Notes
1 Although no year is given, the reference to The Modern Jew indicates that this note follows the letter of January 8, 1888.* Dawes had written a long article for the American Hebrew which had been reprinted and bound for separate distribution.
2 Anna Dawes appeared a number of times in the
religious, up-lift magazine Lend-a-Hand, so that the
particular item Sarah read and admired cannot be identified.*
Editor's Notes
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields, also A. F. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Lowell: James Russell Lowell. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Ella: Ella Walworth Little. See Key to Correspondents.
identified: It seems probable that Dawes sent Jewett a copy of her most recent article in Lend a Hand, "The Union for Home Work in Pittsfield, Mass." in volume 3 (February 1888), pp. 75-80.
This letter was transcribed and annotated by C. Carroll Hollis. It appeared in "Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett to Anna Laurens Dawes," Colby Library Quarterly No. 3 (1968): 97-138. It is in the Henry Laurens Dawes Papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Sarah Orne Jewett to George Lothrop Lewis
Boston 8 February 1888
I have taken a membership in the General Theological Library for the Church -- and I hope that you will long read the books which you may have, as I imagine almost at your own free will. Revd Mr. Farnham* the Secretary, promised
to write and send you the [ circulars ? ] & details at once. I wish that it involved you in no expense, but as you can have four books at a time the expressage will not really amount to much and that is all you need consider -- When you happen to be in town there is a very pleasant reading room at 23
Mount Vernon St where the library is -- but I dont doubt that you will speedily know much more about the matter than I can tell you!
-- I wish that you would make a record of the membership on the Church account (!) and say that I took the membership in memory of Dr. T. H. Jewett* -- and if you will speak to Mr. Plumer and Mr. Ridley* about it -- then we will read our books
and consider our duties done; the formalities being recognized!
With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Lewis and the household -- believe me, with constant regard,
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
General Theological Library... Revd Mr. Farnham: Luther Farnham (1816-1897), a Congregational minister, held a number of positions during his career. He was founder and librarian of the General Theological Library of Boston (1861-1897). See The Native Ministry of New Hampshire, pp. 147-8.
Dr. T. H. Jewett: Jewett's father. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Plumer and Mr. Ridley: In The Placenames of South Berwick, Wendy Pirsig tells of the Plumer family, who operated the local bakery and owned other property in South Berwick (p. 74). Several members of the Plumer family are buried in the Portland Street Cemetery in South Berwick; among them is Rev. Alexander Roberts Plumer (1827-1898). Rev. Plumer almost certainly is not the Mr. Plumer named here, as he served as a foreign missionary in the Congregational Church and resided away from South Berwick most of his adult life, but it is likely Jewett refers to one of his local relatives.
Mr. Ridley is probably Deacon Madison Ridley (1830-1908).
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
2nd Mo 9 1888*
My dear Friend
I am delighted to hear such a favorable report from thee by Sarah's nice letter.* Sitting by the peat fire listening to Lowell's* reading of his own verses! A convalescent princess with her minstrel in attendance. There may be a question as to the curative properties of Dr. Lowells dose, but that its flavor was
agreeable I have no doubt. My own experience of the poetry-cure was not satisfactory. Some years ago when I was slowly getting up ^from^ illness, an honest friend of mine, an orthodox minister, in the very kindness of his heart, thought to help me on by administering a poem in five cantos illustrating the five points of Calvinism. I could only take a homeopathic dose of it. Its unmistakable
flavor of brimstone disagreed with my stomach, probably because I was a Quaker.
I am still suffering from sleeplessness. Sarah recommends what the old folks used to call "milk toddy." I am trying to substitute milk for the Chinese herb. My tea-kettle is a cow. I tried for two or three days to follow Sarah's prescription which seems to have been borrowed from "Kubla Khan."
"Close his eyes
For he has fed on honey-dew
and drunk the milk of paradise."*
It did not prove very effective, probably because I had only old Santa Cruz rum* for "honey dew"
I hope thee will soon be well enough to look over the two big books which to me were extremely interesting.
With a great deal of love to thee and Sarah I am thy grateful friend
Notes
1888: Penciled at the top of page one: "14." An "X" is penciled at the beginning of the first paragraph.
nice letter: John B. Pickard writes: "Mrs. Fields had been very sick that winter and Sarah Orne Jewett wrote Whittier about her condition on February 1 and February 4:
A. F. says she: Tell him to take a glass of milk and a tablespoonful of Saint Croix rum and gently combine them and add four good-sized lumps of sugar, stirring slowly. Then drink and be thankful at 11 A.M. (bitters) and ten P.M. (nightcap).Lowell's: American poet, James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), "Turner's Old Téméraire," Atlantic Monthly, LXI (April 1888), 482-483. See Key to Correspondents.
