Caroline H. Dall, Alongside, cont'd
Although I went to many parties that winter, and was the daughter of a very wealthy man, I had but two dresses, the white one I have mentioned, and a rose colored silk, embroidered in the same color with half opened buds. This last was my father's choice, and suited my pale face. I suspect I should have had but one, if the white one, granted to my own entreaty, had not been so very unbecoming. No one in those days ever thought of a new dress for every ball.
It was soon after we went to Hancock Avenue that some Massachusetts Educational Association, the exact title of which I do not remember, held a meeting in the " House of Assembly." I was already teaching in two Sunday schools and deeply interested in educational matters, but looked, I suppose, even younger than I was, from the surprise my interest often excited. I went to the meeting in question, was greatly interested in the discussions, and asked some questions which no one seemed disposed to answer.
Suddenly a lady rose, who seemed to me the most beautiful being I had ever seen. Her features were as clean cut as a Greek cameo, her hair of a golden lustre was gathered in long ringlets at the back, and her whole bearing was one of aerial grace. She took up my questions, made them plain to the audience, and showed very clearly their connection with the discussion. " What a teacher she would make! " I thought as I listened with delight, not knowing that she had already taught, and that it was her own experience that had translated my meaning. After all was over she came to me, offered me her card, and expressing her sympathy in the interest I evidently felt, asked me to come and see her.
The name upon the card was that of Maria Weston Chapman. I did not know it, nor that of William Lloyd Garrison in their true relations, until long after. As I looked at her, she seemed to represent Minerva, so Greek, so purely intellectual was the whole expression of her figure. From that moment till she died, my allegiance never wavered. I see her now, as she stood before me then, as distinctly as I did that day. The "steel blue eye" which Lowell celebrated in his early poem was brilliant but not penetrating. Many years have passed since she died, and no intelligible word has yet been spoken concerning her. Though I loved her, I never became an agnostic for her sake. She realized my highest ideal, so far as intellect was concerned, but my imagination always ventured on higher flights than hers, my heart always beat more warmly. Her indignations were rooted in her sense of justice, mine in warm human sympathies.
I carried my card home. "Shall she go?" said my mother. " It will not harm her," said my father. Never shall I forget that delightful afternoon. One of the finest intellects was devoted to my entertainment. Portfolios and cabinets, filled with things that I had never seen, were opened to me. Once we came upon a picture of a slave chained and beaten. I turned it quickly. " It hurts me," I said. " It ought to," she added, and I saw a sorrowful expression pass over her beautiful face.
When I wrote the Constitution of the " Association for the Advancement of Social Science," she was the only person who recognized my hand. I did not see her for many years after that pleasant afternoon in West Street, but when, after some personal experience of slavery, I sent my first contribution to the " Liberty Bell," Mrs. Chapman, who was the Editor, sent it back to me with a note. " I want to print it," she wrote, " but I cannot do it until I am sure you have counted the cost. Are you strong enough to bear the isolation that will come ? " "I ought to be," I answered, " have I not seen Dr. Channing walking the streets of Boston alone ? " The question showed the strictly just character of the woman.
On the third of June, 1840, the first ocean steamship reached Boston. It was called the " Unicorn." Of her twenty-seven passengers, the son of Mr. Samuel Cunard was one. Banners streamed, salutes were fired, and the city of Boston entertained the officers by a reception and banquet in Faneuil Hall. In return, the officers of the " Unicorn " invited the families of the leading Boston merchants to an excursion from Boston to Salem and back, which was followed by a banquet in the saloon of the steamer and a ball upon the deck.
The " Unicorn " was a small steamer, and she was afterwards transferred to the St. Lawrence, running for years between Quebec and Pictou. She was very elegantly decorated. I still see distinctly the gold and white panels of the saloon, the gay dresses of the ladies, and hear the eloquent but decidedly Irish accents of Mr. Grattan, who was then British Consul at the port.
I find in my girlish Journal a very full account of this excursion. I call the entertainment splendid, but am chiefly astonished by the floral decorations which were to be found in all parts of the boat. I am delighted with the finish of the machinery, and the delicacy of the landscape painting on the panels, and the berths in the staterooms. The upholstering, which astonished me then, seems now like the present fashionable folly of first-class steamers. I have never been able to see why we should be forced to travel on satin and velvet, and have the daylight shut out by brocades and costly lace, when these are luxuries we cannot afford at home, yet which are sure to increase the cost and the risk of necessary travel.
The ceilings and cornices I describe as heavily gilded, the lights are of colored glass, the sideboard is loaded with heavy plate, and the black walnut panels of the saloon are filled with designs in high-colored Japanese lacquer. The fireplaces are of finely carved white marble and, oddly enough, I think, the hanging lamps are decorated with highly colored " Unicorns ! "
I describe one thing in the cabin which seems to indicate that, surrounded by staterooms, this served as a common dressing-room. Opposite the entrance I saw an oval dining table of black walnut covered with a handsome cloth. The top is hinged in the middle, and one-half, as it is lifted up, displays a wash-bowl with two faucets, one of which provides fresh and the other salt water, as well as elegant tumblers, brushes and the usual toilet furniture. The other side holds napkins and night clothes! Who wore these last, I wonder!
It would be easy, I suppose, to discover who was Mayor in 1840, but I have not thought it necessary to preserve so immortal a name! I thought his speech graceful. He said that England had sent over something she supposed stranger than anything a Yankee ever saw, but we had our own " Sea-Serpent !" He drank to the nuptials of the "Serpent" and the " Unicorn," trusting that neither the " Eagle " nor the " Lion " would forbid the bans.
I did not like the sentimental coarseness of Mr. Grattan's speech. He said in closing that enough had been said of the beauty of the " Unicorn," he would now drink to the beauties of the " Unicorn," and defied any vessel sailing in any harbor, and bound to any port, to show of these a finer cargo.
On the 21st of July following, I went to the Maverick House as a spectator, from the balcony, of the " Cunard " dinner.
