: Shed & Ward, 1937). Her Roman Spring (1931) caused much umbrage in the Richards family, but nevertheless relations remained cordial between the two branches. It was Winthrop Chanler who was a grandson of Samuel Ward IV and his wife Margaret Terry Chandler (always referred to in the family correspondence as "Daisy") who was a daughter of Julia Ward Howe's sister Louisa and her second husband, the painter Luther Terry. Another Chanler descendant to write on the family is Deborah Pickman Clifford, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Biography of Julia Ward Howe (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1979). For account of the Crawford connection, see letters from John Pilkington, Jr., to Rosalind Richards 1950-1952, during the time he was writing his doctoral dissertation in English at Harvard on Francis Marion Crawford, the first writer in world history to earn a million dollars solely from his writings. See also Fred Lewis Pattee, "Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) in the Dictionary of American Biography 4:519-221 and the account of his father, Adeline Adams, "Thomas Crawford" (1815-1857) in ibid. 524-527. The 196 Ancestry of Francis Marion Crawford is traced in John Osborne Austin, American Authors' Ancestry (1915) 22. Five consecutive generations of Wards are traced in the Dictionary of American Biography: Marguerite Appleton, "Richard Ward: (1689-1763) 19:434-435; Marguerite Appleton, "Samuel Ward: (1725-1776) 19:437; Marguerite Appleton, "Samuel Ward" (1756-1832) 19:437-438; Harold G. Villard, "Samuel Ward" (1786-1839) 19:438-439; and Sidney Greene, "Samuel Ward" (1814-1884) 19:439-440. A standard reading list of works on the Ward and Howe family connection is suggested here: George K. Burgess, Biographical Memoir of Henry Marion Howe 1848-1922 (n.p., n.d.). Maud Howe Elliott, Three Generations (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1923). Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe (2 vols; Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1915). This was the first work in the field of biography to receive a Pulitzer Prize. Laura E. Richards, Two Noble Lives: Samuel Gridley Howe, Julia Ward Howe (Boston, 1911). Louise Hall Tharp, Three Saints and a Sinner (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1956). Deborah Pickman Clifford, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Biography of Julia Ward Howe (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1979). Laura E. Richards, Samuel Gridley Howe (New York: D. Appleton Century Company, 1935). Howard Schwartz, Samuel Gridley Howe: Social Reformer, 1801-1876 (Harvard Historical Studies, V. 67; Cambridge University Press, 1956). Maud Howe Elliott, My Cousin, F. Marion Crawford (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934). Margaret Terry Chanler, Roman Spring (1935). Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences (1899). 197 On the remoter ancestry of Julia Ward Howe, see John Osborne Austin The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island (Albany, New York: Joel Munsell's Sons, 1877), hereafter Austin's Geneal. Dict. For the Billings family, see page 21 and the Tew family 394-396. Tillinghast family 202-204, and Sayles family 370-373. For corrections and addenda on the Sayles family, see G. Andrews Moriarty, "Sayles," The American Genealogist 19(1943) More recent published work on these families include Rose C. Tillinghast, The Tillinghast Family 1560-1971 (1972) noting pages 5-7 and 9-13 and Judith A. Hurst, Sayles Country (1986) noting pages 147-149. Julia Ward Howe was thrice descended from Roger Williams, founder of Providence, Rhode Island. See Austin's Geneal. Dict. 430-433; Samuel H. Brockunier, "Roger Williams" (1603-1682/83) in Dictionary of American Biography 20:286-289; G. Andrews Moriarty, "The Ancestry of Roger Williams, = New England Historical and Genealogical Register 67(1913):90-91; George Alan Lowndes, "Letters of Roger Williams," ibid. 43(1899):315-320; Almon D. Hodges, Jr., "Notes Concerning Roger Williams," ibid. 53(1899):60-64; G. Andrews Moriarty, "Some Notes Upon the Family of Roger Williams," ibid. 97(1943):173-176; Harley Harris Bartlett, "An English Bill in Chancery, 1644 Concerning Roger Williams and His Brothers, ibid. (1943) : 176-181; and G. Andrews Moriarty, "Williams, "The American Genealogist 19(1943):234-235. The best genealogical summation of the Roger Williams family is Winnifred Lovering Holman, "Roger Williams," The American Genealogist 28 (1952) 197-209. The most recent work on the Willims family is R. W. Anthony and H. W. Weeden, Roger Williams of Providence, R.I. (2 vols., 1949-1966) Julia Ward Howe had a life-long fascination with the families of the founders of the banking house of Prime, Ward, and King. Not until she was an adult did she realise that she was related to the Primes and Sandses, founding families of that firm. For Sands family see [Temple Prime] Descent of Comfort Sands and His Children (New York, 1886), noting especially the chapters on the Ray and Thomas families and the appendix at pages 45-48 for an unabridged copy of the letter from Catherine Ray Greene to her grandson Henry Ward, an uncle of Julia Ward Howe. Also see Austin's Geneal. Dict. 160 for the Ray lineage. But the truly useful and scholarly accounts of the Ray family did not appear until much later when Elizabeth French Bartlett broke much new ground in her articles in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register 63 (1909) 356-363 and 64 (1910) : 51-61 and especially G. Andrews Moriarty, "The Ray Family," ibid. 86(1932) : 324-330 and also his "Ray" in The American Genealogist 19(1943):56-57. One of the most important families of Rhode Island was established by John Greene (1590-1659), founder of Warwick, Rhode Island, from whom Julia Ward Howe, through a series of 198 cousin intermarriages, derived four descents. The genealogy of the Rhode Island Greenes was successfully sorted out in Louise Brownell Clark, The Greenes of Rhode Island With Historical Notes of English Ancestry 1534-1902 (New York, 1903) although the conclusions expressed from page 1 through 40 in reference to the English ancestry collapse when the modern standards of evidence are brought to bear on them. Sufficient evidence is adduced to show that John1 Greene (1590-1659) was a native of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, but remoter connections cannot be accepted. For an account of him see pages 4-58; his son John2 Greene (1620-1708) pages 59-62 and another son Thomas Greene (1628-1717) pages 66-68; in the third generation Job Greene (1656-1745) pages 73-75, Captain Samuel Greene (1670-1720) pages 82-83, and Benjamin Greene (1666-1757) page 91; in the fourth generation Deborah4 Greene (1670-1763) pages 100-101; Governor William4 Greene (1696-1758) pages 112-113; in the fifth generation William Greene (1731-1809) page 175; and in the sixth generation Phebe6 Greene (1760-1828) pages 293-294. General Nathanael Greene of the American Revolution is written up at pages 200-210. Note the ancestry of George Washington Greene in John Osborne Austin, American Authors' Ancestry (1915) at page 43. Numerous members of this family are written up in the The Dictionary of American Biography. George Harvey Genzmer, "Albert Gorton Breene 1802-1868) poet, jurist, and book collector 8:561-562; Viola F. Barnes, "Christopher Greene," (1737-1781) Revolutionary soldier, 8:563; Thomas M. Spaulding, "Francis Vinton Greene," (1850-1921), soldier, historian, and entineer, 8:5665-566; Thomas M. Spaulding, "George Sears Greene," (1801-1899), soldier and civil engineer, 8:566-567; Roy Palmer Baker, "George Sears Greene, (1838-1922), civil engineer, 8:567-568; Frank Managhan, "George Washington Greene," (1811-1883), author and educator, 8:568-569; Rudolph G. Adams, "Nathaniel Greene," (1742-1786), Revolutionary general, 8:569-573; Lauriston Bullard, "Nathaniel Greene, (1797-1877), translator, editor, and politican, 8:573; Charles O. Paullen, "Samuel Dana Greene, (1840-1884), naval officer, 8:573-574; Irving B. Richman, "William Greene, (1696-1758), colonial governor of Rhode Island, 8:575-576; and Irving G. Richman, "William Greene, (1731-1809), second governor of the state of Rhode Island and father of Ray Greene, U.S. Senator 1797-1801, 8:576-577. Other early Rhode Island families figuring in the ancestry of Julia Ward Howe are the Almy family, traced in Austin's Geneal. Dict. 236-239 with modern corrections noted in George Walter Chamberlain, "The English Ancestry of William Almy of Portsmouth, R.I., New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71(1917):310-324 and G. Andrews Moriarty, "Almy," ibid. 78 (1924):391-395. The Gorton family is traced in Austin's Geneal. Dict. 302-304. Also see James Truslow Adams, "Samuel Gorton," The Dictionary of American 199 Biography 7:438-439; G. Andrews Moriarty, "Gorton," The American Genealogist 19 (1943):186-187; Charles Deane, "Notice of Samuel Gorton, " New England Historical and Genealogical Register +(1850):201-221; Elliot Stone, "Contributions to a Gorton Genealogy, ibid. 51 1(1897) : 199-200; George Walter Chamberlain, "The Ancestry of Mary Maplett, Wife of Samuel Gorton of New England, ibid. 70(1916):115-118, 282; and G. Andrews Moriarty, "Gorton," ibid. 82(1928):185-193 and 333-342. For the Carder family, see Austin's Geneal. Dict. 270-273. For the Barton family see ibid. 250-251; Holden family, ibid. 100-101; and Dungan family, ibid. 67-68. The maternal ancestry of Julia Ward Howe introduces Dutch and French Huguenot strains. The lineage from Holland is traced in Nahum S. Cutler, A Cutler Memorial and Genealogical History (Greenfield, Mass. 1889) noting especially John Cutler, pages 563-564; David Cutler, page 564; John Cutler, pages 564-565; and Benjamin Clark4 Cutler, pages 565-566. Several reproductions of the portrait of John Cutler (1725-1805) owned by his great-grandson William Appleton of Boston in 1870, painted in 1748 when the sitter was aged 27 in front of a fortepiano (presumably of his own manufacture) exist in the present collection as does color snapshots of the portrait of the Reverend Benjamin Clark Cutler, uncle of Julia Ward Howe, showing his Geneva bands and clericals, a portrait presently owned by the Wiggins family in Maine. The Francis family connects through the Cutler line, the aunt of Julia Ward Howe, (Maria) Eliza Cutler married Dr. John Wakefield Francis, personal physician of Edgar Allen Poe and literary figure in his own right. Many letters of Dr. Francis exist in the present collection as does a pamphlet, "John W. Francis, M.D., from National Portraits (n.p., n.d.). See Edward Preble, "John Wakefield Francis," (1789-1861) in Dictionary of National Biography 6:581 and the account of his son (and Ward kinsman) Walter S. Stevens, "Samuel Ward Francis," (1835-1886), physician and author, ibid. 583. In the present collection is a curious piece, the Commonplace Book of Dr. Samuel Ward Francis, on the flyleaf of which Julia Ward Howe wrote on 14 June 1905: The first owner of this book, Dr. Samuel Ward Francis, was my beloved cousin. He was a man of very refined taste and feeling, endowed also with various talents. The credit of having invented the type-writing machine belongs to him. His memory will always be dear to me. The genealogical notebook in the present collection, compiled by Julia Ward Howe (and perhaps assisted by Mary Graves) contains some Cutler genealogy. Dr. John Wakefield Francis was author of Old New York; or Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years (1858, 1866). Another Cutler alliance was 200 that of the McAllister family, originally from Georgia. They figure in the Dictionary of American Biography of whom P. O. Ray, "Matthew Hall McAllister, (1800-1865), jurist, 11:546-547 married Louisa Cutler, an aunt of Julia Ward Howe. Two sons also figure in the same work: P. 0. Ray, "Hall McAllister," (1826-1888), lawyer, ibid. 545-546, and Edward M. Hinton, "Ward McAllister," ibid. 547-548. Of this later figure, described as New York society leader (his cousin Julia Ward Howe found him foppish) see his semi-autobiographical account, a "curious melange of reminiscence, good dining, servant management, and social etiquette and diplomacy" (qua the Dictionary of American Biography) Society as I have Found It (1890). See also Jacqueline Thompson, "The Man Who Invented Society," Forbes 136 (11) (18 Oct. 1985) 82-88. A pamphlet in the present collection, a necrological production, most likely a production of the Loyal Legion, is In Memory of Colonel Julian McAllister (?1887) signed D.T.V.B. traces the career of a first-cousin of Julia Ward Howe, and there are several loose sheets in the present collection tracing McAllister and Cutler collaterals. The ancestor table tracing Clarke ancestry must be carefully studied as it may not be correct in asserting the connections to the Saltonstall, Whittingham, and Brondson families of colonial Boston. For candid remarks about the Francis family (Francii as Laura E. Richards calls them), see her "Side Shows For Family Only" in the present collection. Ostensibly most of the Francii fell victim to physical and mental disorders and eventually became extinct on all lines. Another family connection through the Cutlers is that of Susan Hinckley Bradely (see letter from Laura E. Richards to her sister Maud Howe Elliott 12 June 1929 when she refers to a telegram from Walter Bradley, "Mother died suddenly this morning. This Susan Bradley was cousin to both Henry Richards through the Barnards and Lymans of Northampton, Massachusetts (for general remarks concerning her and the connection see Ninety Years On) and to Laura E. Richards through the Cutlers. Several times this genealogical connection although all the intervening links is mentioned in Stepping Westward. The connection derives through a common ancestral descent from the Cutlers. Susan was the wife of the local Episcopal rector in Gardiner when the Richardses first moved to Yellow House. In their estimation Bradley was the highwater mark in clerical credentials, and all successive rectors of the parish were referred to in the papers of the present collection merely in degrees of derogation. It is thought that the clergyman portrayed in Laura E. Richards' Mrs. Tree as the extra teacup at an old maids' tea party referred to Bradley's successor! There is a rhapsody of moral adulation in print by Henry Richards, Leverett Bradley: A Memorial Address Delivered January 24th 1903 Before the Gardiner Public Library Association, Gardiner, Maine. 28 pages. At times, in correspondence of Laura E. Richards, the Bradleys almost seem idée fixe. 201 The most exotic connection arises in the umbilical lineage of Julia Ward Howe through the Marion and allied families of South Carolina. There is extremely little probability that any connection can be traced to Pierre Corneille, the French tragedist, and to Charlotte Corday, femme fatale par excellence, although there are genealogical tables in the present collection plumping for that connection. Roert L. Merriweather does give a good list of sources to search in constructing Marion family pedigrees in his article "Francis Marion, " (1732-1795) in the Dictionary of American Biography 12:283-284. The ultimate ancestress in the umbilical line, Esther Madeleine Ballulet, is placed in the genealogy in the article by Alexander Watson Cordes, "The Cordes on that Side and Cordis Family Tree, Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina 79 (1974) : 86-88 and folding chart, an account of the author's research in situ in Mazament, near Toulouse, in southern France, the land of langue d'oc. 210 1. Papers of Governor Samuel Ward, the great-grandfather of Julia Ward at the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence, Rhode Island. Some of these papers have been published as The Correspondence of Governor Samuel Ward, May 1775-March 1776, ed. by Bernhard Knollenberg. These are the papers rescued from beneath Cousin Violet's bed by Henry Howe Richards, elder son of Laura E. Richards. 2. Papers placed at the New York Historical Society in New York City by William Ward, a second-cousin of Laura E. Richards, whose many letters to her are in the present collection. These are briefly mentioned and described by Louise Hall Tharp in Three Saints and a Sinner (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1956) at pages 370 and 372. 3. Papers of Samuel Ward the Banker (father of Julia Ward Howe) and Samuel Ward the Sinner (brother of Julia Ward Howe) at the New York Public Library. They originally were part of the Astor Library which was one of the ancestor libraries of the merged system of libraries eventually known as the New York Public Library. This collection is memtioned briefly by Louise Hall Tharp in Three Saints and a Sinner at pae 371. Maud Howe Elliott in Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938) at page 63 mentions the mathematical library of Samuel Ward IV (the Sinner) collected during his student days in Germany and France as given to the Astor Library, now New York Public Library. Elliott also reproduces the diploma Samuel Ward received from the University of Tubingen opposite page 76. The original of that diploma was cited as being at Columbia University as the gift of his nephew and executor Arthur Terry. 233 On 24 September 1808, Gay deeded to John Haseltine a lot measuring 94 by 256 feet, on which Haseltine built the house now [1912] oppupied by Henry Richards. John Haseltine and Harriet Byram were married in 1814, and it is not unlikely that the house was built about that time. This then is the chain of title from the time the land was the proverbial howling wilderness until 1912. A couple of observations must be made before bringing the Richards family onto the lot of land. There is over the fireplace the date 1814, the date which many suppose the Yellow House was built. This may be a synthetic date, deriving from the date of the Haseltine marriage. However, it is not far off, and butressing that date is that old and very colorful tradition which Laura E. Wiggins delighted in recounting. She said that the house was built during the War of 1812, and the resulting scarcity of building materials which is concomitant with time of war forced the builders to insulate Yellow House with birch bark, a most unfortunate circumstance because the disposition of the bark made it impossible to reinsulate the house using twentieth-century techniques. And secondly, see how carefully Judge Webster is to specify that Henry Richards occupied Yellow House in 1912. The truth of the matter was that the fee to the title was in the name of Laura E. Richards as we shall see! Henry Richards and his wife Laura E. Richards have much to say about Yellow House in their respective autobiographies. See chapters 20 and 22 in Ninety Years On (1940) and chapters 5 and 10 in Part II in Stepping Westward. The question is often asked when did the Richards family move into Yellow House, and a lot of inaccurate information seems to have found its way into secondary sources which muddy the waters. The Richards family obviously moved into the Yellow House in early summer 1878, probably in late June, for on 2 July 1878 they were there, and the language expressed in a letter of that date from Laura E. Richards to her friend Betinne (i.e. Elizabeth Thorndike Thornton) describes the situation of the house and their move in such a way as to create the impression that it had been mere days since their settlement in Yellow House. A letter dated from Boston on 6 October 1877 from W. B. Haseltine to Henry Richards describes the alterations he proposes to make to make the house suitable for the Richards family. That the deeds from the heirs of the Haseltines and Byrams to Laura E. Richards were not executed until 9 June 1891 demonstrates that the family were there on a long-term rental basis. The deeds consolidating interests among the Haseltine and Byram heirs and the deeds to Laura E. Richards are in Record Group 3 of the Yellow House Papers. They have also been recorded in the Kennebec Registry of Deeds as follows: Etta Haseltine to J. E. Haseltine, 15 May 1891, volume 383: page 396; J. H. Haseltine and wife to James E. Haseltine, 9 June, FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING NOVEMBER 13. 1992 VOLUME 25 MAINE Time FOCUS ONBOOKS 95 CENTS Gardiner NUMBER The Yellow House Laura Richards (above) and her mother Julia Ward Howe (below). papers Laura Richards and her mother Julia Ward Howe reflected a rich, repressed literary world cially her husband Henry Richards, a prominent archi- Gardiner High School before dying of pneumonia in By LUCY L. MARTIN tect, paper mill owner with aristocratic English connec- her early 50s. Photography by Phara Fisco tions, and grandson of Robert Hallowell Gardiner I; her There is a printed broadside by Henry Beston, who, famous mother, Julia Ward Howe, the Eleanor Roosevelt with his wife writer Elizabeth Coatsworth. was an inti- of the 19th century, best remembered for penning "The mate member of the "Yellow House circle." "Man is in love and loves what vanishes Battle Hymn of the Republic" and advocating women's There are genealogical documents relating to Laura Nineteen hundred and Nineteen, rights; her father, social reformer Samuel Gridley Howe, Richards' ancestor, Lt. Col. Samuel Ward, who marched William Butler Yeats founder of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in South with Benedict Arnold to Quebec. Boston, freedom fighter in the Greek War for Indepen- There are "The Home Logs,' 13 bound scrapbooks dence in the late 1820s, and supporter of the abolition- Laura Richards maintained from 1896 until her death N 1988 when Laura "Betty" Wiggins, the last ist cause: and Laura and Henry's six children. in 1943, consisting of mounted photographs of the remaining daughter of children's author Laura There is also correspondence with such literary no- house, telegrams, letters from celebrated figures (in- E. Richards, died at age 101 in Gardiner. the tables as Edwin Arlington Robinson and Sara Orne cluding Theodore Roosevelt), newspaper clippings, local librarian asked her heirs for any papers in Jewett. sketches and annotations by guests (including a pen the estate concerning the city's history. Three There is a manuscript of Captain January (1890), and ink drawing by Gibson girl illustrator Charles Dana months later, the first of 85 cartons - the liter- Laura Richards' most popular story (which was later Gibson when he visited Gardiner) and records of other ary remains of many primary and secondary made into a movie starring child actress Shirley events, local and international, occurring beyond the luminaries in the vanguard of American history - Temple). bounds of Yellow House. In Smith's view. the logs are a poured into the library. There is a typescript of the genealogy of the Jones "multi-media compilation unique in the tracings of his- There, in the damp windowless basement of the family, relating to Henry Richards' great-grandfather, torical artifacts in America," material that transcends brick building the Richards family in its importance "the ordinary had founded, a middle-aged genea- artifacts found at the local com- logical scholar and longtime friend munity level." of Betty Wiggins sequestered him- Also among the Yellow House self day after day to undertake the papers are materials relating to three-year task of organizing the Merryweather, the summer collection. Danny D. Smith recog- camp that Henry and Laura nized it at once as "a genealogical Richards started in 1900 when accumulation on the grandest the paper mill was taken over by scale, a national treasure." International Paper. Located in It was material which had accu- North Belgrade. the camp was mulated over a period of nine gen- the first of its kind in Maine and erations, beginning with late colo- the third in the nation. Empha- nial times and ending in the early sizing physical fitness, self-dis- 1980s. For generations the papers cipline and patriotic duty ("the had been piling up in cabinets and ultimate expression of the roll-tops desks in the "Yellow Rooseveltian age," in Smith's House," the Richards family home- words), it groomed boys for later stead on Dennis Street since 1878. "Amid the dry records are the tidbits of life." attendance at Groton and In his 300-page copiously de- Harvard, and for officerships in tailed, richly annotated The Yellow House Papers which the Honorable Stephen Jones, first judge of Washing- the armed service. As adults they assumed "some of resulted from that labor, Smith describes the collec- ton County. the most important positions in the nation." Many of tion of letters, manuscripts, books, photographs, There is an 1863 diary describing battles in the Civil the Richards and their in-laws were teachers and head- sketches and memorabilia as "mirroring the attenua- War. masters of New England prep schools. tion of the genteel tradition of literature and philan- There is a scrapbook of pressed flowers from the Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine His thropy in New England and New York from the close trip Laura Richards (then Howe) took with her parents toric Preservation Commission and the person Smith of the American Revolution until the end of the Second in 1867 to Greece, Italy and Germany. credits as the deus ex machina for securing the papers World War." There is a typescript of an unpublished novel of in Colby College's expertly staffed and atmospheri- Laura E. Richards (1850-1943) is the heart of the manners by the Richards' daughter Rosalind, and cally controlled archives, calls them "nationally signifi- papers, but other family members are included, espe- Rosalind's memoir of her sister Alice. who taught at cant material." 16 MAINE TIMES, NOVEMBER 13, 1992 "If one stands back and a University of Alabama English looks at the big picture, you professor to the Gardiner Library really have here the in 1990 to examine some of the chronicle of a great New En- Yellow House materials, espe- gland family recorded in cially as they might shed light their own words as well as in on facets of Richards' life omit- the words of their contem- ted from her conservative 1930 poraries who knew them." autobiography, Stepping West- In addition, Shettleworth ward. In a letter to Danny Smith, praises Smith's mammoth Dr. Rose Norman outlined her accomplishment. "He has approach as a "scholar interested this tremendous store of in recovering (19th century knowledge of New England women writers such as Richards) families and how they con- for modern readers Laura E. nect. In The Yellow House Richards' voice is a strong one, Papers, he has used that per- the more so because of the sonal data base as a spring- wealth of biographical material board to a richer study of one that survives her." of Maine's most distin- Current literary fashion and guished families. He has also prevailing societal values cast taken the creative approach Richards in a far less favorable of organizing a series of pos- light than she enjoyed 100 years sible research topics - he ago. A child of privilege, she hasn't just piled the material grew up in Brahmin Boston, in- in a list." The result is "en- dulged by liberal-leaning parents grossing reading." The addi- seeking to correct their own too- tional fact that Smith has sup- strict and narrow upbringing. A plied genealogical charts, The Yellow House was the source of a treasure trove of literary documents. network of domestic help kept maps of Gardiner from dif- the household running more or ferent periods, and nick- less smoothly, despite Julia Ward names used by the family, enlarges the scope of his and whose lineage can be cited in Book of Genesis- Howe's ineptitude with servants. work and further stamps it with his personal touch. style as "Mitchell begat Cutler which begat Ward which As a young matron of 26, Richards moved to Maine Among the possible research topics embedded in begat Howe which begat Richards which begat when her architect husband took over the operation of the papers: children's literature, women's studies, New Wiggins." the family-owned paper mill in Gardiner. There, as England prep schools, the camping movement, archi- According to Smith, the Cutler letters expand on the Smith says, she created "an ideal world of which her tectural history, life at Harvard, life at English public impression other writers have presented of "a shrewd, Yellow House and her children were an authentic ex- schools, 19th century Brahmin life in Boston, literary calculating, penniless gentlelady constantly plotting to pression." Continuing her practice of composing figures of New England, Newport society, family dy- launch her daughters into society and to obtain the rhymes and jingles, begun when shehad used her first namics, paper mills and the paper industry, patents finest things life can offer." Cutler is the first link in a daughter Alice's back a writing desk while the placid and inventions of John Tudor Richards, and 19th cen- matrilinear succession of women who struggled to es- infant rested tummy-down on her mother's lap, tury liberal causes. tablish an authentic voice and authority of their own in Richards wrote upwards of 90 books of nursery rhymes, For example, fertile ground for "documenting the the wider world during a period when women were nonsense verse, fables and stories. But much of this long neglected social history of women in America," encapsulated in the home and were expected to be enormous output is outdated today and little survives Smith writes, lies in the correspondence of Sarah content as wives and mother. in print. The exceptions include her Pulitzer Prize Mitchell Cutler (1761-1835), who was Julia Ward Howe's Laura Richards and Julia Ward Howe were the only winning biography of her mother, a memoir of her grandmother. She is the first in "six generations of mother and daughter connection born in the 19th cen- father, a collection of short stories, and some poems outstanding women" who merit more detailed study tury to publish their autobiographies. This fact attracted Continued on the next page The Yellow House papers cized views of life and idealized notions of conduct In What she printed during her life doesn't tell of the CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17 her autobiography, she remembers, at age 10, putting underlying tensions in her childhood home; that sev- on Lord Byron's helmet which hung at the top of the eral times her parents stood on the brink of divorce, anthologized in The Oxford Guide to American Children's green iron hat-tree in the front hall of her Boston mostly over Samuel Howe's disapproval of Julia's pub- Verse. girlhood home. Her father had acquired it at auction in lic activities which he saw as jeopardizing the privacy Many of her rhymes about talking animals and pe- Greece. It was "a superb affair of blue steel and gold, and sanctity of their home. culiar people, which added substantially to the family's with a floating blue plume I and a schoolmate had Richards is remembered as a genuinely happy per- slender income, contain references unacceptable or at our tintypes taken in it, which we should not have been son - her friends and family never doubted the au- least unpalatable to today's audiences: "a heathen allowed to do. We let down our hair. thenticity of this happiness, despite the fact that one of Chinee," "Cherokee Pie," and "the poor unfortunate In lieu of action in the world as her father had done, her daughters died at the age of one year and despite Hottentot." Such characterizations, seen as playful, (even as late as 1897 women could not serve on the the physical ailments she suffered which often kept her cheerful entertainments in an era when society was Gardiner school board, for example), Laura seized his recumbent on the parlor sofa. She was what might be more stratified and segregated, have gone the way of lofty ideals, but chose a more conventionally maternal called today a "do-gooder" - the ubiquitously active Little Black Sambo. way of expressing them, a way she had learned from club woman and volunteer. She founded the Gardiner Further, what was a gift and the primary source of her own mother, as suggested in the dedication to Julia Public Library, organized the local chapter of the Ameri- her success- the ability to create a magical storybook Ward Howe of her last collected book of poetry, Tirra can Red Cross, served as president of the Maine Con- timelessness, a heroically upbeat quality allowing no Lirra, in 1932: sumers League from 1905 to 1911, incorporated the descents into the darker, too real recesses of the hu- Gardiner General Hospital, routinely visited the state man condition - became a liability. To today's read- Hushed upon your tender breast, mental hospital (now the Augusta Mental Health Insti- ers, who expect a psychologically truer and more indi- Soft you sang me to my rest; tute) and the state prison in Thomaston. vidualized confrontation with reality, much of her work Waking, when I sought my play, Her vitality, her didacticism, her positive outlook can seem shallow, overly sentimental and even insin- Still your singing led the way. which verged, especially in her writing, on Pollyanna- cere. As a friend recalled in his memorial address ism, could be threatening. The poet Robinson, whom following her death, "Reserve was an essential part of So you taught me, too, ere long, she mentored and befriended during his days as a her nature. In her many books it is extraordinary how All our life should be a song, struggling Gardiner youth, admitted the "joy of living" rarely she strikes a personal note or deals with life's Should a faltering prelude be expressed in her works could act as something like "an tragedy or with fundamental emotions." To the heavenly harmony assault" on a less optimistic individual. Privately to a Richards was rooted in an era of highly romanti- friend, he complained that the trouble with the Richards was that they were abysmally unaware of the hellish- In 1928 Laura urged Maud to destroy the notebooks Wiggins. He had sat unsuspectingly at her tea table in ness that makes up most of life. of a sister who suffered from mental illness. "I still have the sunny South Parlor of Yellow House for years. Compiler Smith acknowledges that Richards, in the one, and so help me, I will make an end to it today listening to her thespian delivery of amusing anec- biographical writing she deemed her best work, am quite clear that we should be doing her no kind- dotes and memories long retained in her "neat, tidy "glossed over" many dark passages in her family's life. ness by preserving her writings." mind," while taking seriously her admonition that tea Worse than that. she and her sister Maud burned The writings that have survived and become known is properly enjoyed without adding milk. many documents in the inter- as The Yellow House Papers were He described the thrill of his find as "no less than est of "managing history," even transferred in 1990 to Colby Col- that experience by the archaeologist who proved Troy though Laura insisted, am not lege where they remain on