DOLL COLLECTOR Hitty Hoopla, a Rachel Field Day The original Hitty, which resides at the Stockbridge. Massachusetts, Library. BY VIRGINIA HEYERDAHL A ugust 10, 2011, will be an exciting day for Maine 1800s. He was a forerunnen of Wild West shows and the history and Hitty enthusiasts. On that day, the circus. A widower, he left his three children with his sister Great Cranberry Island Historical Society (GCI- on Cranberry Island and toured England and Europe with HS) will host "HITTY HOOPLA, A Rachel Field Day" to a display of northern artifacts and curiosities, stuffed honor Rachel Field-poet, playwright, artist and author. arctic animals, and an Eskimo couple to demonstrate Festivities will include talks and activities about Rachel hunting, kayaking and harpooning. He performed at local and Hitty, the doll heroine of Rachel's most famous New- fairs and royal palaces. Europe loved his little show and bery award-winning book, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. Captain Hadlock was quite successful. As soon as you set foot on Great Cranberry, you'll see In March of 1825, he fell in love, courted, and married why Rachel set several of her books and poems on these Dorethea Albertina Wilhemina Celeste Russ of Prus- beautiful islands-God's Pocket, Hitty, Her First Hundred sia (Germany). Unable to say all those foreign names, Years, Calico Bush, and the poems, "Cranberry Road," "If the captain simply called her Hannah Caroline. They Once You Have Slept on an Island," and "North of Time" moved to Paris where he rented an exhibition hall. Not all have an implied or explicit Cranberry connection. as successful there, particularly after George the Eskimo Hitty Her First Hundred Years is perhaps the most loved died, he sold his show at auction. Their child, Matilda, book of Rachel Field. It is printed yearly and often used was born in Paris in March 1826. That spring the family as a classroom study. Hitty clubs still are active and many crossed the Atlantic to return to Great Cranberry Island, club members have visited the museum in Maine. Maine. Rachel's other down east Maine book, God's Pocket is Here the captain, with help from his brother-in-law, the true story of the life of Captain Samuel Hadlock, Jr., of Samuel Spurling, built a large house for his bride. The Great Cranberry Island. The book is dedicated to Samuel islanders were in awe of the pretty foreigner, calling her C. Sanford, Hadlock's grandson, who told Rachel of "The Prussian Woman." Hadlock's interesting life, and inspired her to record it. After a few years, and not satisfied to merely be a fish- Sammy Sanford is the man who startled Rachel when erman, the restless captain decided to collect materials for she was picking wild raspberries in a secluded spot near another show. He set sail on the Minerva, on a sealing and Preble Cove. To calm her he said, "Don't be frightened, whaling trip up north, with his eldest son, his nephew, you're as safe with me as if you was in God's pocket. and a crew of 19 local men. They never returned. Later re- That remark intrigued Rachel, and their friendship ports from Labrador confirmed that the captain was found grew when Sammy told the imaginative young woman dead, frozen on the ice. There was never any news of the the fascinating story of his grandfather, Captain Samuel ship or the other men on board. Hadlock, Jr. It was a unique story: his arctic traveling Distraught, his wife Hannah Caroline, borrowed a show taken to Europe, his courtship and marriage there to wagon, took all the captain's exhibition pieces to the har- his second wife, their daughter (Sammy's mother) being bor and threw them into the sea. She then packed up and born in Paris, their return to Cranberry Island, Maine, left the island with her daughter, Matilda. and finally the disaster when he sailed again to the north Meanwhile, Captain Hadlock's sister, Abigail, was left where all were lost in the ice off Labrador. with five children when her husband, Samuel Spurling, Sammy's grandfather, Captain Samuel Hadlock, Jr., was also lost at sea. She married William Pitt Preble and created his North American Exhibition show in the early they bought the captain's beautiful house. The house 28 SEPTEMBER 2011 DOLL COLLECTOR