East Boston was prepared as on a gala day, for the reception of her guests. Booths erected at every corner were dressed with the flags of England and America, while tottering old men and tiny children offered baskets of fruits, flowers and pastries to the crowds upon the streets. The roofs of the Sugar Refinery, the Maverick House and several of the villas upon the island were decorated with tri-colored flags. The cutter " Hamilton," the ship of war " Colombia " and the newly arrived ocean steamer " Britannia " were dressed with flowers. The yards were hung with crimson, blue and white and figure at the stern of the " Britannia " grasped a lovely bouquet. We crossed her deck, but found it impossible to gain admittance to the cabin and saloon. We pressed through the crowded halls of the Maverick to the gallery on the second storey, where we were supplied with ices and refreshments from the tables below. We secured a good seat and listened with amusement to Austin, Story, Quincy, Bancroft and Webster. Webster, on whose knee I had often sat and whose majestic presence never failed to impress me as a child, could not fail to be eloquent, but, whether from wine or fatigue, blundered more than once into bad grammar. The hero-worship paid to him was so obvious that, in spite of my affection for him, it disgusted me with the whole entertainment. It seemed a singular proof of the power of sympathy. I saw men who would have been ashamed to stand alone before the " great Daniel " with their hats off and their hearts in their hands, but as men of the million none refused to bow. He had little to say, and evidently felt that his subject had been exhausted. Judge Story related many interesting anecdotes of Fulton, whom he had known personally. The point of these I was most sorry to lose, but his voice did not reach the gallery. President Quincy was in the vein and spoke with exquisite humor, alluding to his speech-making son with both facility and tenderness. Bancroft made by far the most brilliant address and I liked his independence. " I am glad," said he, with noble energy, " I am glad, freely as I welcome this steamer and our guest, that when the ' Britannia ' entered our port, she was obliged to pass the heights of Dorchester, and that now, cradled in her berth, she lies in the shadow of Bunker Hill."
Although my girlish journal does not record the fact, it is plain that the " Cunard dinner " was tendered by the city of Boston to Mr. Samuel Cunard, in celebration of the arrival of the " Britannia," the first of the new line of ocean steamships to reach Boston, although the little " Unicorn " had actually accomplished the voyage before her.
On the 30th of July, I went on board the " Britannia," and was shocked by dirty decks, dirty cabins, dirty officers and dirty men, who seemed to be the entire contents of her immense hold. I had never seen so filthy a crew, and I could not imagine an American officer of a merchant ship consenting to receive a single visitor with his vessel in such a condition.
There were several ladies' cabins, each containing half a dozen staterooms. These were painted in white and gold. The saloon on deck was wainscotted in oak, carved and stamped very neatly. The machinery was said to be of a very superior order, but the boat was so crowded when I visited it that I could hardly reach the saloon and had no opportunity to examine the works.
I remember seeing on this day many heavy waggons loaded with charcoal, clean and solid, made as all the best charcoal for family use then was, of walnut. In my young days these waggons, drawn each by four fine Flemish horses, were common in Boston streets. Two bushel baskets were hitched to the frame. The driver drove slowly, shouting, " Chark! Chark! " and here and there a door opened and the baskets were filled and carried in. In those days all preserves were made over small furnaces fed with charcoal, but the waggons and the charcoal have long since disappeared. Often have I longed for them in hot summer days, but I have seen them only once, in the year 1880, among the mines of Colorado, where I found also the charcoal burners' huts.
It must have been about this time that I went to a very beautiful ball in Faneuil Hall offered by the city to the young Due de Joinville. Such entertainments are apt to be crowded and vulgar now. They were comparatively exclusive then. This was elegant in every detail, and I saw among the crowd no one more attractive than my own mother in her elegant dress of blue and silver, with soft marabous of the same color clasped with a sparkling arrow, encircling her beautiful hair.
A singular incident fixed this ball in my memory. The Contessa America Vespuccia had been the mistress of the Duke's older brother, the Duke of Orleans. She had made herself so obnoxious by her political intrigues that she had been banished from France, and sent in a French frigate to Brazil. From thence she had traveled to Washington, claiming public lands from the Government of the United States, on the ground that her ancestor had been the actual discoverer of this continent. The means of communication with Europe were then so infrequent, and the acquaintance with foreign newspapers so slight, that the scandal had not penetrated to the ears of our City Government, and having reached Boston she was invited to meet the Due de Joinville!! I stood very near her. She had no personal beauty. She was very tall, a brunette, with a comely face and graceful bearing. Her dress was at once the most attractive as well as artistic that I had ever seen. Over a quilted white satin petticoat, richly embroidered with gold, she wore a close-fitting, crimson velvet pelisse, embroidered with a vine and grapes in gold all along the skirt, the sleeves and square-cut neck. The sleeves, broad, open and flowing, fell to her knees, and not being closed, did not interfere with the action of her bare arms. This pelisse was girded with a heavy cord and tassels of gold. There was no train, but it was long enough for the beautiful border to lie flat on the floor. More wonderful than her dress was her hair. Covered by a net of gold and pearls, divided at the back and parted through the middle, it fell in two long, heavy braids to the floor, and these were held together at two points with diamond arrows. I do not think she wore any other jewels, nor was there any lace about her person. The crimson set off her dark skin in a fashion wholly new at that time. A very few months ago, a newspaper correspondent found this woman in Italy, at an advanced age, surrounded by the portraits of a family of which she was the last representative, and posing as an innocent and injured woman.
The Boston that I remember, the only Boston dear to my heart, has passed away forever. I have spoken of the beautiful and hidden colonial houses. At that time the Common was a vast undulating field, surrounded by terraced malls on three sides, shaded by elms as fine and healthy as those of the Connecticut valley. Outside the Common graveyard on Boylston Street, from Tremont Street to Carver, there was a fine row of very old trees, buttonwoods, I think, and the Tremont Street mall, from Park Street to Boylston, showed three magnificent rows of American elms shading its double walk with cathedral arches of verdure. Of these not a vestige remains. They have been the victims of neglect, asphalt and public indifference.
The Paddock elms, which were planted outside the old Granary, were cut down a few years before the fate of the Tremont Street mall could be fore- shadowed. Monckton Milnes and Charles Sumner used to sit on the old Fort on the Common to look at sunsets, which Milnes declared were finer than any Italy could show. If these exist, they are now hidden from the view by the small central forest of the Common and the Public Garden, as well as the buildings on the Back Bay.
In those days Atkinson Street still had its old houses and gardens, and the beautiful houses of the Waterstons, the Ruthvens and Harris's Folly still decorated the slopes of Fort Hill. The traces of Charles Bulfinch's dainty genius still lingered along Colonnade Row, and Charles Street, and hovered over the green crescent and pretty urn which made the centre of Franklin Street. The Odeon and the Catholic Church on Franklin Street also bore witness to his skill. From the windows of the broad houses which overlooked the Crescent the beautiful face of Emily Marshall looked out to thank the Cambridge serenaders, and dear old Madam May sat serenely before one in the lower storey of an adjoining house, busied over the dainty knitting she was preparing for our Anti-slavery Bazaar. There were no pleasanter houses anywhere than those that the stone fortresses of Commerce have displaced.