indefi- existed." by nature inclined to Epistolaric nite loan in alkaline folders and IN 1928 Laura E. Richards' namesake presented herself as Incineration." Many papers of boxes, available to scholars and stu- "our old chieftainess," as Maud Laura the wife of Charles Wiggins, who had been headmas- dents. The Gardiner Public Library ter of the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham. called Julia Ward Howe, went urged Maud to destroy retains copyright to the materials. Mass.; as the mother of four children; and as the active into the fireplace in 1935. As Still in limbo are The Home Logs, community mover and shaker. Laura wrote to her sister: "Her the notebooks of the restoration and preservation of But she had never confessed to being a writer. place is secure; we must be con- which will cost thousands of dollars Whenever asked, whether by family members or tent with that. I mean to destroy a sister who suffered and for which the Gardiner Library Smith himself if she had ever aspired to write for publi- much of what I have. I have Association is actively seeking cation, continuing the intellectual tradition of her destroyed much already, Ameri- from mental funds. The logs will eventually be mother and grandmother, she always answered a defi- can Association of Women ad- available for public use on micro- nite "no." dresses, etc., etc. Oh dear! how illness. film in Gardiner and in a microfilm Having typed a four-inch stack of her work, Smith she worked!" publication SO that any library can has now placed not far from the top of his arm-long list Also in the interest of con- acquire them. of impending projects a plan to publish the best literary trolling what the public should know, letters from Perhaps the pleasantest discovery compiler Smith achievements of the last of Laura Richards' daughters. Laura's brother Henry Marion Howe show he con- made while rendering the chaotic heap of papers into a vinced her to undertake the biography of their mother "user friendly" guide, was a thick body of writings. soon after Julia's death in 1910 and paid her a two mostly poetry and short stories, by his friend Betty years' salary, including wages for a typist, to do so. Danny Smith brought 32 boxes of faded documents to life By LUCY L. MARTIN Photography by Phara Fisco IKE MELVILLE'S pale usher, for- ever dusting his old lexicons, Danny D. Smith watches over 32 banker boxes stuffed with type- scripts and photocopied documents in his cramped, ground floor apartment in Gardiner. These boxes, like the Macintosh word processor and electric typewriter which sit on nearby tables, seem to doze under the plastic tablecloths and black rubbish bags Smith has carefully tucked around them. The boxes, stacked against two sides of the narrow living room, create the impression of a late 20th century liter- ary catacomb. Danny Smith has an ability with faded documents and skeletal ances- tral charts. The 29 titles to his credit that can be found in the Maine State Library card catalog, are of families he has researched and resurrected in clear, lively prose over the past decade or so. The first box holds photocopies, in clean, orderly file folders, of many le- gal articles pertaining to 17th century English probate and land laws which he, as a genealogical scholar, must know. He collected them while "bounc- ing back and forth between the probate section and the registry of deeds" in Danny Smith has made a career of eliciting human portraits from old documents. various New England courthouses. "I have found 17th century documents that I doubt a present day lawyer could understand. people's lives beneath the public image they project. Gardiner. stooped over gravestones and peered into Likewise, I would be hard put to understand 20th cen- His focus, is to resuscitate lives otherwise grown cold. many abandoned cellar holes in other Kennebec County tury probate law." interpreting them for a new generation. communities - a figure Edwin Arlington Robinson At 42, the survivor of eight orthopedic operations A heavy-set. pale-complexioned man, he describes might have immortalized in a kinder gallery of Tilbury and several bouts with cancer, Smith finds himself not himself as "a foot-slogging genealogist" who, briefcase Town" folk. He seems, paradoxically, to have all the surprisingly preoccupied with time, mortality and in hand, has puffed his way up and down the streets of time in the world and accepts, quietly it appears, that "nothing ever proceeds in a straight line. There are neighbors, but I was always so amus- searcher he says a genealogical scholar must be, he is multiple dimensions to everything.' ing. And there was always a moral twist to her stories. tracking down his forebear Richard Smith, the first Smith defines his devotion to genealogy as a double- 'Don't let yourself get into this predicament' or 'Don't magistrate of Exeter, N.H., and a man he believes was edged sword. He has invested years and considerable let this happen to you." "a fifth column agent for Governor Winthrop of the amounts of money in his single-minded pursuit (often When he was twelve his grandmother, Nancy Massachusetts Bay Colony. This isn't a flattering por- pro bono publico); at the same time, projects have Temple, developed a brain tumor and "within the year, trait!" But he believes his ancestor may have been sent buoyed him up in times of life-threatening crises, giv- one month short of my 13th birthday, she was dead. It to keep an eye on Puritan dissident Rev. John Wheel- ing him a goal to reach. was devastating to me." wright when he was banished from Boston. His speech is dense with colorful, carefully chosen At the same time, he was recuperating from what Historical preservationist Earle Shettleworth, who images and certifiable facts, as if a footnote is attached would be the first of many operations to correct a was two years ahead of Smith at Colby College where to each utterance. On occasion he laughs convulsively congenital hip deformity inherited from his father's Smith received an A.B. in British history in 1972, rates and with frank enjoyment over an anecdote someone side of the family and was beginning to feel the isola- his colleague's maturity as a student of family ances has shared with him. His manner of narration is pre- tion which set him off from most of his peers. tries and histories. cise, reflecting a highly organized thought process. During his mother's telephone conversations with "He is now a very accomplished genealogist, but it This capability for targeting and other family members to provide goes beyond that. Clearly he has a great knowledge achieving a goal developed early in correct biographical information for and fascination for the whole human dimension of his life while growing up in Litchfield, the eldest of three sons. SMITH the obituary, Smith took notes, and genealogy. Genealogy shouldn't be just a narrow study finds when family members streamed into of names and vital statistics but a tool, a means to an It began with his maternal grand- the house the weekend of the fu- end. In organizing the Yellow House papers, he mother. himself preoccupied neral and "the week of grief" there- brought an order and meaning to them they hadn't adored her. I was her first with time, after, "I made a point of asking ev- previously had." grandson. My maternal grandfather eryone for names, dates, In the past four years, Smith has become more profoundly regretted not having any mortality relationships. I filled a spiralbound actively involved in Gardiner history and preservation, sons. For me to be born one year notebook and I've literally never becoming both a pillar and highly prized factotum of after he died crystallized in her mind and people's stopped writing about genealogy the Gardiner Library Association as researcher, com- this idea that I must go to college. since that time." piler, lecturer, typist of his own manuscripts, fundraiser, She set aside money and gave me lives Familiarity with courts, archives. and most important, a person who completes what he weekly pep talks. Anytime she libraries, and other repositories undertakes. wanted to break me of a bad habit, she bribed me with came later. By the end of high school at Monmouth This course in his life has gained momentum since money, or toys. She bribed me to learn the alphabet Academy where he was valedictorian. he had traced Betty Wiggins' death, which came before he was able before I started school. and to read before I was in first his ancestry back to his first American ancestor. in to get into print a slender 60-page tribute to the Richards grade. Consequently, I was always ahead. Salem, Mass., 1636. "I remember my profound regret family entitled Gardiner's Yellow House. He acknowl- see in retrospect this woman completely con- of not being able to share that with my grandmother. edges his debt to her. She phoned or wrote him weekly trolled my childhood. but loved the dear old lady. The How proud she would be to know her ninth generation during his several battles with cancer, and once, on an saving grace was, she was a lot of fun. She had a grandfather was this Abraham Temple." icy winter night when she was in her 90s, visited him in delightful sense of humor and an incredible storytelling Smith admits, "Genealogy can acquire a taint of the hospital. ability. At his weekly visits in her Manchester home. snobbery.' He learned the hard way when he "suffered He had met Betty Wiggins in his teens, when his Smith would greet her with, "Grammy, tell me what it the delirium of connecting his 12th generation fore- family started driving into Gardiner from Litchfield to was like when you were growing up. bear with the illustrious Temples of the Manor of Stowe, attend Christ Church. She would introduce him to "She didn't know she was creating a genealogist at in Buckinghamshire, England. who resided in a 900- people she thought he should know and later urged the time. but it definitely predisposed me. She had foot long mansion that makes "the Gardiner estate, him to use his college training to write a history of the grown up on Green Street in Augusta. and her family Oaklands, not even a gatekeeper's cottage in compari- Kennebec Valley. drove their cows to pasture where the airport is now. son. In time Smith realized his error, and learned the Betty Wiggins planted in him. he says, a kind of He father was sexton of the cemetery for about 55 pitfail of making unwarranted assumptions. But "I hated "missionary zeal for public service." years. So that familiarized her with lots of families. I to give up these illustrious kin, it was SO gratifying to "She would say to me, 'What are you doing for just adored having her tell me these things. Sometimes my lego!" others?' she was condescending, imitating the manners of her Presently, proving himself to be the unbiased re THE YELLOW HOUSE GARDEN 3 DENNIS STREET GARDINER, MAINE by DANNY D. SMITH Gardiner's Yellow House, also known as the Laura E. Richards House, is one of four entries for our community in the National Historic Registry. Fame and honor came to this remarkable house because of the lives of Henry Richards (1848-1949) and his wife Laura E. Richards (1850-1943) in whose honor the Elementary School on Brunswick Avenue was dedicated in October 1992. Henry Richards, a grandson of Robert Hallowell Gardiner I (1782-1864), returned to his native city in 1876 to assume management of his family's paper mill. He continued in that career until the purchase of that mill in 1900 by International Paper Company at which time he entered into the most creative phase of his life: the establishment of the third boys summer camp in the nation-the famous Camp Merryweather-and the return to his first love-the practice of architecture. His wife, born into one of the most cosmopolitan families in America, became the author of nearly ninety children's books, including Captain January, twice produced as a movie. She won the first Pulitzer Prize in the field of biography for her two-volume work on the life of her mother, Julia Ward Howe, of Battle Hymn fame. Mrs. Richards' father was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind where he innovated teaching methods for the deaf, blind, and mute-where his first teaching success was Laura Bridgman for whom Mrs. Richards was named. It will interest vistors to the Yellow House Garden that Julia Ward Howe from 1878 to 1910 visited this historic mansion at least twice a year and even did some of her writing on the piazza overlooking the garden. Civic and progressive movements of nineteenth-century Gardiner originated here at the Yellow House through the good offices of Henry and Laura E. Richards and their children. Through their leadership the Gardiner Public Library was built as well as the Gardiner General Hospital. They brought the first public health nurse to this community as well as campaigned for the public water district. She organized the Gardiner Red Cross, the Howe Club for high hchool boys, the Ten Times One Club, and the Philanthropic Union for the co-ordination of Gardiner charities. The Richards family first occupied the Yellow House upon a long-term lease in June 1878 and by June 1891 had acquired full ownership of the property. Built about 1814 on the eve of the marriage John Hazeltine to Harriet Byram, legend has it that the scarcity of building materials during the War of 1812 caused the house to be insulated with birch bark. It seems almost certain that the ell of the house was built then, and at one time the present kitchen was a cow stall! This very fine Federal style residence is of frame construction with two and one half stories, hipped roof, clapboard siding, denticulated cornice, and two internal end chimneys. The central entrance reflects the center-hall plan of the building. The entrance features a pilastered and entabulated doorway with Adamesque fanlight and sidelights. The door has eight recessed panels. The five- bay facade's fenestration is twelve over twelve. To the rear on the west side is a two-and-a-half- story ell, similar in design to the house. Two chimneys are present, along with a hooded entrance facing south. The one-story porch, supported by Tuscan columns, attached to the north side of the ell, recaptures architectural details of Moreland Cottage, a Richards family residence in England. In the spring of 1910, Henry Richards successfully blended with the earlier Federal style building the ell's most conspicuous feacture, the half-story which is inset from the walls and is actually a large monitor. A frame carriage-house, attached to the west end of the ell, is two and a half stories high and features a lunette window in the half-story facing east which can be seen from the garden. THE GARDEN When the family acquired the property, the driveway was on the south side of the house, and therefore the usual entrance to the house was from the now secluded or garden side. About 1895 Alice M. Richards (1872-1922), the eldest daughter of Henry and Laura E Richards, graduated from Smith College and returned to head up the English department at the Gardiner High School for the following twenty-seven years. Her brilliant career was cut short by pneumonia at age fifty. Then the family entered into a fit of furor hortenensis-the term which the English gentry use to indicate a passion for gardening. Soon the driveway and dooryard (this last term a good piece of Maine vernacular) were rerouted to the School Street (i.e. northern) side of the property and the south side transformed into a garden patterned after the famous garden at the Richards ancestral estate of North House at Hambledon, Hampshire, England and for further account thereof see Laura E. Richards' semi-fictional book, Harry in England. Also, about this time, the Richardses erected their famous white fence which Laura E. Richards said no number of truck accidents will ever dissuade the family from abandoning!! Alice M. Richards undertook the basic development of the garden-not only for the enjoyment for the family but as a very special form of public service. She divided her perennials for gifts throughout the community and assembled the floral arrangements needed at civic occasions, especially Memorial Day exercises. She cheered the sickbeds of her students and friends with her gifts of flowers-even in winter when she turned the nursery upstairs at Yellow House into an inside garden. Griefstricken was Miss Rosalind Richards (1874-1964) upon the occasion of her favorite sister's death in 1922. Miss Rosalind raised the quality of gardening at the Yellow House to spectatular heights, and she insisted that the garden be called the Alice M. Richards Memorial Garden. Not only did she continue the benevolences of her sister Alice in the gifts of flowers, but Miss Rosalind actually made many original contributions to the science of horticulture by becoming the official correspondant for the State of Maine to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. She planted upon an experimental basis many specimens for testing in the "hardy" Maine winter enviorment. Hundreds of pages of carefully typed notes, identifying all the specimens in their correct binomial scientific names, now repose with other manuscripts of the Richards family, collectively known as the Yellow House Papers, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. There are many people now living who recollect with great fondness not only Miss Rosalind Richards but also her younger brother John Richards (1884-1975) who for decades was chairman of the English department at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. When he retired in 1949, he returned to the Yellow House and continued his family's tradition of public service to the community, library, and Christ Church at which last place he was Senior Warden and historian. The youngest daughter of the Richards family returned to Gardiner in 1943 after the death of her husband, the headmaster of Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Charles Wiggins II. She was Laura Elizabeth (Richards) Wiggins (1886-1988). "Dear, dear Betty," as she was known to so many of us, died a mere ten days before what should have been her one-hundred-and-second birthday. The Yellow House entered into the fourth-generation of ownership when John Dyer Shaw, Jr., acquired title to Yellow House in December 1988. The Peg Shaw Garden at the Gardiner Public Library is a tribute to the first wife of John Shaw. Today John and Kimberly Bailey Shaw welcome you to the historic Yellow House Garden, and counting down from Julia Ward Howe who was a frequent visitor here, Sam, Julia, and Alexander Shaw round out six generations of the family's association with this house and garden. THE GARDEN When the family acquired the property, the driveway was on the south side of the house, and therefore the usual entrance to the house was from the now secluded or garden side. About 1895 Alice M. Richards (1872-1922), the eldest daughter of Henry and Laura E. Richards, graduated from Smith College and returned to head up the English department at the Gardiner High School for the following twenty-seven years. Her brilliant career was cut short by pneumonia at age fifty. Then the family entered into a fit of furor hortenensis-the term which the English gentry use to indicate a passion for gardening. Soon the driveway and dooryard (this last term a good piece of Maine vernacular) were rerouted to the School Street (i.e. northern) side of the property and the south side transformed into a garden patterned after the famous garden at the Richards ancestral estate of North House at Hambledon, Hampshire, England and for further account thereof see Laura E. Richards' semi-fictional book, Harry in England. Also, about this time, the Richardses erected their famous white fence which Laura E. Richards said no number of truck accidents will ever dissuade the family from abandoning!!! Alice M. Richards undertook the basic development of the garden-not only for the enjoyment for the family but as a very special form of public service. She divided her perennials for gifts throughout the community and assembled the floral arrangements needed at civic occasions, especially Memorial Day exercises. She cheered the sickbeds of her students and friends with her gifts of flowers-even in winter when she turned the nursery upstairs at Yellow House into an inside garden. Griefstricken was Miss Rosalind Richards (1874-1964) upon the occasion of her favorite sister's death in 1922. Miss Rosalind raised the quality of gardening at the Yellow House to spectatular heights, and she insisted that the garden be called the Alice M. Richards Memorial Garden. Not only did she continue the benevolences of her sister Alice in the gifts of flowers, but Miss Rosalind actually made many original contributions to the science of horticulture by becoming the official correspondant for the State of Maine to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. She planted upon an experimental basis many specimens for testing in the "hardy" Maine winter enviorment. Hundreds of pages of carefully typed notes, identifying all the specimens in their correct binomial scientific names, now repose with other manuscripts of the Richards family, collectively known as the Yellow House Papers, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. There are many people now living who recollect with great fondness not only Miss Rosalind Richards but also her younger brother John Richards (1884-1975) who for decades was chairman of the English department at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. When he retired in 1949, he returned to the Yellow House and continued his family's tradition of public service to the community, library, and Christ Church at which last place he was Senior Warden and historian. The youngest daughter of the Richards family returned to Gardiner in 1943 after the death of her husband, the headmaster of Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Charles Wiggins II. She was Laura Elizabeth (Richards) Wiggins (1886-1988). "Dear, dear Betty," as she was known to so many of us, died a mere ten days before what should have been her one-hundred-and-second birthday. The Yellow House entered into the fourth-generation of ownership when John Dyer Shaw, Jr., acquired title to Yellow House in December 1988. The Peg Shaw Garden at the Gardiner Public Library is a tribute to the first wife of John Shaw. Today John and Kimberly Bailey Shaw welcome you to the historic Yellow House Garden, and counting down from Julia Ward Howe who was a frequent visitor here, Sam, Julia, and Alexander Shaw round out six generations of the family's association with this house and garden. CONTENTS Preface by Danny D. Smith and Joanne D. Clark vii A Tribute by Joanne D. Clark 1 Laura Elizabeth (Richards) Wiggins and Her Ancestors and Kinsmen 7 Genealogical Charts Insert Side 1: Ancestors of Laura Elizabeth Richards Wiggins Side 2: Descendants of Henry and Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards t C 1988 by The Friends of Gardiner Box 1055, Gardiner, Maine 04345 GARDINER'S YELLOW HOUSE A Tribute to the Richards Family Upon the Occasion of the Centennial Birthday of Laura Elizabeth Richards Wiggins - Our Dear Betty DANNY D. SMITH SNONGRET ET AMORE With a Biographical Sketch by Joanne D. Clark GARDINER, MAINE: Friends of Gardiner 1988 PREFACE The centennial birthday of Laura Elizabeth Richards Wiggins, our dear Betty of the Yellow House, propelled this tribute into being. We failed to complete this publication before she entered into the Life of Perfect Service on February 2, 1988. The work is now there- fore more than a tribute, even more than a memorial: it is a Thanks- giving by a community grateful for a century of service. Betty was the last heir to assume her family's mantle of devotion to com- munity and church. She and her family, through unstinting volun- tary labor on almost every committee, took responsibility, resisted pressure, and set a tone in our community. In return, she and her ancestors have received privilege and respect which this book traces in the context of regional history. She and her ancestors for six generations are traced herein. This work commences with a tribute by Joanne D. Clark cast in the present tense and second person as though it were an in- formal conversation held on the centennial birthday in 1986. Any such undertaking entails a complex format, but we have maintained as simple a system as possible. Each ancestor is num- bered. Betty is 1, and her father is 2. The father of each individual is numbered by a numeral exactly twice that of the child in the preceding section. Thus, for example, the father of Number 7, Julia Ward, is Number 14, Samuel Ward. The mother is always one plus the father's number. The system continues through 63. We could have continued to numbers in the thousands, but spacial limita- tions forbid. Twelve ancestors appear under their own headings in the Dictionary of American Biography, a fact demonstrating that the Yellow House family descends from the founders of the American nation and some of their most distinguished successors in civic, religious, and literary circles. These accounts are based upon the best secondary sources. New ground is limited to four revelations: the early life and family connections of Anne (Gib- bins) Gardiner, the maternal lineage leading to the Ballulet family of France, assignation of Julia Ward Howe solely to one author, namely Laura E. Richards, and the attribution of Major General Richard Gridley as builder of Fort Western in Augusta, Maine. 3 March 1988 DANNY D. SMITH Gardiner, Maine JOANNE D. CLARK A TRIBUTE Betty "When we gather here today to honor a beloved citizen of Gar- diner, Laura Elizabeth Richards Wiggins, we as a community are re-affirming our links to the past and affirming our faith in the future," began Danny Smith as we met in the Great Hall at Christ Church on February 9, 1986, to celebrate your own one hundredth birthday. Your true birth date, one you are proud to share with "Honest Abe," is actually February 12, and each year since your return to Gardiner these occasions increasingly remind us of a unique interconnection - for you have become our personal link to the past century. Through you we can travel back to that era of gas lamps, Boston boats, livery stables and 10-cent teams. During your birth year, 1886, Central Street School, designed by your father, was newly built, and the Howe Clubs that influ- enced SO many of Gardiner's young men were formed by your mother. Randolph was still part of Pittston in those days, and citizens paid tolls before crossing the Kennebec on the old covered bridge. Born in one of Gardiner's two yellow houses - the other at the corner of Kingsbury and Dresden belonging to Uncle John Richards - you are the sixth generation to be rocked in the Ward family cradle. Named for your mother, whose own namesake was Laura Bridgman (your grandfather's first deaf-blind pupil at Perkins Institute) you remember the summer garden parties to raise money for a kindergarten class there, when students Helen Keller and Willie Roberts visited your home. Your own education began as an infant through the songs and stories - classical to nonsensical - shared by your mother. Language lessons started as early as age two with the arrival of a German-speaking governess who stayed until you entered Mrs. Morrill's kindergarten at 83 Dresden Avenue. When sister Rosalind Richards opened her small private school, you were among her first pupils Laura E. (Betty) Wiggins for a time before moving on to public school. Childhood pastimes were particularly special: swimming, boating, coasting, bicycling, and adventurous donkey cart rides to 1 the central artery of your community. visit cousins at Oaklands and the Cove. You could even recall As the baby and last to leave home, you accompanied your when your home was "Statlerized" by the addition of indoor mother on many an outing. Visits to the Soldiers Home at Togus, plumbing and running water. Maggie, the family maid for 30 years, travelling over "Mr. Joe's" narrow-gauge railroad, were not nearly ruled the kitchen in those early days when you and John formed as enjoyable for you as those with such literary friends as Sarah the Mouse Club, holding meetings in the back entry cupboard Orne Jewett. It was her advice "Don't scatter your fire" that became that was later used for spices. Another favored piece of furniture a bit difficult to heed after your move to Boston at age fifteen. was the marble-topped cabinet where you all would perch dur- Here you lived with Grandmother Howe at 241 Beacon - walk- ing family entertainments. "Horse Trot" weekends were especially ing the mile to Miss Winsor's School where Latin was one of your exciting times when crowds poured into Trotting Park for the com- favorite subjects. Among your duties was assisting during the week- petitions. Your uncles John and Frank Richards were noted ly "at homes" where you learned much about gracious living and horsemen and had created a track - grandstand and all - through met many of Boston's literati. After graduation, you and sister Rolling Dam Woods. Action moved to the Kennebec during Julia lived together under the supervision of your grandmother wintertime, and runners replaced wheels when the river became and spent a delightful year dancing the nights away with brother a race course. John and his Harvard classmates. During these days and the many to follow, your father influenced Before you left Gardiner, the Richards Paper Mill had burned, you in a myriad of ways. In addition to teaching drawing, hand- been rebuilt, then taken over by International Paper Company. writing, Latin and math, he built a gymnasium above the barn A difficult time - but your family carried on, moving in yet with parallel bars and a "peggy pole" to help keep you "fit". Sun- another direction, for as you very early learned: "Obstacles are day afternoon walks were the highlight of each week, however, things to overcome." Thanks to a suggestion from Groton's head- for he was an ardent naturalist and you grew up hand in hand master, the Rev. Endicott Peabody, your father bought a piece of with nature. Whatever the season, he would lead you all off on land he had long admired at Horse Point on Belgrade's Great Pond special expeditions: bogging at Nahumkeag Pond, wild-flowering and on June 30, 1900, Camp Merryweath began. Named for out by Seven Pines, butterfly-netting at the Iron Mine. Family a family in several of your mother's books, this became the first picnics with your Gardiner cousins in Uncle Frank Richards' steam boys' camp to open in the state of Maine. launch Circe invariably turned into nature hunts before ending Here your Pa became the Skipper, and your house rules of with rounds of stories and songs - celebrating a fellowship of Truthfulness and Obedience became camp rules. With an emphasis families. Each August you would travel by trolley to Cram's Point on character building and self-reliance, there was much more of cabin on Cobbossee for more boating, fishing, and botanizing an academic than athletic atmosphere. Gatherings under the trees where Uncle Bob Richards often joined you, contributing to your in "Pine Parlor" on pleasant days or the book-lined "Big Room" general education from his vast knowledge of chemistry and featured your father's wide-ranging talks or your mother's stories metallurgy. and poems. Literary figures Conrad Aiken, Ogden Nash, and You always considered your childhood to be a special time, and Joseph Alsop were a few of the many alumni your family influenced what better place could there possibly be to grow up than in a over the next 32 years, for this camp was truly a family endeavor river town at the turn of the century! A few hundred feet from with each member contributing his or her special talents. Accord- the Yellow House is the majestic Kennebec, where all manner of ing to Father, you were a "twinkling star of delight" to all. He felt vessels crowding the docks brought with them goods and your sisters lent an air of gentility to the place and encouraged passengers and carried away sawdust-covered ice cakes harvested your participation in many activities, even to "taking the bow" during the winter months. This river was a continual source of and "setting the stroke." Rounding out the staff in 1905 was Charles excitement and pleasure; for either log-filled or ice-bound, it was 3 2 (Peter) Wiggins, John's classmate, who was SO "taken" with you the school's new headmaster, Eliot T. Putnam. Son of a Boston he finished Harvard in three years to begin saving the $500 Father architect, he also graduated from Harvard and after serving as requested before an engagement could be announced. a Merryweather counselor - where he met daughter Laura - When you were married during the fall of 1909, your husband chose education as his field. Throughout the lengthy history of was an architect with R. Clipton Sturgis. After a few years in Cam- this distinguished school there have been but four headmasters bridge where your two sons were born, Peter built a small house - of these one was your husband, another your son-in-law. Dur- in Needham where your first daughter Laura came into the world. ing the difficult war years that followed, you shared two houses An architectural slump combined with Camp Merryweather ex- in Dedham with daughter Posy and her children, one of which periences carried your Peter into education. In 1914 he became was later to become an office for Marsh, Rice, and Thorndike. a teacher and Assistant Headmaster at Pomfret, his former school Ties to your home state remained close during the decades in Connecticut, and here your youngest, named for sister Rosalind, through family visits and property purchase. In 1928 while stay- was born. For several years John Richardson - a good friend and ing with friends at Deer Isle, you fell in love with an "adorable crewmate from college days - had been recruiting for his alma little farmhouse" on Reach Road, and from that time summers mater, Noble and Greenough; and in 1920, through his influence, were spent on the coast. In 1946 you moved back to the Yellow Charles Wiggins became the school's second headmaster. Under House to join sister Rosalind, and upon John's retirement from his dynamic leadership vast changes took place, foremost being St. Paul's School, he too returned. Immersing yourselves in many the move from Boston to Dedham where boarding students were community projects, you all continued to enjoy the "dear house" now added to the "new" country day school. and your many Gardiner friends. Riverdale, Albert Nickerson's 101-acre estate along the Charles The Paul Revere bell at Christ Church usually called you to River, was a perfect site. Designed by Henry H. Richardson in Sunday morning services. Your great-grandfather Gardiner had 1988, the Quincy granite and Delaware brownstone castle con- covered more than two-thirds of the total $15,000 cost in 1820 tinues to dominate the campus today. In 1922 a wing of this tur- when this "old stone church" was erected beside the family bury- reted structure became your home for the