CHAPTER VIII.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF SOME OF THE WRITERS FOR _THE LOWELL OFFERING_.

It remains for me to give, so far as I have been able to glean

them, the life-stories of a few of the most important of these

mill-girl writers, some of them brief indeed, others perhaps of wider

significance, but all telling a tale of honest toil and earnest

aspiration. I begin with Miss Curtis, as senior editor of the magazine.

HARRIOT F. CURTIS,

_Editor of the Lowell Offering._

Among all the writers, Miss Curtis stands out as the pioneer and

reformatory spirit. She was fearless in her convictions; she wrote in

advocacy of the anti-slavery cause when the real agitation had hardly

begun, and in behalf of woman’s right to “equal pay for equal labor,”

five years before the first woman suffrage convention was held in this

country.

She organized the first known woman’s club, and was one of the four

women editors of her time. She was the novelist _par excellence_ of

_The Offering_, and had a bold and dashing pen that would have made

her fortune in these days of women reporters and interviewers. But she

was so startlingly original in her speech and in her writings, that

it “made talk,” as Samantha Allen says, so different was she from the

established idea of what a “female” should be.

But she was self-centred, and bore with Christian philosophy as well as

with pagan silence and stoicism, “the slings and arrows” of those who

could not understand her brave and courageous nature.

Her mind was intensely masculine; but her life had all the limitations

by which the women of her time were bound, and these prevented her from

doing the work for which she was best fitted, and from leading that

life of freedom from care which is so necessary to the best literary

work.

Through her grandmother, Abigail Stratton (Curtis), Harriot could claim

direct descent from Miles Standish.

She was born Sept. 16, 1813, in Kellyvale (now Lowell), Vt., a little

post hamlet on the Missisquoi River, completely surrounded by mountain

peaks. The lonely and isolated life she was obliged to lead was very

distasteful to her, and she early made up her mind to leave her home

and seek more congenial surroundings elsewhere. Her father’s means were

limited; and after exhausting what education could be obtained in the

narrow circle in which she lived, she determined to go to Lowell to

work in the factory, and thus earn the money necessary for a year’s

study at some private school or academy.

Previous to her connection with _The Offering_, Miss Curtis wrote

many tales and sketches, and also “Kate in Search of a Husband,” one

of the first of the “popular novels” in this country. Her novel, “The

Smugglers,” was begun in _The Offering_ of November, 1843.

Her connection with _The Offering_ lasted three years; and during the

last two, besides contributing and editing, she also assumed that

part of the business management which necessitated her travelling

and canvassing for subscribers; in fact, as she said, she was “the

travelling-agent for the firm, and went roaming about the country in

search of patrons.”

By this means, she not only helped to place the magazine on a paying

basis, but made the acquaintance of many distinguished persons. It

was chiefly by the efforts of Miss Curtis at this time that _The

Lowell Offering_ achieved an almost world-wide fame. When at home she

resumed her employment in the mill, as harness-knitter on the Lawrence

corporation.

Mr. Thomas, in response to a letter from her asking advice with regard

to the business affairs of the magazine, replies:--

“Make your terms cash. You will do well to keep constantly in

remembrance that your prosperity almost entirely depends on your

individual exertions. Puffing, advertising, scolding, will do little

or nothing. _Male_ agents will do little or nothing; but if you go as

females, with suitable brief papers signed by _eminent men_, to show

that you are not impostors, you will do well.... Be careful to guard

against the possibility of suspicion. This you can readily accomplish

by certificates from Saml. Lawrence, John Clark, and a few other

Lowellites, countersigned (if convenient) by the governor, Daniel

Webster, etc.”

In her valedictory at the close of Volume V., Miss Curtis announces

that she severs her connection with _The Offering_ for reasons

“entirely of a personal nature,” and as a parting benison adds:

“Friends, Patrons, and Foes (if we have any), may God bless you all

with every perfect gift!”

Although her connection with _The Offering_ was severed at this date,

Miss Curtis remained in Lowell until called away by the illness of

her mother. She continued her literary labors for a time, and was

a correspondent of several newspapers. Harriot was the friend and

correspondent of such men as John Neal, Horace Greeley, Nathaniel P.

Willis, and others well known in literary and public life.

She had a taste for politics and wrote intelligently on questions that

women were not supposed to understand. She contributed to the _New

York Tribune_ articles so clear and so caustic, that readers who did

not share the common delusion that “H. G.” wrote everything in Horace

Greeley’s paper, thought they must have been written by a _man_!

She was the friend and correspondent of “Warrington” (William S.

Robinson), and when he was editor of the _Boston Daily Republican_, she

made a prediction worthy of a male political prophet. In a letter dated

May 4, 1848, she writes:--

_Friend R._,--Probably no doubt exists but _some_ self-sacrificing

patriot may be found to accept the office of Chief Magistrate....

But who shall be the Whig candidate for this self-sacrifice, seems

the most prominent question. A few days since I met Horace Greeley,

and, as in duty bound, pronounced to him my _prophecy_ of who _could

not_ be a successful candidate, although, out of the numerous

aspirants for the Whig nomination, I could not prophecy who would

be successful.... Will you give the public my assurance that _Henry

Clay cannot be President of the United States_. I don’t care who the

Democratic nominee may be; I don’t care how divided that party may be

in action, nor how great may be the unanimity and enthusiasm of the

Whigs; but I repeat, Henry Clay cannot be President....

I now enter upon the most painful part of her story, and I do it with

a heavy heart; but I feel obliged to tell it, because it illustrates

so well the lives which so many “solitary” women were then forced to

lead,--lives of poverty, of self-abnegation, and of unselfishness. And

in reading, in her letters to me, the sad record of her struggles, I

can truly say, that never in all my life of over seventy years have I

known of one so cruelly compelled by circumstances to hide the talent

which “God had given her,” that she might become the angel of mercy to

her suffering and needy relatives.

In the heyday of her literary career, she left the work for which she

was the best fitted, to take the sole charge of her blind and aged

mother, who lived until 1858, “having suffered all that mortal could

suffer.” Harriot was her constant attendant day and night, vainly

trying, in the mean while, to get some literary work to do at her home

to help eke out the narrow income of the family.

Extracts from her letters written to my husband and myself will give

some idea of her struggles to obtain remunerative employment.

SUNNY HILL, DRACUT, _Jan. 7, 1849_.

_Dear, dear Friends_,--Your kind letter reached me on Friday; and

if you could imagine the “heaps” of good it did me, you would favor

me often with such medicine. Nobody writes to me nowadays, and I am

left to my despair and desolation.... Oh dear! what a world this is

for poor old maids! but I trust _you_ find it quite comfortable and

Paradise-like for brides and bridegrooms, God bless them all! and more

especially you young ones.... I wish you would show me how I could

“earn” anything by writing. I cannot find my way only to write a book,

be months about it, and then get a whole $100 for it. That don’t pay

enough for wear and tear of temper.

Later, in 1860, she writes from the family home in St. Albans, Vt.

“Under present circumstances I do not think I could write a leader. I

do not know of anything until it is a week or ten days’ old, and my

only connection with the living world is the _Tribune_. I thank you

with all my heart for your kind offer about going to New York, but it

would be useless. Greeley’s introduction to Bonner would not do any

good. If I could attract notice, kick up a small tempest, I should

feel sure of an invitation from Mr. Bonner. But without some notoriety

that _has_ created comment, the angel Gabriel could not get into the

_Ledger_. Without intellectual contact, out of the world, I have grown

rusty. A great care, an increasing anxiety, and most painful sympathy

for the suffering, have narrowed my thoughts.... If I could get a

little good luck--something to feel pleased about--I think I could

wake up to anything.... I could not earn a dollar _here_ to save my

life. Greeley would say, “Yes, you could: there is the needle; that is

useful and wanted, though not half paid.” Mr. Greeley does not know

that even the resource of the “poor shirtmaker” is denied me. I have

lost the use of my thimble finger from one of those awful things, a

felon; and it is misshapen, bent, and stiffened. I assure you, I have

had a _womanly_ experience.... You see, I am ‘off the track.’”

After 1860 she ceased trying to secure either fame or money by her

literary talents; and thereafter, for almost thirty years, she

continued to be the nurse and companion of the remaining invalids of

the family, thinking, as she always had done, more of their comfort

than she did of the loss of fortune and fame.

If she had devoted all her energies to the development of her talent as

a novelist, she might have earned a livelihood, and been a continued

success,--enough so, at least, to find a place in some of the many

volumes of American biography. But she had the conviction that one has

no moral right to live for one’s self alone; and so she gave her all,

and spent her life, in the service of those who needed her help. And

though often despondent, and almost despairing, she never lost faith in

God, nor in his fatherly care over the most afflicted of his children.

I first knew Miss Curtis in about 1844, when she and Miss Farley lived

in what was then Dracut, in a little house embowered in roses, which

they had named “Shady Nook.” The house was a sort of literary centre

to those who had become interested in _The Lowell Offering_ and its

writers; and there were many who came from places both near and far to

call on the editors, and meet the “girls” who by their pens had made

themselves quite noted.

But I did not see much of her until 1848, when we became the firm

friends and correspondents that we remained until the end of her life.

As I remember her at that time, she was of medium height, rather

inclined to stoutness, with small, white, well-shaped hands, brown

hair, large blue eyes, a small nose, full red lips, white teeth well

divided, and a head--well, more than a match for most of the women, if

not the men, of her set.