On the east side of Franklin Street was an archway covering a cart and carriage road, leading from Franklin to Arch Street. The whole of the Crescent or Tontine, as it was called, was rescued from a mere quagmire by the genius of Charles Bulfinch, assisted by Mr. Scollay and Mr. Vaughan. Over this archway, in my day, the " Boston Library " was opened. My father was one of the proprietors, and three or four times a week I found my way to its quaint hall, to look up a fact or change a book. Two very elderly ladies I used to see there; one of them I regarded with reverence, because I heard that she had written a book. I associate the name of Lee with these ladies, but I cannot tell why. In Leverett Street in a comfortable room was the Parish Library of the West Church, and Miss Hannah Adams, who had written the " History of the Jews," was the quaint little Librarian, but as she never spoke one unnecessary word, not even when she saluted the driver of the coach with the traditional words, " Great box, little box, band-box and bundle," I recollect only her appearance.
My father's library was a large one for that time. As a mere lad he had bought all the early translations of various classics from the book-stalls in Newburyport. They were printed on a queer gray paper in Philadelphia, and I have some of them now. As he read more, he bought the originals in many languages, and many old books that attracted him by quaint illustrations. Beside these, I used to go to the Athenaeum in Pearl Street, where I enjoyed the fine casts and pictures which divided my interest with the books, and which are now in the care of the Boston Art Museum. Many of my early journals are filled with careful descriptions of these things. What Boston owes to the generosity of James and Thomas Handasyd Perkins, it has never yet sufficiently acknowledged. The fine mansion of Thomas Handasyd was given to the Institute for the Blind at the suggestion of John M. Forbes, but his interest was warmly excited by the partial loss of his own sight.
The Fort Hill district had always a romantic interest for me, and to this day when I walk down Franklin Street, I see but three things, the old " Odeon " where I went to my first lectures, with Helen Davis's shawl pins, and old Colonel Joe May's stout arms protecting me from the crowd; the old Roman Catholic Cathedral, associated always with that Bishop Cheverus, who stood by the deserted bedsides of Catholics and Protestants alike, during the horrors of the yellow fever about 1819; and the old Berry Street Church, where once in my life I sat in my grandfather's pew and listened to Dr. Channing! I can still recall his pure and pensive face, and feel again a sort of irritation that those who loved him could not see that he was wrapped in a black shawl, instead of the gay Scotch plaid which seemed to be so little in keeping with his person and the occasion. He spoke sitting, for this was in the last years of his preaching, and his sweet, tender voice suggested a thread just ready to break. Right opposite the church was the old arched Vestry, where Harriet Ryan started her " Hospital for Consumptives " at a later day.
To one private library in Boston, I was in my childhood greatly indebted. This was before Ticknor and Prescott and Felton opened their shelves to me. This was the library of Daniel P. Parker. Mr. Parker and his wife were middle-aged people when I first remember them. They both, I think, came to Boston from Worcester County, Mrs. Parker never until the hour of her marriage. They were people of a singular dignity and intelligence, devoted to literature and philanthropy, and keeping themselves for the most part quietly at home.
Daniel P. Parker was a successful and well-known man before his wife joined him in Boston. I never knew her maiden name, and intimate as I was with the family, I never heard any mention of grandparents, nor did I meet any relative of either at their table. Perhaps it was from that circumstance that I have always thought of Mrs. Parker as an orphan. She was, however, a Mary Weeks of Marlboro, a town which adjoined Southboro, where her husband was born. Both were people of extraordinary good sense, well balanced in every way, and beneficent as well as prudent. Neither was likely to yield an established opinion, and Mrs. Parker preserved to. her latest hour the economical methods of her early youth. An anecdote current in my childhood will give some idea of her strong character:
One evening soon after her arrival in Boston, in a large assembly, she dropped her handkerchief. A young fellow from her own neighborhood darted forward to pick it up, and presented it with a low bow. Mrs. Parker thanked him courteously, then looking him calmly in the eye, she said:
" Young man, I can remember the time when you thought it too much trouble to put on your boots, to see me home after a day's sewing."
The application was left to the bystanders.
The oldest daughter I knew but slightly. She became the wife, however, of Edmund Quincy, to whom the Anti-slavery movement brought me, as a married woman, very near. The younger, Emily, married late, Benjamin Pickman of Salem, and died three months after. The only son, Henry Tuke, was an inveterate reader and most precocious student.
Henry's appetite for books and his power of rapid absorption of their contents exceeded anything that Boston knew. After the carriage way to David Sears's house was obliterated by the family, a long narrow strip of land remained between the building which is now the Somerset Club, and the red brick walls of Mr. Parker's house. As soon as the Sears's addition was completed, Mr. Parker enclosed this space, shelved the walls, and filled the shelves with books as fast as his omnivorous son demanded them. No sincerer, more modest or more reasonable people ever existed than Mr. and Mrs. Parker, but it seems to me that they must in their hearts have anticipated for the son a career that he never entered. He was about my own age, my partner at Papanti's and my frequent guest. I went almost every week to dine at his father's house. I had free access to his book-shelves, but the moment we rose from the table, Henry was absorbed in his latest acquisition, and his father and mother were my pleasant companions. He graduated at Harvard in 1842, and afterward from the Harvard Law School in 18451 receiving the degree of LL. B. Trinity College at Hartford afterward gave him the Master of Arts. He married Lucy, the daughter of Phineas Upham, and died in London in August, 1890. Henry did not go to Europe to remain, if I remember rightly, until after his marriage, and when he died, I could not find that he had done any original work. That he was constantly exploring fresh fields in literature, art and science, I feel sure, but he seems to have had no other occupation than the most congenial duty of filling the orders from various public libraries, chiefly. I think, those of the Astor and Lenox libraries in New York.
In those early days, Theodore Lyman put his library in Bowdoin Street at my disposal, and there, in grand old editions, I made myself familiar with the French classics, especially with the delightful Memoirs of Sully.
I was not therefore without resources. I had the Boston library, the Parish library, and the private libraries of Mr. Parker and my father, as well as the smaller collections of other friends, but until Elizabeth Peabody started her foreign library, and I made the intimate acquaintance of President Felton, I never had books enough nor any opportunity to study properly. If in my reading I wished to clear up a point, to compare statements or dates, to get at the contemporaneous works of other authors treating the same subject, the means were not at hand. One very unfortunate result followed: I began to write for the press while I was still a child.