And I did mean to write you earlier this day, but your dear note makes my pen go faster. I have just seen daylight after a very big cold, and when one's head tries to be as big as the gas house (like the frog in the fable that also tried such experiments) letters are apt to be put aside. The cold gave me a nice excuse for staying by the fire in dear A. F.'s room, and to tell the truth I shall find it hard to give up her best society and take my chances of less interesting people out in the world again! She gains steadily and has even begun to sit up. We keep a peat fire, do you how how nice it is? Let's buy a peat bog and go into business!
"Mr. Lowell was here a long time in the twilight yesterday and sat here by the bedroom fire with A. F. and read us a beautiful poem about Turner's picture of the old ship Temeraire. He said it was for the Atlantic" (letters, Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts)."
paradise: "Kubla Khan," by the English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), ends:
Weave a circle round him thrice,Santa Cruz rum: John B. Pickard transcribes this as Santa Croix rum, but to me it seems to read "Santa Cruz." The difference may be of minimal importance, as both terms refer to the same rum, made in the Virgin Islands.
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4782. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
This letter has been transcribed previously by John B. Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 3.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Edmund Clarence Stedman
Boston 10 February 1888
Dear Mr. Stedman
I think you heartily for your most kind and friendly letter. I have delayed and delayed answering it because I wished to look over my stories carefully and make sure of getting the very best bit of work I have done -- But Mrs. Fields's* illness (and more
particularly her getting wellness!) took so much of my time and thought that I cannot arrive at any hour or two ^that^ I am willing to spend over the works of this minor author --
However! -- for a short story I am tempted to let you read Miss Tempy's Watchers which is already in print for
the March Atlantic.* Mr. Aldrich is good enough to like it very much, and it would be convenient as to its length. I like An Autumn Holiday* in the volume called Country By-ways, (and that is short too) -- An Only Son* is as good work, I believe, as I have ever done -- and you will find that in The Mate of the Daylight. I should like to choose some
pages from A Marsh Island* perhaps beginning at the top of page 184 and going to the end of the chapter -- or a page or two following 134 -- And in A Country Doctor* a page or two beginning at page 21 or at 260 or 322 or from the chapter called At Dr. Leslie's --
Pardon this hurried letter: indeed there is much more that I wish to say --
but believe me yours sincerely
Notes
Miss Tempy's Watchers: Jewett's story appeared in Atlantic in March 1888. This letter concerns Stedman's plan to include Jewett in his multi-volume collection, A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. Volume 10 appeared in 1889. It finally included a photograph of Jewett (after p. 514) and two of her pieces: "Miss Tempy's Watchers" and the poem, "A Child's Grave" (pp. 510-18).
Mrs Fields: Annie Adams Fields. She was so ill in early 1888 that Jewett accompanied her to Florida to recuperate. See Key to Correspondents.
An Autumn Holiday: Jewett's short story first appeared in Harper's Magazine in October 1880. She included it in her volume, Country By-Ways in 1881.
An Only Son: Jewett's short story first appeared in Atlantic Monthly in November 1883. She included it in her volume, The Mate of the Daylight in 1883.
A Marsh Island: Jewett's novel appeared in 1885.
A Country Doctor: Jewett's novel appeared in 1884.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University (New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett. Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Rives Lassiter
[ About 19 February 1888 ]*
I am sure that you have heard of Mrs. Fields's* severe illness, and [ deletion ] sure also that you will be glad to know that she is getting better [ now ? corrected ] though it is such a piteously slow way as yet. This morning in one of our brief talks she whispered about having sent [ you corrected ] word of a mending woman who could look
after your buttons -- and that the note, (which also said that she hoped you could come in to dinner that night) was left with the maid at 84 who told the messenger that you should have it presently as you had not left your room -- I think that Mrs. Fields
feels a most affectionate interest and care over you and hopes that nothing has happened when she does not hear about you for a little while! There was a word more of this message:
Oh -- [ would corrected ] you please put the Coleorton* book into your pocket some day when you are walking by -- for another reader?
----- I hope that the
"great show"* is getting on well so far? I wish that you could get more bits into the papers{.} There's nothing like making people remember a show --
I have not seen the statues yet: indeed I have hardly left the house in the time since I came back from the country & found Mrs. Fields so ill -- I am looking forward ^to seeing them^ with great pleasure.