Miss Curtis had many offers of marriage; but she thought it wrong for a

woman to marry for a “home,” or unless she loved the man with a “love

more enduring than life and stronger than death;” and as she did not

meet such a man, she could not enter into her ideal marriage. But the

friendships she made were warm and lasting, and the friends with whom

she was associated have in these pages given their loving tribute to

her characteristics and her capabilities.

Miss Curtis’s literary efforts may be summed up as follows: first,

“Kate in Search of a Husband, a novel by a Lady Chrysalis,” published

by J. Winchester, New York, and twice in after years by unknown

publishers. The authorship of this novel was claimed by one male

writer, and another wrote a counterpart, called “Philip in Search of a

Wife.”

“Kate” was followed by “The Smugglers,” the scene of which was laid in

her native town, and “Truth’s Pilgrimage, His Wanderings in America

and in Other Lands,” an allegory. Both of these books were published

in continued numbers in _The Offering_, and the first-named was

copyrighted by a Boston firm in 1844, but was not published.

Her last novel, “Jessie’s Flirtations,” was published first by George

Munro in 1846 and afterwards by the Harpers; and it still holds its

place in their “Library of Select Novels.” “S. S. Philosophy,” her last

published book, is full of pithy paragraphs, containing (as her friend

“Warrington” said in the _Lowell Journal_) “much that is sensible,

sound, and salutary, as well as some considerable that is saucy and

sarcastic.” She was for three years co-editor of _The Lowell Offering_;

in 1854-1855 she was associate editor of the _Vox Populi_, a Lowell

newspaper; and she also wrote for many leading journals, notably _The

New York Tribune_, _The Lowell Journal_, _The Lowell American_, and N.

P. Willis’s _Home Journal_ (N.Y.).

Her _nom de plume_, “Mina Myrtle,” first used by her in the newspapers

in 1847, became well known; it was afterwards appropriated by another

author as “Minnie” Myrtle. (See Wheeler’s “Dictionary of the Noted

Names of Fiction.”)

During her last years Miss Curtis lived on a small farm in Needham,

Mass., with her invalid niece, and was cared for and supported by her

nephew, George H. Caldwell, brevetted lieutenant-colonel for gallant

and meritorious service at Gettysburg, the Battle of the Wilderness,

and before Petersburg.

Miss Curtis died in October, 1889, at the age of seventy-six, leaving

the invalid niece, who had been her charge for so many years; but her

affection for her “Aunt Harriot” was so strong that she died of “no

seeming disease” a few weeks after her distinguished relative.

THE CURRIER SISTERS.

These were four sisters, named Louisa, Maria, Lura, and Marcia, and at

least three of them wrote for _The Offering_.

They were the daughters of Mr. John Currier of Wentworth, N.H., and

members of Mr. Thomas’s congregation and of his Improvement Circle.

Maria has put on record an authentic account of the first Improvement

Circle (quoted elsewhere); but Lura deserves the most extended mention,

from the fact that she, as Mrs. Whitney, was the prime mover in

establishing a free library in the town of Haverhill, N.H. Mrs. Whitney

died before I had thought to write to her for information; but I am

able to quote extracts from the following letter, written by her to

Mrs. E. E. T. Sawyer, her early work-mate and lifelong friend, on Jan.

19, 1885.

“I think I have told you about the library that I had the honor of

starting here about four and a half years ago. Now we are talking

about a new library building; and I think we have made a great start,

as one man has given us fifteen hundred dollars towards it.... As far

as our library is concerned, I have accomplished what no one else in

this place has done before, and I feel amply repaid in the perusal of

some of the interesting volumes contained therein.”

Mrs. Whitney died April 4, 1889.

ELIZA JANE CATE.

Miss Cate was the eldest daughter of Captain Jonathan Cate, who

commanded a company in the war of 1812. She was born in Sanbornton,

N.H., in 1812, and soon achieved good rank as a pure, unaffected, and

attractive writer. She was most prolific with her pen, and wrote on a

large variety of subjects. Her admirers called her “the Edgeworth of

New England.”

Her contributions to _The Offering_, notably “Susy L----’s Diary,”

“Lights and Shadows of Factory Life,” and “Chapters on the Natural

Sciences,” were widely read and commended. Her signature was usually

“D.” She was a contributor to _Peterson’s_, over the signature of “By

the Author of Susy L----’s Diary,” and wrote for _Sartain’s_ and other

magazines.

Her obituary notice, copied from the newspapers, said:--

“Miss Cate was the author of at least eight books, three of which were

issued by the Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia, and two

by J. Winchester of New York. She was a corresponding member of the

New Hampshire Historical Society. She died in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in

1884. Miss Cate was retiring in her manner, but was of a genial and

confiding nature; and in her character, as well as in her writings,

were blended moral purity with the Christian graces.”

MRS. BETSEY CHAMBERLAIN.

Mrs. Chamberlain was the most original, the most prolific, and the most

noted of all the early story-writers. Her writings were characterized,

as Mr. Thomas says, “by humorous incidents and sound common sense,”

as is shown by her setting forth of certain utopian schemes of right

living.

Mrs. Chamberlain was a widow, and came to Lowell with three children

from some “community” (probably the Shakers), where she had not been

contented. She had inherited Indian blood, and was proud of it. She had

long, straight black hair, and walked very erect, with great freedom of

movement. One of her sons was afterwards connected with the _New York

Tribune_.

HARRIET FARLEY,

_Editor of The Lowell Offering and afterwards of the New England

Offering._

From her autobiography, published in Mrs. S. J. Hale’s book, “The

Woman’s Record,” about 1848, I am so fortunate as to be able to quote

Miss Farley’s own words with regard to some of the events of her

early life before and during the time of her connection with both the

_Lowell_ and the _New England Offering_. Miss Farley says:--

“My father is a Congregational minister, and at the time of my

birth was settled in the beautiful town of Claremont, N.H.... My

mother was descended from the Moodys, somewhat famous in New England

history. One of them was the eccentric Father Moody. Another [his

son] was Handkerchief Moody, who wore so many years ‘the Minister’s

Veil.’... My father was of the genuine New Hampshire stock, from a

pious, industrious, agricultural people; his brothers being deacons,

and some of his sisters married to deacons.... His grandmother was

eminent for her medical knowledge and skill, and had as much practice

as is usually given to a country doctor. His mother was a woman of

fine character, who exerted herself and sacrificed much to secure

his liberal education.... I was the sixth of ten children, and until

fourteen had not that health which promises continued life.... At

fourteen years of age I commenced exertions to assist in my own

maintenance, and have at times followed the various avocations of New

England girls. I have plaited palm-leaf straw, bound shoes, taught

school, and worked at tailoring, besides my labors as a weaver in the

factory, which suited me better than any other. After my father’s

removal to the little town of Atkinson, N.H., he combined the labors

of preceptor of one of the two oldest academies of the State with his

parochial duties; and here, among a simple but intelligent people,

I spent those years which give tone to the female character.... I

learned something of French, drawing, ornamental needlework, and the

usual accomplishments; for it was the design of my friends to make me

a teacher,--a profession for which I had an instinctive dislike. But

my own feelings were not consulted.... This was undoubtedly wholesome

discipline; but it was carried to a degree that was painful, and

drove me from my home. I came to Lowell, determined that, if I had

my own living to obtain, I would get it in my own way; that I would

read, think, and _write when I could_, without restraint; that if I

did well I would have the credit of it, if ill, my friends should be

relieved from the stigma. I endeavored to reconcile them to my lot

by a devotion of all my spare earnings to them and their interests.

I made good wages; I dressed economically; I assisted in the liberal

education of one brother, and endeavored to be the guardian angel

to a lovely sister.... It was something so new to me to be praised

and encouraged to write that I was at first overwhelmed by it, ...

and it was with great reluctance that I consented to edit [_The

Lowell Offering_], and was quite as unwilling at first to assist in

publishing. But circumstances seem to have compelled me forward as a

business woman, and I have endeavored to _do my duty_. I am now the

proprietor of _The New England Offering_. I do all the publishing,

editing, canvassing; and as it is bound at my office, I can, in a

hurry, help fold, cut covers, stitch, etc. I have a little girl to

assist me in the folding, stitching, etc.; the rest, after it comes

from the printer’s hand, is all my own work. I employ no agents, and

depend upon no one for assistance. My edition is four thousand. These

details, I trust, are not tedious. I have given them because I thought

there was nothing remarkable about _The Offering_ but its source and

the mode in which it was conducted.”

Of her connection with Mr. Thomas’s Improvement Circle and _The Lowell

Offering_, Miss Farley has said to a friend: “The Circle met in the

Sunday-school rooms, and they were not only filled, but crowded. There

was a box placed at the entrance, so that, if preferred, the writers

could be anonymous; and sometimes topics were suggested. It seemed

almost like an insult when Mr. Thomas first offered payment for these

little mental efforts of our leisure hours.

‘I can understand this feeling,’ he said. ‘I was brought up a Quaker,

and my grandfather never took pay for preaching. The first money that

was ever placed in my hands for this service seemed to burn into my

palms.’ There was a little pile, all in gold, left for our share of

the profits of the first series.

“When I first took the editorial position, I left my regular place to

be what is called a ‘spare hand.’ This gave leisure for what I had to

do, and there never was any difficulty about contributions. A large

bundle of manuscripts left by Mr. Thomas was never resorted to but when

some short paper was wanted to fill out a vacant space.

“In the printing-office were Messrs. Hale, Stearns, Taylor, Brown, and

others, always respectful, kind, and obliging. In the outer office

was Mr. W. S. Robinson, afterwards known as ‘Warrington.’ These men

would soon have discovered if there had been false pretences about the

writers for the magazine.”