I suppose I am at this moment that writer of the English language who has written steadily for the greatest number of years. This would not have happened had I possessed the advantages of the college students of today, and I mention it for their encouragement. They ought to do better work than I have done. I mention it also for the encouragement of those who cannot secure a college education. Poverty, absence of books or of social friction, the most helpful of all stimulants, should not discourage any one bent on a useful life. At different periods I have had to encounter all these obstacles.
Mr. Hale has not exaggerated the difficulty of obtaining foreign books, so far as the common student was concerned.
It was not till Elizabeth Peabody started her foreign bookstore in 1836, at number 13 West Street, that he or I could readily order or buy a foreign book. To this privilege she soon added another, that of a foreign circulating library. The subscribers to this soon became so many that if Elizabeth had known how to keep her accounts, it would have been very profitable, but she could not help saying, " Do not pay for that, you have not kept it long enough," so I suspect her enterprise was a sorry failure. As to German books, however, Dr. Francis began to collect them as soon as he left college. Theodore Parker was well provided in 1840, and when Dr. Hedge returned from Germany, in the very year in which Mr. Hale was born, he brought with him a fine collection of German and Italian books, relating to poetry and philosophy.
Scholars were very generous to each other then, and they had need to be, for they could not tell how soon they might have to ask for the favors they granted. The real trouble lay in the poorly-filled purses of the students. There was no type-writing in that day, and my eyes have often filled with tears as I have looked at whole volumes copied by the pen of Dr. Gould or some friend bent on helping a poorer student, a friend, too, who was generally a woman.
At the time of which I am speaking, postage upon letters was very high. It cost eighteen and three-quarters cents to send a letter from Boston to Washington. I forget the amount paid between Boston and Worcester, but it was sufficient to induce all persons to avail themselves of private hands whenever they were presented. I had been often told that private hands sometimes proved untrustworthy, but I neither believed it nor dreaded it. One day I was surprised by receiving from my cousin, the Hon. Samuel F. Haven, a small package of lip glue, an article which has, I hope, gone out of fashion! This was followed by a letter in which he said, " Your last letter, sent by your friend, has been opened; as it contained only a short note and the full abstract of Dr. James Walker's last lecture, it was of little consequence. Sometime, it might be unlucky; I therefore advise you to use the lip glue I have sent before you put on the seal." There were no envelopes in those days, indeed I find none in use before 1840, and we paid postage by the sheet and not by the ounce. That led to the use of folio paper, which was sealed by wax or wafers as circumstances decided. Wax is still used in elegant correspondence, but wafers, I suspect, have ceased to exist. The gum upon the envelope renders them unnecessary. In the Provincial Parliaments, elegant cut glass bottles with stoppers of fine sponge, to be filled with water, are furnished to each member. I do not know whether any such luxuries are sent to the Halls of Congress. It may be said, that its members have found the use of their tongues!
In the days of my girlhood there was no late dining in Boston. The hours for meals were the hours kept in the century in which the town was settled. According to the rank in life, as I have said before, breakfast was from seven to half-past, dinner from twelve to half-past two, and tea or supper always at six, except where servants ate earlier than their masters. There were no servants' dining-rooms then, nor was one quality of food purchased for the parlor and another for the kitchen. The fashions were simple; dinner consisted of but two courses, fish and meat, soup and meat, or meat and dessert Except when fruit was in season, or when gentlemen lingered over wine and nuts, no third course was thought of. During the Revolutionary War, and I think also during the War of 1812, meat was very dear. The best innkeepers contrived various economies, among them that of serving the pudding before the meat. This fashion never prevailed among the wealthier classes, but was kept up by the better portion of those living upon salaries, and traces of it are still to be found in the seaports of New England.
Life in Beacon Street was wholesome and friendly rather than ceremonious. When there were three or four ladies in a family, it was not thought mannerly for them all to leave the house together. There were no " receiving days." Ceremonious calls were usually made between twelve and two. If the daughters were out the mother stayed at home. If the mother, then at least one daughter was there to receive chance visitors. If any change occurred from any special cause, a careful apology was left with the servant. Our servants were almost always farmers' daughters, and our kitchens in consequence as pleasant as any room in the house.
With later European habits came changes, which were far more important than mere change of hours. As a young girl, I could take my sewing half an hour after dinner, and go confidently to any house between Park and Charles Streets upon Beacon. I should be welcomed by the friendly mother or the cordial daughter, and as night drew near probably kept to " tea," a meal which never gave any housekeeper a second thought. Pleasant gossip, talk about our books or play, varied our entertainment. When the table was cleared, a scarlet cloth was spread upon the dining table if the family was large; the solar lamp was placed in the centre, and the father of the family, who seldom in those days thought of a cigar, took up the four pages of the Transcript and read to us such news as it was possible to collect, when we had no telephone, no telegraph, no steamship, and at the best scarce fifty miles of railroad. Cornelia Walter's spicy editorials gave us food for conversation and started many a jest.
I have often thought of a remark that my father made long, long after, when the success of the Atlantic Cable became a recognized fact. " There will be no merchant princes now," he said, " but there will be plenty of traders."
When the nine o'clock curfew rang, I folded up my work and went home, and I wish to say that I usually went alone, whether it was from a friend's fireside, the "teachers' meetings" at Dr. Bartol's or an evening lecture. We kept a man-servant, but he was never sent for me. Less fortunate than my friend, Sarah Hale, I had no brothers, and I would not allow the tired father of a family to put on his boots for me. As I lived in the West End the distances were never great, and I passed through no doubtful thoroughfares. Mr. Hale says his sisters never went out without an escort. They had brothers, and this was probably to create a habit of courtesy in the boys. It certainly was not necessary, for I never encountered the smallest inconvenience or discourtesy in Boston streets, where I walked alone at all hours until I was married, and so did many young women whom I knew. It sometimes happens nowadays that women are not safe in broad day, on Boston Common or in the Public Garden, especially if they carry purses in their hands !
When I had written so far, I was obliged to turn to my girlish Journal for an item. There I found under a date in 1839, a sentence like the following. " I was invited to take tea with Anna Renouf tonight to meet my dear friends the Smiths, but as William was absent I declined. I would not give my father the trouble to come for me."