next twenty-five years. ing ground. Here you attended Sunday school and worshipped What more fitting titles could there be for castle-dwellers than under Canon Plant, the "beloved rector" of your childhood, sur- Duke and Duchess, and that is precisely what you became to the rounded by family memorials of stained glass, brass, marble and Noble's boys you continued to nurture along with your own family wood. Your own father designed the pulpit and choir stalls where of four. he and Mother customarily sat as members of the choir. On All Nowhere was your influence more visible during those early days Saints Day, November 1, 1974, you were among the first women than in the formally set dining room where you "reigned" during to ever preach from that pulpit. Fortunately for fellow members, your evening meals, personifying the gracious life style of that era. you joined a variety of church groups there, from Lenten Study You also initiated the tradition of afternoon tea that continues to Women's Auxiliary - sharing a vast store of experiences and today following seasonal sports events. Another pet project, the enriching many lives. dramatic club, was formed in 1921 and had as its first president From the time your parents first bought the brown (soon to future play producer Richard Aldrich. Sunday evenings usually be yellow) house at 3 Dennis Street, it has been the center of civic found you at the piano accompanying the weekly hymn sings for consciousness for this community. Imbued from childhood with the "boarders". and SO the mercurial years passed, until 1943. such ideals, you have carried on the family tradition continuing On Thanksgiving Day of that year, after suffering a shock, your affiliations with the Red Cross, Hospital, Library, and Public husband died at the age of 57. Health Association. In addition, current concerns such as zon- A great loss to all, but his influence was to be perpetuated by ing, placement of the 7-11 store, and the environment were always 4 5 addressed through dialogue, letters to the editor, and attendance at City Council meetings. Not content to merely attend these meetings, you also recruited fellow citizens and, if possible, sat in the front row! Endowed with a keen social conscience and ever giving of yourself, you have always been eager to assist others, particularly the young people you have enjoyed working with throughout the years. Your encouraging words and endearing ways have brought immeasurable comfort to the sick and those imprisoned. In fact, LAURA ELIZABETH your last visit to Thomaston was at age 90 and to the Kennebec County Jail five years later! An incredible networking system to (RICHARDS) WIGGINS and from the Yellow House has kept you completely up to date AND HER ANCESTORS with young and old alike, and provided that vital link between you and the community. AND KINSMEN The South Parlor is your special realm where all are received with equal graciousness, at tea-time or anytime. Here you enter- tain, reciting long passages from the classics or your mother's "Merry Muse," the cadence of your voice and the gestures of your hands casting a spell as they mirror the verses' melody. Eternally young at heart, you delight in the younger generations who come, and relish family visits with the many grandchildren of varying degrees. Your "dear boys" and "dear girls" of every age treasure these times with you, our counselor and friend. We are grateful for your presence among us and will ever cherish the memory of your warmth, wisdom and wit - evocative and enduring. JODY CLARK 6 LAURA ELIZABETH (RICHARDS) WIGGINS AND HER ANCESTORS AND KINSMEN LAURA ELIZABETH RICHARDS II was born 1 at the Yellow House, Gardiner, Maine 12 February 1886 and died there ten days short of her one hundred second birth day 2 February 1988. She married at Christ Church, Gardiner, Maine 2 September 1908 Charles "Peter" Wiggins II, born at Cin- cinnati, Ohio November 1885 and died at Dedham, Massachusetts 27 November 1943, son of John and Elizabeth Arnold (Jewett) Laura E. Richards Wiggins. They had issue of four children: John, born at Cam- bridge, Massachusetts 10 July 1910 and died Sargentsville, Maine 12 5 February 1984; Charles III, born Cambridge, Massachusetts 31 Henry Richards March 1913; Laura Elizabeth, born Needham, Massachusetts at Camp July 1914, wife of Eliot Thwing Putnam Jr.; and Rosalind, known of Merryweather Posy, born Pomfret, Connecticut 17 March 1917, wife remark J. that she "had two sons, then two daughters, neat and pat, just Sydney as Cobb, M.D. Of these offspring, Mrs. Wiggins would like that." HENRY RICHARDS was born at Gardiner, Maine 2 17 July 1848 and died there 26 January 1949. The Richards both sides family of the Atlantic. Following this tradition, Henry through four generations maintained connections Richards on studied at Wellington College, Workingham, Berkshire, England. His upbringing in English public schools (the counter- with spartan of schools in America) was relieved by holidays Hambledon, part cousins prep at North House in Catherington and Har- Hampshire. English Returning to America, he took his A.B. degree M.I.T., at and practiced brought construction to a standstill. He then Gardiner vard, as an architect in Boston until the financial returned to pursued post-graduate studies in architecture at panic of 1876 where in company with his brothers Francis Richards Gardiner, and John Tudor Richards, he joined the family Company paper manufacturing firm which was known as Richards and reorgan- ized until into a joint stock company named Richards Paper the death of brother Francis in 1884 when it was Company. 9 Richards added a wing, the former carriage house. This west end In 1900, the International Paper Company bought the firm, en- wing contains the "Owl's Nest," literary retreat for the men of the ding the Richards family interest. This reduction in the family family. In the North Parlor, Laura E. Richards sought seclusion fortune had a bright side: it moved Henry Richards into the most for daily writing sessions, directing family and servants. "If the creative period of his life. During the winter months, he resumed Queen of Spain comes to call, you must tell her I am busy and the practice of his abiding passion: architecture. He designed the can't see her," she was fond of saying. The roll-top desk in that Gardiner Public Library, a splendid Queen Anne brick ediface; North Parlor study still appears in slight literary disarray, as though and the Central Street School, remarkable at the time because she had slipped out momentarily for a cup of tea. Yellow House the plan consisted of one elongated ground floor. Other aesthetic is the linchpin to the community's past: surely no other land- traces of Henry Richards survive in Gardiner: the pulpit and choir mark serves as such a salient reminder of the community's past. stalls at Christ Church carved from white oak given by his first- It was here, at this historic house placed on the National Register cousin Robert Hallowell Gardiner III from the ancestral estate of of Historic Places in July 1979, that Henry and Laura E. Richards Oaklands. Henry Richards obtained several public commissions, imbued six surviving children with a fine sense of culture and namely the Memorial for the Second Maine Regiment at Gettys- public service. burg, three halls at Groton School, and the pride of his life, the William Amory Gardner mansion at Prides Crossing in Peabody, Massachusetts. Bowdoin College staged an exhibition of his paint- Children of Henry and ings in the summer of 1948. Laura Elizabeth (Howe) Richards Summers, he conducted Camp Merryweather on Great Pond in Belgrade, distinguished for the alumni who proceeded to posi- i. Alice Maud Richards, born at Boston 24 July 1872 tions of leadership in the nation. At camp, known as the Skip- and died at Gardiner 4 March 1922. A graduate of Smith Col- per, he devised an exciting program. The Scouting Game involved lege, she returned to Gardiner to head the English department a signal from the Skipper standing on a ridge and two parties 504rs at the high school for twenty-seven years. All the stores in Gar- deviously advancing by crawling and dodging behind trees and diner closed in honor of her memory during her funeral. Her rocks. If a boy was exposed and seen by the opposite side, his epitaph at Christ Church reads: "For twenty-seven years beloved name was called out and considered "shot." These scouting-game teacher, leader and comrade of the pupils of Gardiner High tactics enabled son John Richards and other Merryweather School." campers to survive the battlefields of France in World War I. Camp life was a family endeavor: Laura E. Richards excited the boys to ii. Rosalind Richards, born Boston 30 June 1874 and a lifelong appreciation of Dickens, Scott, and Shakespeare. The most visible reminder of Gardiner's past is the Yellow House 90 yrs died at Gardiner, Maine 13 July 1964. She spent nine years at her grandmother's residence on Beacon Street, Boston, before at 3 Dennis Street. The Richards family, belonging to the Yellow returning to Gardiner to run the Yellow House, first for her aged House as much as the house belongs to them, has secured the parents and then for brother John. In spite of the time consumed city's honorable mention on the literary map of America for all to keep the homefires burning, "Miss Rosalind," as she was affec- time. In 1876, Henry Richards bought the Federal style house at tionately known to neighbors, published three works: Northern the corner of Dennis and School Streets. This house looking east Countryside, The Nursery Fire, and Two Children in the Woods. down Vine Street to the Kennebec, is of frame construction, with hipped roof, clapboard siding, denticulated cornice, and central iii. Henry Howe Richards (whom they always called facade reflecting the center-hall plan of the building. Dick), born at Boston 23 February 1876 and died at Groton, To this building constructed in 1814 for John Hazeltine, Henry 11 10 Massachusetts 16 November 1968, took his A.B. degree at Har- vard in 1898. Soon after college, he accompanied Gregory Wig- gins, the brother of his then future brother-in-law, to the Orient 92yrs. to collect specimens of Japanese art on commission from the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Henry Richards taught English at Groton School for many years. One of his students was Kermit Roosevelt whose father was then President. Through this con- nection, Theodore Roosevelt was introduced to the poetry of Ed- win Arlington Robinson, then down and out in New York City. The President appointed Robinson to a federal sinecure, thereby enabling the rising young poet to continue his writing. Henry Howe Richards founded the Club of Twelve described in Walter Muir Whitehill's Boston in the Age of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. From 1961 to the time of death, Henry Howe Richards was the heir- male of the entire Richards family on both sides of the Atlantic. In accordance with strong family sentiment, Veronica Flint Richards, widow of the previous heir-male, Francis Ashburner Richards (1880-1961) of London, crossed the ocean with the ashes of her late husband and had them interred in his father's grave at Christ Church. She also returned to this side of the Atlantic those relics and heirlooms which must properly devolve upon that person recognized as heir-male of the family, including the Gilbert Stuart portraits of Judge Stephen Jones, Sarah Coffin (Jones) Richards, and John Richards. These relics have continued to des- cend through Henry's descendants in New Hampshire. iv. Julia Ward Richards, born Gardiner, Maine 30 August 1878 and died at Groton, Massachusetts in spring 1977. 99 yrs She married at Christ Church, Gardiner, 27 December 1906 "The Noble Six" (l ro r) Alice, Rosalind, Betty, Julia, John, & Dick Carleton Anderson Shaw. They continued in the family's tradi- tion of providing many school masters as teachers at the Red House School in Groton, Massachusetts. V. Maud Richards, born Gardiner 7 November 1881 and died there 11 October 1882. In the grief at the loss of her infant yr. daughter, Laura Richards turned to writing in earnest. At the festival communion service on All Saints Day 1974, Mrs. Wig- gins was the first woman ever to preach from the pulpit of Christ Church. Her topic was the local saints of Gardiner, and in refer- 12 ring to her mother at the moment of this bereavement: "So she 3 LAURA ELIZABETH HOWE born at Boston 27 had this gift [writing] to help her conquer the sense of exile. Added February 1850 and died at Gardiner, Maine 14 January 1943. to this grew an undaunted courage - a deep capacity for love She and Henry Richards were married at Boston 17 July 1871. and devotion - a nature incapable of thoughts of self, and beneath On this memorable day, as she was to tell her grandchildren, bells it all like a strong underground river, her faith in God." pealed, cannon boomed, and fireworks streaked across the Boston vi. yrs sky. "Ah, it was Bunker Hill Day," one of them guessed correctly. John Richards, born Gardiner, Maine 13 February She was named for her father's most famous pupil, the blind, deaf- 1884 and died there 4 May 1975. He took his A.B. degree at Har- mute, Laura Bridgman, about whom more will be written later. vard in 1907. For years, he was head of the English department Reading, music, and especially ballads and opera were an integral glyns at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He returned part of her intellectual formation. At the age of seventeen, she to Gardiner in 1949 after thirty-five years of service to that school. 1867 made the grand tour of Europe with her parents, when her in- His publications included a book of poetry, Songs of A Schoolmaster; terest in Homer, Virgil, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Scott, poetry in Scribner's Magazine; poetry in Unity and also poetry in and Ruskin was awakened. She explored the tomb of Agamem- Horace Scholasticae. In 1962 he published A Continuation of the non, climbed Mount Hymettus, attended Maundy Thursday ser- Story of Christ Church, tracing the history of the Episcopal parish vice in the Sistine Chapel, and learned the traditions of Clan in Gardiner from 1893, the date when Miss Gilmore's earlier Campbell from the Great Son of Colin, the Duke of Arygle history ended, through 1960. himself. This sweep through the museums and cathedrals of John Richards attended Army Officers Candidates School and Athens, Venice, Genoa, Paris, and Antwerp excited an unending was commissioned second lieutenant in the 369th Infantry in passion for learning. She toured Europe again during an extended World War I. He participated in engagements in Champagne and honeymoon, giving opportunity to her husband to sketch the great Ile de France. Severely wounded in action at Champagne, he was works of European art and architecture into his copybook. awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Purple Heart. In retirement, Back in Boston, the young couple lived at Green Peace, the home he assumed the family mantle of service to church and community. of her parents in South Boston where three of their seven children He served as trustee of both the Gardiner Public Library and the were born. She made up jingles for her children which she said High School Library, and as curator of the library museum. He "seemed to bubble up from some spring of nonsense." She called was a member of several fraternal organizations including the her ability to write jingles her "hurdy-gurdy." Her baby lay on her American Legion. In Boston, he was a member of the St. Boltolph front across her lap, causing her to remark, "I wrote on her back, Club. Each year, he and his sisters presented books as awards at the writing-pad quite as steady as the writing of the jingles re- the Gardiner High School Graduation. His important collection quired." Poems from this period were "Little John Bottle John," of steamboat memorbilia is at the Maine State Museum. He was "The Shark," and "Eletelephony." Beginning in 1873, St. Nicholas (for years) instrumental in organizing Gardiner's Memorial Day magazine published a number of these. Children delighted in these exercises, and entertained the speakers at breakfast at the Yellow poems of talking animals and eccentric human beings. Characters House. John Richards typified his family's devotion to commun- who disported themselves amid delightful nonsense words and ity through the arts, education, and letters. The Mayor of Gar- impeccable verse caught the public fancy. Her Sketches and Scraps diner proclaimed his ninetieth birthday "John Richards Day." (1881) was the first book of nonsense verse by an American published in America. Later collections included In My Nursery vii. Laura Elizabeth Richards II, to whom this (1890), The Hurdy-Gurdy (1902), and The Piccolo (1906). tribute is devoted, is noticed with full particulars in paragraph Her first writings were undertaken with an idea that they could one above. help her overcome the grief and anxiety caused by the death of 14 15 her infant child, which they did, but they also brought her fame and stress, Laura Richards supported and encouraged him as he and a welcome supplement to her husband's slender income. As matured and received international recognition. Other literary cor- her other children emerged from infancy, her writings changed respondants included giants of our century: Alexander Woolcott, to address their new interests. These tales such as the Toto series Conrad Aiken, Ogden Nash, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, and and the Princess Hildegarde series were written in strong, simple most importantly, Sarah Orne Jewett. Tira Lira (1932) appeared English with a marked sense of humor. In response to insistent when she was eighty-two. This was a collection of her best verses demand, the Margaret books were then written. Her most famous to which she added several freshly composed poems of light- work, Captain January (1890), is the story of a Maine lighthouse hearted nature. The previous year she had published Stepping keeper who rescues an infant girl from a shipwreck. Ironically, Westward the title being an allusion to Wordsworth's verses on this best seller which was twice made into a movie (once starring youthful renewal, "And stepping westward seemed to be a kind Shirley Temple) was initially rejected by all the publishers of the of heavenly destiny." This autobiography is a warm evocation of land. her childhood and domestic life. In this work, as she recounted After her children left home, Laura Richards turned to writing many episodes, they receded into an epic, much like what the biographies set in New England. Biographies of her parents re- great British historian Trevelyan called the poetry of history. A main as standard historical reference. She spent many years in tablet in her honor at the Gardiner Public Library calling her editing her father's papers, published as Letters and Journals of "writer, scholar, beloved citizen, lover of Gardiner" evinces the Samuel Gridley Howe (2 Volumes; 1906-09). Two Noble Lives (1911) love and esteem bestowed upon her by her community. about her parents preceded her most important work, Julia Ward Howe (1915) which earned her a Pulitzer Prize. Her sister Maud Howe Elliott assisted with the sections of the book tracing the 4 FRANCIS RICHARDS was born at Gouldsboro, Maine 13 March 1805 and died at Gardiner, Maine 4 April period after 1876 in Julia Ward Howe's life, the time after which 1858 where he is buried in the churchyard of Christ Church. As the Richards family had removed to Gardiner. However, the 53yrs. other members of the Richards family maintained continuous burden of the writing was Laura Richards' own task. Two books association on both sides of the Atlantic, Francis Richards likewise of fables, The Golden Windows (1903) and The Silver Crown (1906) lived at North House in Hambledon, Hampshire with his close were, in her own estimation, her best work. relations and was educated at Hyde Abbey near Winchester, Laura Richards' contribution to civic and philantrophic causes England before returning to New England in 1827 with his twin seems incredible when it is remembered that she wrote over eighty brother Henry as agent for the Bingham estate. They subsequently books. She founded the Gardiner Public Library, organized the manufactured lumber on a large scale until 1832 when Francis Howe Club to promote serious literary interest among high school Richards removed to Gardiner, Maine as agent for his wife's uncle, boys, mobilized the Gardiner chapter of the American Red Cross, Frederick Tudor of Boston, the "Ice King." This business was ruined served as president of the Maine Consumers League from 1905 by the experiment of shipping ice to the West Indies and by the to 1911, and incorporated the Gardiner General Hospital, this latter loss of the ice plant on the Kennebec River in a freshet. Francis cause having met especially profound resistance in the community. Richards again returned to England where he studied the prin- For SO many years she was a volunteer visitor at the State Hospital ciples of the manufacture of paper before returning to Gardiner in Augusta, the State Prison in Thomaston, and at the Soldiers' where, in partnership, his firm became known as Richards and Home at Togus that the narrow-guage railroad line which con- Hoskins. Gilmore's History of Christ Church details his long tenure nected Randolph to Togus granted her a lifetime honorary pass. as warden of Christ Church and as faithful worker for the Diocese A young poet, given to periods of grave doubt, lived in Gar- of Maine. diner: Edwin Arlington Robinson. Even during periods of storm One son of Francis' demands special notice: Robert Hallowell 16 17 Richards (1844-1945), mining engineer, and from 1868 to 1914 Returning to Boston, he finally took up his work in educating member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. the blind and served as superintendent of the Perkins Institute Author of over a hundred technical articles on metallurgy, his for forty-five years, to the time of his death. His greatest achieve- Ore Dressing (4 volumes; 1903-09) was the first work on the sub- ment was the education of Laura Dewey Bridgman (1829-1889) ject in English. His first wife, Ellen Henrietta (Swallow) Richards who became the namesake of his daughter Laura Elizabeth (Howe) (1842-1911) was the first woman admitted to M.I.T. and the first Richards and indirectly, in turn, of the latter's daughter, Laura woman to receive tenure on the M.I.T. faculty. There is now a Elizabeth (Richards) Wiggins, the subject of this tribute. His revival of interest in Ellen Henrietta (Swallow) Richards, for she methods in enabling Laura Bridgman, the blind and deaf-mute, is called the "founder of home economics." Her epitaph at Christ to read and to communicate reformed educational practice in the Church is moving: "Pioneer, Educator, Scientist, an earnest seeker, entire field as well as awakening international awareness that many a tireless worker, a faithful friend, and helper of mankind." victims of handicaps were full of potential and not insane. In order to learn new methods, he first went about blindfolded himself, 5 ANNE HALLOWELL GARDINER was born at the better to comprehend the situation of persons laboring under Boston 5 December 1807 and died at Paris, France 25 April disability. His maxim, "Obstacles are things to overcome," aroused 1878. She and Francis Richards were married at Gardiner, Maine the public imagination and enabled him to raise money to emboss 18 September 1832. books into the "Boston line" or "Howe type." His annual reports have been described as philosophic common sense put into clear, 6 SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE, M.D. was born at forcible English. One of his advisors, Horace Mann, remarked Boston, Massachusetts 10 November 1801 and died there in 1841: "I would rather have built up the Blind Asylum than have 9 January 1876. He received the degrees of A.B. in 1821 at Brown written Hamlet." University and M.D. in 1824 from Harvard Medical School. Few In turn, Dr. Howe supported Horace Mann to advance the cause lives have evinced such fervor in advancing the betterment of all of public schools and normal schools, personally visiting seven- humanity. Soon after his graduation from Harvard, he enlisted teen states to speak to the public. He pioneered in a related field: in the Patriot Army of Greece from 1824 through 1830 and in in training children once labeled idiots and demonstrated that the naval fleet of Greece from 1827 to 1830, serving as surgeon. human psychology offered much for their education and hope- Briefly returning to America in 1827, he raised funds for the relief fulness. He founded the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and of famine-stricken people in Greece. In 1830, he returned to Feeble-Minded Youth. He agitated for prison reform and the aiding Boston, upon Dr. Fisher's suggestion, and he founded the Perkins of discharged convicts. With Dorothea Dix, he raised public and Institute for the Blind, the property and foundation being private subscriptions for humanitarian care of the insane. His presented by Thomas Hansadyd Perkins, whose family, inciden- reports as chairman of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities tally, married twice into the descendants of Dr. Silvester Gardiner. from 1865 to 1874 outlined principles which now constitute the However, this work on the behalf of the blind was preceded orthodoxy of charity. With his wife, Julia Ward Howe, he was CO- by intense research. First, Dr. Howe visited Europe in 1831 to study editor of The Commonwealth, an important anti-slavery journal. the methods then prevailing in educating the blind. Old sym- His efforts to dismantle the slavery system were many, and varied, pathies caused further delay: Lafayette excited him to raise a including aid for John Brown, the foremost radical in the anti- detachment for the Polish Army. For this heroic act, the Prus- slavery movement. The reader shivers in reading the passage in sian government arrested and imprisoned him for six weeks before Three Saints and A Sinner evoking Julia Ward Howe's horrified sending him to the frontier of France, forbidding him ever to return fascination when she ushered John Brown through the front door to Prussia. of Green Peace, the Howe residence in Boston. 18 19 During the Civil War, through personal pleas in his behalf by of thought for others, combined with a vagueness concerning all his wife directly to Abraham Lincoln (Mrs. Wiggins delighted in points of morality, which would have been terrible in a man less sharing a birthday with Lincoln), Dr. Howe was appointed to the actively good than he was." Numerous books chronicle Sam, but Sanitary Commission which supervised medical facilities of the the one successful character analysis is Lately Thomas', Sam Ward: Union Army. He was vociferous in his disapproval of the methods King of the Lobby (1965). and conditions in the Union Army hospitals. Politics were no Turning to the three saints: Julia's sister, Louisa Cutler Ward forte of his: his aggressive personality inspired both love and fear. (1823-1897), first married the noted sculptor Thomas Crawford His proposals for reform in the medical system prevailed because (1813-1857) whose life is given in the Dictionary of American of his relentless crusade to see them placed into effect. While in Biography. Crawford was commissioned to complete the sculptural Greece, he bought Lord Byron's romantically fanciful helmet when decorations in the U.S. Capitol and to execute the bronze doors the poet's estate went to the auction block. Back in Boston, that on the Senate Wing. Their son, Francis Marion Crawford Byronic helmet was installed in a place of honor in the front hall, (1854-1909), named for the Revolutionary ancestor, General Francis serving as vivid metaphor of Dr. Howe's life: one career of knight- Marion (the Swamp Fox) was a noted novelist and the first author errantry extended into many fields. ever to earn over a million dollars solely from writing. His seduc- tion by Isabella Stewart Gardner forms a fascinating subplot in JULIA WARD (of Battle Hymn fame and during the Three Saints and A Sinner. Julia's youngest sister, Anne Eliza Ward 2 7 last decade of her life called "Queen of America") was born (1824-1895), married Adolph Mailliard (1819-1896) of Bordentown, at New York City 27 May 1819 and died at Boston 18 October New Jersey. Mailliard's father, private secretary to Jerome 1910. She and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe were married in New Bonaparte, former King of Spain, was actually King Jerome's il- York City 27 April 1843. Her daughter Laura E. Richards published legitimate son thereby making Mrs. Wiggins the grandniece by in 1915 a two-volume biography, Julia Ward Howe, the first marriage of the grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor biography ever to receive the Pulitzer Prize. of France. The Mailliard family of California has produced a Julia has overshadowed nearly all her family circle, but there distinguished line of public officials, including one American were other brilliant people in the Ward family. Her only surviv- congressman. ing brother. Samuel Ward IV (1814-1884) figures as the family Returning to the principal character of this dramatis personae: skeleton in Louise Hall Tharpe's Three Saints and A Sinner (1956). Julia Ward Howe grew up in the most brilliant circles of New York Sam is the fifth of five consecutive generations of Wards to be society. The Ward house on the corner of Bond Street and Broad- given main-heading entries in the Dictionary of American Biography, way, then considered uptown, is today in the heart of Manhat- extending back to his great-great-grandfather Governor Richard tan. The picture gallery was one of the most notable in the nation, Ward of Rhode Island. He was lionized in society, but his three and surely its carefully chosen art must have awakened genius business failures have caused him to be viewed as a disreputable in the young girl. Her urge for artistic expression came in writing character. Three careers of lobbyist, financier, and author seem poetry and romances; but, from early on, her aesthetic urge was contradictory in nature, but each brought him fortunes which always controlled by an ethical spirit. It surprised many in New he lost in succession. Fond dynastic hopes were raised when he York society that her husband was not one of the youths with married the granddaughter of John Jacob Astor, founder of the whom she had sung and danced, but that "piece of new England Astor fortune. His wife died, and the only daughter to survive granite" as brother Sam lampooned Dr. Howe. After marriage, to be married, was drawn into the Astor camp and estranged from Julia settled in Boston where her opportunities to sing and dance her Ward relations. His nephew F. Marion Crawford wrote to Julia lessened. She turned increasingly to the company of philosophers, on the occasion of Sam's death: "He died as he had lived, full poets, and Unitarians - virtually all the Massachusetts intellec- 21 20 tuals and reformers of the period became her close acquaintances. The public and private sides of Dr. Howe's personality were con- tradictory. In public, he promoted the most liberal, and at times, forthrightly radical causes of the day in behalf of the oppressed, downtrodden, poor, and handicapped. As shocking as it seems to us, he did not perceive women to be in any of the above categories. Married life to Dr. Howe meant that the wife should be a paragon of domestic efficiency. Julia Ward had once deliber- ately baked an awful pie when her father tried to convince her to become more domestic. Poetic justice (in more than one sense) had been served: punishment was that he had had to eat the wretched confection. Admonitions against women taking part in public life also impressed her very little. At seventeen she and a group of childhood friends had crashed an all-male dinner party given in honor of Charles Dickens. Julia Ward Howe's urge to publish embarrassed her husband, and he tried every means to discourage her. Thirty-three years of marriage were marked by storm and stress, and at times divorce seemed imminent. Somehow, the marriage survived. When Julia Ward Howe decided to write, she simply locked herself into the attic. The hovering wasps proved less distracting than her distracting family. The first book of verse which brought her some notice was Passion Flowers (1854). Several other volumes of poetry and drama, published before the Civil War, received only slight attention. Julia Ward Howe used her many connections in high places to promote her husband's proposed reforms in the medical system of the Union Army. She even badgered President Lincoln in per- son until he acceded to her demands (how could even the Presi- dent of the United States offend a connection of one of Wall Street's most powerful banking families?). While on one of these missions, she spent the night of 19 November 1861 in the Willard Julia Ward Howe Hotel in Washington, D.C. Sometime, during the wee hours, she rose from her bed, in near trance, to scribble a few verses. The next morning she mailed those verses to the Atlantic Monthly, receiving a mere four dollars for her efforts. Soon this poem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," brought her honors seldom bestowed upon any author. Whether the popularity of the poem is due to the long rolling cadence of the folk song or the hysteria of the moment, few times in history have some verses come SO 23 close in capturing the spirit of the moment as did the Battle Hymn. 8 JOHN RICHARDS was born at Hambledon, Hamp- In 1868 Julia Ward Howe allied herself with the New England shire, England 9 May 1768 and died at London 26 March Suffrage Association and became its first president. She also us- 1835. This bright young accountant, whose eye was on the main ed the association for the promotion of the peace movement, chance, attracted the attention of Thomas Baring and his brother various meetings culminating in the "World's Congress of Women Sir Francis Baring (later Lord Ashburton), the leading lights of in Behalf of International Peace" at New York City on 23 December Baring Brothers, the largest international banking house of the 1870. As Margarita S. Gerry in the Dictionary of American Biography day. John Richards resided in Gouldsboro, Maine; Boston, summarizes Julia Ward Howe's life: Massachusetts; and Hambledon, Hampshire, England; but, as his grandson Henry Richards explained: "It looks like a very long jump, No movement or "Cause" in which women were interested, but shrinks to a natural and obvious step when we see why he from suffrage, to pure milk for babies, could be launched with- came to take it." But first, it is necessary to trace the Bingham- out her. Her courage, her incisiveness and quickness of repartee, Baring connection across the Atlantic. her constructive power, the completeness of her conviction ac- William Bingham (1752-1804), the banker-merchant of companied by a balance of mind, and a sense of humor that Philadelphia, acquired one of the largest fortunes in America. dis-armed irritation made her the greatest of women organizers. Bingham, whose wealth was based upon banking and real estate speculation, extended his investments to cover two million acres Five of her six children are either in the Dictionary of American in Maine just at the time when his credit was stretched to the Biography or married to individuals given main headings therein. limit. Bingham signed promissory notes to the General Court of They were, besides Laura E. Richards of whom much is written Massachusetts to pay installments over a decade while the deeds earlier in this tribute; Florence Marion Howe Hall (1845-1922), were to be held in escrow. Having already invested a considerable author and lecturer; Henry Marion Howe (1848-1922) whose down payment which would be forfeited if he did not continue Metallurgy of Steel (1890) remains the standard reference on the to pay the notes, Bingham devised a very clever strategem: he mar- subject; her son-in-law John Elliott (1858-1925), painter and close ried his two daughters off to the Baring brothers and then ap- relative of Robert Louis Stevenson, the novelist; and son-in-law, pealed to his new in-laws for financial backing. His sons-in-law Michael Anagnos (1837-1906) who succeeded Dr. Howe as the shrewdly realized that should they recover the loan, only a trusted director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind. agent of their own must supervise the sale of land and send the proceeds directly to London. Again, quoting his grandson: "The stage was set for an agent. Enter John Richards V to act in that capacity." After fulfilling his contract for the Barings, John Richards established himself as a merchant in Boston, residing on Chestnut Street. Here he was a friend of Gilbert Stuart who painted him in a Byronic pose. After the panic of 1817 he returned to England and lived with his sisters at North House. Much of his cor- respondence as well as reproductions of his, his wife's, and father- in-law's portraits are published in William S. Allis, William Bingham's Maine Lands (2 vols.; Boston: The Colonial Society, 1954). 