In 1847 Miss Farley published a selection from her writings in _The

Offering_, with other material, entitled “Shells from the Strand of

the Sea of Genius;” she is most fully represented in “Mind Among the

Spindles.” In 1880 she published a volume of Christmas stories.

Miss Farley married Mr. Dunlevy, an inventor, and they had one child,

Inez, who married Mr. George Kyle, a humorous writer and comedian, and

died in 1890. Mrs. Dunlevy was living in New York in 1898.

MARGARET F. FOLEY.

That broad-browed delicate girl will carve at Rome

Faces in marble, classic as her own.

_An Idyl of Work._

From Miss Foley’s letters to Lucy Larcom, and the tender recollections

of some of her early and lifelong friends, I am able to piece out a

short sketch of this pioneer sculptress.

Margaret Foley was born in Canada, but while she was quite young the

family moved to the States. When her father died he left some property,

and she was educated fully up to the standard of the young women of her

day. She taught school, and at one time was preceptress of Westport

Academy. While there she boarded in Lowell, and on Saturday afternoons

she taught classes in drawing and painting, and among her pupils was

Lucy Larcom. She always had a piece of clay or a cameo in some stage of

advancement, upon which she worked in spare moments.

While at Westport Academy she modelled a bust of Dr. Gilman Kimball, a

distinguished surgeon of Lowell. She began her artistic life without

any teaching, by carving small figures in wood, or modelling busts in

chalk; and she often gave these as prizes to her pupils.

She went into the factory to work, that she might share the advantages

of the society of other girls who were fond of reading and study, and

also that she could enable herself to begin her career as a sculptor.

She did not herself consider that her life in the Lowell factory had

any great part in her career, although there is not much doubt that

she first conceived the idea of chiselling her thought on the surface

of the “smooth-lipped shell” amid the hum of the machinery in the

cotton-mill.

She worked a year on the Merrimack corporation; her poems for _The

Offering_ are written from there, and signed M. F. F. She then went to

Boston, where she opened a studio. While in Boston she suffered great

privations, and earned but a scanty support in carving portraits and

ideal heads in cameo; but she worked on hopefully, doing some excellent

likenesses, cameos, medallions, and a few busts; among these, one of

cabinet size, of Theodore Parker.

Her cameo-cutting was said to be unsurpassed. After seven years of this

life, by the aid of kind friends, the wish of her heart was gratified,

and she sailed for Rome, where she began to work in larger material,

and to make life-size medallion portraits with much success and profit.

She found warm friends there,--Harriet Hosmer, Mrs. Jameson, Mr. and

Mrs. S. C. Hall, W. W. Story, and, best of all, William and Mary Howitt.

From “Mary Howitt, an Autobiography,” by her daughter, London, 1889,

I am able to give a slight glimpse of the last years of Margaret

Foley’s life. Mrs. Howitt first speaks of her in 1871, as “the gifted,

generous-hearted New England sculptress.” In June of that year she

went with the Howitts to the Tyrol, where, on setting up housekeeping

together, Mrs. Howitt says,--

“Margaret Foley, a born carpenter and inventor, set to work and made us

all sorts of capital contrivances.” She spent several summers at Meran,

a residence for invalids, celebrated for its grape-cure. In 1877 she

was taken with a stroke of paralysis, the root of the malady being an

affection of the spinal cord, was carried from Rome to Meran, and after

several months of great suffering she died there, Dec. 7, 1877.

During her illness, says Mrs. Howitt, her physician “ordered us to

write to any near friends or relatives she might have, and that, if she

had any affairs to settle, it might be done; but dear Peggy had made

her will, and we were among her nearest friends.”

The friendship of the Howitts for Margaret Foley was very warm and

tender; and she found in their true hearts and in their home that rest

and refreshment her loving spirit craved, and that true sympathy for

her work which is so necessary for the struggling artist.

I first saw Miss Foley in Rome while I was there with my husband in

1874. We had sent her a letter of introduction from Lucy Larcom with

a note, and were invited to take tea with her at 53 Via Margutta, her

home. She received us in a most cordial New England manner; we were to

have visited her studio the next day, but the sudden illness prevented,

and we never saw her again. She was then at work on her “Fountain,” and

spoke of the figures around it as “my children.”

In personal appearance she was very attractive. Of a medium-sized,

lithe figure, with small, unusually strong hands, a high, broad

forehead, which, in connection with her refined features, gave her the

stamp of intellectual power, a luxuriant quantity of soft brown hair,

the longest and thickest I ever saw, merry blue eyes, and a head as

classic and a skin as white as her own beautiful marbles.

Miss Foley’s principal sculptures may be classified in the following

order: Among her medallions are Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner,

Longfellow, Bryant, William and Mary Howitt, Mrs. S. C. Hall, and

perhaps others, said to be “full of purity and grace.”

Her ideal productions are Jeremiah, a colossal bust; Pasquiccia; The

Fountain; The Young Trumpeter; The Timid Bather; Excelsior; The Head of

Joshua; Little Orpheus; Cleopatra; Viola; The Flower Girl; Boy and Cid,

a life-sized group; The Baby Piper (Little Pan); and doubtless many

others which have not come to my notice.

No adequate biography has yet been written of Miss Foley, although it

is said that the daughter of Mary Howitt has contemplated such a work.

This would certainly be of value, not only as showing how exceptional

talent, (if not actual genius), can assert itself in spite of all

limitations, but also as a tribute to a rare and aerial personality.

LYDIA S. HALL.

This writer was _the_ poet, _par excellence_, of the early volumes of

_The Offering_; as Lucy Larcom said, “She was regarded as one of the

best writers of verse while I was in Lowell.”

“The Tomb of Washington,” first printed in No. 1 of the first series

of _The Offering_, was thought to be a wonderful production, and was

widely copied. She also wrote for that publication “Old Ironsides,” a

poem widely read and quoted. She left Lowell before 1848, and went as

a missionary to the Choctaw Indians, travelling on horseback a greater

part of the way, across the unsettled region.

From letters received from Mrs. Harvey Jones, of Compton, Cal., I am

able to gather up a few scattered threads in the eventful life of this

pioneer Indian missionary.

Mrs. Jones says:--

“_My dear Mrs. Robinson_,--I was associated in missionary work among

the Choctaw Indians with Miss Lydia S. Hall. We were together five

years, and I learned to regard her as a dear friend; but in some way I

have lost all trace of her. Our relations in the missionary work were

very pleasant. She was some years my senior, and her riper experience

and judgment were invaluable to me. Her work in the Indian Seminary

was thorough, and she was regarded as the Choctaw’s friend. Of her

literary work I know but little. She wrote occasionally for different

periodicals. Her contributions to Woodworth’s ‘Youth’s Cabinet’ I have

specially in mind.... Since I lost trace of her, I came across a poem

in the _Christian Union_, entitled ‘Our Elder Brother.’ It was very

rich and tender. It was signed ‘L. S. H. G.’ I did not then know of

her marriage; but I said to myself, ‘That sounds like Miss Hall.’...

Her nature was intense and positive, she had high ideals, and she

could not always be patient towards what she considered wrong. Hers

was a checkered life, from infancy to age. She was born in 1818.”

In “border-ruffian” days Miss Hall lived in Kansas, and was an owner

of considerable real estate. She lived on the line of emigration, was

hostess of a sort of “Wayside Inn,” and was sometimes obliged to keep

the peace among the lawless men who infested that part of the country.

She would have no quarrelling, drinking, nor gambling on her premises.

She was well able to enforce these regulations, being a woman of great

courage and most commanding presence.

From a newspaper article some years ago, of which I did not preserve

the date, I quote the following:--

“A LOWELL FACTORY-GIRL UNITED STATES TREASURER.

“Miss Lydia S. Hall, who is now acting U. S. Treasurer in the

absence of the male chief, was once a Lowell factory-girl, and was a

contributor to _The Lowell Offering_.... Meeting with some misfortune

with regard to titles of property, she went to Washington, and has a

clerkship in the Treasury Department since, being also engaged in

studying law in order to enable her to secure her property rights in

Kansas.... She is a lady of great versatility of talent, and would

fill a higher position than the one she now occupies with credit.”

Miss Hall’s letters to Lucy Larcom would have thrown much light on

her stirring and eventful life, but these were destroyed before I had

thought to ask for them. Her married name was Graffam, but whether she

is alive or dead, I do not know.

HARRIET JANE HANSON.

WRITTEN BY LUCY LARCOM.[3]

[3] Miss Larcom prepared this sketch for another purpose, two years

before she died; and it is substantially the same, with the

addition of a few details, which she suggested and permitted me

to supply.

In these days, when woman’s place in the community, as well as in the

family, is coming to be acknowledged; when her abilities in every

direction find use and scope; when the labor of her hands, head, and

heart is everywhere abundantly honored,--it is well for our younger

toilers to see what has been accomplished by those who grew up under

circumstances more difficult than those by which they are surrounded.

Labor has always been honorable for everybody in our steady-going

New England life, but it was not as easy for a young woman to put her

mental machinery into working order forty years ago as it is now. Her

ambition for the education of her higher faculties was, however, all

the greater for the check that was put upon it by the necessities of a

longer day’s toil and the smaller compensation of the older time. It is

one of the wholesome laws of our nature that we value most that which

we most persistently strive after through obstacles and hindrances.

The author of “The New Pandora” is an illustration of what has been

done by one such woman, the development of whose mind began as a child

in the Lowell cotton-mills. The book is commended by reviewers as an

admirably written composition, a beautiful and successful dramatic poem

of woman, the result of ripe years of thought.

