Entrusted to the mother's mind alone--
To fashion genius, form the soul for good,
Inspire a West, or train a Washington.
MRS. HALE.
When Benjamin West was seven years old, he was left, one summer day,
with the charge of an infant niece. As it lay in the cradle and he was
engaged in fanning away the flies, the motion of the fan pleased the
child, and caused it to smile. Attracted by the charms thus created,
young West felt his instinctive passion aroused; and seeing paper, pen
and some red and black ink on a table, he eagerly seized them and made
his first attempt at portrait painting. Just as he had finished his
maiden task, his mother and sister entered. He tried to conceal what he
had done, but his confusion arrested his mother's attention and she
asked him what he had been doing. With reluctance and timidity, he
handed her the paper, begging, at the same time, that she would not be
offended. Examining the drawing for a short time, she turned to her
daughter and, with a smile, said, "I declare, he has made a likeness of
Sally." She then gave him a fond kiss, which so encouraged him that
he promised her some drawings of the flowers which she was then holding,
if she wished to have them.
The next year a cousin sent him a box of colors and pencils, with large
quantities of canvas prepared for the easel, and half a dozen
engravings. Early in the morning after their reception, he took all his
materials into the garret, and for several days forgot all about school.
His mother suspected that the box was the cause of his neglect of his
books, and going into the garret and finding him busy at a picture, she
was about to reprimand him; but her eye fell on some of his
compositions, and her anger cooled at once. She was so pleased with them
that she loaded him with kisses and promised to secure his father's
pardon for his neglect of school.
How much the world is indebted to Mrs. West for her early and constant
encouragement of the immortal artist. He often used to say, after his
reputation was established, "_My mother's kiss made me a painter!_"
HEROIC ENDURANCE.
'Tis not now who is stout and bold,
But who bears hunger best and cold.
BUTLER.
On the twenty-seventh of July, 1755, Mrs. Howe, of Hinsdale, New
Hampshire, with seven children and two other women and their children,
was taken captive by the Indians, and marched through the wilderness to
Crown Point. There Mrs. Howe, with some of the other prisoners, remained
several days. The rest were conducted to Montreal to be sold, but the
French refusing to buy them, they were all brought back, except Mrs.
Howe's youngest daughter, who was presented to Governor De Vaudreuil.
Ere long the whole party started for St. Johns by water. Night soon came
on; a storm arose; the darkness became intense; the canoes separated,
and just before day Mrs. Howe was landed on the beach, ignorant of the
destiny of her children. Raising a pillow of earth with her hands, she
laid herself down to rest with her infant on her bosom. A toilsome day's
journey brought her and her captors to St. Johns, and pressing onward
they soon reached St. Francis, the home of the latter. A council having
been called and the customary ceremonies performed, Mrs. Howe, with her
infant left to her care, was put in the charge of a squaw, whom she was
ordered to call mother.
"At the approach of winter, the squaw, yielding to her earnest
solicitations, set out with Mrs. Howe and her child, for Montreal, to
sell them to the French. On the journey both she and her infant were in
danger of perishing from hunger and cold; the lips of the child being at
times so benumbed, as to be incapable of imbibing its proper
nourishment. After her arrival in the city, she was offered to a French
lady; who, seeing the child in her arms, exclaimed, 'I will not buy a
woman, who has a child to look after.' I shall not attempt to describe
the feelings with which this rebuff was received by a person who had no
higher ambition than to become a slave. Few of our race have hearts made
of such unyielding materials, as not to be broken by long-continued
abuse; and Mrs. Howe was not one of this number. Chilled with cold, and
pinched with hunger, she saw in the kitchen of this inhospitable house
some small pieces of bread, floating in a pail amid other fragments,
destined to feed swine; and eagerly skimmed them for herself. When her
Indian mother found that she could not dispose of her, she returned by
water to St. Francis, where she soon died of small pox, which she had
caught at Montreal. Speedily after, the Indians commenced their winter
hunting. Mrs. Howe was then ordered to return her child to the captors.
The babe clung to her bosom; and she was obliged to force it away. They
carried it to a place called 'Messiskow,' on the borders of the river
Missiscoui, near the north end of lake Champlain upon the eastern shore.