Now Anna Renouf lived in Avon Place on the south side of the Common, and the moment I read this I saw that there were localities to which I could not go alone and understood why my experience in the matter of escorts had been so different from Mr. Hale's. In those days, Winter and West, Summer Franklin and High Streets were set with beautiful houses, many of them standing alone in lovely gardens. When I crossed Washington Street in going from Avon Place through Temple, I passed the houses of James Savage and Handasyd Perkins. Mr, Hale lived always, I think, on the south side of the Common, and his sisters had many friends in streets now wiped out of existence, such as Chauncey and Otis Place. No father would have allowed his daughter to go alone in that section after dark. But Mr. Hale is wrong in thinking that Boston streets are safer now than in that far-off day. His young girls travel alone now because an electric car goes to almost every door.
Mr. Hale tells us also of the pleasant journeys taken in the big barouche, when the family went to the seaside or the country. In that way I traveled pleasantly several times.
It must have been early in June that I went up the Connecticut with Thornton Davis soon after his marriage. I remember that we traveled close to the river for many miles, and came in delicious moonlight, somewhere near eleven at night, to a well-known tavern kept by Uncle Jerry Warrener, at Springfield, where his wife, " Aunt Phoebe," as the townspeople called her, was celebrated for her unequalled waffles, Happy was the Boston lady living on the slopes of
Beacon Hill, who succeeded in coaxing Aunt Phoebe to give her the carefully guarded recipe. Here Uncle Terry broiled a shad for us, that had been taking its bath in the river after our moon began to shine, and Aunt Phoebe served us a midnight dessert of waffles.
I have never forgotten the shad. That is a fish which, like the Atlantic mackerel, should always be eaten as soon as it is caught. Uncle Jerry and his wife made a modest fortune, built a handsome house, and entertained Jenny Lind when she went to Springfield. They must have reminded her of some of her own country people on the Swedish fiords.
And again I went with Elizabeth Livermore in a chaise all the way from Milford to Bible Hill in Hillsborough, where my mother's ancestors had led a godly life, reading from a great folio to their neighbors every Sunday, before there was either a church or a minister in the settlement. Nearly all my journeys, however, were made in the stage coaches.
I was glad to make acquaintance in that way with varieties of the human species that I never met elsewhere, and to enjoy the excitement of dashing up to the stage houses, where we stopped for dinner. If we were in or near a seaport, there was sure to be a parrot on hand, which, taking its cue from the villagers, would cry out, " Who's come ? "
Traveling in private carriages continued in the Southern states until the Civil War began, and it is not yet ten years since two elderly ladies living in Maryland, near Baltimore, passed away at an advanced age, having never traveled in steamboat or palace car, or even in a horse car, but who had been from Baltimore to Niagara and Saratoga summer after summer in their own carriage. Country inns too were very attractive in my time. Many of them were rambling one storeyed buildings, covered with vines and boasting a tin kitchen and a fire of hickory. I recall such an inn at York in Maine, where a descendant of Governor Bradstreet presided over the hearth after she was ninety years of age, a grateful sight to the lawyers on the circuit. Nor shall I ever forget the delightful inn at Ashfield, embowered in green, with long rows of pies, pumpkin, apple and mince, cooling in the summer breezes on its porches! Very sorry indeed was I when I first saw the city-like hotel which has now taken its place.
One short excursion I must have made when about eleven years old, although I have no means of fixing the exact date. I had been staying, as I often did, at the house of Dr. Robbins in Roxbury. A niece of Mrs. Robbins had been a bridesmaid of my mother, and made and dressed the first doll I ever possessed. Her parents were still living in the near neighborhood, but as Mrs. Robbins had no daughters, and there were several pretty daughters at Snowdrop Bank, my dear cousin Sallie lived with her aunt Robbins and filled a daughter's place. One day the square-topped chaise was drawn out, and I heard that cousin Sallie was going to drive me to Stedman Williams's farm. I had an idea that something very dreadful was to occur that day, but I never thought for a moment that cousin Sallie's help was needed, and that she took me because she did not wish to burden Aunt Robbins with the care of a child, yet that was probably the case. The story is only worth telling because it shows what a very different condition obtained at that time within the limits of Roxbury, from that which now exists. We went, I suppose, to that woodland region called Canterbury by Mr. Cabot in his life of Emerson. At all events, a large part of the Williams farm is now included in Franklin Park, and I can still recognize some of the objects I saw that day. We drove through a grassy lane following the lines of Walnut Street as it is today, pines, birches and young elms, I think, meeting over our heads. Three times I got out of the chaise and let down bars, waiting to put them up again. At last we drove into an open farm where several acres of land, dotted with trees, were crossed by a good carriage road leading up to the house door. Large masses of rock, such as have given the dear old town its name, broke the undulations of the land. Some pleasant women came to the door to meet us. Very soon we went to dinner, gracefully served in the old New England fashion, and when the father of the family stood up to carve a turkey, I saw hanging low down over his breast the mighty but harmless tumor that a surgeon was about to take away. We had hardly left the table when the Doctor's sulky drove up, and I was told that I might amuse myself out of doors. Far away I found a boulder that had charmed me as we drove in. Waxwork climbed over it, and I found to my amazement that, large and heavy as it seemed, it yielded to my hand! It rested on a pebble. It rests upon it still, and as I moved it that day, a large black snake, the first I had ever seen, slipped away. I have never met any of the Williams family since, but if any of Stedman Williams's children are living, I feel quite sure that neither has imprinted on her heart a more distinct impression of that fine old man, of the house he lived in, and the lovely land in which it is set.
I went to Sunday School, as I have somewhere said, from the time that I was small enough to be carried up the stairs in my father's arms. Dr. Lowell was not at first inclined to the existence of a West Parish Sunday School. Among other things he thought-as ultimately happened-that it would divide families, and that children who went to school would no longer go to church with their parents, and we should lose that pleasantest of all sights, whole families on their way to the House of Prayer, together! Where do we see it now? Not even in Philadelphia or Elmira where the two largest Sunday Schools in the country are assembled.