Mrs. Robinson’s maiden name was Harriet Jane Hanson, and she is by

“long descent” of good New England parentage. Her father, William

Hanson, was descended from the ancestor who first settled in Dover,

N.H.--one of a long line of English Quakers. He was a carpenter, and

learned his trade of Peter Cudworth, on Merrimac Street in Boston.

Her mother, Harriet Browne, was of Scotch and English descent, her

paternal ancestor, in this country, being Nicholas Browne,--always

spelled with an _e_,--who was a member of the Great and General Court

of Massachusetts from Lynn in 1641, and afterwards from Reading, in

1655-1656, and 1661.

Her great-grandfather, William Browne, of Cambridge, in 1705 sold

sixty acres of upland and swamp to Thomas Brattle, Esq., of Boston,

Treasurer of the society known as “The President and Fellows of Harvard

University;” and on this land many of the Harvard College buildings now

stand. He was a soldier in the French and Indian war in Canada.

Miss Hanson’s grandfather, Seth Ingersoll Browne, was a

non-commissioned captain at the battle of Bunker Hill; and the old

“King’s arm” he carried on that decisive day is still in the possession

of one of his grandsons. He was one of the “Mohawks” who helped to

throw the tea into Boston Harbor; and his name is written in marble,

among his companions of “The Boston Tea Party,” in Hope Cemetery,

Worcester, Mass. He is buried in the Granary Burying-ground, in Boston.

Harriet Hanson was born in Boston, Mass., Feb. 8, 1825, and in

1832 removed with her widowed mother and her three brothers to

Lowell, where they lived for some years on one of the manufacturing

“corporations.” Her first attempt at writing for the press was made

while she was yet an operative in the Lowell mills, in the “annuals”

and newspapers of the time. She was also a contributor to _The Lowell

Offering_, and was on intimate terms with its editors and contributors.

In 1848 she was married to William S. Robinson, journalist and

parliamentarian, who, as “Warrington,” became well known as the war

correspondent in the _Springfield Republican_, the _New York Tribune_,

the _New York Evening Post_, and in other newspapers. He was also the

author of “Warrington’s Manual of Parliamentary Law.” Mr. Robinson

died March 11, 1876. Their children are Harriette Lucy (married Sidney

D. Shattuck of Malden, Mass.), Elizabeth Osborne (married George S.

Abbott of Waterbury, Conn.), William Elbridge (died young), and Edward

Warrington (married Mary E. Robinson of Denver, Col.).

[Illustration: Harriet H. Robinson at 28.]

Mrs. Robinson is deeply interested in all the movements which tend to

the advancement of women, and uses her pen and her voice freely in

their behalf. She was the first woman to speak before the Select

Committee on Woman Suffrage in Congress, and has spoken for the cause

before the legislature of her own State, where she is not only a

citizen, but a _voter_ as far as the law allows.

The woman’s club movement has always had her firm support; she assisted

at the formation of The General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1890,

and was a member of its first advisory board; she is a Daughter of the

American Revolution, and a member of the N. E. Historic Genealogical

Society.

Mrs. Robinson’s first published book was “Warrington Pen Portraits,” a

memoir of her husband, with selections from his writings. She has also

written “Massachusetts in the Woman-Suffrage Movement,” and “Captain

Mary Miller,” a drama.

But her best literary achievement in book form is her latest, “The New

Pandora,” a poem of which any writer might well be proud. There are

passages of exquisitely clear-cut poetry in the drama, and gleams of

true poetic aspiration lighting up the homely toil of the woman who

knows herself not of earthly lineage.

The “Chorus of Ills” beginning their flight is a strong chant, as

classical in its strain as some of Shelley’s in his imaginative dramas.

Indeed, the whole poem is so classically thought out and shaped as to

be lifted quite above what is popular in style, and is for that reason

less likely to attract the attention it deserves.

Pandora naturally has at first no love for the rude mate to whom she

has been assigned, and it is the death of their little child that

brings their hearts together in a real human affection. The loss of

this little first-born woman child makes a moan of tenderest pathos

through the whole poem, and is a most motherly touch, rarely found in

poetry; and the feeling colors the whole book. The poem is pervaded

with the sacredness of the domestic affections. The style is strong and

clear, and one feels, in reading it, a subtle spiritual fragrance, the

beauty, the holiness, the immortality, of human love.

Perhaps her “Pandora” breathes the very truest aspiration of many

a heart among that far-away throng of industrious, onward-looking

maidens:--

“But this I ask, that I may be allowed by thee

To do one single thing to make my kind more good,

More happy, for that I have lived.”

All working-women have reason for strengthening themselves by study

and thought, seeing that such a poem as “The New Pandora” is the

heart-and-brain product of one who grew up as a working-girl.

[Illustration: Harriet H. Robinson, at 68.]

To the writer of this brief notice it is pleasant to recall the time

when the author of this beautiful poem and herself were children

together, school companions and workmates; when an atmosphere of poetry

hung over the busy city by the Merrimack, and when its green borders

burst into bloom with girlish dreams and aspirations.

Mrs. Robinson celebrated her seventieth anniversary Feb. 8, 1895, at

her home in Malden, Massachusetts.

EMMELINE LARCOM.

In Lucy Larcom’s touching poem, “My Childhood’s Enchantress,” will be

found a loving tribute to this mother-sister, to whom she owed so much

in her youth and all through her life. It was she who first taught Lucy

the use of the pen, and encouraged and helped her in all her literary

efforts. She was the oldest own sister of Lucy, is the “Emelie” in

the “New England Girlhood,” and to her Lucy wrote almost her first,

certainly her first _printed_, letter, in 1834, just after their mother

had moved to Lowell. This is from her autobiography, printed in _The

Lowell Offering_. She says:--

“_Dear Sister_,--We have got a sink in our front entry. We live in a

three-story brick block, with fourteen doors in it. There is a canal

close by. But no more of this. We arrived safe after our fatiguing

journey. We are in good health, and hope you enjoy the same blessing.”

In writing of her to me, Lucy says:--

“I was transplanted quite early in my childhood, and grew through

girlhood and womanhood under her care. The ten or twelve years of

my residence there were certainly very important years to me. My

natural bent towards literature was more encouraged and developed at

Lowell than it would probably have been elsewhere; and I have always

called the place a home in remembrance.... We were often writing to

each other, and there never was any break to our affection since my

childhood. I think she was almost a perfect woman.”

I remember Emmeline as a motherly young woman whom the rest of us

looked up to, as one much superior to ourselves; and, in recalling her

influence over her younger companions, I think she must have done a

great deal towards inciting them to learn to think on earnest subjects,

and to express their thoughts in writing. She was tall and stately,

with curling hair, and was much prettier than Lucy; she had a face

full of sunshine, and, like Lucy, the bluest of blue eyes. She was

conspicuous among the group of the original writers for _The Lowell

Offering_, as well as _The Operatives’ Magazine_.

She was an enthusiastic student, reading abstruse books in the

intervals of mill-work, and so becoming familiar with mental and moral

science; or she would study mathematical problems, of which she usually

had one or two pinned up before her, to occupy her thoughts at her

daily toil. The Rev. Amos Blanchard, a very scholarly man, said of her

that she was the most intellectual woman in his church, of which she

was also one of the most faithful and self-sacrificing members, giving

herself unreservedly to all good works.

She married the Rev. George Spaulding, and with her husband and her

sister Lucy went, in 1846, to Illinois, and spent the greater part of

her life there, as a clergyman’s wife, useful, happy, and beloved.

She did not write much after her marriage, and, as she said, would not

consider herself an “authoress” at all. She died in Newcastle, Cal.,

July 17, 1892, leaving her husband, one son, and three daughters. The

manner of her death was most enviable. As Lucy wrote me, “she made

herself ready for church, but it was heaven for her instead.”

At my request Lucy wrote to Emmeline, not long before her death, asking

for her recollections of _The Lowell Offering_ times; and she replied

as follows:--

NEWCASTLE, CAL., _May 27, 1892_.

_Dear Sister Lucy_,--I have been stirring up my treacherous old

memory, hoping to respond to the request of Mrs. Robinson for accurate

items in regard to the “Improvement Circle of our girlhood.”... I am

very sure indeed that I was an interested and original promoter of

it. It seems to me that Harriot Curtis might have suggested it. She

was the most intellectual person in my circle of acquaintance at that

time. We worked in the same room, and near each other, long before

the Improvement Circle had an existence.... She was a mental stimulus

to me, and we freely discussed all subjects that came to hand. I

think ... that Louisa and Maria Currier, who were Universalists, and

Laura and Mary Ann Spaulding, who were Baptists, were among the first

members. If I recollect rightly, also Abby Goddard and Lydia Hall....

We had essays and discussions. I was not present at the meeting at

Mr. Currier’s. I think Mr. Thomas was invited there, and the “Circle”

was probably invited to meet at the Universalist vestry. The first

_Offering_ made its appearance soon after.

I had “A Sister’s Tomb” and an article commencing, “Oh, you have no

soul,” and one other, in the first series.

I did not attend any of the meetings at the Universalist vestry, so

am unable to say who suggested _The Offering_. I should think it

very likely that Mr. Thomas might have been the one to do so. But the

writers had been developed before he knew them. I am quite sure he

was much interested in it. I remember that he complimented my verses

as the gem of the number.... It was very soon after this that some of

us began another Circle-meeting in the vestry of the Congregational

church; and out of that grew _The Operatives’ Magazine_.... I think,

as you do, that very much has been made of what was to us a mere

recreation, and the most natural thing in the world for a circle of

wide-awake, earnest girls to do.... Nearly sixty years have passed

since those days; but they are pleasant to remember, and I suspect

they held the prophecies of many a pleasant future, of which it might

be interesting to know the fulfilment. I did think I should be able to

do better, and perhaps write a page for Mrs. Robinson; but you see how

I have _not_ succeeded.... Here endeth, with love,

BIG OLD SISTER EMMELINE.