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1888: Almost certainly, Jewett wrote this letter not long before she accompanied Annie Fields, who had been very ill with pneumonia, on a slow trip south to St. Augustine, FL. While it is not certain the letter is from 19 February, it should be from the last two weeks of February.
Wikipedia says that after Lassiter completed his law degree in 1886, he set up practice in Boston, remaining there a short time, before returning to his home town of Petersburg, VA, where he practiced law, beginning in the spring of 1888.
At the time of this letter, it appears that Lassiter may have rented a room at 84 Charles St., but this has not been established.
Fields's: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Coleroton: Memorials of Coleorton Being Letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott, to Sir George and Lady Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicestershire, 1803-1834. 2 vols., edited by William Knight. (Edinburgh, 1887). While these volumes appeared in 1887, they were not reviewed in Atlantic until February 1888. This suggests that this letter could have been composed in 1888, presumably near the time when Fields's health improved enough to allow her to travel south for further convalescence.
"great show": It appears the young lawyer was involved in some kind of show involving statues, but details have not yet been discovered.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Rubinstein Library, Lassiter Family Papers, Duke University. Box 53. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Willis Boyd Allen
23 February 1888 *
Dear Mr. Allen
I find your kind note and the March number of the Cottage Hearth on my return to town yesterday. I thank both you and the author for the personal sketch which is written in such thoughtful and kindly spirit. Some-
times one is inclined to misquote Wordsworth* and say "Alas the praises of men"! instead of "Alas, the gratitude --" Please do not forget to thank "John Kent for me" ------
-- I have not forgotten that formerly I half promised the Cottage Hearth a sketch -- and it happens that just now I have
an uncommonly short one nearly done which seems to me the sort of thing that you could use -- The name is New Neighbours* and the price would ordinarily be $100. but I do not know what you would think about that. It will be somewhere just over 5000 words. Please let me know by Saturday if you would care to
print it for otherwise I must hurry it off elsewhere. If I do not hear from you I shall understand that you cannot now make room for an unexpected bit of work.
With best wishes for the continued success of your magazine
Yours truly
Sarah Orne Jewett
Notes
1888: Scott Stoddart uncovered a problem with dating this letter, that Jewett's "New Neighbors" definitely appeared in October 1888, but Allen's The Boyhood of John Kent seems not to have seen print until 1891. However, Kathrine Aydelott probably has solved this problem by locating the Cottage Hearth article to which Jewett refers: John Kent, "For the Hearth -- 'Sarah Orne Jewett'." Cottage Hearth (Boston, MA) 14 (Mar 1888), 74-75. Jewett's request to thank "John Kent," using quotation marks, suggests that she may know that Mr. Allen sometimes publishes under that name.
Wordsworth: Stoddart identified Jewett's reference as Wordsworth's "Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman." "Alas! the gratitude of men / Hath oftener left me mourning."
New Neighbors: Jewett seems to have capitalized this title as an afterthought. The first capital "N" is underlined twice, and it appears that Jewett then underlined the whole title.
Stoddart notes:
"New Neighbors" appeared in the Washington Post (28 October, 1888, Section 14, p. 2), and was reprinted by Katherine C. Aydelott in American Literary Realism (Spring 2004, v. 36, pp. 256-268).The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the Miller Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME. A transcription appears in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Thursday
[ 1 March 1888 ]
Dear Mary
--------------------- Heat is nothing thought of in Longacres* but that's no matter. I have been looking over Mere Pochette* with mingled sorrow and anger. I don’t know what got into Mr. Alden* not to send me the proof. It seems to hurry so at the very end and I could have set it right in such a few little minutes -- still there are lots of things in it that I didn't know I knew and I am sure it will remind you as it does me of our lark in those strange countries.* ---------------------------------------------------------------------
S. O. J.
Notes
The hyphens at the beginning and end indicate this is an
incomplete transcription.
Longacres: On Thursday 1 March, Jewett wrote to
Houghton Mifflin from Lakewood, NJ.
Before 1904, according to Wikipedia, Times Square was named
Longacre Square. And there was at one time a Longacre Hotel in
Manhattan, but whether it was open in 1888 is not certain.
It is possible that Jewett writes from New York City at
the beginning of her trip to Florida with Annie Fields, which
began near the end of February, 1888.