When the Sunday School opened, the " Catechising Class " in the Belfry was given up. I was most fortunate in my teachers. Ann Kuhn, Adelaide Russell, and her sainted sister Sarah, afterward the wife of Samuel May of Leicester, Helen Loring and Elizabeth Howard were all I ever knew, except as I shared with the whole school the precious lessons of Charles G. Loring. That I became a teacher at a very early age was due to Mr. Loring's habit of drawing substitutes for absent teachers from Elizabeth Howard's class. Miss Howard, afterwards Mrs. Bartol, wrote out her lesson every Sunday, giving much time and thought to it. Every Saturday afternoon for many years we gathered at her house, and frequently we were invited to tea. It happened at last that I was, as a substitute, provided with a class that had lost its teacher, and at its eager entreaty Mr. Loring made the position permanent. I could not have accepted it had I not been able to go to Chestnut Street on Saturdays, and to borrow then the previous Sunday's lesson from Miss Howard. This class I kept until my marriage, with few changes, and very soon I added to it another at the Pitts Street chapel for the poor, then under the charge of Robert C. Waterston, and still later a Bible class at the West Church, of which Augustus Pope, Sylvester Judd Loammi Ware, and that faithful friend of the Unitarian Church, Thomas Gaffield, were members. We were all students together.
The two potent factors of religious life in my early years were Dr. Charles Lowell and Dr. Joseph Tuckerman. Dr. Tuckerman may be said to have originated and organized the " Ministry to the Poor." His work has been remembered and applauded and has borne much fruit. The man himself seems to me to have been forgotten. After he left Chelsea he came to live in a small house in Mount Vernon Place, very near our own. His face seemed to embody the purity and zeal of an apostle. His was a soul not veiled by, but actually made visible by, the flesh. Either a portion of his salary or his poor's purse was supplied by an association of ladies, called the " Tuckerman Circle." Of this my mother was a member, and after her health became delicate, I used to go with her to its monthly meetings, to attend to anything that might be beyond her strength.
Dr. Tuckerman came to these meetings to greet friends whom he had not time to visit, and to consecrate our needlework with a prayer. He never stayed long, but it was what, as a child, I heard him say and saw him do that turned my steps later to the Pitts Street chapel. But of all influences, that of my beloved Dr. Lowell was the greatest. I grieve for the children of today who have never known such a pastor. He came often to our table, for, on account of Mrs. Lowell's delicate health, he had removed from Boston to Cambridge before I can remember. He watched over me as closely as my own father could have done. I never seemed to do anything that he did not know, and after several years' absence in Europe, after Dr. Bartol's installation, he seemed to know me and understand me as well as if he had never left his people. He gave me prizes for good conduct as well as for good scholarship, a beautiful copy of Bewick's " Birds," commemorating some desirable self-conquest. Such things cannot be told, but as long as life lasts they must be felt.
He had great tact as well as exquisite delicacy, one instance of which touched me so deeply that I can never forget it. I have mentioned the death of a dear little brother as occurring in Hancock Avenue. I have not dwelt upon it, for it touches me too nearly. The child was given into my young arms when he was born, and owing to my mother's serious illness, I had all the care of him till he died, at a little more than five years of age. He was a child of striking beauty, and at that early age had shown a ready wit and a sensitive conscience that made him most attractive. My father's ambition and love were bound up in him. Often when our dear minister came to see us, the conversation would turn to the treasure we had lost. Rising from the table one day, my father finished what he had to say with the words, " We never had a child that was so beautiful or so promising." I was standing near Dr. Lowell. He turned to me at once, laid his hand upon my head, and added " Caroline, I never said that." He was so quick to feel what might give pain, but he was not more insensible to a low jealousy himself than the young girl to whom he spoke.
When after my marriage it became necessary for me to speak in public, his heart was wrung with anxiety, and from the chamber to which he was confined by the first approaches of his last illness, he sent me a peremptory summons to Elmwood. I shall never forget his greeting; as I opened the chamber door he rose from the old easy chair and standing erect, cried out, " Child! my child! what is this I hear ? Why are you talking to the whole world ? " He was clothed in a long white flannel dressing gown, with a short shoulder cape hardly reaching to his belt. His was no longer the piercing expression, aggressive to a degree, that Harding had portrayed. The curling locks that gave individuality to his forehead had been cut away; the gentle influence of a submissive spirit had impressed itself upon his features. In a moment I was seated at his feet, and then came a long and intimate talk of why, and when, and wherefore, which ended in a short prayer with his hand upon my head, and the words, " Now promise me that you will never enter the desk without first seeking God's blessing! " I answered only by a look. How else could the hard work of those years have been done ? He needed nothing more.
At the time of Dr. Kirk's revival in Boston, I went often to Park Street Church to listen to his sermons. It would not be true to say that these were in any sense a religious influence. I had been too thoroughly trained in all liberal ways, and was too devoted to Dr. Lowell and his horror of evening meetings and hysterical methods, to accept the preaching of this wonderful orator in any such fashion. I have never listened, however, to any speaker of greater power, or of so vivid an imagination. I considered these services a great intellectual spur, as I afterward considered the acting of Rachel; the only really great acting I ever saw, although I have enjoyed Irving and Ellen Terry, Mrs. Mowatt and Fanny Kemble. I should think it must have been impossible for a man or woman of loose or undisciplined life to resist the force of his appeals.
My attendance on these services brought me into contact with members of the evangelical churches, among others with Charlotte, the younger sister of the beautiful Emily Marshall. Charlotte afterward married the well-known Horatio Bridge, the friend of Hawthorne, and is still living at an advanced age.
She was a very beautiful and attractive girl, with the charming manner that has always distinguished her family, and which had won the love of every man or woman who approached Emily.
Soon after the close of the Park Street services Charlotte came to me and asked me to join her in creating a Creche at the North End. We hired a room in Salem Street and established a motherly Irish woman as matron. Here we received young children of working women, and took care of them while the mothers earned their daily bread. It was a very simple affair; a bath tub, a barber's bib, a pair of scissors, a quart or two of rum saturated with larkspur, and some tidy, unbleached night-dresses, were all we asked for, beside the little beds in which most of the children slept away the hours. We did a great deal of hard work in that little room. I was connected with it until I left home in 1842, but I cannot tell exactly when the experiment began. It must have been between 1837 and 1840.
Our subscribers gave us twenty-five cents a month. Charlotte would do anything for the children, but she made me collect the money. She did not know how! Nothing, I think, could illustrate the difference in the position of women then and now more clearly than my experience in collecting this money. Our subscribers were mainly personal friends on Beacon, Tremont, Chestnut and Mount Vernon Streets. The subscription was due on the first of the month, but I went to at least one-third of the places twice. " I have not a quarter in the house. I will ask my husband when he comes home; can't you call tomorrow ? " was what I always expected to hear from many wives of wealthy men. Nor was it always the fault or habit of the men. Women handled very little money. I knew more than one instance where men complained that their wives would, not keep themselves provided. As an illustration of our changing life, and to point out that this little experiment, founded upon Maria Edgeworth's story of " Madame de Fleury," was, so far as I know, the first attempt of the kind in this country, is my only excuse for mentioning this Creche. What became of it after the change in my own circumstances, I never had an opportunity to learn. So far as I ever knew, the experiment was wholly our own. If there were any older persons interested, I never heard of them.