LUCY LARCOM.

A part of this sketch of Miss Larcom was written by me not long before

her death, and submitted to her for her approval. The additions made

are extracts from her letters, with my own personal reminiscences.

In response to my letter asking her approval of what I had prepared,

Miss Larcom wrote:--

“I approve the sketch, and appreciate your way of writing it, though

I dont often encourage living obituary notices of myself. What they

call ‘fame’ amounts to so little. But some things about us in it may

help others to know.... I am not ambitious to appear in any book; but

if I am to be ‘written up,’ would much rather it would be done by a

friend.... I told in ‘A New England Girlhood’ all I care to tell about

my early life. You know something more of me, and you are at liberty

to say what you choose. I have tried to make my life count for good

to others, and to make my verses an expression of what I am trying to

_live_. You once wrote something about me in _The Independent_ that

was fresh and natural. Why not utilize that? I have done nothing worth

speaking of in a literary sense, but I love to write, and I suppose I

shall go on trying to express myself in this way always, The material

fact that I have never earned more than enough with my pen than to

meet, with difficulty, the necessary expenses of living, does not in

the least discourage me, or make me willing to write the trash that

‘pays.’ That is where I am now on the literary question, and that is

where I am content to remain.”

It was in that early poetic atmosphere when our American bards first

began to teach the young people of the time to love poetry for poetry’s

sake, that Lucy Larcom received the first incentive to her life-work.

Lucy Larcom was born in one of the earliest settled coast towns in the

state, Beverly, Mass., March 5, 1824. Her father, Benjamin Larcom, was

a sea-captain; he died when she was a child, and her widowed mother,

taking with her Lucy and two or three others of her younger children,

then removed to Lowell. The year 1835 found her in one of the Lowell

grammar schools, where her education went on until it became necessary

for her to earn her living, which she began to do very early as an

operative in a cotton-factory.

In her “Idyl of Work” the mill-life is truthfully portrayed, with the

scenery, characteristics, style of life, thought, and aspirations

peculiar to New England womanhood of that period.

In writing to me of this book, in 1875, she says, “What do you think

of that name for a reminiscence of Lowell life? Of course you won’t

like it as poetry; and there is not so very much truth in it, except

in general outlines of the way of living. I had to write my remembered

impressions, and everybody had different ones. The story, such as it

is, is manufactured, of course; for I didn’t want any personalities, so

I haven’t even got myself in, that I know of.”...

But it is very easy to detect, in her loving descriptions, many of her

young companions, who shared with her the simplicity of those days

of toil; and in following with her the career of some of those bright

spirits, and watching their success in their varied pathways through

life, it is very pleasant for me to be able to corroborate what she has

said.

Riches have fallen to the lot of some of those young girls, and to

others a degree of distinction in various situations and occupations;

but have they not, from their better surroundings, ever looked back,

as she does, to those dear old simple days, so full of health and

endeavor, so free from care, as among the happiest of their lives?

Then, ignorance of the world was bliss, and hope and aspiration reigned

supreme.

My first recollection of Lucy Larcom is as a precocious writer of

verses in _The Lowell Casket_, where the editor, Mr. George Brown,

in his notice of them, said, “They were written by a young lady

of thirteen, who was beyond a doubt inspired by the _Nurses_,”--a

misprint, of course, for “Muses;” although the author was so young,

that the mistake was not so far wrong.

This, however, was not her first attempt at verse-making, since she

began to write while a child of seven or eight years, in the attic

of her early home in Beverly. The title of these first verses was

“A Thunder Storm,” and they were read with wonder by her admiring

brothers and sisters.

Two pictures of her in that early factory-life remain in my memory. By

the Merrimack River, whose romantic banks she loved to describe, on a

bridge which crossed a narrow part of the stream, I once passed her, a

tall and bonnie young girl, with her head in the clouds. After a little

nod of recognition, as I looked up at her,--for, although she was only

a year older than I, she was much larger and more mature,--she went on.

But to me she seemed so grand, so full of thought, that, with girlish

admiration for one who had written _verses_, I forgot my errand,

turned, stood still, and thoughtfully watched her out of sight.

Miss Larcom’s first work as a Lowell operative was in a spinning-room

on the Lawrence corporation where her mother lived. At first she was

a “doffer,” with the other little girls; after that she tended a

spinning-frame, and then worked in the dressing-room beside “pleasant

windows looking towards the river.” After this she “graduated” into

the cloth-room, and it was here that I saw my second picture of her.

The cloth-room was considered by some of the mill-girls a rather

aristocratic working-place because of its fewer hours of confinement,

its cleanliness, and the absence of machinery. In this room the cloth,

after it had been finished and cut into thirty or forty yard pieces

in the weaving-room, was measured on hooks, one yard apart, until the

length of each piece was told off. I used often to run in and see her

at her work; and to my imaginative eyes she was like a Sibyl I had read

of, as with waving arms she told off the yards of cloth in measured

rhythm, and it seemed to be verses, and not cloth, that lay heaped up

behind her.

The last two years of her Lowell life (which covered in all a period

of about ten years), were spent in the same room; the latter part of

the time she was the book-keeper, and recorded the number of pieces and

bales. Here she pursued her studies, and in intervals of leisure some

text-book usually lay open on her desk, awaiting a spare moment.

Lucy Larcom’s first contribution to _The Lowell Offering_, “My Burial

Place” (written at sixteen), was published in No. 4 of the first

series, and was sent to the editor by her sister Emmeline, while

Lucy was on a visit to Beverly. With this exception, she was not a

contributor to the magazine while it was under Mr. Thomas’s editorship.

During that time she wrote for _The Operatives’ Magazine_, which

was published under the supervision of her pastor, the Rev. Amos

Blanchard, and which contained only articles written by the young

ladies who were members of an Improvement Circle connected with his

parish.

It may be said here that, whatever sectarian feeling there may have

been between these rival publications, it was not shared by the girls

themselves, at least not by Lucy Larcom. She simply and naturally

followed the lead of her pastor. After the “orthodox” magazine stopped,

and Miss Curtis and Miss Farley took charge of _The Offering_, Lucy

became one of the corps of writers; and many of her verses and essays,

both grave and gay, can be found in its bound volumes. Her first

contribution to Volume Third, “The River,” a poem, appeared in October,

1843. She wrote letters from “Looking Glass Prairie,” Illinois; and

many of her “prose poems,” published afterwards as “Similitudes,”

with several early poems, including a different version of “The Lady

Arabella,” first appeared in _The Lowell Offering_.

Our friendship began when we were little girls in “pantalets,” when we

were “doffers” together in the cotton-mill, and was continued to the

end of her life. She also became my husband’s friend; and during his

lifetime she was our frequent guest, and was always “Aunt Lucy” to

our children. Mr. Robinson had great faith in her possibilities as a

writer, and he published her verses in his newspaper long before they

found admittance into the magazines.

It was through him, while he was the reader (or “stopper”) for _The

Atlantic Monthly_, during Mr. Lowell’s editorship, that “The Rose

Enthroned” was brought to the notice of the poet, and afterwards

admitted into the pages of the magazine. In a letter to Mr. Robinson,

Miss Larcom says of this poem: “‘The Rose Enthroned’ was written in

1860, and published in June, 1861, through your mediation, you know.”

I should be glad to quote freely from her letters, they are so full of

friendship and of loving kindness, but must refrain, and give extracts

from those only which relate to her personal history.

In a letter written to me at Concord, Mass., in 1857, she says:--

“I was very glad to hear from you, and was particularly interested in

your account of the sewing-society [anti-slavery] at R. W. E----’s.

Didn’t it seem funny to go a-gossiping to the house of the Seer? I

don’t wonder at your expecting the parrot to talk ‘transcendentally.’

Did the tea and toast smack of Hymettus? and was there any

apple-_sass_ from those veritable sops-o’-wine? Attic salt came in as

a matter of course. Well, it’s a fine thing to be on visiting terms

at Olympus. I should like to see the philosopher again. I don’t think

I should be afraid of him now.... Sometimes I like philosophers, and

sometimes I don’t. The thing is to _live_. Beautiful theories don’t

make any of us do that, but the real breath of life from the Infinite

Good, which every soul must have for itself, or, fool or philosopher,

he is dead as a heap of sand.... I should like to see the hills where

huckleberries grow, and the Pond. There never were hills so still and

balmy as those.”...

During the war her letters breathe the spirit of “A Loyal Woman’s

No!” and show, to one that can read between the lines, that she had a

personal interest in saying _No_ to a lover who seemed to her to be

disloyal to his country.

Although a strong abolitionist, and a believer in the political

rights of man, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of

servitude,” she did not see the justice of woman’s claim to equal

rights with man. In answer to a letter asking for her help in the

suffrage cause, written in 1870, she says:--

“You know I am way behind the times, am not even a ‘suffrage woman’

yet, though I haven’t the least objection to the rest of the women’s

having it. Don’t you see, I’m constitutionally on the fence.... I

hope your enthusiastic believers will succeed; and if the suffrage

comes, as it will, I hope it will be a blessing to everybody. All the

people I know and respect seem to be in the movement, and still ‘I

don’t see it.’...