The mother soon followed, and found it neglected, lean, and almost
perishing with hunger. As she pressed its face to her cheek, the eager,
half-starved infant bit her with violence. For three nights she was
permitted to cherish it in her bosom; but in the day-time she was
confined to a neighboring wigwam, where she was compelled to hear its
unceasing cries of distress, without a possibility of contributing to
its relief.
"The third day the Indians carried her several miles up the lake. The
following night she was alarmed by what is usually called the great
earthquake, which shook the region around her with violent concussions.
Here, also, she was deserted for two nights in an absolute wilderness;
and, when her Indian connections returned, was told by them that two of
her children were dead. Very soon after, she received certain
information of the death of her infant. Amid the anguish awakened by
these melancholy tidings, she saw a distant volume of smoke; and was
strongly inclined to make her way to the wigwam from which it ascended.
As she entered the door, she met one of the children, reported to be
dead; and to her great consolation found that he was in comfortable
circumstances. A good-natured Indian soon after informed her, that the
other was alive on the opposite side of the lake, at the distance of a
few miles only. Upon this information she obtained leave to be absent
for a single day; and, with the necessary directions from her informant,
set out for the place. On her way she found her child, lean and hungry,
and proceeded with it to the wigwam. A small piece of bread, presented
to her by the Indian family in which she lived, she had carefully
preserved for this unfortunate boy; but, to avoid offending the family
in which he lived, was obliged to distribute it in equal shares to all
the children. The little creature had been transported at the sight of
his mother; and, when she announced her departure, fell at her feet, as
if he had been dead. Yet she was compelled to leave him; and satisfied
herself, as far as she was able, by commending him to the protection of
God. The family in which she lived, passed the following summer at St.
Johns. It was composed of the daughter and son-in-law of her late
mother. The son-in-law went out early in the season on an expedition
against the English settlements. At their return, the party had a
drinking frolic, their usual festival after excursions of this nature.
Drunkenness regularly enhances the bodily strength of a savage, and
stimulates his mind to madness. In this situation he will insult, abuse,
and not unfrequently murder, his nearest friends. The wife of this man
had often been a sufferer by his intemperance. She therefore proposed to
Mrs. Howe that they should withdraw themselves from the wigwam until
the effects of his present intoxication were over. They accordingly
withdrew. Mrs. Howe returned first, and found him surly and ill-natured,
because his wife was absent. In the violence of his resentment he took
Mrs. Howe, hurried her to St. Johns, and sold her for a trifling sum to
a French gentleman, named Saccapee.
"Upon a little reflection, however, the Indian perceived that he had
made a foolish bargain. In a spirit of resentment he threatened to
assassinate Mrs. Howe; and declared that if he could not accomplish his
design, he would set fire to the fort. She was therefore carefully
secreted, and the fort watchfully guarded, until the violence of his
passion was over. When her alarm was ended, she found her situation as
happy in the family, as a state of servitude would permit. Her new
master and mistress were kind, liberal, and so indulgent as rarely to
refuse anything that she requested. In this manner they enabled her
frequently to befriend other English prisoners, who, from time to time,
were brought to St. Johns.
"Yet even in this humane family she met with new trials. Monsieur
Saccapee, and his son, an officer in the French army, became at the same
time passionately attached to her. This singular fact is a forcible
proof that her person, mind, and manners, were unusually agreeable. Nor
was her situation less perplexing than singular. The good will of the
whole family was indispensable to her comfort, if not to her safety; and
her purity she was determined to preserve at the hazard of her life. In
the house where both her lovers resided, conversed with her every day,
and, together with herself, were continually under the eye of her
mistress, the lovers a father and a son, herself a slave, and one of
them her master, it will be easily believed that she met with very
serious embarrassments in accomplishing her determination. In this
situation she made known her misfortunes to Colonel Peter Schuyler of
Albany, then a prisoner at St. Johns. As soon as he had learned her
situation he represented it to the Governor De Vaudreuil. The Governor
immediately ordered young Saccapee into the army; and enjoined on his
father a just and kind treatment of Mrs. Howe. His humanity did not stop
here. Being informed that one of her daughters was in danger of being
married to an Indian of St. Francis, he rescued her from this miserable
destiny, and placed her in a nunnery with her sister. Here they were
both educated as his adopted children.