25 24 9 SUSAN COFFINJONES born 3 February 1783 and rent. This one action, more than any other, pushed Gardiner into died in England 1870. Quoting her grandson Henry the vanguard of settlement and brought prosperity to the region. Richards: The first Robert Hallowell Gardiner was greatly interested in agriculture and developed a model farm by introducing superior Judge Jones's third daughter, was growing to the fulness of breeds of animals, improved machinery, and valuable fruits and grace, beauty and charm which we see in her early miniature, grains. He fostered agricultural societies and promoted education when John Richards received his appointment as agent for the of youth in agriculture by establishing the Gardiner Lyceum, the Bingham estate and went to live in Gouldsborough. There was first vocational school in the nation. As a leader in missionary nothing but a trail for horse-riders between Gouldsbourough and educational work of the Episcopal Church, he donated the and Machias, and it must have been well worn by John before granite from his quarry in Litchfield and commissioned the ser- friendship with the Judge opened the door for true love to enter. vices of the noted architect, the Reverend Samuel Farmer Jarvis of New York City, to build an impressive gothic structure to be John Richards and Susan Coffin Jones were married at Gouldsboro called Christ Church. Today, that church is recognized by architec- 19 January 1800. tural historians as the fourth Gothic Revival church built in New England. He loaned the parish $11,000 of the requisite $15,000 10 ROBERT HALLOWELL GARDINER I, first to construct the church. Because the parish could not repay the of six generations of men SO named, was born in Bristol, loan, he cancelled that debt in his will. At Christ Church, he Gloucestershire, England 10 February 1782 during the time when started one of the first, if not the first, church schools in the na- his parents were living there as Tory refugees, and died at Gar- tion. With Simon Greenleaf, the renowned jurist of Harvard Law diner, Maine 22 March 1864 where he is buried under a Gothic School, he was co-founder of the Diocese of Maine and represented spire designed by Richard Upjohn in the Christ Church church- the diocese at General Convention for many years, bearing the yard. His surname at birth was Hallowell, but under the terms expense out of his own pocket. On the south wall of the church, of his maternal grandfather's will, he was required to change his over the organ console, the parish erected a marble tablet in his name to Gardiner in order to inherit the Gardiner estate, originally honor which reads in part: "to attest their grateful reverence for consisting of 100,000 acres on the Kennebec River. Robert Hallowell Gardiner from youth to age; their leader, benefac- In January 1802, upon the eve of his majority, he petitioned tor and godly example." the General Court of Massachusetts to change his name to Gar- When the town of Gardiner was set off from Pittston in 1803, diner, and having accomplished that objective, he set out to enter it was named in his honor; and when the town received a charter upon his inheritance. To make good his claim was quite another elevating it to the status of city in 1849, he was elected first mayor. matter. Arriving at his Cobbossee Estate as he called present-day Other gifts and actions indicate his public spirit. He gave the Com- Gardiner, he found the mills, dams, wharves and buildings in mon to the people of Gardiner. When he joined the Episcopal disrepair and the land invaded by over eighty squatters. With great Church (then known as St. Anne's), he presented to the parish resolution, he restored the mills and other commercial properties the silver communion service. He founded the Gardiner Savings and negotiated with the squatters, allowing them to claim equity Institution, the second oldest in the state, and served as its presi- for improvements which they had already made upon the land. dent until his death. He subscribed liberally to the building of He broke his grandfather's entail in order to acquire fee-simple steam boats and helped finance the railroad when it approached title to his Cobbossee Estate, thereby allowing him to confer perfect the Kennebec Valley. His last surviving great-grandchild was Mrs. land titles upon potential settlers who would not have settled in Wiggins. She was a unique link to the past and to that man who the region if they had to limit the interest in the land to paying did SO much to aid virtually every early enterprise in the region. 26 27 The end of Dresden Avenue recedes into a baronial estate of He was survived by five children including, eighth, Robert near fairy-tale quality. Robert Hallowell Gardiner I reserved three Hallowell Gardiner VI (born 1944) formerly Director of the Bureau hundred and ten acres for his personal estate in South Gardiner of Public Lands and now President of WCBB, the public televi- along the Kennebec River. He asked a Boston friend who had sion station and his son, ninth, Alexander Marsh Gardiner. a "practiced eye" to visit him and to help him select a prepossess- ing vista. Robert Hallowell Gardiner and John Richards who, as 11 EMMA JANE TUDOR was born in Boston 10 we now know, in the course of time became two of the great- March 1785 and died at Gardiner, Maine 24 June 1865. grandfathers of Mrs. Wiggins, climbed up into a series of trees The mother of nine, she found time to give occasional expres- to scan the countryside. Finally, they selected a grove of oak to sion to her considerable artistic talent and judgment, evidence be the site of the family mansion: Oaklands, the family seat with of which exists in the drawing she executed of the first neo-classical excellent landscaping possibilities. The first Oaklands burned in building at Oaklands and the design of the beautiful hall and stairs 1834, and the present Tudor Revival mansion was built in 1835-37. of the present Oaklands. It was she who decreed that the parlors Richard Upjohn, recently arrived from England, projected all his at Oaklands should open into one another. She and Robert imagination into erecting a romantic edifice such as was the Hallowell Gardiner I were married at Boston 25 June 1805. fashionable rage of the English gentry. This mansion of dressed stone walls and chimney pots is exuberantly embellished with a 12 JOSEPH NEALS HOWE was baptised at Boston rectangular hip roof, hooded window mouldings, and turrets. The 5 April 1772 and died at Milton, Massachusetts 28 estate also has always maintained successful dairy operations, and February 1847. Notably businesslike and frugal, he decided to send a long succession of cattle have taken blue ribbons at the best but one son to college. Sam was chosen because he read aloud shows. best from the big family Bible. And, Brown University was selected Nine generations of Gardiners have been associated with the because it was less under Federalist influence than Harvard. Kennebec valley: first, Dr. Silvester Gardiner (1708-1786), second, his daughter Hannah (Gardiner) Hallowell (1743-1796), third, her 13 PATTY GRIDLEY was born at Boston in 1775 and son Robert Hallowell Gardiner I (1782-1864), who was father of, died there 26 March 1819. She and Joseph Neals Howe fourth, Robert Hallowell Gardiner II (1809-1886). Because the se- were married at Boston 11 September 1794. cond Robert Hallowell Gardiner died childless, the eldest son of his brother, Colonel John William Tudor Gardiner (1817-1879) namely, fifth, Robert Hallowell Gardiner III (1855-1924), who as 14 SAMUEL WARD III was born at Warwick, Rhode founder of the World Conference on Faith and Order is com- Island 1 May 1786 and died at New York City 27 memorated by a tablet on the south wall of Christ Church, suc- November 1839. At the age of fourteen, he began to clerk in the ceeded to the Oaklands estate. His eldest son in turn was, sixth, leading New York banking house of Prime and Sands, founded Robert Hallowell Gardiner IV (1882-1944). A younger brother of by Comfort Sands, then regarded as the richest man in New York the fourth Robert Hallowell Gardiner was General William Tudor City. In 1808 when he was only twenty-two, he became partner Gardiner (1892-1953), Governor of Maine. The eldest son of the and soon afterwards became president of the firm, renaming it fourth Robert Hallowell Gardiner was, seventh, Robert Hallowell Prime, Ward, and King. During the financial panic of 1837, Ward Gardiner V (1914-1984), chief executive officer of Fiduciary Trust was primarily responsible in pressing the State of New York not Company in Boston. Of him, Robert E. L. Strider, President of to repudiate its debts. Through expert organization, he secured Colby College Emeritus, remarked: "Mr. Gardiner was the very a loan in 1838 of five million dollars in gold bars from the Bank essence of the Boston patrician who gave himself to public service." of England which enabled the New York banks to resume specie 28 29 payments. In 1839 he founded and became the first president of the most desirable events of the social season. The latter was the the Bank of Commerce in New York, the first financial institu- ultimate refinement of his modus operandi: he compiled the list tion to be incorporated under an act passed by the New York of Society's 400 to abet Mrs. Astor in her schemes in keeping the legislature in April 1838 allowing associations of individuals to elite untainted by upstarts. Ward McAllister broke the list into engage in the banking business. The ancestor firm of Prime, Ward, categories: those who were invited to Mrs. Astor's dinners as and King, founded by Comfort Sands, was the first financial in- distinguished from those merely invited to her Annual Ball. stitution on the street which is now the nerve center of interna- Another nineteen were listed as "contingent inner circle," twenty- tional investment: Wall Street. six were "star members inner circle fringe," forty-nine were "plain After his wife's death, Ward gave up smoking, became a devoted inner circle fringe," and one hundred fifty-six were fringe to plain churchgoer, frowned upon fashionable entertainment, and gave inner circle fringe." The self-assured, confident Julia Ward Howe freely to the missions and educational institutions of the Episcopal who moved with ease in any social circle, often harangued her Church. In 1830, he was one of the principal founders of the cousin Ward McAllister for his frivolous pursuits. Despite repeated University of the City of New York of which he was first treasurer. requests that Cousin Julia should grace his fetes champetres at His picture gallery at his Bond Street residence was one of the Newport, she, much to her credit, always snubbed this greatest most notable private collections then in the nation. of snobs. 15 JULIA RUSH CUTLER was born at Jamaica 16 JOHN RICHARDS V was baptised at Edmonton, Plain, Massachusetts 1797 and died at New York City county Middlesex, England 4 March 1737 and died at 11 November 1824. She and Samuel Ward III were married at Hambledon, Hampshire, England 27 July 1819, owned the estate Trinity Church, Boston, on 9 October 1812. Had she lived longer, of North House, Catherington in Hambledon, Hampshire, her promise as a poet might have been realized, but at the age England. His portrait by Slater is described by Henry Richards of twenty-seven, she died from puerperal (childbed) fever. Her por- in Ninety Years On: trait hanging in the North Parlor at the Yellow House shows her Of all the family portraits, the one of my great-grandfather to indeed be the captivating damsel who set New York society seems to me the finest, not only as a work of art, but because ablaze when her mother moved to Gotham City to launch her of the man it portrays SO vividly. I used to sit opposite the pic- daughters. Her brother, the Reverend Benjamin Clark Cutler ture, as it hung in the dining room at 85 Pickney Street, and (1798-1863), acquired some degree of fame as rector of St. Ann's without conscious thought something always stirred within me Church in Brooklyn, New York. Her sister Charlotte Cutler mar- as I looked at him, not as a picture, but as a real man. ried the Honorable Matthew Hall McAllister (1800-1865), United There he sat with horn spectacles on his nose looking SO States Circuit Judge for California. full of thought, SO intellectual, and SO benevolent and kindly They were parents of the most outrageous snob ever to be born that I felt almost as if I had jumped back two generations and in America, Ward McAllister (1827-1895). After obtaining a for- he were a living presence. It is plain to see in his portrait that he was one of the strong men in our line. All I know of him tune from the practice of law in California during the Gold Rush, is that he managed a large landed estate most successfully, that Ward McAllister settled in the promised land of New York City he had intelligent appreciation of art, and that he showed in- where he became the self-appointed arbiter of the social world. terest in sports as a patron of the celebrated Hambledon Cricket In his own belief, a social career was an end sufficient in itself. Club, often champion of England. His chief triumphs in New York were the "Patriarchs" and "Society's 400." The former were a group of representatives from the oldest MARIA DOWNMAN died at Hambledon, New York families, organized to exclude nouveaux riches from 17 Hampshire, England 11 November 1826. 30 31 18 (Judge) STEPHEN JONES was born in that part 20 ROBERT HALLOWELL was born at Boston Jul of Falmouth, now Portland, Maine 28 January 1739 and 1739 and died there 23 April 1818. He received a mei died at Boston in 1826 where he is buried in the Richards tomb cantile education and assisted his father in his extensive busines in the Granary Burying Ground, Boston. Jonesport, Maine was interests until he was appointed Collector of Customs at Port named in honor of his first-cousin, John Coffin Jones, a very suc- smouth, New Hampshire before the Revolution. Upon his mai cessful merchant in Boston. In 1819 and 1820, Judge Jones, in a riage in 1772, he was appointed Collector of Customs in Bosto series of letters to his daughter Sarah, undertook to recall the prin- where he served until Boston was evacuated in March 1776. Flee cipal events of his life. The letters were reworked into a connected ing first to Nova Scotia, he later took up residence at Bristo narrative and published as "Autobiography of Stephen Jones," in Gloucestershire, England. His son characterized his temporar Sprague's Journal of Maine History 3(5) (April 1916):199-218. This exile: he "from the grace and amenity of his manners soon mad account by the great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Wiggins at one leap friends who procured for him various small agencies which enable takes us back two and a half centuries to the time that Judge Jones him with strict economy to support his family and educate hi lost his father in 1745 at the siege of Louisburg. In 1757 he enlisted children." He returned to Boston in February 1792 to settle th in Colonel Fry's regiment to serve in yet another war against the estates of his father and father-in-law. French and the Indians, the Seven Years War. His account of the army's trek across the wilderness to Ticonderoga, Fort Edward, 21 HANNAH GARDINER was born at Boston 18 and Lake Champlain is very much like the grueling experiences July 1743 and died there 9 February 1796. She and found in Kenneth Roberts' Northwest Passage. Although Judge Robert Hallowell were married at Boston 7 January 1772. Obvious Jones lacked formal education and was subjected to great priva- ly beautiful, she has come down in history as "handsome Han tions in childhood, his keen intelligence and even keener power nah Gardiner." She formed a large circle of friends in Bristol, and of observation found forcible expression, and surely his daughter was grief stricken when the family re-established residence ir found few matters to edit in his writings. America. By 1765 he had settled in Machias, Maine where he built the first mill. He, like other Machias citizens took a vigorous part in the American Revolution. Upon the incorporation of Washington 22 (Judge) WILLIAM TUDOR was born at Boston 28 March 1750 and died there 8 July 1819. He graduated County on 25 June 1789, he became chief justice of the court from Harvard in 1769 and entered the office of John Adams, the of common pleas and judge of the probate court. Many notables future president of the United States, to study law. When the sought out Judge Jones when they explored the Maine frontier: Revolution came, Adams recommended Tudor to be George Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the United States Treasury; General Washington's secretary while the Continental Army was at Cam- Rufus Putnam, Revolutionary hero and land agent; and Talleyrand, bridge. He soon after received appointment to be Judge Advocate Prime Minister of France. His great-grandson Henry Richards con- of the American Army. After the war, he returned to his exten- sidered the portrait of Judge Jones to be one of the finest ever sive practice of law in Boston. In his office a succession of law executed by Gilbert Stuart. It is a memorable character study. He clerks, who later became distinguished public figures, studied under married August 1772. him: Fisher Ames, statesman and renowned orator; Josiah Quin- cy, holder of many public offices and first mayor of Boston; and Isaac Parker, Chief Justice of Massachusetts. He was one of the 19 SARAH BARNARD was born at Deerfield, leading spirits in annexing Dorchester Heights to Boston in Massuchusetts 25 March 1742 and died at Machias, preparation to the building of the South Boston Bridge, a signifi- Maine 24 May 1820. cant factor in the commercial expansion of Boston. He relished 32 33 28 SAMUEL WARD II was born at Westerly, Rhode County. He has been described as a descendant of the early Ne Island 17 November 1756 and graduated with honors England settlers, but not much of a Puritan himself. A "genia from one of the early classes (1771) at Rhode Island College (now handsome man much given to hospitality" when he married Sara Brown University) of which institution his father had signed the Mitchell, Benjamin had few worldly goods left at his death in 181 charter of incorporation six years previously in 1765. He married at Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. The appraiser of his estate coul at Warwick, Rhode Island 8 March 1778 his first cousin. At the find only the rambling old Jamaica Plain house and the expecta outbreak of the American Revolution, he was quick to answer tion of a legacy from his rich uncle. Sarah Mitchell was SO "pro the call of arms. He was commissioned captain of the First Rhode strate with grief" at his death that their eldest daughter Eliza wa Island Regiment in 1775 and marched to Quebec with Benedict taken out of school to bring up the younger children. Arnold where he was taken prisoner 31 December 1775 (his father then serving at Philadelphia in the Continental Congress died before news of this capture filtered back to the family). Promoted 31 SARAH MITCHELL whose life started on the fabulously rich Allston rice plantation in Charleston to the rank of major in January 1777, he endured with Washington South Carolina was the heroine of a tragicomedy. She remembered the hardships of the winter 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. In 1779 he many servants and grand entertaining. She moved into the high was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel after his regi- society of Georgetown at sixteen when marrying Dr. Hyrne, but ment tried to oust the British from Newport. was first widowed four years later. Her income, a "pittance," she In 1781 he retired from the military on half pay at the ripe old called it, failed to carry her through fits of extravagance. No legacy age of twenty-five. With more than fifty years for a career stretch- received from her family or her husband's ever met her expecta- ing out before him, he sought his fortune in New York City. tion. Furthermore, Benjamin's rich Cutler uncle set up a genera- Although he was in partnership with his brother, he frankly ad- tion-skipping trust and left all to her son, a very pious and sober mitted that he could maintain better relations with the family Episcopal rector in Brooklyn, New York, an individual of marked if he and they were settled in different states. His mercantile in- character contrast with her own. terests required global travel and he was one of the first Americans Sarah presided at the birth of her first grandchild Samuel Ward to visit Canton, China (1788). Though his profile in public life IV (the Sinner) who, incidentally, inherited all her wit and social was less visible than those of his grandfather, father, and son, his charm, according to the family. She required all the smelling salts, commercial wisdom and scholarly interests gained him wide however, and took sips of brandy SO often that there was hardly respect. He became a member of the Cincinnati in 1784, was time to look after the young mother in childbed. It is hardly sur- elected to the Annapolis Convention in 1786, was president of prising that the Ward family in New York kept her in Boston the New York Marine Insurance Company in 1806 to 1808, and oblivious to subsequent births in the family. was one of Rhode Island's representatives to the Hartford Con- A penniless gentlewoman, Sarah was seen by New York Society vention in 1814. He died at Jamaica, Long Island, 16 August 1832. as a gold-digger. Nevertheless, she moved to New York to launch her daughters into society. She saw her first duty as the marry- 29 PHEBE GREEN who was born at Warwick, Rhode ing off of her daughters as soon and as well as possible. Her prefer- Island 20 March 1760 and died at New York City 11 red modus operandi would have been to launch them in October 1828. genealogical sequence. Alas! Second daughter, the captivating Julia, turned serious banker Sam into a poet who wrote her verses try- 30 BENJAMIN CLARK CUTLER was born at ing to put into words just what had charmed him. Because elder Boston 15 September 1756. For many years he was a daughter Eliza with poor teeth and hair-moles on her face pos- merchant in Boston and for a time High Sheriff of Norfolk sessed a razor-edged wit, she waited long before finding a man 36 37 who wanted a perfect housekeeper. When Julia was wed in 1812, the class systems of continental Europe as social historians O Eliza danced at the wedding in stocking feet, paying the forfeit England are quick to point out: for being the elder unwed sister. She danced a second time in It was a decisive step up, for several of his sons are recorded stocking feet when sister Louisa married Matthew Hall McAllister. as 'gentlemen,' which shows that the taint of the soil, as it was Gossip in New York society held that the Ward family physician then regarded, was very quickly shaken off. 'Up from the soil' Dr. John Wakefield Francis was trying to get married. One patient was then considered a worthy aspiration. Now 'back to the soil' of his, Edgar Allan Poe, described the doctor's odd way with is held up to us as a Utopian aspiration. women. "He pats every lady on the head, and (if she is pretty and petite) designates her by some such title as 'my pocket edition of The fifth son of Henry and Dorothy (Pease) Richards was James the Lives of the Saints!' Saintly Eliza was, but late in life she weigh- Richards whose eldest son heads this entry. The family, over ed over two hundred pounds - she was therefore an encyclopedia generations, as they became firmly entrenched in the ranks O rather than a pocket edition when she became Mrs. Doctor Hampshire gentry in southern England, established the other Francis. notable estates of Cadlington House at Horndean and Moreland Cottage at Purbrook, both also in Hampshire. Epithets redolent 32 JOHN RICHARDS, a merchant of London who of Homer memorialize many in the Richards pedigree: Anne of carried on an extensive shipping trade with Spain and the Red Hair, John II the Spanish merchant (who endowed the her colonies, established the great estate of North House from Grammar School at Silverton), John IV of the Horned Rims, and four Hampshire farms. Here in Hambledon, site of the famous John VI the Silent. cricket matches, the next four generations of heads of family suc- Two alliances with families in the peerage capped the family's ceeded one another as Lords of the Manor. He died in 1732. His rise through the ranks of the gentry, although no male member great-grandfather was the first of the family to leave written traces, of the Richards race was ever seated in the House of Lords. The and with him the pedigree begins. Of this James Richards, his Reverend Richard John Richards, Vicar of Hambledon, Hamp. eighth-generation grandson, Henry of Yellow House remarked: shire, married Susan, elder daughter of Henry (1753-1836) Second Lord Viscount Hood, related by blood to other members of the James is a farmer when he first comes within our ken - just peerage, namely the Hood Barons Bridport and the Fuller-Acland- that and nothing more - but was recorded as a yeoman. Slight Hood Barons St. Audries. In this century Francis Ashburner as this change in class may seem to us, it was a big step up Richards married Lillian Grey, grandniece of Charles, Second Earl for James and his numerous descendants, and marks the point at which we emerge from the soil. Grey, the Prime Minister of England for whom the Earl Grey tea is named. This proto-ancestor married Wilmot Digon at Exeter, Devonshire 31 March 1632, the first date in the family muniments. Henry DOROTHY GALLIARD, daughter of Joshua of Yellow House continued: "But I have great respect for James 33 Galliard. and his wife, and hope some future daughter of their house may be given the name of Wilmot." His son Henry was described as a gentleman when he married 34 Not traced. Dorothy Pease. Again Henry of Yellow House took into account that peculiarly fluid nature of English society wherein successive generations can pave the way for the rise and future greatness 35 Not traced. of a family, in small imperceptible steps, steps rigidly excluded in 39 38 36 STEPHEN JONES born at Weston, Massachusetts setts, about whom more later. The Barnard family was founded 17 August 1709 and in 1730 settled in that part of in America by Joseph's father Francis, a maltster at Hartford, Con- Falmouth, now Portland, Maine. He was commissioned Captain necticut in 1644. Francis briefly settled in Deerfield in 1673 but in the French and Indian War and sent by the Governor of was driven back to the earlier frontier of Hadley during King Philip's Massachusetts to subdue the marauding Indians. At Minas, now War where he died in 1698, age eighty-one. One particularly notable Horton, Nova Scotia, in a blinding snowstorm, he mistook an Barnard descendant was Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard (1809- enemy raiding party for returning scouts, opened his cabin door 1899) president of Columbia and founder of Barnard College. and was shot dead on the night of 7 January 1746, leaving besides A special description is in order about the Strong family and a widow, two sons and two daughters destitute orphans. He was their relations through the Fords because they have produced an great-grandson of Lewis Jones the emigrant from England who unusually high percentage of notables in America through many settled in Watertown, Massachusetts by 1643 where at that date lines, not necessarily named Strong. Through this Strong con- his son Josiah was born. This son settled in Watertown Farms nection, Mrs. Wiggins was a cousin of the future Queen of England which, when it was set off from the parent town, became Weston. (Lady Diana Spencer now the Princess of Wales) besides Lyman Josiah was captain of one of the three militia companies in town Beecher (1775-1863), his brother Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) and elected deacon of the church from 1709 till his death in 1714. and the latter's daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896). Also His son Nathaniel (1674-1745) was the father of Stephen Jones in the ranks of this remarkable progeny are Richard Byrd who heads this paragraph. He married at Weston, Massachusetts (1888-1957), discoverer of the South Pole; Walter Chauncey Camp 31 July 1735 his first-cousin. (1859-1925), the Yale football coach; Charles Gates Dawes (1865- 1951), vice-president of the United States under Coolidge; Ad- 37 LYDIA JONES who was born at Weston, Massachu- miral George Dewey (1837-1917); Zelda (Sayre) Fitzgerald, wife of setts 17 December 1710, daughter of James and Sarah the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald; Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), (Moore) Jones. writer of the Perry Mason series; Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) of Fenway Court; the sister actresses, Lillian (b. 1896) 38 JOSEPH BARNARD was born at Deerfield, and Dorothy Gish (1898-1968); Edward Everett Hale (1822-1907), Massachusetts 22 February 1717 and died there 19 author of Man Without a Country; Nathan Hale (1755-1776), the December 1785. He was commissioned captain in the French and martyr spy of the American Revolution; Donald Lines Jacobus Indian Wars in 1759 but was generally known as "Ensign Barnard." (1887-1970), father of scholarly genealogy in America; Henry Cabot Having served in several campaigns in the Indian wars, he returned Lodge II (born 1902); J.P. Morgan (1837-1913); Levi Parsons Mor- to town in 1763 and received a large estate for life from his Uncle ton (1824-1920), vice-president of the U.S. under Benjamin Har- Samuel on which he built a large mansion known as Willard rison; Walter Loomis Newberry (1805-1868), founder of the House. He imported goods inland from Salem by teams, employed Newberry Library; Frederick Law Olmstead (1822-1903), first people weaving duck for the maritime trade, and was selectman notable landscape architect; Benjamin Spock (born 1903), pediatri- and treasurer of the town for fifteen years. cian and author; Lowell Thomas (1892-1981), travel author and His father Ebenezer, a clothier of Deerfield, was son of Joseph media commentator; Bess Wallace Truman, First Lady; A.A. Barnard, foremost citizen in the settlement of Deerfield. A tailor Lawrence (1814-1886), founder of Lawrence University and the and surveyor, he was wounded by Indians at Indian Bridge 18 Right Reverend William Lawrence (1850-1941), his son, Bishop of August 1695 and died of his wounds 18 September 1695. He mar- Massachusetts; John D. Rockefeller IV (born 1937), and the screen ried 13 January 1675 Sarah Strong, daughter of Elder John Strong actress, Brooke Shields (born 1965). Joseph Barnard married 25 (1619-1699) and Abigail (Ford) Strong of Northampton, Massachu- September 1740. 