Later, in 1888, she writes:--

“I am for human rights for woman. I never did believe in man’s claim

to dictate to her. But I want to work for her elevation in my own way,

so that when she does vote, it will not be a failure. I cannot ‘Club,’

myself. I am an obstinate old Independent.... Men are chivalrous, you

know. Do you suppose we women shall be so towards them, by and by, in

the women’s millenium? Dear me! I like the old slavish bonds, and am

perfectly willing men should rule the world yet, heathenish old maid

that I am. Now, here I am perplexed with _two_ calls to the meeting to

consider the matter of women’s voting, about which I have never made

up my mind, and can’t! If I were a property woman, I might.”...

In writing of her volume of poetical works, published in 1868, Miss

Larcom says,--

“I shall send a volume to your other self and you, (how are we to use

adjectives in the Women’s Rights speech?), not by way of throwing a

sop to Cerberus, but because of old friendship, and because I value

your candid opinion _and_ Warrington’s very highly. I am a little

more afraid of you than of him,--I remember Gail Hamilton and the

wringing-machine. Don’t pillory me in a paragraph, will you? nor

inspire the pen masculine with a _bon mot_ at my expense.”

At Miss Larcom’s particular request I have refrained from saying more

than is necessary of her as a writer for _The Offering_. On her last

visit to me, in 1892, while speaking of the material to be used in this

book, she asked me not to say too much about her, because, as she said,

she was “tired of being always cited as _the_ representative of _The

Offering_ writers, when there were others who wrote and did quite as

much, or more, for the magazine than I did.”

Miss Larcom is correct here. Her fame was achieved long after she

ceased to be a mill-girl; and there were several others, as the

sketches will show, who were as good writers, and much better known

than herself, when she left the factory. And it is very thoughtful

of her to speak a good word for those hitherto forgotten authors, by

declining to be made a sort of composite portrait, as representing the

best and brightest among them.

In one of her letters she says,--

“Don’t you think it is getting a little tiresome, this _posing_ as

factory-girls of the olden time? It is very much like politicians

boasting of carrying their dinners in a tin pail in their youth. What

if they did?... I am proud to be a working-woman, as I always have

been; but that special occupation was temporary, and not the business

of our lives, we all knew, girls as we were.”...

“I sent you a copy of my ‘New England Girlhood,’ for old time’s sake.

Did you receive it? You could write a more entertaining one. Why don’t

you write a novel? I wish you would write up _The Offering_ time, and

sketch Harriot Curtis in it. She was unique.”

Miss Larcom’s writings, all told, never yielded her income enough to

live on, even in her modest way. In speaking of this matter in a letter

written in February 1891, she says,--

“‘A New England Girlhood’ has as yet brought me only about two hundred

dollars. How can writers live by writing?”

She was therefore obliged to supplement her literary labors by

teaching. She was very prudent in her manner of living, and never,

from childhood, really had a home of her own. Towards the last of her

life she found herself much cramped for means to secure that rest her

tired brain so much needed; and this made the gifts received from her

publisher and from her dearly loved Wheaton Seminary pupils, most

welcome, and enabled her, during her last illness, to feel a relief

from pecuniary anxiety.

If Miss Larcom had not been exceptionally fortunate, not only in her

temperament but in her surroundings,--hampered as she was all through

her life by want of pecuniary means,--she could not have developed her

writing talent so well. She had the rare gift of finding and keeping

the right kind of friends, in her own family as well as outside, and

these supplied to her life that practical (though not pecuniary) help

she so much needed. So her days were free from household and other

cares, and when relieved from her duties as teacher, or as editor, her

time was free to use in her own chosen way.

In this, her life differed from that of many women writers, who,

whether married or not, often have exacting cares which interrupt and

hinder the expression of their written thoughts. Miss Larcom did not

have that hindrance; and she had the chance through most of her life to

carry out her idea, as she expressed it, of “developing the utmost that

is in me.” She had no family or domestic cares, and her children were

all “dream children.”

Miss Larcom might have married, once when she was quite young, and

again later; but for reasons of her own she declined,--reasons, the

validity of which, in one instance at least, I did not see. I have been

asked if Mr. Whittier and Miss Larcom were never more than friends.

I can truly answer, no. Miss Larcom was the intimate friend of

Elizabeth Whittier, the poet’s sister, who, as she said, “was lovely in

character, and had fine poetic taste.”

She often visited their home, and after the death of the sister the

friendship with the brother continued. Miss Larcom was Mr. Whittier’s

assistant in compiling the books of selections which bear his name, and

did a great deal of the actual work in collecting material; they were

true friends.

In a letter written shortly after his death, she says,--

“I have not spoken of Mr. Whittier going away. You will know that

it is a real sorrow to me, and yet a joy that he has entered into a

larger life.... This imperfect existence of ours _can be_ but the

shadow of the true life; in that, there is no death.”...

One of her last letters to me was written from Boston a few weeks

before her death, and is as follows:--

_Dear H._,--I have been here nearly a month, but have hardly been out

at all. I have never been so much of an invalid, and I don’t like

it. I suppose I have been steadily “running down,” the last year or

so, but have gone on just as if I were well. Now I am brought to a

stop, and am told that I must never do any more hard work. Lack of

strength is what I feel most. They tell me that if I will really

rest, brain and body, I may yet accomplish a good deal before I

die. I do not feel as if I had got through yet; but who knows? I am

trying to realize that it does not make much difference what part of

the universe we are in, provided we are on the right track upward.

Somehow I feel nearer Emmeline and Mr. Whittier,--as if we knew each

other better now than before they went away. I should like to leave my

life and work here just when I can go on with what is waiting for me

elsewhere. But there is a Master of life who takes care of all that.

Ever truly yours,

LUCY LARCOM.

Of her religious life, it may be said that in her early childhood Lucy

became a communicant of the Congregational church; but in later years,

as her mind broadened, she became deeply imbued with a sense of the

divine fatherhood of God, and the impossibility that He would leave one

of the souls that He had made to perish eternally, or, as she says, to

quote from her “Biography,” “After probing my heart, I find that it

utterly refuses to believe that there is any corner in God’s universe

where hope never comes, ... where love is not brooding, and seeking to

penetrate the darkest abyss.”

In 1879 she first listened to Phillips Brooks, and his preaching to

her “was the living realization of her own thought.” She did not give

up her Puritanism, but thought she saw, in the belief and service of

his church, a new way of finding the right path towards the end of her

journey in search of the truth. As she wrote, “It is not _the_ church,

but only one way of entering Christ’s church.” Her religious faith was

not so much changed as deepened by this departure from some of the

old-time beliefs; for, in writing of the matter to me, she said, “I

count the faith of my whole life as one.”

Miss Larcom partook of the Holy Communion in Trinity Church, Boston,

Easter, 1887, and was confirmed March 20, 1890. By this service,

she said, her “heart was fixed,” and she could think of herself as

“avowedly in the visible church.” It was after her connection with the

Episcopal Church that Miss Larcom wrote her most important religious

books, and these embody much of her own thought in matters concerning

the deepest spiritual life.

“Similitudes,” a collection of prose poems, was published in 1853;

and during the remaining years of her life she published and compiled

fourteen books in prose and verse. Her last book, “The Unseen Friend,”

was published in 1893. The above list does not include the two volumes

of poetical selections compiled by herself and Mr. Whittier.

A complete edition of “Larcom’s Poems” was published by Houghton,

Mifflin, and Co., in the Household edition of the poets, in 1884. In

writing of this, Miss Larcom, with characteristic modesty, said, “The

idea of my being ranked with other American poets.”

She was also editor of _Our Young Folks_ from about 1865 to 1872.

Although it is probable that Miss Larcom’s fame was achieved as

an author of verse, yet she was the best satisfied with her prose

productions. As she once said to me, “Essay writing would be my choice,

rather than any other form of expression.”

It is probable that her name will be the longest remembered by her

best-known lyric, “Hannah Binding Shoes;” but this was by no means her

favorite, nor would she desire to be remembered by it alone, nor to

have it considered as one of the best of her poems. And yet it contains

the deep pathos and the tragedy that is in the lives of many solitary

women, and as long as such exist, the story of “Poor Lone Hannah” will

be read and remembered.

“Hannah Binding Shoes” was written shortly after Miss Larcom’s return

from Illinois, when the great contrast between the rugged seacoast, so

familiar to her early years, and the “boundlessness of commonplace,”

of the level country she had just left, impressed her most vividly.

One summer afternoon, in riding through Marblehead, a face at a

window riveted her attention, and haunted her for weeks. Meanwhile,

the refrain of the lyric, with its peculiar meter, and the face,

continually chased each other through her mind, until, to get rid of

their importunate presence, she one day sat down, and imprisoned them

together in “immortal verse.”

Another poem which takes high rank is “The Rose Enthroned,” her

earliest contribution to the _Atlantic Monthly_, which, in the absence

of signature, was attributed to Emerson. Also, “A Loyal Woman’s No,” a

patriotic lyric that attracted great attention during our Civil War.

It is such poems as these, with her religious writings and her

“Childhood Songs,” that will make Lucy Larcom’s name remembered. And

thousands of earnest working-women will thank her for all that she has

written, and go on their way refreshed and encouraged by her success

and the fulfilment of her aspirations.

In personal appearance Miss Larcom was tall and stately; her hair was

wavy and of a light brown color. Her eyes were of a lovely smiling

blue, and her whole face was lit by the charm of them. And who that

has heard it can forget her musical laugh, so attractive that even

strangers would turn and listen to it, or lose the memory of her

beautiful smile, so radiant, so illuminating, that lasted even to the

end of her life and that left its lingering gleam on her face after it

was cold in death, then to be transplanted to that other life because

it was a part of her own immortal self!