"By the good offices of Colonel Schuyler, also, who advanced
twenty-seven hundred livres for that purpose, and by the assistance of
several other gentlemen, she was enabled to ransom herself, and her four
sons. With these children she set out for New England in the autumn of
1758, under the protection of Colonel Schuyler, leaving her two
daughters behind.[37] As she was crossing lake Champlain, young
Saccapee came on board the boat, in which she was conveyed; gave her a
handsome present; and bade her adieu. Colonel Schuyler being obliged to
proceed to Albany with more expedition than was convenient for his
fellow travelers, left them in the care of Major Putnam, afterwards
Major-General Putnam. From this gentleman she received every kind
office, which his well known humanity could furnish; and arrived without
any considerable misfortune at the place of their destination."[38]
[37] After the treaty of peace at Paris, Mrs. Howe went to Canada and
brought home the younger daughter, who left the nunnery with a great
deal of reluctance. The older went to France with Monsieur Dr.
Vaudreuil, and was there married to a man named Louis.
[38] Dwight's Travels.
MATERNAL HEROISM
Is there a man, into the lion's den
Who dares intrude to snatch his young away?
THOMSON.
During the campaign of 1777, a soldier of the Fifty-fifth regiment was
sitting with his wife at breakfast, when a bomb entered the tent, and
fell between the table and a bed where their infant was sleeping. The
mother urged her husband to go round the bomb and seize the child, his
dress being, from the position of things, more favorable than hers for
the prosecution of the dangerous task: but he refused, and running out
of the tent, begged his wife to follow, saying that the fusee was just
ready to communicate with the deadly combustibles. The fond mother,
instead of obeying, hastily tucked up her garments to prevent their
coming in contact with the bomb; leaped past it; caught the child, and
in a moment was out of danger.
In December, 1850, the house of Peter Knight, of Bath, Maine, caught
fire, and a small child, asleep in the room where the flames burst out,
would have perished but for the self-possession and daring of its
mother. One or two unsuccessful attempts had been made by others to
rescue it, when the mother, always the last to despair, made a desperate
effort, and secured the prize. When the two were taken from the window
of the second story, the dress of Mrs. Knight was in flames!
A MODERN DORCAS.
'Tis truth divine, exhibited on earth,
Gives charity her being.
COWPER.
Isabella, the wife of Dr. John Graham, was born in Scotland, on the
twenty-ninth of July, 1742. At the age of seventeen she became a member
of the church in Paisley of which the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, afterwards
President of Princeton college, was the pastor. Dr. Graham was a
physician of the same town. Her marriage took place in 1765. The next
year Dr. Graham was ordered to join his regiment then stationed in
Canada. After spending a few months at Montreal, he removed to Fort
Niagara, where he remained in the garrison four years.
Just before the Revolutionary war the sixteenth regiment of Royal
Americans was ordered to the island of Antigua. Thither Dr. Graham
removed with his family, and there he died in 1774. Mrs. Graham then
returned to her native land.
In 1789 she came to this country, and permanently settled in the city of
New York. She there opened a school for young ladies, and gained a high
reputation in her profession. She united with the Presbyterian church
of which John Mason, D. D., was pastor, and was noted, through all the
latter years of her life, for the depth of her piety and her Christian
benevolence. She made it a rule to give a tenth part of her earnings to
religious and charitable purposes. In 1795 she received, at one time, an
advance of a thousand pounds on the sale of a lease which she held on
some building lots; and not being used to such large profits, she said,
on receiving the money, "Quick, quick, let me appropriate the tenth
before my heart grows hard."
Two years afterwards, a society was organized and chartered, for the
relief of poor widows; and Mrs. Graham was appointed first directress.