The first time Dr. Hale ever heard me lecture, he said, " You must beat your gold thinner. There was enough in that lecture for four." If he ever reads these pages, I think he will hardly renew that counsel. The rambling story draws near the end.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Hale has told us a good deal of his father, whose services to the country have never been adequately appreciated. I wish before I close to say something of mine. He said sadly to me a short time before he died, " I have outlived all my cotemporaries ; there will be no one left to tell the story of my life." That story, if truly told, would show, like Nathan Hale's, an intense devotion to railroad interests. He was for many years the largest stockholder in the Illinois Central road. Whoever will examine the inventories of his property at the Probate Court of Essex County will see that ten years before his death he was worth, in the year 1866, ten millions of dollars in the best securities. When he died and another inventory was made, it seemed hardly possible to save the estate from insolvency! " Such a record," said the clerk of the Court to me, " was never seen here! "
What became of those millions ? They were sunk in the building of the Hartford and Erie road, over which none of us ever had so much as a free pass. Younger men, who knew that the great aim of his life had been to connect Boston with the wide West, played upon his sympathies and absorbed his hard-won wealth.
When Frederika Bremer returned to Sweden from this country, she succeeded in passing through the Legislative body a law which controlled to a certain degree the freedom of men of over three score years and ten. Her personal influence secured the signature of the King. In Sweden, if a man over seventy enters into business or speculation, he must first provide for his children according to his wealth and their station in life. The ground upon which the government was induced to approve this law was that otherwise his family might become a charge to the State, and of this many illustrations were at hand.
We are accustomed to say of many aged men, that they have retained all their faculties to the last, but this is rarely true. A man may be able to converse on difficult subjects, to read profound books, to remember the events of yesterday as well as those of the far past, but the instances are very rare in which, after seventy, the best-preserved brain does not lose its grasp. It is one thing to see clearly what is plainly set before it, another to associate that with a remote origin or a future possibility, and judge wisely of the best financial or social results. I should be glad to see the Swedish law enacted in the State of Massachusetts.
There were beautiful possibilities of love in my father's nature. No one will ever forget the sight, who saw his whole face kindle, when the beautiful boy, so early lost, came running to meet him. Those possibilities led him to free himself early from the theology prevalent about his early home. His father, his brother and himself sustained a Unitarian church as long as either of them lived, in Whittier's favorite town of Hampton Falls. To the lovely little church built by their efforts, I go back every summer, to be met with love and courtesy and kind remembrance of a neighborhood, as Mr. Hale was met when he went to preach at Westhampton. In more than one respect our experiences ran parallel. My father was a very young man when he was one of three who called Dr. Holley to the pulpit of Hollis Street Church. Dr. Holley was the heretic of his time, and as a very handsome man, and essentially a man of the world, he was more open to attack than he need have been.
When the tumult of narrow egotism followed Theodore Parker's sermon at South Boston, my father became one of the five men who invited him from West Roxbury to the Music Hall, and became responsible for his salary.
He was a wise and loving father, as I have shown in the matter of written abstracts. I remember that when I first began to study the higher mathematics, I took a lamp and my books in my hand and moved toward the door one evening after tea. " Where are you going?" said my father. " To my own room to study," I answered, and showed the title-page of the book. " Sit down where you are, where the children are talking and where visitors may come," was his reply. " Of what use will your knowledge be to you if you cannot command it under the most unpromising circumstances ? You must learn to concentrate your thoughts." Of course I did learn to concentrate my thoughts, which had its advantages, but at the same time has made me at times an apparently unsympathizing friend, or an undesirable guest. You will say it should have worked in two ways.
I was only fourteen months old when the English shoemaker, Robert Knott, came and took my measure for a pair of shoes, and he made all my shoes until my marriage. The very first pair had a broad, stiff sole, and I never wore any custom-made shoes, if I except the French dancing slippers Mr. Papanti demanded. I remember that once when I was about thirteen, I had a dark green Canton-crape dress, which I could not match with any belt. At last I found twenty inches of a watered ribbon that I thought would answer, for my belt measure was only nineteen. After dinner my father saw me lying on the sofa and asked what was the matter. I told him I had a side ache. " Come here to me," he said, and I obeyed. He put his hand to my side, tried to put his finger inside my belt, and failing, took his knife from his pocket and cut it across. It is needless to add that I had to wear my dress without a belt and never again had a side ache!
He required great neatness in our dress, and exquisite care of books or articles of any kind in daily use. I used to write a great folio sheet to my grandmother in the country every Sunday. No envelopes had been invented, and to fold such a sheet and seal it neatly was a work of art. No slipshod result was ever allowed to pass. Often have I been obliged to write the whole sheet over, before I could satisfy his fastidious demand. He had a fine sense of color and form, which showed itself whenever he controlled a lady's dress. When I was old enough to go into society, he frequently left things to my own decision. I remember once sending home an embroidered French cape from Gardner Colby's store, which I very much wanted. It was very costly and exquisitely wrought, but the pattern was monotonous. Might I have it ? " Put it into your drawer," he said, " for one week. Look at it twice a day for that time, then if you want it you shall have it." " Will not that be inconvenient to Mr. Colby ? " I said. " I will settle it with Colby," he replied. At the end of the week, as he had anticipated, it wearied me to look at the beautiful cape. No matter how costly the fabric, he was ready to give us any dress we wanted, but never was one allowed to sweep the floor, and the make must be simple. Frills and furbelows he despised. My mother was always beautifully dressed, and I do not think any one ever remembered that her dresses were short!
He was not a popular man, but his financial abilities and strict integrity were everywhere recognized, and to an extent which was very unusual, owing to the wide commerce in which he was engaged.
Still there were many who knew how he abhorred deceit, and who trusted to his tenderness and his sense of honor. When my mother proposed to employ Ellen Crafts as a sempstress, one of her friends went anxiously to Wendell Phillips and asked if Ellen would be safe in Mark Healey's house, for he was known as a democrat and a pro-slavery man. " As safe as if she were in Heaven," answered Mr. Phillips. " The suffering and sorrow that Mark Healey can see has never appealed to him in vain."