Her whole atmosphere was full of a benignant interest in those with

whom she came into personal relations. She lived up to her profession,

both in religion and in ethics, and was a bright example of what a

woman can become, who believes that this life is but the beginning of

the next, and who takes the higher law for her inspiration and her

guide.

She died April 17, 1893, and is buried in Beverly, Mass., her native

place. There, by the seashore, where the salt breezes--

“Chase the white sails o’er the sea,”

and linger lovingly over her grave, her tired body finds its earthly

resting-place.

Farewell, old friend and work-mate, but not forever; I too have the

conviction, the faith, that this is not all of life, but that sometime,

somewhere, we shall take up these broken threads, and go on with our

appointed work “on the right track upward.”

SARAH SHEDD.

Miss Shedd may be called the philanthropist, _par excellence_, of the

early mill-girls. Her whole life was one of self-sacrifice. Her early

years were devoted to earning money for the support or the education

of members of the family; and at its close she bequeathed the sum of

$2,500 for the establishment of the free library in her native town of

Washington, N.H.

Her parents were in narrow circumstances; but they had endowed her with

a good mind, and had given her a fair education, which was supplemented

by tuition under Mary Lyon, of Holyoke Seminary, one of the first women

preceptors of her time. She had a great desire to further continue

her education, but was obliged to do it unaided. She began to teach a

summer school when fifteen years of age, and worked in the cotton-mill

in the winter, and thus was enabled to help her family, as well as to

gratify her taste for reading and study.

In early life she educated a brother; and later she nearly supported

him, and also assumed the whole expense of her aged mother’s

maintenance. And yet, in spite of these large drains upon her

resources, she saved, solely from her own money, enough to start the

library which bears her name, that her townspeople might enjoy the

advantages she had so much desired. The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United

States Commissioner of Labor, was one of her pupils, and he delivered

the address at the dedication of The Shedd Free Public Library, in

1882, speaking thus in praise of his well-beloved teacher:--

“The first school I ever attended was kept by her, in the front room

of the store opposite the post-office. Her genial smile won the hearts

of the children.... We longed for her coming, regretted her going. She

wandered with us over the hills and fields, gave us instruction from

her heart and mind, as well as from the books we used.... Her genial

disposition lighted the pathway of many a boy and girl, and gave them

glimpses of a mind and soul, which in themselves make her memory as

fragrant as spring flowers.”

Miss Shedd was not a prolific writer, and her contributions for _The

Offering_ were always of a serious nature. She spent no money on fine

clothes nor ornaments; I remember her as a tall, spare, stooping woman,

most plainly dressed in calico. We younger ones did not understand

her, and were awed by her silence and reserve. But later some of us

came to recognize her character as that of one studious, gentle, and

self-sacrificing. She remains in my mind as one of the “solitary” among

us. She died in Washington, N.H., April 5, 1867.

It is one of the coincidents of history, that, at about the same time

Miss Shedd’s money was given towards founding this library, another

native of the same little town, Mr. Luman T. Jefts, who had also worked

his way up and earned every cent of his money, should supplement Miss

Shedd’s gift by adding a sum large enough to erect a suitable library

building to contain the books bought by her bequest.

And thus their names are linked together by their grateful townsmen,

not only as benefactors of their kind, but also as two earnest

and sincere persons who have struggled with adversity and narrow

surroundings, have conquered, and fulfilled their cherished aim in life.

ELIZABETH EMERSON TURNER.

The subject of this sketch is one of the few of the early mill-girls

who are still living; my acquaintance with her has been kept up since

early girlhood, and our correspondence has been almost uninterrupted.

She married Mr. Charles B. Sawyer, of Chicago, who died in 1896. Mrs.

Sawyer has always retained her interest in the old factory days, and

was and is proud of her connection with _The Lowell Offering_. In our

letters, the prospect of publishing a book containing the material I

had collected was often discussed; and she expressed her sympathy with

the enterprise, saying,--

“I wish you would take up such a work as you allude to, in justice

to those most interested, and to that class of girls in the Lowell

mills. You are the one best fitted to do them full credit. I think the

book would meet with a good sale, as labor is now becoming once more

honorable and respectable.... We will see if our _Lowell Offering_

cannot be made to live for many, _many_ years to come; and be an

object-lesson to the mill-girls of the present day.”

Lizzie Turner was born in Lyme, N.H., Aug. 27, 1822. Her father, Jacob

Turner, Esq., was a descendant in the sixth generation from Humphrey

Turner, who came from England, and settled in Plymouth, Mass. He was

for twenty years a justice of the peace in Lyme, and for two years a

member of the New Hampshire Legislature. He lost his health before

he reached middle life, and about the same time lost nearly all of

his property by signing a note for a friend, who ran away to Canada,

leaving him to pay the debt. In order to do this he sold his farm; and

after paying the sum required, he had just five hundred dollars left.

With this he went to Lowell, in 1833, where so many families who had

lost their bread-winner had preceded him, and where the mother and

children could assist in supporting the home. Mrs. Turner opened a

boarding-house for operatives; her children, as fast as they were old

enough, went to work in the mill; and thus the invalid father was well

taken care of for the rest of his life.

Lizzie went into the mill to work at eleven years of age. Her

school-days ended at fourteen, when she was just fitted for the high

school, having worked at least two-thirds of the time in the factory;

and after this her time and strength were needed to help support the

family. She was one of the very earliest of the writers for _The

Offering_, and she continued to be a contributor until Mr. Thomas

ceased to be the editor. Her early recollections are very valuable, and

all through these pages I have made free use of what information she

has given me. She was just eighteen when she began her contributions;

and her own account of her connection with the magazine and of its

inception, will be of interest here. She says:--

“The whole plan of his Circle and _Offering_ originated with Brother

Thomas. I remember his saying one evening, after the reading of

our papers, that there were many of the articles well worthy of

publication, and that he should publish them in a magazine, to ‘show

what factory-girls could do.’... I must tell you that I had never

attempted writing anything but letters till Brother Thomas insisted

that I _must_ write something for the Circle, so that almost my first

essays in composition were those articles.”

Miss Turner was one of the paid contributors; she bought herself a

mahogany bureau with some of this money, and that article of furniture

she cherishes among her choicest possessions, as a most valuable

memento of the old _Lowell Offering_.

I remember Lizzie Turner, when a young girl, as an intellectual factor

among the contributors to _The Offering_, and also as a prominent

worker in the Universalist Church. She was sprightly, vivacious,

and universally popular. She was tall and graceful, had dark-brown

hair, and star-bright eyes, which now, although she is a grandmother,

have lost very little of their lustre, nor is her kindly and smiling

expression diminished.

To illustrate the simplicity of dress of the mill-girls, before spoken

of, and also to show how little thought they had of rivalling or of

outdoing each other in matter of adornment, I venture to give the

following as related to me by Mrs. Sawyer:--

“There were ten of us girl friends (the majority of whom wrote for

_The Offering_) who one summer had each a purple satin cape for

street wear. These were trimmed with black lace; and this, with a

small-figured, light Merrimack print (or calico), constituted our

walking costume. We had nothing better for Sunday wear; and as we

walked along, sometimes all together, I am sure that it never occurred

to one of us that we were not as well-dressed as any lady we met.”

During the Civil War, Mrs. Sawyer was one of the most efficient among

the many women in Chicago who worked for the soldiers and the country,

and she has devoted much time and thought to the woman suffrage cause.

She is a voter and an active member of The Illinois Woman’s Alliance,

of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association, and of the Chicago Woman’s

Club.

Her sister, Abby D. Turner, was also one of the earliest writers for

_The Offering_; her first contribution was written when she was sixteen

years of age. She was married while in her teens to Mr. John Caryl.

She has been a widow many years, and has been entirely devoted to her

children and grandchildren.

CLEMENTINE AVERILL.

Among the “girl graduates” from the New England cotton-mill, there is

one who, although not a writer for _The Offering_, yet deserves to be

included in a book like this. This is Clementine Averill.

There was often doubt thrown upon the accounts of the superior mental,

moral, and physical condition of the Lowell factory-girl; and at one

time (in 1850) a Senator of the United States, named Clemens (of

Alabama, I think), stated in Congress that “the Southern slaves were

better off than the Northern operatives.” Miss Averill, then at work in

the Lowell mill, answered this person’s allegation in a letter to the

New York _Tribune_, as follows:--

LETTER FROM A FACTORY-GIRL TO SENATOR CLEMENS.

Communicated for _The Weekly Tribune_.

LOWELL, _March 6, 1850_.

_Mr. Clemens_,--Sir, in some of the late papers I have read several

questions which you asked concerning the New England operatives. They

have been well answered perhaps, but enough has not yet been said, and

I deem it proper that the operatives should answer for themselves.

1st, You wish to know what pay we have. I will speak only for the

girls, and think I am stating it very low when I say that we average

two dollars a week beside our board. Hundreds of girls in these mills

clear from three to five dollars a week, while others, who have not

been here long, and are not used to the work, make less than two

dollars. If my wages are ever reduced lower than that, I shall seek

employment elsewhere.

2d, Children are never taken from their parents and put into the mill.

What an idea! No person has a right to take a child from its parents,

whether they be black or white, bond or free, unless there is danger

of the child’s suffering harm by remaining with its parents. Girls

come here from the country of their own free will, because they can

earn more money, and because they wish to see and know more of the

world.

3d, One manufacturer will employ laborers dismissed by another if they

bring a regular discharge and have given two weeks’ notice previous to

leaving.