Each of the managers had a separate district, and she had the
superintendence of the whole. A house was purchased by the society,
where work was received for the employment of the widows; and a school
was opened for the instruction of their children. "Besides establishing
this school, Mrs. Graham selected some of the widows, best qualified for
the task, and engaged them, for a small compensation, to open day
schools for the instruction of the children of widows, in distant parts
of the city: she also established two Sabbath schools, one of which she
superintended herself, and the other she placed under the care of her
daughter. Wherever she met with Christians sick and in poverty, she
visited and comforted them; and in some instances opened small
subscription lists to provide for their support. She attended
occasionally for some years at the Alms House for the instruction of the
children there, in religious knowledge: in this work she was much
assisted by a humble and pious female friend, who was seldom absent from
it on the Lord's day.
"It was often her custom to leave home after breakfast, to take with her
a few rolls of bread, and return in the evening about eight o'clock. Her
only dinner on such days was her bread, and perhaps some soup at the
Soup House, established by the Humane Society for the poor, over which
one of her widows had been, at her recommendation, appointed."[39]
[39] Mrs. Bethune's Life of Mrs. Graham, abridged.
In the winter of 1804-5, before a Tract or Bible Society had been formed
in New York, she visited between two and three hundred of the poorer
families, and supplied them with a Bible where they were destitute. She
also distributed tracts which were written, at her request, by a friend,
"and lest it might be said it was cheap to give advice, she usually gave
a small sum of money along with the tracts."
On the fifteenth of March, 1806, a society was organized in New York for
providing an Asylum for Orphan Children; and Mrs. Graham occupied the
chair on the occasion. Her sympathies were strongly enlisted in this
organization, and she was one of the trustees at the time of her death.
"In the winter of 1807-8, when the suspension of commerce by the
embargo, rendered the situation of the poor more destitute than ever,
Mrs. Graham adopted a plan best calculated in her view to detect the
idle applicant for charity, and at the same time to furnish employment
for the more worthy amongst the female poor. She purchased flax, and
lent wheels where applicants had none. Such as were industrious took the
work with thankfulness, and were paid for it; those who were beggars by
profession, never kept their word to return for the flax or the wheel.
The flax thus spun was afterwards woven, bleached, and made into
table-cloths and towels for family use."[40]
[40] Mrs. Bethune.
When the Magdalen Society was established by some gentlemen, in 1811, a
board of ladies was elected for the purpose of superintending the
internal management of the house; and Mrs. Graham was chosen President.
This office she continued to hold till her death. The next year the
trustees of the Lancasterian School solicited the services of several
women to instruct the pupils in the catechism. Mrs. Graham cheerfully
assisted in this task, instruction being given one afternoon in each
week.
"In the spring of 1814 she was requested to unite with some ladies, in
forming a Society for the Promotion of Industry amongst the poor. The
Corporation of the city having returned a favorable answer to their
petition for assistance, and provided a house, a meeting of the Society
was held, and Mrs. Graham once more was called to the chair. It was the
last time she was to preside at the formation of a new society. Her
articulation, once strong and clear, was now observed to have become
more feeble. The ladies present listened to her with affectionate
attention; her voice broke upon the ear as a pleasant sound that was
passing away. She consented to have her name inserted in the list of
managers, to give what assistance her age would permit in forwarding so
beneficent a work. Although it pleased God to make her cease from her
labors, before the House of Industry was opened, yet the work was
carried on by others, and prospered. Between four and five hundred women
were employed and paid during the following winter. The Corporation
declared in strong terms their approbation of the result, and enlarged
their donation, with a view to promote the same undertaking for the
succeeding winter."
Mrs. Graham died on the twenty-seventh of July, 1814. Of no woman of the
age may it be said with more propriety, as it was of Dorcas: "This woman
was full of good works and alms-deeds, which she did." Yet few women are
more humble than was Mrs. Graham, or think less of their benevolent
deeds. Her daughter, Mrs. Bethune, writing of her decease, says that she
departed in peace, not trusting in her wisdom or virtue, like the
philosophers of Greece and Rome; not even, like Addison, calling on the
profligate to see a good man die; but, like Howard, afraid that her good
works might have a wrong place in the estimate of her hope, her chief
glory was that of a "sinner saved by grace."
SARAH HOFFMAN.