40 41 39 THANKFUL SHELDON who was born at Deer- number 20 above in this list of ancestors, had issue of only one field, Massachusetts 5 November 1719 and died there son, Robert, who upon the attainment of his legal majority was 3 November 1772. The Sheldons were another founding family required to change his name to Gardiner. Therefore, the entire of Deerfield, Massachusetts, and other notables in American family of Hallowell now bear three different names, i.e. Gardiner, history connect with them. As with the Barnards, their descen- Carew, and Boylston, although the male lineage continues and dants included the Beecher family and Levi Parsons Morton, noted thrives. One other very important connection of the Hallowell above. Other Sheldon connections include Humphrey Bogart family must be mentioned. Sarah Hallowell, born at Boston 24 (1899-1957), the actor; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady; Henry February 1727, daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Briggs) Augustus Rowland (1848-1901), noted physicist; Olivia Langdon, Hallowell, married at Boston 1 February 1747 Samuel Vaughan. wife of Mark Twain; Pierre du Pont IV (born 1935), Governor From this marriage, the distinguished Vaughan family of Hallowell, of Delaware; Frank Woolworth (1852-1919) of the chain stores, and Maine is descended. Their history, SO extensive, is well beyond Nancy Reagan, the present First Lady. the scope of this present work. 40 BENJAMIN HALLOWELL for whom the city of Hallowell, Maine is named, was born at Boston 20 41 REBECCA BRIGGS born at Boston 30 June 1699, daughter of William and Mary (Dyer) Briggs, grand- January 1699, the son of Benjamin and Mary (Stocker) Hallowell daughter of John Briggs and great-granddaughter of William Briggs, of Boston and grandson of William Hallowell, the emigrant from the emigrant from England. She died in London in 1795 as a England. From 1650, the Hallowells were firmly established in Loyalist refugee. One anecdote bordering upon the realm of the Boston. It is from this Benjamin who died at Boston in January incredulous has come down, and is certainly consistent with the 1773 that all the descendants of distinction stem. Benjamin was hardiness suggested by the long span of her life. She had been extensively engaged in shipbuilding, in fishing on the banks of paralyzed by a stroke and for two weeks lay unconscious, her life Newfoundland, and in foreign commerce. He was one of the larger being sustained by oysters taken without exertion upon her part. shareholders in the Kennebec Purchase. His extensive estate in She recovered her faculties and accompanied her son Benjamin Boston included several acres on the water front, extending from to London during the Loyalist flight from Boston. Her grandson, Liberty Square to Fort Hill. He was agent for the Royal Navy in Robert Hallowell Gardiner, believed this tale to be true. Doubtless Boston and an original subscriber to the fund for the erection it is. of King's Chapel. His eldest son Benjamin (1724-1799), whose por- trait is now at Colby College as a gift of the Vaughan family of Maine, married Mary Boylston, and their eldest son Ward was 42 DR. SILVESTER GARDINER, born at King- ston, Rhode Island 29 June 1708 and soon after the required to change his name to Boylston in order to inherit the conclusion of his exile in England died at Newport, Rhode Island Boylston estate. Boylston Hall at Harvard and Boylston Avenue 8 August 1786. Silvester was the son of William and Abigail (Rem- in Boston are named for him and his descendants. ington) Gardiner. Members of his mother's family, the Remingtons, The fourth Benjamin Hallowell, son of Benjamin and Mary included the manufacturers of typewriters and firearms as well (Boylston) Hallowell became Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell as Frederic Remington (1861-1909), painter of the Great American (1760-1834) and distinguished himself in the Royal Navy. In order West. This William Gardiner was the son of Benoni and Mary to inherit a vast landed estate in England from his first-cousin- (Eldred) Gardiner and grandson of George Gardiner (died 1667), once-removed, Anne (Hallowell) Gould, wife of Lt. Colonel Sir the emigrant from England who settled in 1635 at Aquidneck, C.C. Gould, Baronet, he like his Gould cousins, was required to now Newport, Rhode Island. From George descended a prolific change his name to Carew. Robert Hallowell (1739-1818), see stock of prosperous farmers and community leaders. It remained 42 43 for Silvester of the fourth generation to raise the name to national The Pilgrims exploited the fur trade in the Kennebec Patent until eminence. the beaver population died out, at which point they no longer Cemented into the southeast wall at Christ Church in Gar- saw the land as an asset. Accordingly, on 27 October 1661 they diner, Maine is a black marble cenotaph, lettered in gold, ter- sold it to four Bostonians for £400. These solid members of the minating in three pointed arches, and looking down to the bap- rising merchant class were Antipas Boyes, Edward Tyng, Thomas tismal font. The font was given to the parish in loving memory Brattle, and John Winslow. To Boston investors, the Kennebec of an infant who died in 1888, a great-great-great-grandson of the Valley boded land with rising values and immediate profits in man commemorated in the marble cenotaph. Both bore the same timber, especially mast trees for the Royal Navy. However, the name: Silvester Gardiner. The long Latin inscription in gold let- hopes of 1661 were soon dashed. In 1675 Indians, abetted by the ters reads in part: "Atque haec loca habintantibus pater-patriae French in Quebec, drove the settlers from the once advancing duti porfecto meruit" (translation: and by the inhabitants of these frontier of Maine. For nearly a century, the interior was deserted. parts has richly deserved to be called father of the land). Why Finally after seven major eruptions of warfare, known collective- does Silvester Gardiner deserve to be called "father of the land," ly as the Colonial Wars, the British emerged triumphant. that is to say the leading light in settling the Kennebec Valley? By 1759, the French had been beaten everywhere: the British To understand the beginnings of settlement in the Kennebec Empire had been created, an empire rich beyond all dreams. The Valley, it is necessary to flash back quickly to the Pilgrims of year 1759 became the Annus Mirabilis, the year of miracles. Near- Plymouth Colony. Their colony's enterprise was doomed to sure ly every day dispatches to London brought news of another vic- economic collapse within the first decade without help from tory in the course of the Seven Years' War. Some skirmishes con- England. Isaac Allerton, in seeking influence at the English court, tinued until Montreal fell on 6 September 1760. The peace trea- obtained "a patente for a fitt trading place in the river Kennebec." ty signed in 1763 cleared the stage. The French and the Indians This hoped-for grant was described as: were no longer actors in the theater of settlement. One principal actor was needed to be the presiding genius over the Kennebec's all that Tract of land or part of New England Which lyeth settlement. All requisite energies and talents presented themselves Within or between and Extendesth itself form the Utmost Limits of Cobbiseconte, alias Comisseconte, Which Adjoineth in the person of Dr. Silvester Gardiner. Again, we have gotten to the River of Kennebeckike, towards the Western Ocean, and ahead of the story line. The early life and character of Dr. Gar- a lace called the Falls, at Neguamkike diner must be sketched. and the Space of Fif- teen English Miles on Each Side of the said River Commonly Silvester Gardiner, a delicate youth of scholarly inclinations, Called Kennebecke that Lies Within the Said Limits, and was not destined to follow his ancestors as prosperous Rhode Island bounds Eastward, Westward, Northward, or Southward. farmers. Through the influence of his tutor (and eventually his brother-in-law) the Reverend James McSparran, he was launch- Precise terms of this grant had to be interpreted by recourse to ed into an academic career in Boston. Later his father advanced endless litigation, but stated in broad outline, this Plymouth Patent, him his share of the patrimony to study in Paris, then the only later called the Kennebec Purchase, consisted of one and a half place in the world to secure a first class medical education. Return- million acres of land, extending from the northern limits of Bath ing to Boston, he quickly rose to the top of his profession because to the northern boundary of Cornville above Skowhegan and of two fortunate circumstances: first, he was the only surgeon in east to west fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec River. Dr. Boston with a European diploma; and secondly, he secured all Silvester Gardiner owned a one-tenth interest in the patent, mak- the necessary social connections by marrying the only daughter ing his the second largest in the company. But we are getting ahead of the leading physician of Boston who was near retirement. A of ourselves. bright young man with his eye on the main chance, he invested 44 45 the proceeds from his professional practice into an import house in a tribute booklet, Henry Richards 1848-1949, wrote of Dr. Gar- for medical supplies and pharmaceutics. Because of his aggressive diner: "For a vast territory he became a sort of feudal lord; a com- nature and expertise, he made his company a virtual monopoly bination of supreme court justice and father confessor, a law-giving in New England. Now a permanent resident of Boston, whose and colonizing Moses. Hewing forests, building dams and mills, personal fortune was swelling to spectacular heights, he invested making new settlements, he was of the stuff of which legends are with his colleagues in Boston who were trying to revive the old made." Legend he is. Liberal historians tend to cast him as a Plymouth Patent, soon to be renamed the Kennebec Company. forerunner of the robber barons of the nineteenth century, an Dr. Silvester Gardiner was the one man in Boston with the individual whose tactics and methods would have proven instruc- acumen to meet the immense challenge of untangling the con- tive to those very robber barons. Viewing Dr. Gardiner in his fused affairs of the company. Anyone who attempted to put the own regional context, the Kennebec Valley, it is impossible to en- affairs aright would surely clash with rival claimants. The rare com- vision the settlement without some presiding genius. Dr. Gardiner bination needed at this time, money, executive ability to organize sat for John Singleton Copley, and that famous portrait heads complex details, unbridled fervor to bring Maine under Anglican off the procession of gallants whose likenesses still convene in con- hegemony, and the uncanny ability to steer a course around clave around the dining room table at Oaklands in Gardiner. Two political intrigue raised him to an undoubted position of leader- descriptions of that Copley protrait tell more about different ship in the Kennebec Company. Not only did the proprietors of generations of historians than about the man himself. Dr. Gar- the company elect him perpetual moderator of their meetings, diner and the facts of his career remain. How those facts may be but time and time again he was granted large tracts of land amount- interpreted and accommodated to the region's history is now our ing to substantially more than his proportionate share in the com- challenge. First, Evelyn Gilmore writing in 1892 voiced piety: pany stock. He acquired his colleagues' confidence (and additional land) because he personally supervised operations in the Kennebec It is a vivid representation of a man past the meridian of life, Valley. From his own coffers, he financed mills, a post office, and dressed in the scarlet coat of England, relieved by glitter- wharves, a Great House which served as a community center and ing buttons and white frills at the wrist. Between the side curls tavern, the parish church, and roads. He paid the salary of the of a white wig a kindly, keen old face looks out; a face to whose missionary priest Jacob Bailey, and he used his own sloop to humorous curve of lip and glance of eye is added the evidence transport supplies to the frontier. of thought and practical tendencies, in the high forehead and It is hard to square Dr. Gardiner's actions and ideals with the vertical lines above the nose. The whole figure, one hand in ideals of democracy ushered in by the American Revolution. its breast, is leaning slightly forward, the head a trifle bent, with Adherance to aristocratic principles and the Church of England a direct look at the beholder that gives him the suggestion of led Dr. Gardiner into a collision course with the patriots of the a certain watchful alertness in the intent eyes. Altogether a Revolution. In that collision course, he lost most of his land and strong character; a man of deep feelings, firm attachments, and fortunes in Massachusetts. Only by a peculiar quirk of the legal earnest purposes, for whose protection the struggling Church of Gardinerstown must often have longed in later and more process was he able to return to America and reclaim his landed troublous days. possessions in Maine. Again we have gotten ahead of the story. Dr. Silvester Gardiner remains an enigma in the history of the Eighty years later, Dr. Gordon Kershaw, an academic historian, Kennebec Valley. He was undoubtedly the father of civilization perceived the character traces in that same portrait very differently: in central Maine. Without his genius for projecting efficient opera- tions of the Kennebec Company, it is impossible to envision the John Singleton Copley's portrait of Dr. Gardiner, probably history of interior Maine as unfolding as it has. Louis C. Zahner painted in 1772, shows a vigorous, powerful man for sixty-five. 46 47 The doctor confidently straddles his chair, his hand thrust in- her vellum covered cookbook reposes in state. side his vest, while a warm smile plays on his lips - but not Nearly two centuries after its compilation, in 1938, three of her in his eyes, which defiantly engage the viewer's. He has the greasgrat-greatgrandchildren transcribed for publication this determined air of one who has sought life's challenges and met cookbook as Mrs. Gardiner's Receipts from 1763. It includes "receipts" them squarely, willing to risk any consequences. (in the language of her time) for soups, broths, gravies, sauces, fish, shellfish, pickles, hams, vinegars, mushrooms, catsups, pies, The question which emerges is this: is this the portrait of a man puddings, and cider wines. Ancestors seven or more generations of smiling eyes or of flinty eyes? The answer is immaterial in itself. ago had some of the conveniences of prepared food as is suggested The larger question is: do we interpret History as actions presid- by the receipt for Portable Soup. Perhaps Dr. Gardiner took the ed over by great men, or do we see History as a series of amor- dried soup cakes for reconstituted soup with him when traveling phous social forces climaxing at various junctures? History writ- to Maine to supervise his land investments. In her portrait Anne ten from a biographical and genealogical perspective cries neither. is dressed for the drawing room, but she had a practical mind From this perspective we see men such as Dr. Gardiner represent- for detail despite her exalted place in society. She writes: ing the imperceptible changes which one generation grafts onto another, changes which become apparent only when viewed from Take particular care that your Soup Pots or Pans also their respec- the historical continuum. Writers have described the distinctive tive Covers, be perfectly clean and free from all Sand or Grease. English quality of life in Gardiner in the nineteenth century. Surely If you have time to stew your Ingredients, as softly as possible, that was the impress of Dr. Gardiner. To ignore that impress the Meat will be much tenderer and the Soup or Broth will because it does not square with the notions of the late twentieth have a much finer Flavour. century is to ignore our special heritage in central Maine, especially in Gardiner. The receipt for Portable Soup calls for ingredients of no mean Who embodied that genteel tradition absent in other com- proportions: "Take three legs of Veal, one Leg of Beef, and the munities? Surely Robert Hallowell Gardiner III, Henry Richards, lean part of half an Ham at the Bottom of a large Cauldron." Laura E. Richards, John Richards, and our dear Betty Wiggins. Nothing was wasted. In her receipt for Ox Cheek Soup, she in- But to dwell upon the grand manner of their personal lives is to structs: "Wash it in many waters. Throw a little salt on it to fetch miss the point. They never insisted upon aristocratic privilege: out the slime." In the time before refrigeration, slimy meat was much rather they nobly served the community because they in- a problem. The OX cheek simmered all day with vegetables and herited a sense of responsibility. spices over the open hearth. Mushrooms abounded in her receipts, Dr. Gardiner married at Boston 11 December 1732. and she even instructed the reader in their cultivation: 43 ANNE GIBBINS Cover an old Hot-bed, three or four inches thick, with fine was baptised at the Brattle Street Garden Mould, and cover that Mould again with mouldy, long Church, Boston 28 December 1712 and died at Boston Muck, from a Horse Dunghill or old rotten stubble, three or 30 November 1771. Anne was the daughter of Dr. John Gibbins four inches thick. When the bed has lain sometime thus (1688-1760) by his wife Rebecca, daughter of Samuel and Susanna prepared, boil any mushrooms that are left that are not fit for (Langdon) Gray. Anne's only brother John (1722-1743) obtained use, in Water, and throw that Water upon the prepared Bed, his A.B. from Harvard in 1740 and showed great promise, but and in a Day or two after you will have the best small Button his early death left Anne the sole heiress of the Gibbins wealth. Mushrooms. Her portrait by John Singleton Copley also is in the family con- clave at the Oaklands dining room, guarding the sideboard where Mrs. Gardiner managed the meat cleaver and the pudding bag 48 49 with the same unrelenting efficiency as her husband managed his sleepy colonial outpost to the time it started to be called the Hub medical practice and mercantile career. of the Universe. He had issue of three sons and three daughters. Two sons, James and John, died at sea in 1756. The youngest 44 DEACON JOHN TUDOR was born near Exeter, daughter, Elizabeth (1750-1788), married Habijah Savage and had Devonshire, England 18 September 1709 and died at issue of eleven children, the ninth of whom was Judge James Savage Boston, Massachusetts 18 March 1795, the son of William Tudor (1784-1873). Besides being a successful merchant, Judge Savage was who died shortly after his birth. His mother Mary brought him an eminent jurist, historian, President of the Massachusetts to America in 1715 when he was six, settling in Boston. Tradi- Historical Society, and author of the four-volume Genealogical Dic- tion affirms that Deacon John Tudor descended from John Tadore tionary of the First Settlers of New England (Boston, 1860-1862) to of Penscoyde, Flintshire, Wales, who married a daughter of Ed- which he devoted seventeen years of labor. All descendants of ward Lloyd of Yale, Flintshire, through their fifth son Roger of the Tudor name in America therefore stem from the only son to Watlington, Oxfordshire who married Margaret, daughter of leave issue, namely William, and are therefore traced in paragraph Hamlet Hasold of Nantwich, Cheshire, through their only son 22 above. Deacon Tudor married at the Second Church of Boston Thomas who by his second wife Dorothea, daughter of Edward 15 June 1732. Fowler, of Tillesworth, Bedfordshire, had issue of one son Thomas who is supposed to have been the Thomas Tudor, father of Deacon John Tudor of Boston. This is a claim not proved beyond a doubt. 45 JANE VARNEY was born 23 February 1714 and However, if this descent is true - a descendant who edited the died 23 September 1795, daughter of James and Jane Tudor diary mentioned below assessed the problem and concluded Varney. that it was probable - then these Tudors and the Lloyd ancestors of the New Haven, Connecticut Yales (Eli's family) have a com- ELIAS JARVIS was born at Boston, Massachusetts mon origin. Deacon John Tudor's grandson drew his grandfather's 46 3 July 1724, son of Elias Jarvis (1693-1755) and of Mary portrait in these words: Sutherland (died 1748). This Elias was the son of another Elias (born 1663), son of John and Rebecca (Parkman) Jarvis, son of Thus the old man continued his memory until he was upwards Nathaniel Jarvis. A native of Wales, Nathaniel is said to have com- of 85 years old and until he arrived at about one year and manded a ship for several years between Bristol, England and the 5months of his death he was a man of strong mind and island of Jamaica. The Elias Jarvis (born 1724) heading this entry healthful body and remarkable for his integrity His personal was second-cousin to the brothers Leonard Jarvis (1742-1813) and appearance at the time that I can recollect when he was Philip Jarvis (1762-1831) who in the year 1800 were in possession above 80 was very fine. Tall and erect, with long curling perfectly of 96,386 acres of Maine lands, the second largest estate in the white hair and when walking with a broad hat and long cane, state next only to the Bingham Purchase. Elias Jarvis had a sister he was calculated to inspire all the reverence which can attach to an old man, who bears about him in his air and manner Margaret (born 1729) who married Daniel Parker. Their son Isaac the evidence of a life well spent. Parker (1768-1830) was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and first Royall Professor of Law at Harvard. Elias Jarvis A portrait on canvas confirms the existence of flowing white locks married at Boston 7 June 1750. and is reproduced as a frontispiece in Deacon Tudor's Diary (Boston, 1896) a conflation of memoranda left by Tudor from 1732 to 1793, DELIVERANCE ATKINS born at Boston 19 edited by his great-grandson William Tudor. The deacon's vivid 47 July 1729, daughter of Henry and Deliverance (Sears) eyewitness account chronicles the emergence of Boston from a Atkins. 50 51 48 JOHN HOWE, JUNIOR, was born at Boston 7 sufficient to draw military architectual plans. Gershom Flagg, the November 1706. From 1729 through 1779 he was individual described in most local histories published in the Ken- described in various public records as a baker of Boston. On that nebec Valley as the builder of Fort Western, conceivably was the last occasion, he being adjudged of unsound mind, was placed chief executive of a firm which built the fort from the ground under the guardianship of his son John with son Edward, rope- up. maker of Boston, being bound as surety. His father John Howe Picking up the threads of Gridley's career, he was commission- (1681-1722) was a cordwainer (shoemaker) of Boston, son of Israel ed colonel in 1755 and commanded the artillery at Crown Point, Howe (1644-1715), son of Abraham Howe (died 1676), the emigrant built Fort William Henry at Lake George, and by 1759 was chief from England who settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1637. of the entire provincial artillery when the Plains of Abraham and Quebec were taken. When the Revolution came, despite the fact 49 ELIZABETH COMPSTON. The Boston records that the British War Office had rewarded him richly with gifts show that the intention of marriage between John of the Magala Islands and three thousand acres in New Hamp- Howe and Elizabeth Compston published 5 February 1729 were shire, he cast his lot with the patriots. Massachusetts commis- "forbid by her Mother & Susan Butler." Protest nonwithstanding, sioned him as chief military engineer and colonel of artillery with they went to Newbury and got married in 1729. rank of Major General. In 1776 he fortified Dorchester Heights and destroyed British entrenchments on the Neck during the 50 Evacuation of Boston. He acquired considerable fortune in form- Not traced. ing a company in partnership with Edmund Quincy to smelt ore at Massapoag Pond in Sharon where he manufactured mortars 51 and howitzers in 1776 and 1777. His brother Jeremiah Gridley Not traced. (1702-1767) the renowned Boston lawyer was mentor to the young James Otis. They were great-grandsons of Richard Gridley who 52 MAJOR-GENERAL RICHARD GRIDLEY emigrated from Groton, county Suffolk, England in 1631. General was born at Boston 3 January 1711 and died at Can- Gridley was fourth consecutive member of his family in as many ton, Massachusetts 21 June 1796. With a bent for mathematics, generations to bear the christian name of Richard. He married he became a surveyor and military engineer at an early age at Boston 25 February 1730. although his father had intended to apprentice him as a merchant. At the seige of Louisburg in 1745 he was commissioned lieute- nant colonel and was chief bombardier of the battle. To people 53 HANNAH DEMING, was born at Boston 19 March 1709 and died at Canton, Massachusetts in 1790. living in central Maine a statement found in the august Dictionary She was the daughter of Samuel and Hannah (Green) Deming of American Biography, a reference work for scholars, may come of Wethersfield, Connecticut and later of Boston, son of David as a great surprise. The Dictionary attributes him as builder of Fort and Mary Deming of Wethersfield, Connecticut, son of John Dem- Western and Fort Halifax in Maine. This patently flies in the face ing (died 1693) an original settler of Wethersfield, Connecticut of the commonly received history of the Kennebec Valley, but in 1636 who married Honor Treat, sister of Governor Treat, for there may be an element of truth in the matter. Certainly this thirty years governor of Connecticut and ancestor of Robert Treat matter merits detailed scholarly investigation, and the explana- Paine and other notable Americans. tion may lie in a bifurcation of the title, "builder of Fort Western." His professional resume suggests that he was probably one of the few, if not the only, professional in America with the background 54 JOHN HARRIS of Boston. 52 53 55 Hannah alliances with the founding families of Rhode Island. Principal surnames in the ancestry of banker Samuel Ward are Billings, Tew, SAMUEL WARD born at Newport, Rhode Island Tillinghast, Sayles, Williams, Ray, Thomas, Greene, Almy, Gor- 56 27 May 1725, is known in history as Governor Samuel ton, Carder, Barton, Holden, and Dungan. Three descents from Ward, to distinguish him from his son, Colonel Samuel Ward, Roger Williams emerge in this thicket of family trees. Governor his son banker Samuel Ward, and his son, fourth of the name, Samuel Ward married at Westerly Rhode Island 20 December 1745. Sinner Samuel Ward. There was actually a fifth Samuel (1844-1866) known in the family as "Wardie," but he died in the flower of his 57 ANNA RAY was born 27 September 1728 and died youth before he had the opportunity to expand upon an arid 5 December 1770, daughter of Simon and Deborah biography limited to the mere statistics of birth and death. (Greene) Ray, and sister of Catherine Ray, who married Gover- Although Governor Samuel Ward was destined by his father nor William Greene and appears as number 59 in this list of to become a farmer, his formative years from fifteen to eighteen ancestors. were spent in the brilliant society of Newport during his father's 58 GOVERNOR WILLIAM GREENE was born term as governor. From 1756, he was elected Deputy from Westerly to the General Assembly of Rhode Island. During his three terms at Warwick, Rhode Island 17 July 1731 and died there as Governor of Rhode Island (1762-1763, 1765-1767) he matured 29 January 1794, son of Governor William and Catherine (Greene) into a statesman, agonizing over the Stamp Tax Controversy. Dur- Greene. He served four terms as deputy from Warwick in the ing this time, the Ward family sentiment was crystalizing in favor Rhode Island General Assembly from 1773 to 1776, and in 1776 of independence from the mother country. His brother Henry he was Speaker of the House of Deputies. In 1776 he was named was a delegate to the Stamp Tax Act Congress, and later served Associate Justice of the Superior Court of Rhode Island and a as acting governor of the colony when the Loyalist governor Joseph year later elevated to be Chief Justice of that court. From 1778, Wanton was ousted. Governor Samuel Ward was elected to the he served eight consecutive years as governor, and during those First, and later the Second, Continental Congresses. At the se- years when the Assembly was in session he would walk ten miles cond congress he proposed and helped to secure the appointment each morning from his home in Warwick to Providence and back of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the American again in the afternoon. In 1778 and 1779 he was chief spokesman forces. Early in that session Hancock called upon him to chair in the Rhode Island protestation of the Embargo. His eldest son the Congress when it resolved itself into a Committee of the Ray Greene was U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 1797 to 1801. Whole. He continued in that distinguished position at Philadelphia William's father, Governor William Greene (1696-1758), a until he contracted small pox and died there 26 March 1776. surveyor who fixed the boundary between Rhode Island and Con- Samuel's father, Governor Richard Ward (1689-1773), served as necticut, became governor in May 1743, succeeding Richard Ward Governor of Rhode Island from 1740 to 1742 during a time of (father of 56 above). During his administration he countered the high political tension on three fronts: issuance of paper money, criticisms of Governor Shirley and others in Massachusetts that Massachusetts boundary controversy, and the right of a colony Rhode Island was not shouldering its share of the burden in the to appoint a maritime judge. In the latter case Richard's vehe- 1740s in the war between England and France. He quite truthfully ment support in behalf of Rhode Island presaged his family's rally- pointed out that despite its slender population, three hundred ing to the cause of separation from England twenty-five years later. Rhode Island soldiers joined the British forces. During another Governor Richard Ward was a son of Thomas Ward (1641-1689), boundary controversy, this time with Massachusetts in 1747, he son of John Ward (1619-1698) the emigrant from England. It is secured the cession of the towns of Cumberland, Warren, Bristol, beyond the scope of this work to detail the Ward family marital Little Compton, and Tiverton from territory claimed by Massa- 55 54 chusetts. During his third term, he battled the issuance of paper Simon Ray 2d England with his father, a lad of about currency. His side lost because of pressure from Parliament in Lon- sixteen years, to Plymouth, a very respectable family. Whether don. The resulting inflation was one of the factors leading Rhode his mother came or not, I do not know. But about the time Island colonists to shake off the British yoke two decades later. Simon Ray 2d grew up, his father married a widow George, It is a singular genealogical curiosity that two governors of Rhode with ten children, which offended him, and he with seven Island, both named William Greene, should marry their second- others went to Block Island, and purchased it; and they had but one cow to three families, and they used to catch fish called cousins, both named Catherine, who themselves in both instances horse mackerel, and make hasty pudding, and put the milk in were descended from John Greene (1590-1659) an emigrant from as we do molasses; that was their breakfast. They went four Gillingham, Dorsetshire, England who founded the town of War- miles into the neck to clear the land. At night, when they came wick, Rhode Island. Therefore, four lines of Greene ancestry united home that was their supper, and they all lived in love and har- in the person of Samuel Ward III the banker (number 14 above). mony like SO many good brothers. After a while, a son of the Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) the Revolutionary General was a George family, having heard of the purchase that S. Ray 2d great-great-grandson of John Greene the emigrant and was related had made, came to Block Island to see him. It was rare to see to the Wards of New York City in many ways through their multi- visitors, and being a connection of his father, and he of a ple mutual descents from the Greene, Gorton and Barton Families benevolent make, and land plenty, told him he would give him of Rhode Island. Governor William Greene (1731-1794) married half of his purchase if he would clear it, which he readily ac- his second-cousin 30 September 1758. cepted; and that is the land owned by the Mitchells and Paines at this time. 59 CATHERINE RAY, born at New Shoreham, S. Ray 3d always kept his children in fear of dispossessing Rhode Island 17 July 1731 and died at Warwick, Rhode them; but I believe he gave them a quit claim before he died; Island 29 July 1794, daughter of Captain Simon and Deborah I don't know at what age. But when S. Ray 2d married a (Greene) Ray of New Shoreham (Block Island), Rhode Island. The Thomas at Marshfield, of a very good family, and brought her stockings she wore on the occasion of her wedding are still pre- to Block Island and had three daughters. Mary the eldest, mar- served at the Yellow House and the present author was privileg- ried an Englishman, who carried her to England, and she was ed to view them 6 February 1988 when Catherine's great-great- the first American lady introduced to the King, and kissed his hand; the second was Saba, she married a Sands on Long great-great-granddaughter, Mrs. Eliot Thwing Putnam of Dedham, Island, and that family were her offspring, Comfort, and those Massachusetts carefully unfurled them from their wrapper. In 1793 at Block Island. The 3d was Dorothy, she married a Clapp at Catherine wrote a long letter to her grandson Henry Ward. In Rye, some of them are living, very clever people. Simon Ray that missive, she discussed the settlement of Block Island by early 3d was their only son; I don't know his age when his mother members of the Ray family, hardships during the French and In- died; but although he, S. Ray 2d, was offended, and left his dian Wars, intergenerational strife (the son who left home in disgust father because he married a widow with ten children, he mar- when his father married a widow with ten children married a ried a widow with eleven; and then Simon Ray the 3d left his widow with eleven), longevity (another person who lived to be father and went to New London, and married a Mainwaring; one hundred and one), and concluded with a homily urging young by whom he had a Simon, Gideon, Nathaniel, and Mary. Henry to make his four granddaddy governors proud. The letter Simon and Gideon were sea-faring men of excellent character; in its entirety is now presented. Nathaniel was a tiller of the ground; he had one son, Simon Ray, and died. The son, Simon Ray the 3d, educated at New Warwick, March 5th, 1793. Haven College. His three sons and grandson all died, I think, My father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all named between the age of twenty-one and twenty-three years. Their Simon Ray. I shall distinguish them by first, second, and third; sister Mary went to Marshfield to visit her relations, and there 56 57 she married into her own family a Thomas; she died young, in pewter platters; he desired her to do it. You are descended leaving an only child, Nathaniel Ray. He was left rich; a farm of reputable ancestors on all sides. You had four grandaddy that would cut 100 loads of salt hay, well-stocked house, well governors, and that you may be as worthy man as they all were, furnished with everything. He was educated at Cambridge, and is the sincere wish of when he was of age it was all wasted but the land. He married Your affectionate grandma, Sally Deering of Boston, a charming girl, and your grandma CATY GREENE was at the wedding; had sack posset, and a beautiful dressed plumb cake for supper. They had a large family of children; 60 JOHN CUTLER was baptised at Hingham, and when the war came he was chosen a mandamus councillor, Massachusetts 22 August 1725 and died at Boston 31 and being badly advised, accepted it, and went off with the October 1805, son of David and Ann Cutler. David was the son regulars and died at Halifax. His widow lives genteely in that of John Cutler, a surgeon from Holland who appeared in Hingham country farm. in 1674 under the name Johannes DeMesmaker. On 4 January Simon Ray 3d lived a widower twenty-one years; had buried 1675 he adopted the translation of his name "which they say in all his sons, and his daughter lived SO far from him, that he English is John Cutler." John Cutler of the third generation, sub- came to Warwick and married my mother, a maiden lady of thirty-seven years, Deborah Greene, sister to Daniel and Philip ject of this entry, learned the trade of brass founder and had a Greene, and daughter of Job and Phebe Greene. He was a coun- shop on Marlborough Street (now part of Washington Street) in sillor, had a large landed estate. They went to Block Island, Boston. He was a leading member of society and the first Grand and we had four lovely sisters, Judith, who married a Hubbard; Master of the United Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts. Ann, who married your grandaddy Samuel Ward; Catherine, His portrait was destroyed when Winthrop House at Harvard your grandma Greene; and Phebe, who married a Littlefield. burned. He was distinguished for music, and in advanced life was Now I must return to Simon Ray 2d. He lived to be 101 years, organist at Trinity Church where the rector was his son-in-law, 1 month and 1 day old. He was blind and lame many years. the Reverend (later the Right Reverend) Samuel Parker. He mar- In the French war a privateer landed and used the inhabitants ried 27 November 1750. very ill. He had a chest moved, and they supposed it was money. They tied him to a tree, and whipped him to make him tell, and I think they left him for dead. After he was lame he learn- 61 MARY CLARK was born 19 August 1728 and was ed a great deal of the bible by heart; he could say all the Psalms, buried at King's Chapel, Boston, 13 May 1800, daughter the New Testament, and a great deal of the Old. My father of Benjamin Clark. went in one day and asked him how he did; he said very poor- ly; for he made it a constant rule to repeat, I've forgot how many 62 THOMAS MITCHELL was a leading member of Psalms and chapters in a day, and today I've only repeated fif- society at Georgetown, then part of the District of ty. He asked my father one day how the season was. Oh! said Columbia, now in Virginia. my father, a severe drough, and seemed to repine. He said, my son, let God alone to govern the earth. I just remember him, ESTHER MARION descended on both sides of sitting in an arm chair, with white hair, and being pleasant; 63 the family from stock French and pure. The wit and and the night he died he called us all to him, and told us to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, and the ad- social charm distinguishing her great-grandchildren Julia Ward vantage of living virtuous lives, and making God our friend, Howe and Samuel Ward IV (the Sinner) seemed to the family to and the peace and happiness we should enjoy in the other be theirs by inheritance, from France, directly through Esther, world. I remember my mother cutting up plain cake and cheese a granddaughter of Benjamin Marion, a Huguenot refugee in at his funeral, and she cut it in a cheese tub, and it was served South Carolina. His excommunication in France read in part: 58 59 Your damnable heresy well deserves, even in this life, that purgation by fire which lawfully awaits it in the next. But in consideration of your youth and worthy connection, our Mercy has condescended to cummute your punishment to perpetual exile. Benjamin Marion's eldest son Garbriel Marion married Esther Cordes, daughter of Antoine and Esther Madeleine (Ballulet) Cor- des of Mazamet, France, incidentally the birthplace of Toulouse- Lautrec (1864-1901). Gabriel and Esther (Cordes) Marion had issue of six children of whom Esther was the eldest and Francis the youngest. This youngest, later General Francis Marion (1732-1795), was known in history as the Swamp Fox, one of the undoubted folk heroes of the American Revolution. The Swamp Fox would quietly slip off into the Carolina swamps, reappearing when the British least expected, hence his title Swamp Fox. Esther Marion was twice married, first to John Allston, a scion of one of the most aristocratic planter families of South Carolina; and second- ly, to Thomas Mitchell. She had issue of fifteen children, one of whom was Sarah Mitchell, grandmother of Julia Ward Howe. At this conclusion, it is tempting to point out the contradic- tions in social history which this maternal ancestry of Julia Ward Howe demonstrates. This great lady of the Battle Hymn fame, thought of as the quintessential New England yankee, was born in New York City, a third-generation Gothamite. The great hymn symbolizi. 