Mere Pochette: Jewett's "Mère Pochette" was
originally published in Harper's Magazine
(76:588-597), in March 1888
Mr. Alden: Henry Mills Alden. See Key to Correspondents.
those strange countries: In Sarah Orne
Jewett, Paula Blanchard says that Mary and Sarah Jewett
traveled in Canada, mainly Quebec, in the fall of 1884 (p.
161).
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 74, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Maria Bray
Dear Mrs. Bray:
The scene of "A Marsh
Island" is somewhere within the borders of the town of Essex
but even I have never succeeded in finding the exact place!
Choate Island suggested the island itself, but I never went
there until a year
[ Page 2 ]
ago -- long after the story was finished -- It was seeing it
in the distance or perhaps earlier still noticing an "island
farm" near Rowley from a car window on the Eastern railroad,
that gave me my first hint of the book.1
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1 The area of
Massachusetts which Miss Jewett here invokes is the coastal
stretch between Newburyport and Manchester in the county of
Essex, a region of creeks, channels, and salt marshes much
traveled and thoroughly familiar to her; the trains of the
Boston & Maine Railroad (Eastern Division) ran along this
route. The marsh island in her novel is situated in "Sussex"
County, not far from the town of "Sussex," similarly marked by
tidewater inlets and unreclaimed marshland.
This is another example of Miss
Jewett's reluctance to be pinned down to a specific source of
her scenes (see Letters
8, note 4; 96, note 3).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Fales Library
& Special Collections, New York University, MSS001,
Meynell, Alice Christiana Thompson (1847-1922) :
Correspondence: A - Z, Box 97: Folder 14.
It was previously transcribed and annotated
by Richard Cary in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters. New
transcription, with a few formatting changes, by Terry Heller,
Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Co.
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co --
Gentlemen
Island* this summer at fifty or still better, twenty-five cents? And in the second place I have magazine stories enough for a new volume which Mr. Whittier* suggests
of 'new material' -- and I can have everything ready at any date you give me. I hope that in case you think it wise to bring out the book Mrs. Whitman* may design its cover. I suppose that the first of June will be early enough for it to come out, but there is no reason on my part why it should not be sooner. All that
I most gladly leave in your hands -- I shall hope to hear from you here within a few days --
Sarah O. Jewett
Lakewood New Jersey, March 1st
Notes
1 March 1888: In the upper right corner of page 1, underlined in blue ink and in another hand: "S. O. Jewett". In the upper left corner is a Houghton, Mifflin date stamp reading 2 March 1888. At the bottom of the page four appears in a different hand the penciled initials "F.J.G." for Francis Jackson Garrison. See Key to Correspondents.
a: Jewett has extended the tail of this letter, making it look more like the way she sometimes writes "and," but it seems clear she means "a."
A Marsh Island: Jewett's novel of 1885. By 1901, Houghton Mifflin was selling a 50 cent paperback edition of A Marsh Island, according to their catalogue, p. 75.
Mr. Whittier: John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
The King of Folly Island: Jewett's story collection appeared in 1888. The unpublished long story Jewett included in this collection was "A Village Shop." Reviews of the volume seem to have begun appearing in August 1888. However, in a letter of 10 June, Jewett requested to see notices collected by Houghton, suggesting that the book was, indeed, out by June 1.
Mrs. Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
Laurel House: An 1865 resort hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey, where many prominent people of the period stayed, including Oliver Wendell Holmes and Rudyard Kipling.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 2 March 1888 ]*
Another cold rain here! All we can say is everything will grow the better for it --
Your dear card and Mary's* note came safely -- Please thank her! Mr. Howells* and Mme Freshetta did not get here yesterday. For once I was rather glad because it was a busy day. At one I went over to Sister Sarah's for I found it was all a mistake about her coming here -- She was expecting me there. About 4 once more at home came Arthur Holland* with every [ kind ? ] thought and message for you. They are thinking of taking a house in York for two or three months. It is likely to be either Dublin or York --
After Arthur came Sylvester Baxter to bring Mr. Fagan.* The latter is a deeply interesting man. When we see each other again, if you are interested I will tell you about him -- They stayed a full hour or more. While
they were still here Kate Gannett* came in for a moment{,} asked her questions about you{,} could hear nothing & went{.} A little later came Mr. Paine* who listened with interest while Mr. Fagan continued; after the two went away, Mr. Paine told me that his brother Charles and Mr. Perkins hearing [ over ? ] trouble in the railroad yards in Chicago started on the moment for Chicago but the great strike* started before they arrived and they could only come back. He goes today to the Peace Congress in Chicago. -- * He can do nothing really but represent himself and his principles now [ unrecognized word ]{.}
After they were all gone I read your dear card and took a rest -- I could not come to you next week dearest -- Poor Mifs Bolger's* nephew died and she has not been in yet -- We must have our semi-annual pow-wow for clothes before I can get away -- It will have to be toward the middle or last half of May or early June perhaps from Manchester -- We shall see -- which Mary prefers{.}
Notes
2 March 1888: This is the Friday after the "great strike" began; see notes below.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Howells ... Mme Freshetta: William Dean Howells. Key to Correspondents.