Still to a stricken brother turn.
WHITTIER.
In the act of incorporation of the Widow's Society, established in the
city of New York, in 1797, with the name of Mrs. Graham, is associated
that of Mrs. Sarah Hoffman. This lady was the daughter of David Ogden,
one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, before the
elevation of the provinces into states. She was born at Newark, on the
eighth of September, 1742; and married Nicholas Hoffman, in 1762. She
early took delight in doing good, being thus prompted by deep religious
principle. Cautious and discriminating, her charities were bestowed
judiciously, and she was able to do much good without the largest means.
In her benevolent operations, however, she usually acted in an
associated capacity.
As already intimated, she was a member of the society formed "for the
relief of poor widows with small children." That this institution
prospered under the control of such women as Mrs. Hoffman and Mrs.
Graham, may be inferred from their report made in April, 1803.
"Ninety-eight widows and two hundred and twenty-three children," this
document states, "were brought through the severity of the winter with a
considerable degree of comfort."
Mrs. Hoffman, Mrs. Graham and their associates, often perambulated the
districts of poverty and disease, from morning till night, entering the
huts of want and desolation, and carrying comfort and consolation to
many a despairing heart. They clambered to the highest and meanest
garrets, and descended to the lowest, darkest and dankest cellars, to
administer to the wants of the destitute, the sick, and the dying. They
took with them medicine as well as food; and were accustomed to
administer Christian counsel or consolation, as the case required, to
the infirm in body and the wretched in heart. They even taught many poor
creatures, who seemed to doubt the existence of an overruling
Providence, to pray to Him whose laws they had broken and thereby
rendered themselves miserable.[41]
[41] Knapp's Female Biography.
In Mrs. Hoffman's character, to tenderness of feeling were added great
firmness, strength of mind, and moral courage. She was often seen in the
midst of contagion and suffering where the cheek of the warrior would
blanch with fear. She exposed her own life, however, not like the
warrior, to destroy, but to save; and hundreds _were_ saved by her
humane efforts, combined with those of her co-workers. Her life
beautifully exemplified the truth of what Crabbe says of woman:
----In extremes of cold and heat,
Where wandering man may trace his kind;
Wherever grief and want retreat,
In woman they compassion find.
And if, as the poet Grainger asserts,
The height of virtue is to serve mankind,
Mrs. Hoffman reached a point towards which many aspire, but above which
few ascend.
HEROISM OF SCHOHARIE WOMEN.
Invaders! vain your battles' steel and fire.
HALLECK.
During the struggle for Independence, there were three noted forts in
the Schoharie settlement, called the Upper, Middle and Lower; and when,
in the autumn of 1780, Sir John Johnson sallied forth from Niagara, with
his five hundred or more British, tory and German troops, and made an
attack on these forts, an opportunity was given for the display of
patriotism and courage, as well by the women of the settlement as by the
men.
When the Middle fort was invested, an heroic and noted ranger named
Murphy, used his rifle balls so fast as to need an additional supply;
and, anticipating his wants, Mrs. Angelica Vrooman caught his bullet
mould, some lead and an iron spoon, ran to her father's tent, and there
moulded a quantity of bullets amid
"the shout
Of battle, the barbarian yell, the bray
Of dissonant instruments, the clang of arms,
The shriek of agony, the groan of death."
While the firing was kept up at the Middle fort, great anxiety
prevailed at the Upper; and during this time Captain Hager, who
commanded the latter, gave orders that the women and children should
retire to a long cellar, which he specified, should the enemy attack
him. A young lady named Mary Haggidorn, on hearing these orders, went to
Captain Hager and addressed him as follows:--"Captain, I shall not go
into that cellar. Should the enemy come, I will take a spear, which I
can use as well as any _man_, and help defend the fort." The Captain,
seeing her determination, made the following reply:--"Then take a spear,
Mary, and be ready at the pickets to repel an attack." She cheerfully
obeyed, and held the spear at the picket, till "huzzas for the American
flag" burst on her ear, and told that all was safe.[42]
[42] _Vide_ History of Schoharie county, p. 410-11.
A STERLING PATRIOT.