5 Northern victory at the end of the Civil War came from the pen of a lady whose maternal ancestors lived for five generations on the slave plantations of South Carolina. Her ancestry consisted of the archetypal English stock save for one thin line: the umbilical line (unbroken female succession) direct from the Toulouse region of southern France, the land of langue d'oc. To anyone doubting the complexity of the social origins of the American people, this genealogical substratum can only reiterate that many surprises await discovery in the course of pa- tient research. 60 Diva Julia Valerie Zieglar. Notes (2003) 171 11. An example of such an argument can be found in the Rev. Celia Burleigh's "Spinsters and 15 Danny D. Smith, conversation with author, 1 April 1999. When she wrote her autobiog- Step-Mothers" article from 1872. Burleigh asserted that for too long women had assumed that raphy, Stepping Westward, Laura chose to omit a historic meeting with President Theodore Roo- they could exert legitimate influence on the world's development only through their roles of wife sevelt in the White House. Roosevelt was a fan of the books for children that Laura had written, and mother. "But God is not partial," Burleigh contended. "The best gifts, like the rain and the particularly of her nonsense verse. He invited her to lunch (along with her brother Harry and his sunshine, are there for all. Womanhood is the great fact, not wifehood nor motherhood I can wife Fanny), and while the attorney general looked on in wonder, the president treated his guests conceive of no higher mission, no holier trust, no more beneficent ministry than that of woman to fervent recitations of his favorite passages. Laura reported feeling both embarrassed and simply as woman, without reference to wifehood or maternity" (Woman's Journal 3, no. 33 [17 pleased. She wrote an account of this memorable occasion for the family log she routinely kept August 1872], p. 258). (see "Mammy's Great Frisk," Family Log, vol. 3, 1906, Yellow House Papers, Gardiner Public 12. Julia Ward Howe to Louisa Ward Crawford, 31 January 1847, bMS Am 2119 (465), HL. Library, Gardiner, Maine). Danny Smith's point is that Laura felt including such a triumphant 13. Carolyn G. Chute, Writing A Woman's Life (New York: Ballantine, 1988), p. 18. story in her autobiography would be boastful and thus inappropriate. A long but no means exhaustive list numbers over twenty works. Volumes by Maud Howe Danny Smith's knowledge of Laura E. Richards and the Howe materials contained in the Yel- Elliott include The Eleventh Hour in the Life of Julia Ward Howe (Boston: Little, Brown, 1911); low House Papers at Colby College and Gardiner Public Library is unsurpassed. In addition to Three Generations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1923); Lord Byron's Helmet (Boston: Houghton Mif- personally knowing several generations of Howes, Smith is also responsible for arranging and flin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1927); John Elliott: The Story of an Artist (Boston: Houghton cataloging the Yellow House Papers. His Yellow House Papers: The Laura E. Richards Collection: Mifflin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1930); My Cousin F. Marion Crawford (New York: Macmil- An Inventory and Historical Guide (Gardiner, Maine, compiled for the Gardiner Library Associ- lan, 1934); Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York: Macmillan, 1938); This Was My Newport ation and Colby College, 1991) is the last-and indeed, the only-word on the subject. These (Cambridge, Mass.: Mythology Co./A. Marshall James, 1944); and Memoirs of the Civil War, archives are of central importance to Howe research; it was from them that Rosalind Richards 1861-1864 (n.p., n.d.; proceeds of sale given to Newport Chapter of the Red Cross). (Laura's daughter and Julia's granddaughter) culled materials to donate to the Houghton For Florence Howe Hall, the list includes Flossy's Play Days (Boston: Dana Estes, 1906); Julia Library at Harvard and to the John Hay Library at Brown University. Access to the Houghton Ward Howe and the Woman Suffrage Movement (Boston: Dana Estes, 1913; repr., Arno & New materials was restricted for decades, but is so no longer. The Houghton collections have been York Times, 1969); The Story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic (New York: Harper, 1916); and and will continue to be crucial to studies of the Howe family. The materials in the Yellow House Memories Grave and Gay (New York: Harper, 1918). Papers have received almost no scholarly attention and deserve to come to light. As I was con- For Laura E. Richards, see When I Was Your Age (Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1894); The Julia ducting this research, access to the Yellow House Papers at Colby College was severely limited by Ward Howe Birthday Book (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1889); Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley the availability of library staff. Materials at the Gardiner Public Library in Gardiner, Maine, were Howe, 2 vols. (Boston: Dana Estes, 1906 and 1909); Two Noble Lives: Samuel Gridley Howe, Julia freely available to researchers during the library's regular hours of operation. Future references Ward Howe (Boston: Dana Estes, 1911); Julia Ward Howe, The Walk with God, ed. Laura E. to these collections will be abbreviated as YHPCC for the Colby College papers and YHPGPL for Richards (New York: Dutton, 1919); Laura E. Richards, Laura Bridgman: The Story of an Opened the Gardiner Public Library collection. Door (New York: Appleton, 1928); Stepping Westward (New York: Appleton, 1931); and Samuel There is considerable overlap between the two Yellow House collections, The Howe family Gridley Howe (New York: Appleton-Century, 1935). employed a secretary to organize their family papers after Julia's death in 1910, and in the process Maud and Flossy collaborated in writing Laura Bridgman: Dr. Howe's Famous Pupil and much of the family correspondence was typed and duplicated. The Gardiner Public Library con- What He Taught Her (Boston: Little, Brown, 1903). Laura and Maud authored, with assistance tains many typed copies of original correspondence housed in the Yellow House Papers at Colby from Flossy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910, 2 vols. (Houghton Mifflin, College. Whenever it was possible to gain access to the materials in the Colby collection, I have 1915). In 1925, Laura produced a revised one-volume version also entitled Julia Ward Howe, quoted from original Yellow House sources; in every instance that I have cited copies of the orig- 1819-1910 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1925). Future references in inals, I have indicated that fact in the notes. A further note on citations to Yellow House materi- this work will be to the original two-volume biography, which will be abbreviated as Richards als: to aid other scholars, I have provided informal names for each file folder from which I have and Elliott, Julia Ward Howe. cited information. These folder names are not official titles, but they summarize the contents of Other documents were never published. At her death, Laura left behind a manuscript each folder and enable persons searching through the various record groups to easily locate the intended for family use that she called "Side Shows." In it, she whimsically noted that she had materials cited in these notes. Those wishing a more systematic description of the contents of the been writing about her parents for at least forty years and could not shake the habit. She Yellow House record groups, as well as of the individual file folders in each group, should con- intended "Side Shows" to offer reflections on other family members important to her parents sult Smith's Yellow House Papers. Finally, as this book was going to press, I learned that the Yel- (Yellow House Papers, Gardiner Public Library, collated and typed by Danny D. Smith, October low House Papers at Colby College were being transferred to the Maine Historical Society in 1989). For more information on the Yellow House Papers, see n. 15. Portland. Once the collection has been placed there, scholars will have unrestricted access to it, At her death, Maud left behind several unpublished memoirs. Two of them (Afternoon Tea which should prove a boon for Howe studies. and Memories of Eighty Years) offer more reflections on her parents (John Hay Library, Brown 16. Hall, Memories Grave and Gay, p. 342. University, Ms. 89.13). 17. Richards, Stepping Westward, p. 329. The Yellow House Papers Page 1 of 2 The Yellow House Papers The Laura E. Richards Collection, Gardiner ME TOPICS FOR POTENTIAL RESEARCH The Yellow House Papers The Laura E. Richards Collection ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY An Inventory and Historical Analysis by Danny D. Smith Those who contend that talent is inherited will be heartened by an examination of TABLE OF CONTENTS the Richards lineage. John Richards V, grandfather of Henry Richards and a social Introduction, Dedication, and Acknowledgments light in Boston, because he had "a practiced eye" and was acquainted with the beau Maps //Genealogical Charts monde of English country houses, climbed a tree in company with his good friend Robert Hallowell Gardiner I. It was this John Richards who selected the site of the PART ONE: THE INVENTORY great Oaklands estate in South Gardiner, one of the most architecturally imposing Organization of the Yellow House Papers houses north of Boston. Fate or the right social tie brought the two families of The Yellow House Papers: The Inventory Gardiner and Richards into genealogical alliance with the marriage of Francis Richards (1805-1858) to Anne Hallowell Gardiner PART TWO: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS (1807-1878) in 1832. The artistic and musical Provenance Statement accomplishments of Francis Richards enamored him to his in-laws, and when the Part A. Legal Title Acquired by the Gardiner Library Association first Oaklands mansion burned, he devised some very creditable architectural plans Part B. The Old That's Worth Saving Part C. Accretions of Record Groups Through Ancestral Alliances and for its replacement which are found in Record Group 35 of this present collection. Extinctions of Collateral Lines Richard Upjohn made an almost deus ex machina appearance at this time. Part D. Documents of Transfer Emerging from a degraded position of building a fence around the Boston Statement of Significance. including list of Common Upjohn grabbed the proverbial ring of the main chance when he secured TOPICS FOR POTENTIAL RESEARCH the commission for the rebuilding of the Oaklands, his first major American work. Children's Literature However, it does seem quite possible that some of the Tudor window mouldings Women's Studies and other architectural details expressed in the drawings of Francis Richards were New England Prep Schools incorported into the Oaklands mansion, and although the mansion itself departs The Camping Movement somewhat from the vision of Richards, the flavor and atmosphere which he inhaled Architectural History from the English countryside survived in the Upjohn redaction. Life at Harvard Life at English Public Schools Students of Maine architectural history have shown some 19th Century Brahmin Life in Boston awareness of the work of Henry Richards (1848-1949) one of Literary Figures of New England the two major figures whose papers comprise the Yellow House Edwin Arlington Robinson Papers, the the definitive survey of his work remains a Family Dymanics desideratum. Aside from the aspirations he expressed about Paper Mills and Paper Industry care in his autobiography Ninety Years On (1940), only Civil Engineering Hegar Reed, a research associate on the staff of the Newport Society Preservation Commission, has done any survey Julia Ward Howe work...ist see his "Henry Richards 1848-1949," in Patents and Inventions of John Tudor Richards Biographical Dictionary of Maine Architects, Volume i, No. 19th Century Liberal Causes 7. October 1984, 4 pages, a series published in Augusta, Edgar Allen Poe Maine the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. The Pulitzer Prize present compiler found in Record Group 9 of the present Principal Personages collect in a unique specimen of architectural working notes. Major Personages Henry Richards, Specification of Masons' Work and Secondary Figures pecifications For Carpenters' Work (Boston: Alfred Mudge Genealogical Charts Sons, 1869). He showed this item to Earle G. Nicknames and References needing special alew rth, Jr., Director of the Maine Historic clarification Nicknames found in the Yellow House Papers I Commission. Mr. Shettleworth recognized the significance of this Initials Found in the Yellow House Papers the Gardiner Library to lend the book for the purpose of publishing Reverse Index of Nicknames a edition with a scholarly introduction. This came to fruition in 1989 in a Geographical Glossary jointly sponsored by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and Published Secondary Sources Homes Council-Building Research Council of the University of Illinois. Bibliographical Essay I: The Ancestry andCollaterals page introduction by Mr. Reed adds singificantly to our appreciation of Henry Richards of Henry Richards. Bibliographical Essay II: The Ancestry andCollaterals of Laura E. Richards Important commissions executed by Henry Richards in the State of Maine included Related Collections in Other Institutions Sch Her Head cottage for George Hale at Bar Harbor, Maine; the Old Farm The Papers of Julia Ward Howe in the Library of Charles H. Door at Bar Harbor in 1877-79 (during one on-site visit for Congress. Caura E. Richards sat on the beach here and formulated Captain January The Edinburgh Collection of Richards Family Papers Chimney Stack and Boiler House for the Richards Paper Company in Mise en scene: The Gardiner of Henry and Laura ( Richards ni-of-the-century additions to the Yellow House in Gardiner; the ( Library in 1881; the Central Street School in Gardiner in 1886; Central Street a weather on Horse Point in North Belgrade, Maine. Outside of Central Street school I house at Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts for william Amory Gardiner Public Library ( the main building for Endicott College was the apogee of his career. http://www.juliawardhowe.org/yellowhor sventory/topics/architecture.htm 2/22/2008 First Ust COPY3 WIHPE augusta 8/18/04 Dirulan c State Historian, Earle Shettleworth Henry Richards file Seloomer Head Built by Heny Richard, for Geny State in 1876. Sum How of Richard Waldenttale man lawyer, member f House of Reprentitions I a Son wrote Story f bar Harbor a U.S. Connucessioner for If years House bured in 1947 fri Yellow House Paper faura E. Richard Collection Superumerary lecore Group 38 II # 173- 178, esp # 173.(2/6/76) AHR Transapts if 180 filter by Bacha way Licenses 1997 to HR "who is coundering Deary archits duese towny at the fune paper mile .' Albert George R. Stabbins photo albor St W 4x 6" of Acal 2tain Cicca : fear Harlin Ring (21 Zillar (2) (2) Glengariff (2) to asthalm (4) Keenagan (24) Fatherwore Felsmere (6) may winter scenes " construction " 9.4 Stebhin on pience +20 their Mr. Mes States (4t ) Scenic Harbor View Pond Vieus Winter an slid Boaking/dailing 40+45=95 image album 2 Family Photos - Stebbine George B. Coohiey RE office (5 suff 2nd 6 Stebhis) foreif Late 19th century imajes (BTW) Most 4x6. Wataki Waberaki @ 150 Images "Site of LBraoz "Collectn of Seal 2taeter photo @ 20 myes 5/31/2015 Maine Memory Network | Richards family, ca. 1895 Maine Memory Network Maine's Online Museum Richards family, ca. 1895 Contributed by Abbe Museum www.mainememory.net/item/E0720 Collections of Abbe Museum Item 80720 This image is of Henry Richards, standing in the stern, and his family in a Wabenaki birch bark canoe some time in the 1890s. In the 1870s, Henry Richards, a young architect from Gardiner Maine, traveled by steamer to Bar Harbor to supervise the construction of a summer home for Mrs. Charles Dorr. On that same steamer, a Wabanaki canoe maker was carrying a fleet of bark canoes that he would rent to Bar Harbor's burgeoning tourist population. Richards, fascinated with these canoes, purchased this canoe before disembarking the steamer. The canoe spent many years being used by the Richards family, first on Lake Cobbosseecontee in Kennebec County and later on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. Other Information Title: Richards family, ca. 1895 Creation Date: circa 1895 Subject Date: circa 1895 State: ME Media: Photograph Object Type: Image https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/80720 1/2 Copyright © 2003 by Valarie H. Ziegler All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, Dedicated with love to Bill or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, Trinity Press International. Trinity Press International, P.O. Box 1321, Harrisburg, PA 17105 True like ice, like fire Trinity Press International is a member of the Continuum International Publishing Group. Cover art: Close-up portrait of Julia Ward Howe © Bettmann/CORBIS Cover design: Laurie Westhafer Street 170-71 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ziegler, Valarie H., 1954- Diva Julia : the public romance and private agony of Julia Ward Howe / Valarie H. Ziegler. Paper. I pp. p. cm. Ware Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-56338-418-3 1. Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910.2. Women and literature- stery United States-History-19th century. 3. Authors, American- 19th century-Biography. 4. Feminists-United States- Biography. I. Title. chub PS2018.Z54 2003 818'409-dc21 2003008778 Printed in the United States of America 03 04 05 06 07 08 10987654321 Introduction "There never were more devoted and tender parents. Every day and all day, people of all kinds and all nations were coming to my father and mother for help, or comfort, or pleasure; but the happy home was always there for children." - -Laura E. [Howe] Richards, 1911 "Only a year ago, Julia was a New York belle. now she is a wife who lives only for her husband, and a mother who would melt her very heart, were it needed, to give a drop of nourishment to her child."2 -Samuel Gridley Howe, 1844 "Is it selfish, is it egotistical to wish that others may love us, take an interest in us, sympathize with us, in our maturer age, as in our youth? in giving life to others, do we lose our own vitality and sink into dimness, nothingness, a living death?"3 -Julia Ward Howe, circa 1846 If the female inmates at the Charlestown, Massachusetts prison were excited to learn on April 23, 1865, that the evening's reading would be given by Julia Ward Howe, the elegant Boston matron who had written "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" three and one-half years earlier, no record of their enthusiasm remains. Julia's typical sermon on such occasions would have stirred few listen- ers, awash as it was with exhortations to "listen now for the music of silence." Rather than rail at their confinement, Julia would advise, the prisoners should learn to hear within it God's invitation to "lead you in green pastures, and beside still waters." In her mind, prison was an ideal setting in which to answer God's call. "This spiritual journey you can make within these walls, as well as any where-perhaps better," she insisted.4 Diva Julia Introduction 3 This was easy advice for a free person to give, and undoubtedly more than What does it mean for a woman to base her career on a rhapsodic descrip- a few of the inmates found it gratuitous. Julia's refined appearance and her del- tion of motherhood-a description that meshed with popular notions of icate voice, with its precise diction and melodic delivery, hinted of a life of womanhood yet violated her lifelong efforts to achieve autonomy? This is one wealth and privilege that her listeners had never enjoyed and had hardly even of many questions raised by the life of Julia Ward Howe, celebrated author of imagined. What could such a woman know of prison? She had grown up in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The sheltered daughter of a wealthy New one of the wealthiest families in America, she had traveled widely, and her York family, Julia married the dashing Samuel Gridley Howe in 1843. She was friends included famous figures like Charles Dickens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, twenty-three. By all accounts, it was a romantic match. Samuel-known as the and John Jacob Astor. The governor of Massachusetts had routinely dined in "Chevalier" or simply "Chev," in deference to his volunteer work in the war of her home. Yet the best wisdom she could offer her Charlestown listeners was Greek independence-struck a majestic pose on the black horses he favored. that they seek spiritual freedom within the very cells that confined them. How He had won national fame for his work with the handicapped in Boston, par- glib was that counsel for one who lived in the heady atmosphere of New Eng- ticularly for the success he enjoyed with the blind and deaf Laura Bridgman. land Brahmin culture, and how self-serving it seemed. Handsome and well-known, at age forty-two Samuel had never been married. If the prisoners had only known Julia's story, however, they would have Once he met the elegant Julia Ward, however, his bachelor days came to an end. realized that she was preaching as much to herself as she was to them. No one Julia was pretty, bright, and accomplished. At the time of her marriage, she knew better than she what life governed by an unyielding warden could be. was already a published author. Their match was a social and romantic success, Julia Ward Howe had spent her entire life in confinement, first by her control- much envied. As the Howes set sail for Europe to enjoy an extended honey- ling father and next by her tyrannical husband. Despite furious opposition moon, they seemed, as much as any other couple of the Victorian age, to be from her husband and children, she had chosen to spend this evening-her embarking on a fairy-tale marriage. twenty-second wedding anniversary-at the Charlestown prison rather than Unfortunately for both, such bliss was not to be. From the beginning, their at home with her family. She knew her husband would excoriate her for court- marriage was a clash of wills. Chev expected his wife to be faithful to the tradi- ing publicity when she returned home, and she anticipated with dread what tional canons of domesticity. She should give up her writing and devote herself her second oldest daughter might add to the list of her mother's crimes. "I feel entirely to family life. Julia, on the other hand, wanted not only to continue utterly paralyzed," Julia wrote in her diary that night. 5 publishing; she dreamed of becoming famous. Chev hoped that the arrival of It was not the first time in her marriage that Julia had gone to bed alone children would convince Julia that her place was in the home, but the demands and miserable. Like the inmates she had just visited, she was desperate to find of six children only made her more anxious to enter public life. She wanted to autonomy and respectability in her life. Many days she despaired that the write poems, plays, philosophical treatises, and works of theology She wanted demands of marriage and motherhood had stripped her of her true self, and to give lectures and to receive the same kind of respect and adulation accorded for years she struggled mightily to break the shackles that bound her to the Chev's renowned male friends like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Theodore private world of the home that Victorian women were expected to occupy. In Parker, and Charles Sumner. She wanted, in short, the one thing that her hus- time, however, Julia would achieve the public acclaim she so desired, becom- band was determined she ought not have: a life of her own, separate from his. ing by the end of the nineteenth century one of the most famous and beloved Not surprisingly, the Howes' marriage was tumultuous, marked by daily women in the United States. In numerous books, including a wide-selling hard feelings, lifelong grudges, and occasional outbursts of temper SO severe autobiography, and in countless newspaper articles and speeches, Julia had that each feared for the other's sanity. Gradually, Julia reentered public life. In the opportunity to share with the nation the agonies she had endured on the 1854, without Chev's knowledge, she published a book of verse entitled Pas- road to celebrity. Yet the public account she gave of her life was an altogether sion-Flowers. The next year, her play The World's Own was produced in New different tale. Once Julia succeeded in escaping the confines of the home and York, and in 1857 she produced another volume of verse entitled Words for the launched a legendary career dedicated to social and political reforms, she Hour. In 1859, she published a travel account of a journey to Cuba. In 1861, worked tirelessly to depict herself as a genteel homemaker who lived to extol while visiting Federal troops in Washington with Chev as a part of his work the joys of domesticity. with the Sanitary Commission, she stumbled into fame by penning the words Diva Julia Introduction 5 to the soon acclaimed "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Later in the war, despite tence on finding and using her own voice-dominated her literary work. The Chev's opposition, Julia began giving lectures on philosophical topics. In 1870, poetry and plays that she wrote in the 1840s and 1850s were, for those who she reached a turning point, finding herself converted both to the cause of knew how to read them, remarkably personal; indeed, they revealed her woman suffrage and to international peace. Julia would spend the rest of her innermost agonies and struggles. The philosophical essays she composed in life in the public sphere, working for a variety of social reforms and becoming the 1860s were no less concerned with issues that loomed large in her rela- one of the most famous and revered women in the United States. Chev never tionship with Chev-titles like "Limitation" and "Polarity" described her reconciled himself to this turn of events, but his death in 1876 made it easier marriage as well as philosophical concepts-but such works appeared cooler, for her to put any lingering misgivings aside. less emotional than her earlier writings. After Chev died in 1876 and Julia In the pages that follow, I will trace two key themes in the life of Julia Ward turned to the lecture circuit for her income, her public utterances continued Howe: her desire for autonomy and her desire for respectability. Family to be more generalized and less obviously personal, though anyone who knew dynamics within the Howe household provide a rich source for just such an her well could read between the lines. examination. Julia's childhood and early married life were marked by her Similar dynamics appeared in the voluminous private papers Julia gen- attempts to establish herself as an agent independent of the men who ruled as erated. In the 1840s and 1850s, her correspondence to her sisters and her head of her home: first, her father, and then, her husband. No woman of the husband was full of pain and frustration. The tone was frequently impas- Victorian age found it easy to establish an autonomous existence apart from sioned and the details exceedingly intimate. Her unpublished literary work the men in her life. Moreover, once Julia was married and had children, she from the period (poems and a sensational novel tracing the life of a sexually found, as primary caregivers always have, that parenting involved sacrifice and desirable hermaphrodite) recorded powerful inner experiences-the lure of a relinquishing of focus on the self. sexual desire, the agony of hating one's husband, and the fear of losing one's Other factors also stood in the way of her pursuit of autonomy. Julia Ward self. Diary entries in the 1860s and 1870s continued to disclose scenes of Howe passionately wanted to establish herself as a literary figure; yet, she fierce family warfare-of children loyal to their father and furious with their came of age at a time in American history when such an ambition was uncon- mother, of a wife SO distraught with her husband that every moment in his ventional and even unseemly for women. Proper women confined themselves home was filled with agony-but after Chev's death in 1876, the tone both of to the domestic sphere. They did not openly publish books nor did they Julia's diary and of her letters to family members moderated. The days of expose themselves before "promiscuous" audiences containing men as well as pouring out her heart (and giving the details of the latest fracas at the Howe women in order to lecture or to read poetry. Such activities were immodest, home) had largely ended. even scandalous. If Julia wanted to be respected as an author (or, as many The nation's political climate had changed as well. By the turn of the cen- nineteenth-century Americans would have said, an "authoress"), she would tury, many of the rights for women for which Julia had struggled had become have to buck convention. attainable. Access to college and graduate education, openings in the profes- She would also have to battle her husband, as well as find ways to recon- sions, equal guardianship of children, opportunities to speak and write pub- cile her children to the reality that, though she loved them, she needed an licly-all these things that had seemed unreachable to Julia in 1840 were identity apart from them-no matter how angry that made their father or available to women in 1900. Woman suffrage had not yet been established, but how much it disrupted family harmony. And in the midst of all that, Julia was the grave danger of appearing unwomanly simply for publishing a book had determined to protect and maintain her own and her family's public passed. By that time, Julia had little reason to worry about her reputation. respectability. Despite the literary ambition that distinguished her, Julia Ward Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century lionized Julia Ward Howe was in many ways a thoroughly conventional woman, proud of her Howe as the most gracious and cultured of women, as a role model for others, family heritage and concerned to maintain her own position in polite society. not a pariah. Ironically, Julia's daughters would feel chagrined not because She was also exceptionally ambitious: she wanted fame and respectability, their mother was a public figure-a fact that initially had caused them some autonomy and public acceptance. embarrassment-but because they were unable to match her literary and In the years prior to Chev's death, Julia's desire for autonomy-her insis- political accomplishments. 