The transcription of Freshetta is uncertain, and this person has not yet been identified.
Sister Sarah's: Sarah Holland Adams. See Fields in Key to Correspondents.
Arthur Holland: See Sara Burgwin Holland in Key to Correspondents.
Sylvester Baxter ... Mr. Fagan: American author Sylvester Baxter (1850-1927) was an editor of the Boston Herald, and a supporter of Boston's municipal park system. Wikipedia.
Mr. Fagan could be Anglo-Italian author and artist, Louis Alexander Fagan (1845-1903). Wikipedia.
Kate Gannett: Possibly this is Kate Gannett Wells (1838-1911), an American author, reformer and opponent of woman suffrage.
Mr. Paine: Probably this is American philanthropist Robert Treat Paine (1835-1910). His brother was Charles Jackson Paine (1833-1916), who served in the Union army during the American Civil War and became a railroad executive. Wikipedia.
Mr. Perkins probably is Charles Elliot Perkins (1840-1907), who became president of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. See Edith Forbes Perkins in Key to Correspondents.
great strike: The Burlington Railroad Strike of 1888 began on 27 February.
Peace Congress: There apparently was no official "Peace Congress" in Chicago in 1888. Possibly Fields means that Charles Paine or Charles Perkins intended to return to Chicago to negotiate with the strikers.
Bolger's: A Miss Bolger likely was Fields's dressmaker. She is mentioned in other letters as late as 1909.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Celia Thaxter
My dear Friend
I think thee must still be in Boston, and so write there. I have had rather a hard winter, bur now find myself better. I am so glad that it is spring ---- by the almanac. I was very anxious about Mrs Fields,* & my old school mate Mrs Pitman* of Somerville. But, the Lord
be thanked both are recovering. I hear thy readings much [ commended ? ]. I am sure thy verses come "[ mended ? ] from thy tongue".* It always seem to me that when thee used to read them they [ deletion ] sounded a great deal better than I thought them before.
I am reading the proofs of a new Edition* of my poems, with notes &c. I wish there
were less of them.
I have had letters from all the world this winter, and I have been quite unable even to read them, until lately I have been over-hauling the great man.*
I wanted thee to have the "Phantasms of the Living" {.}* I am sure the volumes will be [ found ? ] deeply interesting. Keep them as long as thee pleases. Has thee seen the new book on "Reincarnation"?* I have just got it, but have
glanced at it.
I must try, Providence permitting, to go to the "Shoals" the coming summer. God bless thee my dear friend of many years!
John G Whittier
Notes
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Pitman: Whittier's friend and correspondent, Harriet Minot Pitman, died in October 1888. His obituary of her appears in J. B. Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier v. 3, p. 552.
tongue: The transcription of "mended" is uncertain. If it is correct, Whittier may be quoting from Poems on Several Occasions (1807) by the little known poet, A. M. Roe. His poem "Addressed to a Friend" includes this stanza:
To quell oppression's lawless force,
Right those who suffer wrong;
To check fell sin "May truths divine
Come mended from thy tongue."
Or perhaps Whittier quotes from Roe's probable source, Henry Headley's "An Elegy on the Death of the Late Rev. John Lawson":
These were thy arts -- and glowing with the theme,
Whilst truths divine came mended from thy tongue, ... (302)
Headley (1765-1788) was a British poet and critic.
Or, perhaps he alludes to British poet Edmund Waller's (1606-1687) "To the Memory of Oldham": "And Ovid's love flow'd mended from thy tongue" (xxi).
new Edition: It seems likely that Whittier is working on his collected works, issued by Houghton Mifflin under various titles in 1888.
great man: This transcription is uncertain, as is Whittier's meaning.
"Phantasms of the Living": A two volume collection of documents of alleged sightings of apparitions, published by members of the British Society for Psychical Research in 1886.