When I first became known in a social way, several gentlemen asked permission to correspond with me on literary and other matters. I asked my father if he were willing that they should do so. He thought a moment and said:
" Yes, I am willing on one condition: you must get a letter book and copy your letters. You might be indiscreet under the first impulse, but you would correct that in copying. I could trust you. The condition is that the first writing shall be in the book. Then you will be sure to send away only the corrected copy."
I have several volumes of those letters, and I read and destroyed many of those sent to me, last summer. We must not allow our own affairs to fill too many shelves in this crowded world. I kept only those of some historical value. I burned up sixty from my cousin, Samuel F. Haven, the most valuable correspondent of those early years. I have said that my father was not popular, but he was very popular with the young people who visited us, for a very odd reason, simply because he insisted on paying their postage, although he always expected me to pay mine when I went away from home. When we paid eighteen and three-fourths cents or twenty-five cents on a letter, prepayment was optional. Girls away on a visit generally received their letters unpaid, and always, if well-bred, had their purses ready. My father would thank them and joke a little, but he never would take their money.
There were no branch offices or stamps then. The head of the family went to the office when he went to his business, and of course brought home all the letters addressed to his care. A good many social problems were solved when stamps -and envelopes came into use. Quite recently I have heard this peculiarity of my father referred to with admiring gratitude.
I often read to my father six hours at a time, and he encouraged the fullest discussion of what we read, and desired above all that I should form my opinions independently of his. This was contrary to the habit of the time, and astonished the young people who visited us, whom he was glad to draw into our talk. Frequently these talks were refreshing and delightful; at other times they were perplexing. I have thanked him every day of my life for the education thus received, and if when the times came which tried men's souls, he found it impossible to bear the results of his own loving and strenuous effort, who shall blame him? He was only one of thousands, and in the world which is to come, there will be no shadow between our souls.
CAROLINE H. DALL.
Washington,
December, 1898.
POSTSCRIPT
After the death of my father in November, 1876, a good many perfunctory resolutions were sent to the family, and an obituary, filling a space four inches by five, concluded with the words:
" He was one of the most remarkable men of his day, and exercised great influence in the business councils of Boston."
This induced me to write to the Boston weekly called " The Commonwealth " the following letter:
THE LATE MARK HEALEY
During the last week I have read several obituary notices of my father. I have seen with pain that these notices touched nothing but his mercantile life, as if the principal object of his existence were to " buy and sell and get gain."
During the last two years of his life, he often said sadly, " When I am gone there will be no one left who remembers me as an active man. If I except Josiah Quincy, there is no one now." I did not realize how true this was, until I saw the obituaries.
The railways of America are largely indebted to his purse; and the poorer their reputation the more certain were they to owe a great deal to his comprehension of his country's needs. He was for many years the largest American stockholder in the Illinois Central road, and it was characteristic of him, that when that road was paying its best dividends, he sold all his stock in it to sustain the falling fortunes of the Hartford and Erie road.
Mr. Healey was an eminently intellectual man. He came of a long race of statesmen and clergymen, all of whom in this country and in England were infatuated with the desire to become great landowners. To his patience, prudence and daily teaching, I owe most of what I am, especially the self-control which has prevented me from becoming the victim of my own ill health.
If I were asked what subjects interested my father most from the cradle to the grave, I should say: the history of Religion and Religions; the Vestiges of Creation or what man might learn of the work of God and the immortality of the human soul. On these subjects he had read everything that he could find and more than any man I ever knew, and he continued to read until he died. When he found himself easily overcome by sleep, he rose at three in the morning, and used the wakeful morning hours for his studies. It was at day-break in the long summer mornings that I read to him the MS. of my " Presentation" of Bunsen's Egypt. In the winter of 1871 and 2, he read the Bible through for the last time.
Mr. Healey was wholly wanting in imagination, and as he could not sympathize with what he did not understand, this made him often seem cold hearted. When he contributed a large sum to the Irish Fund at the time of the great famine, I asked him why he did it, for it was contrary to his usual habit.
" When your mother's father was burnt out at Newburyport," he answered, " I went without food for three days and gave all I could get to your grandmother and her baby. I have not forgotten what I suffered." To any trouble before his eyes, or that he himself had experienced, he was tenderly sympathetic.
He had a great love of nature, of budding flowers and leaves, of young animals and children. He never missed a sunrise or a sunset, and I never saw a crying baby that he could not quiet with the touch of his broad hand. Only twenty minutes before his death, a beautiful pansy of the largest size was brought him from his own garden, and suffering as he was his face relaxed with pleasure and his eyes followed it with a loving look.
My father's biography will never be written. If it were to be, I should not think it proper for a daughter's hand to do it, but knowing as I do the singular mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, of strength and weakness in him, I am not willing that this generation should know him only as one of the "oldest business men in Boston" He was something far different from that.
He was the parishioner of Dr. William Ellery Channing, of Dr. Holley, and after his marriage of the Rev. Charles Lowell and Dr. Bartol. He finally left the West Church for the King's Chapel when his hearing became impaired, in order to buy, at whatever cost, a seat under a minister whom he could hear. These men knew him as ministers knew their people in the old days. They have all gone before him. Brought up in the Calvinism of a country church, he assisted his brother to form a liberal church in the town of Hampton Falls, and continued to contribute to its minister's salary as long as he lived. Always in the advance, at the age of eighteen he was one of a committee of three to call Dr. Horace Holley to the pulpit of Hollis Street in 1809, a step as radical as the calling of Theodore Parker to the Music Hall. In the interests of free thought and free religion, it should be remembered that Mark Healey was one of the five men who called Theodore Parker into Boston in 1845, and who made themselves responsible for the whole of his salary and the rent of the Melodeon, a building soon exchanged for the largest auditorium the city could furnish.
What a service this was, few people are now in a condition to realize. In spite of Mr. Parker's anti-slavery position, my father's affection for him continued warm to the end. He did not expect to exercise authority in such matters outside of his own household. Within it he held himself a patriarch. He was always, like George Bancroft, a Democrat, and before the war what was called "a Pro-Slavery man;" yet Ellen Crafts found an undisturbed shelter in his house, which I thought as an anti-slavery woman her safest refuge, and where Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker advised her to go.
CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.
141 Warren Avenue, Boston,
November 25, 1876.
Scanned by Deidre Johnson for her 19th-Century Girls' Series website; please do not use on other sites without permission
Return to main page