6 Diva Julia Introduction 7 Once Julia's public reputation was firmly established, it became increasingly fine themselves to their own sphere, there were numerous middle and upper- possible for her to rewrite those early days of struggle and to cover them with class women who emotionally found confinement in the home too stifling to respectability. While her daughters or granddaughters took charge of the every- bear. The reform fervor typical of nineteenth-century American evangelical- day details of her home, Julia was free to establish herself as an expert on domes- ism created a distinctive piety that combined perfectionism with a commit- ticity and to give advice on housekeeping to the many women who listened to ment to social justice. American Christians assumed that it was their task to her lectures or read her speeches. Fewer and fewer people remained who had mold their culture into a social order SO attuned to the divine will that the dis- personally known her husband; to later generations, Samuel Gridley Howe was parity between heaven and earth would gradually dissolve, and the kingdom of a heroic figure of the past, not a mercurial personality with whom Julia persist- God would dawn. Longing to take their place in the great work of the millen- ently clashed. Removed from the heat of their encounters, Julia could reinvent nial age, a succession of relatively affluent women would leave the home to herself, casting herself as the prototypical Victorian wife and mother. labor with their brothers on behalf of an array of reforms such as abolitionism, Given the frustrations that marriage and motherhood caused her, we temperance, peace, and woman suffrage. might expect that in championing women's rights, Julia would have stressed Women who entered the public sphere were, by that very act, defying the women's autonomy, defining women as persons valuable in themselves, apart cult of domesticity. Frequently they justified their rebellion by arguing that it from their traditional domestic roles. Admittedly, such advocacy would have was necessary to apply their influence outside the sphere of the home if the gone against the cultural grain. The Victorian era proclaimed a doctrine of American public were to receive the full benefit of their moral wisdom. "separate spheres" that relegated women to the domestic realm.7 The public Women who wrote books championing the canons of domesticity typically world of business and politics was understood as men's world-a savage and invoked this strategy. Such books were SO prevalent that they formed a recog- brutal place, ruled by cutthroat competition. Only the fittest men were thought nizable genre in the Victorian age, but the very act of publishing a book-even to prevail. And in the midst of their worldly success, these men found them- if the book were a litany of the joys of domesticity, and even if the author hid selves brutalized, inured to the gentler virtues of Christian love and compas- her identity behind a pseudonym-was a violation of the doctrine of separate sion. The remedy to such barbarism, according to nineteenth-century wisdom, spheres. Ironically, then, a genre intended to champion domesticity simultane- was "true womanhood." Protected from the fierce world outside, the Victorian ously undermined it. As Mary Kelley has shown in the case of Harriet Beecher woman was an "angel of the home," ready to immerse her brothers, sons, and Stowe, female authors were not necessarily unaware of the paradox. Stowe, husband in the civilizing graces of Christian love as soon as they left the public while not rejecting woman's sphere, chafed under its constraints and used her world and returned to her nurturing arms. The key to this cult of domesticity literary success to gain power within her own family. was thus the assumption that women best communicated their moral charac- But not all women who entered the public sphere did SO under the guise ter by confining their activities to the private sphere of the home. of supporting the cult of domesticity. Some women explicitly rejected it. Revisionist historians have cautioned that, while the doctrine of separate Dorothy Bass has argued that, as they worked for peace, the abolition of slav- spheres may have functioned as a reigning ideology in the Victorian age, it did ery, and universal suffrage, the women associated with the New England Non- not in fact describe the lifestyle that vast numbers of women actually led. For Resistance Society not only insisted that men and women were social and the millions of working-class women who earned a living in factory or domes- political equals, but also denied the predominant notion that women's tic positions or who labored in the fields, the doctrine of separate spheres could "nature" inclined them to be domestic and peace-loving, while men's "nature" only have described an ideal life beyond their reach. Although they bore the pushed them into aggression and worldliness. In light of those convictions, burdens of the cult of domesticity-most careers were closed to them, and Sarah and Angelina Grimke endured the wrath of the Connecticut clergy in they could neither vote nor run for public office-such women enjoyed few of their 1837 antislavery lecture series, defying social convention by addressing its rewards. They could emulate true womanhood by becoming good wives "promiscuous audiences" of both men and women. 10 After the Civil War, some and loving mothers, but they could only rarely achieve the affluence that the reformers rejected use of the separate-spheres doctrine in the cause of woman notion of separate spheres presupposed. suffrage. These reformers advocated extending the vote to women on the basis If women of the limited economic means literally could not afford to con- of human rights, not on the grounds of the peculiar duties incumbent upon 8 Diva Julia Introduction 9 women in their roles as mothers and wives. After all, these reformers noted, part matter.' Victorian society, however, was not about to cede that type of every woman did not marry, nor did every woman become a mother. Yet the authority to women. Victorians could not perceive a woman as ambitious and fundamental human rights of liberty and equality remained. 11 powerful and still consider her ladylike and respectable. Ambition was the Thus, women who entered the public sphere had the choice of appealing antithesis of respectability. Julia Ward Howe would not sacrifice her ambition, to the cult of domesticity or of rejecting it when they strove to explain what nor could she afford to relinquish her respectability. If she wanted a public had prompted them to violate the convention of separate spheres. In her career hearing, she would have to couch her views in language that did not reject the as a reformer, Julia Ward Howe seemed to champion traditional notions of the traditional gender roles dictated by the dominant cult of domesticity. sublimity of motherhood. Yet there were more radical elements in her rhetoric. But Julia did have considerable control over the way she framed such a dis- In her peace activism, for example, she theorized that women were superior to cussion. She toyed with two different models of the new woman. The first men, because the nurturing love instinctive to them as mothers was truer to model, which Julia ultimately rejected, was that of the exceptional woman, who the character of God than was the aggression typical of men. She concluded through her own considerable abilities acquired gifts and graces that crossed that civilization's only hope for evolutionary progress was in allowing women gender lines. More accomplished than her peers, the exceptional woman was to enter public life, where their divinely inspired predilection to love others an isolated individual who dared to impinge on the male world of privilege would gradually extinguish the male propensity for violence and war. simply because she was talented enough to do so. Such an individual threat- Casting God as a mother was a potentially subversive move, and certainly, ened the status of other women, as well as that of men. In the initial years of her Julia hoped that her rhetoric about motherhood would make people rethink marriage, Julia was attracted to this model because she regarded herself as their prejudices about gender conventions. Nevertheless, in characterizing unusually gifted. But the model of the exceptional woman had real drawbacks. women as cheerful matrons overflowing with kindness, Julia was hardly offer- It depended on the peculiar talents of an individual woman, talents that others ing a theory that would free women from being defined by the roles of mother might characterize as "manly." That was the last way Julia wanted to think of and wife. Moreover, she was describing motherhood in ways that ran counter herself. Moreover, as she became involved in the woman suffrage movement in to her own experience. Julia loved her children, but she railed repeatedly the 1860s, for the first time Julia joined with other women in a common cause against the loss of autonomy that birthing, breast-feeding, and raising six chil- of gender uplift that she was convinced would benefit humanity as a whole. dren cost her. Chev rejoiced in the children, believing with each new arrival The paradigm of the exceptional woman was useless to describe this vision. that Julia would at last resign herself to her exalted position as wife and Accordingly, Julia turned to a second understanding of gender, a model mother and find fulfillment in living only for the family. Julia was never con- that viewed maleness and femaleness simply as two different poles of human vinced. "It is a blessed thing to be a mother," she noted in 1847, "but there are experience. In this view, God created maleness and femaleness as counter- bounds to all things, and no woman is under any obligation to sacrifice the points to one another. Together the two genders were an outpouring of the whole of her existence to the mere act of bringing children into the world. I divine nature, designed to work in partnership with one another for the devel- cannot help considering the excess of this as materializing and degrading to a opment of the human race. Though men and women were different from one woman whose spiritual nature has any strength. Men, on the contrary, think another, neither maleness nor femaleness was a static entity. Instead, united in it glorification enough for a woman to be a wife and mother in any way, and purpose and resolve, men and women could learn from one another and upon any terms." expand their own experiences and abilities. While key biological features Since motherhood for her was as much an exercise in self-denial as in ful- would never change-women would never father children, and men would fillment, it was significant that Julia chose, in her public rhetoric, to present never give birth-emotionally and intellectually women and men could come motherhood in lofty, majestic images. Undoubtedly practical considerations to appreciate and incorporate the rich realities of the other. In this model, the were involved. Julia Ward Howe wanted to shape the social customs as well new woman was not an isolated individual, nor did her accomplishments contribute to the literary arts of American culture. Quite simply, she sought make her "manly." Neither did the new woman set herself in opposition to power. As Carolyn Chute has pointed out, "Power is the ability to take one's man. Rather, she worked to create a world in which all women were free to place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one's explore the fullest expression of their natures, so they could offer to men the 10 Diva Julia Introduction most abundant resources for their own evolution. Fully united in partnership readers, and to conceal the unlovely. They were not braggarts-Laura would with men, the new woman sought human progress, not mere personal aggran- deliberately exclude scenes from her autobiography that might have appeared dizement. Together, man and woman could be transfigured into images more boastful-but they did write with moral purpose. 15 As Flossy put it, "the mem- reflective of their shared divine origins. ory of heroic deeds, of noble sayings, is the most precious inheritance of This model of gender relations, Julia believed, would allow her to extol mankind To pass on to our descendants the lighted torch received from our the traditional virtues of womanhood without limiting women to conven- predecessors is for us an imperative duty and a splendid privilege. tional gender roles. It also permitted her to argue that women's rights were But before Julia's daughters could pass on their sacred memories, they had not in opposition to men's prerogatives but rather a complement to them, to sort them out. Growing up, the Howe children had found themselves caught since it was only in mutual growth that man and woman enjoyed progress as between their father and their mother, determined to love both, but puzzled God intended. Still, the clash between Julia's public, more theoretical and pained at the tumult that marked their parents' relationship. Naturally, the descriptions of womanhood, particularly of the experience of being a children took sides from time to time, blaming one parent or the other for var- mother, and her private lamentations about marriage and motherhood, were ious imperfections. Those dynamics are part of every family. What was highly striking. In the body of this book, I will examine in more detail the circum- unusual, however, was the Howe children's access, once they determined to stances that prompted her to pursue a public career by championing a form become family historians, to an array of letters, poems, and diaries that of domesticity that she at times characterized as a "living death." I will draw revealed their parents' innermost secrets. Laura began working on her father's upon themes from Julia's life and her literary work as they illuminate the papers the year after his death in 1876;17 by 1886, she had acquired her interplay between her private and public descriptions of the joys and sorrows deceased sister Julia Romana's correspondence and had read as well some of of being a woman in the Victorian age. her mother's most sensitive letters. 18 After Julia's death in 1910, her papers went I will also call upon the work of Julia's children, whose writings about their to Laura. Sisters Maud and Flossy would collaborate with Laura in writing parents constituted a virtual cottage industry. Every one of Julia's five children their mother's biography, and brother Harry agreed to pay a private secretary who lived to adulthood became authors. Three of the daughters-Flossy, to transcribe and type the family archives (a work of years, not months!). Laura, and Maud-lived well into the twentieth century and published on a As a result, Julia's daughters/biographers knew as much about their variety of topics. Laura alone produced more than eighty books. But a favorite mother as any children could possibly know. They had their own memories; theme that each repeatedly explored was the Howe family. From 1894 to 1944, they had the benefit of discussing those memories among themselves; and they these three women produced more than two dozen volumes on their mother, had access to tens of thousands of pages of private documents that replayed father, and other family members, with titles ranging from the whimsical significant events from innumerable angles. They could compare what their Flossy's Play Days to the stultifying Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle. 14 They also father, their mother, and her siblings thought and said to each other over the managed the vast collection of private family papers produced by years of cor- course of many decades. They could read about themselves, too, in those doc- respondence, journal entries, and rough drafts of literary projects. Ultimately, uments. And in and through all the words and the many perspectives, the the final word on their mother's character-and, for that matter, on their Howe daughters wove their own family story. It was an uplifting narrative of father's-belonged not to Julia or Chev, but to their children, particularly to service to humanity, of obstacles overcome, and of enduring parental devo- their daughters. tion. Despair, anger, resentment, and fear played no significant role; in her By the time Julia's daughters were adults, the question of their mother's daughters' telling, Julia Ward Howe was not merely respectable, but positively autonomy was not a burning issue. To them, she was a legend. No work was inspirational. When the 1916 biography upon which her daughters collabo- necessary to establish her as a public figure with a distinct voice. The question rated won the Pulitzer Prize as the "best American biography teaching patriotic of respectability, on the other hand, did matter to them. In presenting to the and unselfish services to the people, illustrated by an eminent example," they larger world the image of family life that they wished to perpetuate, the chil- could consider themselves successful. 19 dren searched for ways to describe their parents that would capture the high In the chapters ahead, I hope to portray the heady process by which Julia points and disguise the enmity. They wanted to tell noble truths, to uplift their Ward Howe's search for autonomy and respectability produced a literary tradi- 12 Diva Julia Introduction 13 tion that established her as an American icon. The archival materials, united themes that characterized her life. Nor do I provide a systematic examination with the many books the Howes published about themselves, afford us the rare of Julia's literary works. Instead, I cull from her writings the elements relevant privilege of examining two different sides of Julia Ward Howe: her private real- to the story that I am telling, highlighting family dynamics as well as discrep- ity and her public persona. More than that, we also glimpse the ways in which ancies between public and private realities. Finally, in most instances I will not Julia's children experienced her and can view, as well, the fascinating process by interrupt the flow of the narrative to consider debates in the secondary litera- which they sought to create a suitably heroic public image of their mother. Her ture regarding the issues raised in the text. Endnotes provide references and children's desires to celebrate their remarkable family in such a way as to further information of interest to scholars, but in the narrative itself, I will resolve-as much for themselves as for others-the deep divisions that had attempt to construct a story line that allows the Howes to speak for themselves. tortured their parents' lives and disrupted their own is as much the subject of The Howes' testimonies to their conflicts over Julia's quest for autonomy were this book as is Julia Ward Howe. candid, explicit, and-given the vigor and wit typical of the family-unforget- This study of Julia Ward Howe, then, traces the ways in which Julia (and table. More than discussions of the scholarly literature could ever hope to do, later, her children) struggled to invent sufficiently celebratory public images of the Howes' voices bring to life the myths and the realities of the Victorian age. 21 themselves. In giving a hearing to Julia's private voice and in listening as well to Available materials on gender in nineteenth-century America are voluminous. her family's responses, I have written an intellectual and cultural biography. I In the pages ahead, I will not attempt to provide comprehensive bibliographi- have highlighted those aspects of Julia's life related to her own and her family's cal data on secondary texts. Rather, I will limit my citations of secondary texts quest to see Julia Ward Howe established as an eminent public figure. In par- to materials quoted or borrowed. ticular, I have focused on the ways in which the Howes molded more complex In examining the life of Julia Ward Howe, then, we see not only the trou- private realities into the public image of a noble Victorian family. Julia's story bled gender dynamics that she negotiated as a Victorian women; we also illustrates dramatically the obstacles Victorian women faced in their search for glimpse the remarkable ways in which she and her children managed their own political power and personal autonomy. history. The Julia Ward Howe that we know today-indeed, our understanding I hope that readers will resonate with the frenetic lifestyle of a nineteenth- of her entire family-was the careful creation of Howe family members. In the century woman who struggled, as women continue to do in a new millennium, end, at least in their telling, she had it all: autonomy, respectability, refinement, to "have it all." As one hard-working and perpetually sleep-deprived author/ and the acclaim of a grateful nation. wife/mother in Spokane advised college women recently, "You can have it all- but it will kill you. The dilemmas that Julia faced-how to be her own per- son and yet belong to others too, how to raise children and carve out a life with her partner without imperiling her career-are all too familiar to contempo- rary Americans. What is intriguing to observe in the life of Julia Ward Howe are both the particular compromises she made in the choice between autonomy and respectability and the concentrated efforts she and her children expended to hide those compromises from public attention. The Howes were masters of "spin" before politicians had invented the term. But even their eminence could not spare them from experiencing the kinds of doubt and guilt that typical American families endure in every age. What made the Howes special was their fierce denial of such ordinary human failures and their astonishing determina- tion to conceal them. Given my desire to examine such issues, it is inevitable that my focus is selective in this biography. For example, I do not provide a day-by-day or even a year-by-year account of the life of Julia Ward Howe; rather, I trace critical Diva Julia Notes 171 11. An example of such an argument can be found in the Rev. Celia Burleigh's "Spinsters and 15 Danny D. Smith, conversation with author, 1 April 1999. When she wrote her autobiog- Step-Mothers" article from 1872. Burleigh asserted that for too long women had assumed that raphy, Stepping Westward, Laura chose to omit a historic meeting with President Theodore Roo- they could exert legitimate influence on the world's development only through their roles of wife sevelt in the White House. Roosevelt was a fan of the books for children that Laura had written, and mother. "But God is not partial," Burleigh contended. "The best gifts, like the rain and the particularly of her nonsense verse. He invited her to lunch (along with her brother Harry and his sunshine, are there for all. Womanhood is the great fact, not wifehood nor motherhood I can wife Fanny), and while the attorney general looked on in wonder, the president treated his guests conceive of no higher mission, no holier trust, no more beneficent ministry than that of woman to fervent recitations of his favorite passages. Laura reported feeling both embarrassed and simply as woman, without reference to wifehood or maternity" (Woman's Journal 3, no. 33 [17 pleased. She wrote an account of this memorable occasion for the family log she routinely kept August 1872], p. 258). (see "Mammy's Great Frisk," Family Log, vol. 3, 1906, Yellow House Papers, Gardiner Public 12. Julia Ward Howe to Louisa Ward Crawford, 31 January 1847, bMS Am 2119 (465), HL. Library, Gardiner, Maine). Danny Smith's point is that Laura felt including such a triumphant 13. Carolyn G. Chute, Writing A Woman's Life (New York: Ballantine, 1988), p. 18. story in her autobiography would be boastful and thus inappropriate. 14. A long but no means exhaustive list numbers over twenty works. Volumes by Maud Howe Danny Smith's knowledge of Laura E. Richards and the Howe materials contained in the Yel- Elliott include The Eleventh Hour in the Life of Julia Ward Howe (Boston: Little, Brown, 1911); low House Papers at Colby College and Gardiner Public Library is unsurpassed. In addition to Three Generations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1923); Lord Byron's Helmet (Boston: Houghton Mif- personally knowing several generations of Howes, Smith is also responsible for arranging and flin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1927); John Elliott: The Story of an Artist (Boston: Houghton cataloging the Yellow House Papers. His Yellow House Papers: The Laura E. Richards Collection: Mifflin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1930); My Cousin F. Marion Crawford (New York: Macmil- An Inventory and Historical Guide (Gardiner, Maine, compiled for the Gardiner Library Associ- lan, 1934); Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York: Macmillan, 1938); This Was My Newport ation and Colby College, 1991) is the last-and indeed, the only-word on the subject. These (Cambridge, Mass.: Mythology Co./A. Marshall James, 1944); and Memoirs of the Civil War, archives are of central importance to Howe research; it was from them that Rosalind Richards 1861-1864 (n.p., n.d.; proceeds of sale given to Newport Chapter of the Red Cross). (Laura's daughter and Julia's granddaughter) culled materials to donate to the Houghton For Florence Howe Hall, the list includes Flossy's Play Days (Boston: Dana Estes, 1906); Julia Library at Harvard and to the John Hay Library at Brown University. Access to the Houghton Ward Howe and the Woman Suffrage Movement (Boston: Dana Estes, 1913; repr., Arno & New materials was restricted for decades, but is SO no longer. The Houghton collections have been York Times, 1969); The Story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic (New York: Harper, 1916); and and will continue to be crucial to studies of the Howe family. The materials in the Yellow House Memories Grave and Gay (New York: Harper, 1918). Papers have received almost no scholarly attention and deserve to come to light. As I was con- For Laura E. Richards, see When I Was Your Age (Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1894); The Julia ducting this research, access to the Yellow House Papers at Colby College was severely limited by Ward Howe Birthday Book (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1889); Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley the availability of library staff. Materials at the Gardiner Public Library in Gardiner, Maine, were Howe, 2 vols. (Boston: Dana Estes, 1906 and 1909); Two Noble Lives: Samuel Gridley Howe, Julia freely available to researchers during the library's regular hours of operation. Future references Ward Howe (Boston: Dana Estes, 1911); Julia Ward Howe, The Walk with God, ed. Laura E. to these collections will be abbreviated as YHPCC for the Colby College papers and YHPGPL for Richards (New York: Dutton, 1919); Laura E. Richards, Laura Bridgman: The Story of an Opened the Gardiner Public Library collection. Door (New York: Appleton, 1928); Stepping Westward (New York: Appleton, 1931); and Samuel There is considerable overlap between the two Yellow House collections, The Howe family Gridley Howe (New York: Appleton-Century, 1935). employed a secretary to organize their family papers after Julia's death in 1910, and in the process Maud and Flossy collaborated in writing Laura Bridgman: Dr. Howe's Famous Pupil and much of the family correspondence was typed and duplicated. The Gardiner Public Library con- What He Taught Her (Boston: Little, Brown, 1903). Laura and Maud authored, with assistance tains many typed copies of original correspondence housed in the Yellow House Papers at Colby from Flossy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910, 2 vols. (Houghton Mifflin, College. Whenever it was possible to gain access to the materials in the Colby collection, I have 1915). In 1925, Laura produced a revised one-volume version also entitled Julia Ward Howe, quoted from original Yellow House sources; in every instance that I have cited copies of the orig- 1819-1910 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1925). Future references in inals, I have indicated that fact in the notes. A further note on citations to Yellow House materi- this work will be to the original two-volume biography, which will be abbreviated as Richards als: to aid other scholars, I have provided informal names for each file folder from which I have and Elliott, Julia Ward Howe. cited information. These folder names are not official titles, but they summarize the contents of Other documents were never published. At her death, Laura left behind a manuscript each folder and enable persons searching through the various record groups to easily locate the intended for family use that she called "Side Shows." In it, she whimsically noted that she had materials cited in these notes. Those wishing a more systematic description of the contents of the been writing about her parents for at least forty years and could not shake the habit. She Yellow House record groups, as well as of the individual file folders in each group, should con- intended "Side Shows" to offer reflections on other family members important to her parents sult Smith's Yellow House Papers. Finally, as this book was going to press, I learned that the Yel- (Yellow House Papers, Gardiner Public Library, collated and typed by Danny D. Smith, October low House Papers at Colby College were being transferred to the Maine Historical Society in 1989). For more information on the Yellow House Papers, see n. 15. Portland. Once the collection has been placed there, scholars will have unrestricted access to it, At her death, Maud left behind several unpublished memoirs. Two of them (Afternoon Tea which should prove a boon for Howe studies. and Memories of Eighty Years) offer more reflections on her parents (John Hay Library, Brown 16. Hall, Memories Grave and Gay, p. 342. University, Ms. 89.13). 17. Richards, Stepping Westward, p. 329. Colby Library Quarterly Series V December 1961 No. 12 LAURA ELIZABETH HOWE RICHARDS This lady of redoubtable name and fame wrote over a hun- dred books and assuredly lived over a hundred years, despite her demise at 92. Life burned with Pater's hard gem-like flame within her. One tribute to her invincible zeal points out that "In 1940, well past ninety, this frail-appearing but stout- hearted daughter of the woman who wrote 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic," published stirring verses on the British hero- ism at Dunkerque. And in 1941 the daughter of the man who had aided the Greeks in their struggle for independence a cen- tury before dedicated a poem to the modern Greek resistance against the Fascist aggressors." Stronger than any Great Wall of China were the impassable barricades of her spirit. Her initiation and growth as a professional writer of chil- dren's literature came about in a quite typical way for her. She had written her first story when ten, but merely for amuse- ment. After the birth of her first baby she "made up jingles for her." Some of these she eventually sent to ST. NICHOLAS "and that was the beginning." Seven babies in their time called forth many more jingles, as well as stories. As they be- came big girls and boys, she turned out stories and verses for older children. And the spiral continued until she had pub- lished biography, autobiography, and practically every other form of writing. Singleminded love of family was the core of her being. But this did not curtail her other relationships. Perhaps the most eloquent indication of the spread of her mind and heart A LATE PHOTOGRAPH OF LAURA E. RICHARDS was the diversity of her friendships: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Taken by Philo Calhoun in 1941 Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander Woollcott, Conrad Aiken, Og- den Nash. There was something of all of these in her unwaver- ing flame. 