4th, We never work more than twelve and a half hours a day; the

majority would not be willing to work less, if their earnings were

less, as they only intend working a few years, and they wish to make

all they can while here, for they have only one object in view.

5th, When operatives are sick they select their own physician, and

usually have money enough laid by to supply all their wants. If they

are sick long, and have not money enough, those who have give to them

freely; for let me tell you, there is warm-hearted charity here, as

well as hard work and economy.

6th, I have inquired, but have not ascertained that one person ever

went from a factory to a poor-house in this city.

7th, Any person can see us, who wishes to, by calling for us at

the counting-room, or after hours of labor by calling at our

boarding-places.

8th, The factory girls generally marry, and their husbands are

expected to care for them when old. There are some, however, who do

not marry, but such often have hundreds and thousands of dollars at

interest; if you do not believe it, come and examine the bank-books

and railroad stocks for yourself.

9th, We have as much and as good food as we want. We usually have warm

biscuit, or nice toast and pie, with good bread and butter, coffee and

tea, for breakfast; for dinner, meat and potatoes, with vegetables,

tomatoes, and pickles, pudding or pie, with bread, butter, coffee

and tea; for supper we have nice bread or warm biscuit, with some

kind of sauce, cake, pie, and tea. But these questions seem to relate

merely to our animal wants. We have all that is necessary for the

health and comfort of the body, if that is all; and the richest person

needs no more. But is the body all? Have we no minds to improve, no

hearts to purify? Truly, to provide for our physical wants is our

first great duty, in order that our mental faculties may be fully

developed. If we had no higher nature than the animal, life would

not be worth possessing; but we have Godlike faculties to cultivate

and expand, without limit and without end. What is the object of our

existence, if it is not to glorify God? and how shall we glorify him

but by striving to be like him, aiming at the perfection of our whole

nature, and aiding all within our influence in their onward progress

to perfection? Do you think we would come here and toil early and

late with no other object in view than the gratification of mere

animal propensities? No, we would not try to live; and this is wherein

consists the insult, both in your questions and in your remarks in

the Senate; as though to provide for the body was all we had to live

for, as though we had no immortal minds to train for usefulness and a

glorious existence.

Let us see whether the “Southern slaves are better off than the

Northern operatives.” As I have said, we have all that is necessary

for health and comfort. Do the slaves have more? It is in the power of

every young girl who comes here to work, if she has good health and no

one but herself to provide for, to acquire every accomplishment, and

get as good an education as any lady in the country. Have the slaves

that privilege? By giving two weeks’ notice we can leave when we

please, visit our friends, attend any school, or travel for pleasure

or information. Some of us have visited the White Mountains, Niagara

Falls, and the city of Washington; have talked with the President,

and visited the tomb of him who was greatest and best. Would that

our present rulers had a portion of the same spirit which animated

him; then would misrule and oppression cease, and the gathering storm

pass harmless by. Can the slaves leave when they please, and go

where they please? are they allowed to attend school, or travel for

pleasure, and sit at the same table with any gentleman or lady? Some

of the operatives of this city have been teachers in institutions of

learning in your own State. Why do your people send here for teachers

if your slaves are better off than they? Shame on the man who would

stand up in the Senate of the United States, and say that the slaves

at the South are better off than the operatives of New England; such

a man is not fit for any office in a free country. Are we torn from

our friends and kindred, sold and driven about like cattle, chained

and whipped, and not allowed to speak one word in self-defence? We

can appeal to the laws for redress, while the slaves cannot.... And

now, Mr. Clemens, I would most earnestly invite you, Mr. Foote, and

all other Southern men who want to know anything about us, to come

and see us. We will treat you with all the politeness in our power. I

should be pleased to see you at my boarding-place, No. 61 Kirk Street,

Boott Corporation. In closing, I must say that I pity not only the

slave, but the slave-owner. I pity him for his want of principle, for

his hardness of heart and wrong education. May God, in his infinite

mercy, convince all pro-slavery men of the great sin of holding their

fellow-men in bondage! May he turn their hearts from cruelty and

oppression to the love of himself and all mankind! Please excuse me

for omitting the “Hon.” before your name. I cannot apply titles where

they are not deserved.

CLEMENTINE AVERILL.

Miss Averill had many letters of congratulation upon this letter,

from different parts of the country; and among them was one from the

celebrated Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper, who indorsed her

words, as follows:--

NEW YORK, 3d mo., 19th, 1850.

_My much esteemed friend, Clementine Averill_,--I call thee so on

the strength of thy letter of the 6th inst., addressed to Senator

Clemens, which I have read in the _Tribune_ of this morning with

much satisfaction. I ought to apologize for thus intruding upon thy

attention, being an entire stranger; but really I experienced so much

gratification on reading it that I could not resist the inclination

I felt to tell thee how much I was pleased with it. The information

it contained, though perhaps not very gratifying to the advocates of

slavery, may be useful, as it so clearly exhibits the wide difference

there is between liberty and slavery, and it shows the ignorance of

the Southern people as to the condition of the Northern operatives.

I think Senator Clemens must have been greatly surprised in reading

thy letter, not only at its statement of facts, but at the talent

displayed by a “factory-girl” in answering his questions. Some years

ago I attended a meeting appointed at Lowell by a minister of the

Society of Friends, at which it was said there were about three

hundred “factory-girls;” and I have often expressed the satisfaction

I felt in observing their independent and happy countenances

and modest and correct deportment. I saw nothing like gloom or

despondency. Indeed, I think in a general way they would not suffer

by a comparison with the daughters of the Southern slaveholders. I

believe it would be found, that, for refinement, intelligence, and

for any qualification that is requisite to constitute an agreeable

companion, the “factory-girls” are not inferior to any class of women

in the South, notwithstanding the slurs that are often flung at them.

It is surely true, that as the benign spirit of the gospel pervades

the minds of men, slavery will be seen in its true character, and be

finally abolished from every community professing Christianity. I

would not limit the mercy of our beneficent Creator, but I am free

to confess that I am unable to see what claim a slaveholder can have

to the name of Christian. Avarice and an undue love of the world

blinds the eyes and hardens the hearts of many. The speech of Daniel

Webster, from whom the friends of liberty had a right to expect much,

has disappointed them, and has not pleased his pro-slavery coadjutors.

He has manifested himself to be a _timeserver_, a character not

very desirable. If he had possessed as much Christian principle and

independence of mind as thy letter exhibits, he would have given

utterance to sentiments that would have gained him the applause of the

wise and good, and have been a lasting honor to himself. “With the

talents of an angel a man may make himself a fool.” The subject of

slavery is not new to me. I have been instrumental in rescuing from

the hand of the oppressor some hundreds, and now in my declining years

I can look back upon those labors with unmingled satisfaction. I don’t

know how to express my views of slavery better than in the language of

John Wesley, “It is the sum of all villanies.”

I am, with sincere regard,

Thy friend,

ISAAC T. HOPPER.

I am indebted to Miss Averill’s sister, Mrs. A. L. O. Stone of

Cleveland, Ohio, for the means of communicating with her, and of

obtaining some account of her life. Miss Averill’s letter is as

follows:--

“VALRICO, FLA., _Mar. 15, 1893_.

_Dear Mrs. Robinson_,-- ... I do not remember the date of my first

entrance into the City of Spindles, but think it must have been

in 1828; and it was the summer of 1830 that I was baptized in the

Concord River, at the age of fifteen, and joined the First Baptist

Church. I was born at Mt. Vernon, N.H., in the year 1815; so now I am

seventy-eight.

About my Florida life, I must first tell the motive.

As you are aware, after the war, many were out of employment; and it

was a great question, what should be done with them. I could see no

better way than co-operative homes. Therefore, with two others, I

started out to find a place, and set an example. I thought of some

other places, but was much interested in Florida, having just read

its history, and also my friends wished to come here. And, indeed,

they did come before I was quite ready. A month later I came alone,

December, 1877, just at Christmas time, and found the people here

celebrating the day by firing guns. At Tampa I found one of my friends

who had already selected land, and wished me to take an adjoining

quarter-section. Had to come out from Tampa twelve miles to examine

the land before I could enter my claim, then returned to register,

and move my baggage out to a deserted log cabin in an old field by

the side of the woods. The cabin had no floor but the bare ground, no

window, and but one door. I spread a carpet of pine straw, and slept

well.”

She spent the winter in her forlorn log cabin, but in the spring she

had a kitchen and bedroom, and soon after a split board floor. She

“planted two hundred orange-trees, and cared for them two years.” She

made a living by “keeping transient boarders, by washing, needlework,

baking bread and cakes to sell, and keeping house for various persons.”

When her health began to fail, she made an agreement with one of her

neighbors, Mr. Green, “to take care of me as long as I lived for half

of my land; so the deed was made out and recorded, and I have only

sixty acres for the industrial home.” Later she writes:--

“I have never, for a moment, given up the idea of having an industrial

home and school here sometime.

It is a pleasant location, having a small pond all under my control,

with beautiful pine and oak trees all around it, and green slope

down to the water. It is only ten minutes’ walk to the station and

post-office, and most of the way on my land. I gave right of way for a

railroad through one corner, and yesterday gave one acre for a Baptist

church.

I want a co-operative home here, established by homeless people who

are willing to form a _Mutual Aid_ Society. Then I can deed my land to

the society, for a perpetual home here, as long as human beings need a

home on this earth.

Perhaps you know some persons who might wish to join this home. If you

do, please put me in communication with them, and they can ask all the

questions they wish, and I will answer.

This station is fourteen miles east of Tampa, on the Florida Central

and Peninsula Railroad.

Truly your friend,

CLEMENTINE AVERILL.”