326 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 327 MORE STEPS WESTWARD: A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF sorbed some of the wonders of woodcraft and sportsmanship and books. And it was then that two of his children, Rosalind LAURA E. RICHARDS and John, remembered Indian Point as one of the Skipper's "places." L.E.R. says that he never forgot any of these. By PHILO CALHOUN "They became his spiritual property: indeed he is in this wise one of the largest landed proprietors in the country, Plymouth As becomes an elderly and unregenerate sentimentalist I am Grant and Kennebec Purchase being alike largely his own, commencing the writing of this paper on the desk of Laura E. with no taxes to pay." Now, for a few of these acres, spiritual Richards at Roscahegan, her last and well-loved summer home here title materialized into actual possession, taxes began, and the at the tip of Indian Point in Georgetown, Maine. It was Skipper acquired a new interest in life. He located and de- that I first met her and it is here that, having acquired this signed the house and supervised every detail of its building. lovely place, my wife and I have lately found ourselves the of custodians of a happy tradition, and the humble inheritors With the sea a stone's throw on three sides of the house lot, and a foghorn just off shore, H.R.'s soubriquet seemed singu- a very special brand of beauty and peace. It was the Skipper who really discovered the Point. Henry larly appropriate. Indeed, when I first heard him called Skip- Richards was little more than a boy in the late sixties, when the per, I never doubted a genuinely salty provenance. More than that, it would not have needed much to convince me that he stately Kennebec River which flowed almost past his dooryard, the was the original of Captain January himself. His white beard no longer a highroad from the woods and farms of Maine to battlefields of Virginia, became again a way of happiness and was of a pattern strongly reminiscent of the cover drawing in the book, and one looked around hopefully for the oilskins and tranquility. Georgetown Island is the last land to the eastward before the sou'wester to complete the picture. He seldom talked much, river storms past Seguin Light into the North Atlantic, and and it took a bit of knowing to discover that he was really by Indian Point is the easternmost of three fingers of rocks and profession an architect, by necessity a business man, by instinct at the river end of its ragged coastline. In those far-off and a teacher, by nature a lover of all outdoors, but alas, no light- spruce there was no road to the Point, so that when Henry house keeper, ex or otherwise. I found out too that the title days his brother Robert sailed into Sagadahoc Bay on one of their "Skipper" antedated even Merryweather days. Originally in- voyages of discovery the shore was a pristine wilderness of deed it was a title bestowed by L.E.R. herself, an affectionate concession to connubial authority. unforgettable beauty. Tides, winds and weather must all be just right to make the The house at Roscahegan - six bedrooms, an enormous liv- Bay by sail, and the trip by sea was not repeated. But H.R. ing room, a kitchen, two bathrooms and an ample screened porch - was completed late in the summer of 1934. It was never forgot the island, even though more than half a century went by before his second visit, this time by car and mostly not too different in design from the usual large shore cottage of the early nineteen hundreds, except for four odd little glassed- over a pair of dusty ruts which only by law and extreme courtesy could be called a road. It seemed impossible that after all in turrets, two on each long side, whose sole purpose was to those years the Point should be still virginal, but, except for brighten the living room. H.R. confessed that these were a one or two inconspicuous white houses on the lee shore, so it rather nostalgic touch of Nuremberg; tribute, not wholly pro- was, and so, at the end of the Point at least, it is today. fessional, to a sentimental journey in the seventies with a new bride. It was not until 1933, at the age of 85, that the Skipper gave Merryweather, the camp in the Belgrade district at which, ab- There was already a tiny two-room shack on the Point when up under his inspired tutelage, two generations of boys had the Richards family took over. Empty then, except for a rude built-in cot and a pot-bellied iron stove, it was until lately the 328 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 329 castle of Horatio Nelson Drake, a bearded old squatter who friendship. I cannot recollect precisely what we had for tea, eked out a precarious livelihood from his fishlines and lobster who was there, what was said. I think we only felt that we pots. He had moved down to the shore after the death of his were privileged to sit at the feet of all New England, in its inner- wife; said he couldn't bear the village without her "it was most sanctum. just too lonesome!" "Uncle Raish" was the stuff of which That was long after we first met the Richards family. In legends are made, and at the prevailing pace of legends in this 1935, the year after Roscahegan was completed, the center of neighborhood it is reasonably certain that in a couple of gener- Georgetown was Todd's Store, presided over by Will Todd, ations he will merge as a close kin to the Admiral, proper heir postmaster, town clerk, storekeeper, general factotum of the en- to the glory of Trafalgar, and a sort of benign retired pirate in tire island. If one had Will's approval it was acceptance. If his own right. Be that as it may, the fact is that in the mid- not, there were two, maybe three strikes against you. Fortu- twenties he was a sturdy, literate, friendly old gentleman, bound nately, the final judgment took time. I never heard him say a and beholden to the sea which he had fought and loved for really unkind word about anyone, but I, in common with other eighty years. friends, sometimes detected a certain lack of enthusiasm which John and the Skipper saw the old man a few times, but when might be appraised with fair accuracy. the Point went to the Richards family, physical and mental de- Will fits into this record on several counts. His father owned crepitude had already translated the Captain to a daughter's the Point and a good many other acres before a real estate syn- home up the coast, where he died not long afterwards. But the dicate took over. It was the elder Todd who gave tacit per- place still stands, much as Uncle Raish left it. The board on mission to Uncle Raish to live there, but the name "Rosca- which he printed "Snug Harbor" is even now over the doorway. hagen" was Will's suggestion. It is Algonquin for "rough In 1931, in her eighty-second year, Laura Elizabeth Richards water," and reputedly was the first name for the whole island. finished and published Stepping Westward, charming autobi- The suffix is not unfamiliar in Maine geography Monhegan ography of a happy, active and productive life. A Bostonian is said to mean "beautiful water," Skowhegan, "falling water," by birth, she had moved to Gardiner, Maine, with her husband among others. in 1876, five years after their marriage. Henry Richards and The Richards family, gentlefolk in their own right and citi- his forebears had deep roots in that community; many a great zens of Maine to boot, had no trouble achieving a Class A name in the long history of the state pioneer, scholar, soldier status in Will's book. And a useful accolade it was, too, be- or statesman was an offshoot of his family tree. And the cause the Store was a sort of combination information center daughter of a distinguished humanist and of the scholar-patriot and immigration bureau with its own technique of screening who had electrified a nation with her "Battle Hymn of the outsiders. I am sure Will would never actually misdirect such Republic," could not fail to find warm welcome in such sur- people as mendicants, salesmen, curiosity seekers or obviously roundings, particularly if married to a Richards, and even more inconvenient visitors, but I would hazard a guess that his re- particularly if she were Laura Elizabeth, an eager mind en- port of road conditions and obscure turn-offs might occasionally riched with a great heart. be colored by his estimate of the inquirer. The net result was I had little personal contact with Mrs. Richards as Gardiner's a not inconsiderable contribution to privacy and tranquility. first citizeness. Part of the long record of her untiring devotion However, for accredited householders Todd's Store is the to the civic and cultural interest of that justly prideful commu- social center of the island, and mailtime, about half past eleven nity is compiled in Laura E. Richards and Gardiner, published in the morning, is when you greet old friends and start making by her friends and neighbors for her ninetieth birthday in 1940. new ones. Thus it was that on one of these occasions, in the Two or three times we had tea at her Gardiner home, the summer of 1936, Josephine Shain, friend of many years' stand- "Yellow House," during the eight years of our memorable ing, presented me to Miss Rosalind, L.E.R.'s daughter, whom I J. In Me COLL. memoriam: Laura E. Richards 1850 330 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 331 came to know as the gentle and tireless mind, heart and spirit was pure period-piece down to her feet - which I guess was of the entire Richards household. She was shopper, arranger, where Rosalind stopped and Laura Elizabeth took over. Sneak- buffer, manager, "cheerer-up-er," among other functions. She ers here, clean, but worn and comfortable, and no apologies. had, and still has, a genius for giving the impression that her life (Rosalind tells me that about this time she and her mother is a comparatively arid vista punctuated happily by the loases were preparing to attend a rather formal reception in Augusta. of her meetings with you. I am not suggesting that she is not Finally Mrs. Richards announced she was ready, and appeared discriminating. She is that, and even fastidious, but her inter- in brocaded gray silk and lace, set off with her mother's est in people as such, and her sureness of the essential goodness pearls, - and - elkskin moccasins from L. L. Bean! R.R.: of most of them, is an article of faith with her, and one not easily "Everything else looks absolutely right; but darling, aren't those shaken. rather funny shoes?" L.E.R.: "Yes, dear; and when you are in So when Jo introduced us, and I mentioned that since the your eighties, you will find that you wear very funny shoes, be- age of five I had successively fallen in love with practically all cause you have very funny feet!") of L.E.R.'s little girl heroines, and was hopeful that the camara- The blue eyes behind her rimless spectacles were friendly, derie of the island might embrace a meeting with their creator, but keen and bright, and she smiled with her whole face, with I was promptly invited to tea, and accepted with what I suspect an effect almost roguish. I never heard her laugh beyond the was almost indecent alacrity. point of a faint, infectious chuckle. The instincts of a lady I have said this much about Rosalind, because from that first may have had something to do with that. I fancy that Oliver tea party at Roscahegan, I am unable to entirely separate Mrs. Goldsmith's discouraging line on the subject was not unfamiliar. Richards and Rosalind in my thoughts. Fundamentally dif- But it was not something missed. Her eyes were clear pools ferent as they were, together they suggested a curious symmetry, of merriment; even her smile seemed a mellow afterglow of as though the one were an old, precious and very fragile mu- laughter. seum piece, and the other its dedicated curator, prideful not If Mrs. Richards had been in the pattern of most celebrities, only in the immense value of her charge but in its appearing even of an age far less than her impressive vintage, she would only to the best advantage. One was sensible of a meticulous have needed no hearing aid. Reminiscing about the golden age care of preparation, of dress, of entrance, of seating, of lights of one's fame ordinarily requires only strong vocal chords and a and shadows even. I think it was all quite unpremediated, born series of polite listeners. But L.E.R. was not like that. She only of gentle pride, and a lifetime of unremitting selflessness. wanted to talk about you, not herself, and she particularly At any rate there she was, eighty-six now, almost last of the wanted to delve for whatever you had of mind, knowledge, great names which earned for Boston its title of Hub of the human sympathy and talent for living. And pretending to no Universe, writer of tales, singer of songs, champion of noble degree of clairvoyance she wanted to hear it from you. Her living and brave dying, first lady of all New England. Her hearing device, however, was no great spur to conversation hair, soft, thick, pure white, was drawn back neatly, but not until you had become well accustomed to it. She called it her harshly, into a loose twist. Her skin was so finely wrinkled "snake," which was a rather terrifyingly accurate description. that in the dimly lighted room it seemed the texture of rose At one end was an ear appliance, at the other, a speaking tube, petal, faintly pink and clear as Dresden china. and in between was about two feet of pliable cable which ap- Her dress was ankle-length, some small flower print in pastel peared to stretch indefinitely when the tube was handed to you. colors, as I recall it, with a soft neckline centered in an old- Before you got used to it, you could hardly avoid the feeling fashioned brooch. As the afternoon grew cool, Rosalind laid that you were recording for posterity. My then small daughter a light shawl over her shoulders, and again you had the fleeting Sally has told me that she felt as if her words were dropping impression of a "fair linen cloth" shielding a sanctuary. It dead somewhere along the snakeline, and she found herself B RICHAR, L. Me.Coll. In memoriam: Laura E. 332 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 333 talking in an excited highpitched rush in an effort to get them happy talent for adding to that privileged company. He is in through alive. retirement now, but still completely and contentedly busy. Sally never forgot the later occasion when Mrs. Richards John always had tea with us when he was at home; the Skip- took her hand and said, "You know, Sally, when I was a young per less frequently. No one ever really apologized for this woman I sometimes visited a much older cousin, who once told absence. I remember L.E.R. saying once, "I don't know where me that one of her first memories was of being led out onto the Mr. Richards is. Some afternoons he is trying to finish his veranda of her home to watch a procession. Finally a man biography and other times he is working on living to be a hun- rode by on a white horse, and her mother said, 'Look at him, dred. I'm not sure which it is today." my child! And all your life remember that you have seen I found her reluctant to claim personal intimacy or even General Washington!' So, Sally dear, you may tell your grand- friendship with any of the great literary figures in the Boston children one day, that when you were a girl you talked with of her girlhood. She grew up in an age when young people of someone who had known a woman who had seen George Wash- a household, if permitted to sit at the table with guests, were ington. That might brighten up the history book, don't you expected to maintain a modest and respectful silence. It was think so, Sally?" not in her character to exploit and certainly not to exaggerate her largely formal contacts with friends of her parents. She has But I am getting away from that first tea party, which I admitted to me that Dr. Holmes, Agassiz, Sumner, Booth, should finish telling about, because it was more or less the Emerson and others were not infrequently guests at the Howe prototype of others that summer and in the years that followed. dinner table, but I felt that she was disinclined, almost to the Tea was brewed in a large old-fashioned china teapot, and I do point of distaste, to enlarge on the bare facts. She makes no not recall that it was ever very strong. But that mattered little reference to such occasions in her autobiography. The pub- because, although the ladies thinned out their tea still more with lisher of that work, in the blurb on the dust cover, has this to hot water, the gentlemen were invited to fortify theirs with a say: "Among the friends with whom she grew up were the touch of New England rum. John was probably responsible for this mild depravity, and I sensed that L.E.R. felt that it lent Hawthorne family, Louisa Alcott, and many other literary fig- a comforting lusty flavor to an occasion which would otherwise ures of Boston, Cambridge and Concord." In her own copy of this book, L.E.R. has penciled opposite this statement: "No! be a bit pallid for masculine tastes. Neither Hawthorne nor Alcotts were more than valued, but sel- John was the youngest son of the house, and during the sum- dom seen acquaintances." I would guess that this was particu- mer of these years was on holiday from St. Paul's School, where larly true of the Alcott family. Little Women was not per- he was master of English for many years. That is, he was on mitted reading in the Richards household, by reason of "certain holiday as much as John ever was, or is. Added to which, he vulgarities." was a vital part of the household at the Point. He hand- Sometimes, when the weather was warm and sunny, Mrs. pumped water for years before electric service was available; Richards would like to sit in the sturdy old porch rocker on he was the uncomplaining fireman, handyman, stevedore, mes- the broad veranda. It was here, I think, that we had our best senger, and general diagnostician of all the strange ailments talks. We had gradually emerged from the status of great lady which bedevil the simplest appliances when they are fifteen and humble admirer, and acquired a more comfortable sort of miles from the nearest repair shop. And with all this John friendship, and interest in each other as people, each with ideas seemed to find time for reading and writing, making a garden, and devotions and loyalties, with ambitions realized and other- painting his boat, fishing in the bay or attending some civic wise, with accomplishments and stumblings. She talked often affair or scholars' meeting in Gardiner. But there was always of her parents, in whom she had a large and understandable time for a warm concern in the welfare of his friends and a pride. I once showed her a letter of Mrs. Howe, which I Richards 334 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 335 had procured from some antiquarian. "Dear Mamma's own she did, bless her. "Inscribed for our good friend and neighbor handwriting!" she exclaimed, and kissed the letter before she Philo Calhoun, by Laura E. Richards, July 6th, 1940." handed it back. "Read it to me, and tell me where you found One time she asked me which of her books I liked best. it," she begged. "And don't say Captain January or I shall be sure you never Although her respect and admiration for her mother was read another." I replied that I thought it was Isla Heron. "At genuine and unbounded, I am sure it was her father who com- least," I added, "well enough to have read it half a dozen manded her passionate devotion. Between them there was a times." She was really pleased. "How nice to hear that," she community of spirit, a sense of comradeship and unspoken said. "I had such pleasure in writing it. I think it is one of my understanding. And hers was a lovely sort of hero worship favorites too. Although I'm afraid," she sighed, "it didn't sell for the stalwart young man who at large sacrifice gave his tal- very well." ents to the cause of the Greek patriots, for the careful, patient In addition to her numerous prose works, L.E.R. wrote verse. physician who brought usefulness and happiness to the blind A prodigious amount of verse, published and unpublished. For and deaf Laura Bridgman, for the humanitarian to whom hu- her children, her friends, her friends' children, to say nothing man need and injustice was a continual challenge. of the Red Cross, the Library Drive, and every other Good L.E.R. congratulated me when I told her I had bought a first Cause which asked that its claim to support be suitably rhymed printing of her mother's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." by Mrs. Richards. The rest of it was largely humorous jingles I suspect she was a little weary of being interviewed about the for children, the sort of thing that keeps singing in the back Battle Hymn. But she kissed me when I said I had her father's of your mind years after other childish things have been put An Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution. I wish I might away. have shown her my wife's copy of Volume I of the Cyclopedia She loved to write verse, and did so even after Sarah Orne for the Use of the Blind, folio, in raised type, compiled by Dr. Jewett had sensibly advised her that her forte was prose and Howe. A labor of love, if ever there was one. that she should stick to that. She says of her own ambition as From the porch at Roscahegan one can see the wide glare of a poet: "I did not want my poetry simple. I wanted it to flash Seguin Light, but not the lighthouse itself. Often in these last and ring and roll; bells and trumpets for Laura Elizabeth!" I years she was asked if this was really the "Light Island" of haven't found many such. The chief justification of L.E.R.'s Captain January, and whether that was her reason for summer- verse is that it gave a good deal of pleasure to a great many ing on the Point. "I have been asked about that so many, many people. Perhaps that is enough. times," she confided. "I told in my biography what there was There was and is a square piano of uncertain age at Rosca- to tell. A trip to Bar Harbor with my husband, - sitting on hegan. Rosalind bought it somewhere. It was and is villain- the rocks and seeing a light far out to sea. And beyond that, ously and unredeemably out of tune. Mrs. Richards invited nothing but romancing and imagination." "And did you never me to try it out occasionally. Unfortunately my repertoire is limited to hymns, Bach chorales, Beethoven's "Minuet," "Hu- find out," I asked, "what light it was?" "No," she smiled. moresque" - which I play well enough and a number of "People have tried to tell me. I stop them. I don't want to other things which I play in a manner acceptable only to tone know. Somehow I felt it might spoil something." deaf people of unusual tolerance. Mrs. Richards would listen She graciously inscribed my first issue of that book. "For patiently for a while and then ask, "Do you know anything more three reasons," she said. "First, because it's a true first issue, lively, Phil?" Sometimes I could induce her to sing one of her and I know you must have had trouble finding one; next, be- own songs. She liked "The Hottentot" best, and sang it softly, cause it is close to the fiftieth anniversary of the copyright; and but with great gusto and obvious enjoyment, to her own chord finally - I shan't tell you the last reason write it." And accompaniment on the old piano. Sometimes these musical memoriam Laura E. 336 Colby Library Quarterly Colby Library Quarterly 337 sessions would evoke a word from Rosalind. "I think perhaps A CHECKLIST OF THE SEPARATELY PUBLISHED Mother may be getting a little tired, Phil dear." I'm sure she WORKS OF LAURA E. RICHARDS was, or should have been. But what nice times they were! I wondered sometimes whether L.E.R.'s runaway imagina- By PHILO CALHOUN and HOWELL J. HEANEY tion, her unlimited energy, her eager interest in new things, new people, her flair for "bells and trumpets," might have brought A real bibliography or even a complete checklist of the writ- moments of impatience - depression, almost spiritual claustro- ings of this indefatigable lady would be a well-nigh impossible phobia - at life in a small town and work in a small summer task. Her daughter (Rosalind) tells us that during her ninety- camp. I think I once shocked Rosalind a little by suggesting three years she composed literally hundreds of verses, songs, that in a different age, under other conditioning, her mother fables, stories, vignettes, eulogies, appeals, criticisms, me- would have had a glorious time being a lady pirate. Or else: morials, on every conceivable subject, from the conduct of The streets World War I to the local library drive. Some of these were Led at last to water black and glossy. printed only in newspapers in Gardiner and elsewhere, some in There on a shabby building was a sign Youth's Companion or St. Nicholas, others in children's maga- 'The India Wharf' and we turned back. zines both in America and abroad, many of them long since I always felt we could have taken ship extinct. A goodly number were privately printed, others never And crossed the bright green seas saw the light except in family letters or personal notebooks. To dreaming cities set on sacred streams Miss Richards has quite sensibly assumed that such of these as And palaces Of ivory and scarlet. her mother thought worth preserving were incorporated in one or more of the published volumes listed below, and has been I don't know. Probably not. She was a perfectionist at reluctant to encourage any attempt to extend this list to include heart, and in her code that meant giving, not taking; standing publications in periodicals or even collections to which her up, not running away. Within this creed she lived, and when mother contributed pieces which, in many instances, were later she died in 1943, I could be sure that as for Bunyan's Mr. included in her own books. Great-heart, "all the trumpets sounded for her on the other We have of course excluded also republications, including side." selections from the books not only in English but in translations ranging as far afield as Armenian and Turkish. We believe this to be the first published checklist of Mrs. Richards' books which has attempted to include more than her principal works, and like all first lists it must be permitted a generous margin of error, both of commission and omission. After all, the lady wrote more books than both Dickens and Thackeray combined, and more than one bibliographer has grown gray in pursuit of elusive rarities in the works of these gentlemen. We started with a printed list probably prepared by one of the author's publishers in the middle thirties, to which L.E.R. had made handwritten additions. This was supplemented by a preliminary and unpublished list of her books for children, pre- pared and kindly made available by Mr. Jacob Blanck. Miss Tudor Richards Phone Interview, December 12, 2005 Tudor Richards (1915?- ) paternal grandparents were Laura and Henry Richards of Gardiner Maine. Tudor's grandfather was the architect who designed and supervised the construction of Old Farm, the Bar Harbor cottage of George Bucknam Dorr. The project began in 1878 (?) and the house was first occupied in 1881. When I asked whether Henry might have had a hand in the landscaping of the grounds and the placement of the outbuildings, Tudor thought this was "quite possible" since Henry "was a landscape architect as well and a good watercolorist." Tudor was unaware of the Mary Gray Ward Dorr essay by Laura Richards and could not offer a judgment about its likely date of composition. Copy sent to him next day along with copy of my article on the building Dr. Abbe's museum in Mr. Dorr's park. In our discussion, Tudor described his grandmother as " " cautious," "discreet," an "intelligent person" regarding my queries about what might have led her to compose an eight page essay on Mary Gray Ward Dorr which appears in the "Side Show" files contained in the Yellow House Papers now housed at the Maine Historical Society in Portland. We discussed his grandparents habits, specifically that Laura would likely not have been with Henry while he was at work in Bar Harbor on either the Dorr or earlier Hale home. Their dating of their letters to one another substantiate this impression. See also letters to Tudor Richards, Yellow House file. R. Epp, 12.14.05. ler Page 1 of 2 Gardiner Public Library 152 Water Street, Gardiner, Me 04345 Main Desk: 207-582-3312 Children's Room: 207-582-6894 Director: 207-582-6893 Laura E. Richards Laura E. Richards (1850-1943), one of Gardiner, Maine's two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, was born in Boston to eminent parents, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind; and Julia Ward Howe, social reformer and lyricist of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In 1871, she married Henry Richards (1848-1949), architect and industrialist, who returned to Gardiner, Maine in 1876 to manage the family paper mills. Here she wrote more than ninety works, mostly in the fields of children's literature and biography, at the family's celebrated residence, the Yellow House. Following the example of her parents, Mrs. Richards brought about social reforms and civic improvements in Gardiner including the introduction of safe drinking water, the public health nurse, the hospital, the Red Cross, a new high school, and numerous service organizations, including the Gardiner Public Library. Her permanent contribution to world literature, in the opinion of the Oxford anthology series editors, was that of nonsense verses, including perennial favorites such as "Little John Bottlejohn," "Eletelephony," and "The Poor Unfortunate Hottentot" - verses which "seemed to bubble up from some spring of nonsense" in her own words. Her first publication was a book of nonsense verses, Sketches and Scraps (1881). Other collections included In My Nursery (1890), The Hurdy- Gurdy (1902), The Piccolo (1906), and her final anthology which was in print until a decade ago, Tirra Lirra (1932). As her own children grew up, she wrote short stories which interested them. These juvenile books appeared as the Margaret Monfort series, the Hildegarde series, and others. Captain January (1890), a best seller, was twice made into movies, and the second time starred Shirley Temple. Among her adult nonfiction works were a two-volume biography of her father, Letters and Journal of Samuel Gridley Howe (1906-09); a joint biography of her parents, Two Noble Lives (1911); and, most importantly, the two-volume biography of her mother, Julia Ward Howe (1915), the first biography to be honored by the Pulitzer Prize. In her own estimation, her best works were two books of fables, The Golden Windows (1903) and The Silver Crown (1906). In her autobiography, Stepping Westward (1931) she recalls her other important work: the founding of the third boy's camp in the nation, Camp Merryweather, whose campers grew up to become national leaders and her literary mentorship of Gardiner's other Pulitzer Prize winner, Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935). Pictures and a short biography of Laura E. Richards are available at the ReadSeries.com website. http://www.gpl.lib.me.us/ler.htm 7/6/2004 Garler Page 1 of 2 The Yellow House Gardiner Public Library Photographs The Yellow House at 3 Dennis Street is also known as the Laura E. Richards House. It is a Federal-style building erected in 1814 and remodeled at the turn of the century by the accomplished architect Henry Richards whose wife Laura wrote over ninety books here. Mrs. Richards' mother Julia Ward Howe was a frequent visitor here from 1878 to 1910. This building is now privately owned. Back to the Gardiner Public Library Home Back to Laura E. Richards Page Back to A Look at Gardiner, Back to Special Collections Maine For questions or comments, please send mail to: webmaster@gpl.lib.me.us Copyright 1997-2000 Gardiner Public Library http://www.gpl.lib.me.us/garler.htm 7/6/2004 RI HARDS NOTED HOR DIES LAURA E. RICHARDS, NOTED AUTHOR, DIES Daughter of Julia Ward Howe Wrote 80 Books-Pen Busy Nearly to End in 93d Year STORIES DELIGHTED YOUTH Captain January Sales Up to 750.000 Copies-Her Father Pioneer in Aiding Blind GARDINER Me. Jan 14 UPI- Mrs. Laura E Richards, author and daughter of Juha Ward Howe who wrote "The Rattle Hymn of the Republic. died at her home to MRS. LAURA E RICHARDS day Mrs. Richards, who would have become 93 on Feb 27. wrote some eighty books most of them and pull bim about and make him for children including the beloved dance with us. "Captain January," which sold They both read aloud to UA grout deal, those dear parents 300,000 copies Both read very beautifully from She became with cold less them we learned to love Shake then two weeks ago Complica- speare and Scott and Dickens, and Lions set and her condition we never can forget how my father read the Bible. his deep, melo- gradually grew worse dious voice They made us read Surviving are her husband aloud too, and took great pains to Henry Richards, who is 95: two make US finish our words read suns, John. faculty member at clearly and with the right em- St Paul's School Concord N. H., phasis. Wed 71 Years and Henry on the facuity of Cro- ton School Groton Mass. and At 17 her father and mother look her on tour of Europe, Dr. three daughters Mrs Carleton A Howe then 67 years old answer. Shaw of Grotoc. Mrs Charles Wil- ing the call of the Cretan insurrec- liams of Dedham Mass. and Miss tion "as he had sprung the call Rosalind Richards Gardiner of Greuce forty-five years before John and Rosalind inherited some At she became engaged to of their mother's literary talent Henry Richards Architectural stu- John poel well teacher dent just out of Harvard They and Rosalind an author were married on June 17, 1871, on In 1936. Mrs. Richards was made Bunker Hill Day an honorary doctor of letters by They took trip abroad. her the University of Maine husband studying European archi- tecture. After his three successful Advice OR Attracting Children years in Boston depression To hold child's interest Mrs blighted architecture and in 1876 Richards once said, an author must Mr. Richards returned to Gardiner, use direct approach, and in her his birthplace. to help run the autobiography "Stepping West family paper mill ward." she gave this advice OB There Mrs. Richards had lived reading for children eve. since, becoming the mother Give them the best there is seven children, ng her books Give them the great ballads the to help out with the family finan- Norse sagas, Jays ancient Rome, ces, joining good works for the Shakespeare the Bible. community welare and cultivating Mrs Richards grew up in Bos- many friendships. ton. where she was born Feb. 27. As her first-born baby lay in her 1850 and came to Gardiner as the las Mrs. Richards used her back bride of Henry Richards She as writing desk The jingles she spent most of her life in "the yel- thus turned out were published by low house, stately home that St. Nicholas marking her public became the gathering place of the debut writer Besides her juvenile work she State's literary colony contributed to the Atlantic, Cen- Beginning the writing of stories in her tenth year. she still will tury and other periodicals num- ber of poems chiefly the ballad writing in her ninety third year. style. Her first published book publishing in the Summer of 1942 was "Five Little Mice Mouse a poem dedicated to the men and Trap." in 1880, followed by women the USO. "Sketches and Scraps, By Papa and Mama, in collaboration with One Series Sold 730,000 Copies her husband and illustrated by him Mrs. Richards Inherited literary for the amusement of their chil talent from her mother. Julia Ward dren Howe Her books, most of them for children were immensely popu- lar The novel "Captain Janu- ary published 1890 which was made into the motion picture of the same title starring Shirley Temple 1936 and subsequent titles the same series sold more than 750,000 copies. Her books for girls about hero ines. Hildegarde and Rose. ran through many editions and 1932 her "Tirra Lirra" was the Junior Literary Guild selection for chil dren from 12 She also wrote biographies of her mother in collaboration with he: sister Maud Howe Elliott of her !ather Dr Samuel Gndley Howe benefactor of the Stind and insane and founder the Perkins Institute for the Bland and of Edwin Arlungton Robinson the poet whour she knew when he was a child Gardiner. and in whose honor her husband presented & tablet the town 1936 her autotiography Stepping Westward published in 1931 Alexander Woolcall wrote his sketch Mrs Richards in "While Rome Burus. despair of finding any formula by which can hint you one-half the pleasure and the rue experienced in reading it.' Gave Book Plates for War Last year when she was in. formed by her publishers that the plates of her book "Tuto" were to be melted to release metal for war purposes the author then 92 wrote the following verses: TO TOTO And how can book die better, My merry little friend. Than serving our Country And helping War to end Flow down stream of metal clear. Which yet may brightly shine And Toto. your brazen tear. I'm adding this mine More than year before our en- trance into the present war, Mrs Richards publicly praised what support we were then giving the democracies, hailing our young men and women who were volum- teers on the firing line as "our small shining front of honor." Mrs Richards was named for Laura Bridgman blind deal- mate whom Dr Howe led on the same path out darkness that Helen Keller later trod litimpses of Her Childhood In spite of their extensive activ Ities Dr. and Mrs Howe found much time for the care and com- pantonship of their children "We were not allowed to disturb moth er's study hours unless there was good reason for it.' Mrs Richards recalled "but there came Lime in the afternoon that was all our own Then my mother would sit down the piano and we would all sing and dance together "And while we were dancing pertinps the door would open and father would come to juin the merrymaking might come play- ing bear wrapped his great fur cost. growling terribly That was wonderful fun for be was the good natured tear of the fairy stories and we could climb all over bun