"Reincarnation": In 1888, the most recent book in English on the doctrine that individual souls are reincarnated though multiple lives over time was Reincarnation: A Study of Forgotten Truth (1888) by E. D. Walker, published in Boston by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. MS Am 1211, Box 1, Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892. A.L.s. to [Celia (Laighton) Thaxter]; Danvers, 2 Mar 1888. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Colburn
3 March 1888
Dear Madam
I have been prevented from sending an earlier answer to your note
I think it was the February number. With best wishes for your club I am
S. O. Jewett.
To
Mrs. Colburn.*
Notes
Cottage Hearth: See John Kent. "For the Hearth -- 'Sarah Orne Jewett'." Cottage Hearth (Boston, MA) 14 (Mar 1888), 74-75.
Mrs. Colburn: Mrs. Colburn and her club remain unidentified.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Miss Holloway*
Laurel House March 3 [1888]
I do not know what Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.* will say about the use of a story in other editions than their own, but if they do not object I am quite willing to let you choose a story for your proposed book --. You do not say how large your "twenty pages" are -- but one of the
shorter sketches or perhaps one so long as An Only Son* would not take up too much space -- if that is too long I would suggest An Autumn Holiday* --
Yours very truly
S. O. Jewett.
Notes
Holloway: This person has not been identified, nor is it known whether the project under discussion came to fruition. However, a possible candidate is Laura C. Holloway (Langford), who compiled an 1889 collection, The Woman's Story: as told by Twenty American Women. Jewett is not included in this volume, but many of her friends and contemporaries are. Holloway (1843-1930) was a prolific author and editor.
Mifs: Jewett uses this style of rendering "miss" in this letter.
Houghton Mifflin: Jewett's publisher.
An Only Son: Jewett's story appeared first in Atlantic Monthly (52:664-678), November 1883.
An Autumn Holiday: Jewett's story appeared first in Harper's Magazine (61:683-691), October 1880.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Sunday
[ 3 March 1888 ]*
Dear Peg
I grab a minute by the hair of its head to tell you that the address is the Laurel House Lakewood New Jersey,* and you must write the New Jersey in full. I suppose there are other Lakewoods. Sister always liked the story of the jealous woman who was mad because her husband began a letter Dearest Maria and said Then the monster has other dear marias! I stepped to church this morning and left all my packing until now but friends have been sitting with me and I am now in haste. Dear Marigold and Mrs. Whitman have been here and who should appear to see Mrs. Fields but poor little Dr. Holmes,* so affectionate and talking as hard as he could so he wouldn’t cry, and they had a great talk upstairs by the fire, while Mrs. Whitman and I sat below, and had a call to ourselves when he came down. He was so funny about clearing out his house because Amelia* the daughter is coming to live with him. Mrs. Whitman said “You might just as well try to clear up your front yard if your front yard was the beach with everything coming ashore!” -- I heard a wonderful great sermon from Mr. Brooks* this morning and coming out I saw Ella Walworth* and had a bit of gossip with her in the church porch. She said that she had a beautiful journey south, but poor Emma Caruth is just alive which seemed to sadden her a good deal. “Bill Bacon” is now talking Charities with A. F. and I am so distracted that I must close so good by with love to Aunt Mary a genuine message because I love her twenty times more than I do most folks so there now, and am as proud as a peacock of her into the bargain, and always was, so no more at present from
S. O. J.
Notes
A transcriber's note with this text reads: [to Mary].
3 March 1888: Almost certainly this letter was
composed on this date, which fell on a Sunday in 1888.
The year is confirmed by the implication
that Oliver Wendell Holmes's (Sr.) daughter,
Amelia Jackson, is moving into his house after the death of
his wife, Amelia Lee, in February 1888. As daughter
Amelia died in 1889, this letter has to come from before that
date, and probably, soon after the loss of Mrs. Holmes.
Presumably, it also comes before the death of Emma Carruth on
31 May of 1888.
3 March was the Sunday after Jewett and
Annie Fields departed for Florida, hoping that Fields would
recover there from a serious illness.
The date is problematic because of letters
probably from 4 March and 11 March indicating that Jewett and
Fields arrived in St. Augustine, FL on Monday 4 March, after a
stop in Jacksonville, FL. This chronology seems unlikely.
Peg: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Laurel House Lakewood New Jersey: An 1865 resort hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey,
where many prominent people of the period stayed, including
Oliver Wendell Holmes and Rudyard Kipling.
Dear Marigold ... Mrs. Whitman ... Mrs. Fields ... Dr. Holmes: Marigold is Mary Greenwood Lodge. Sarah Wyman Whitman, Annie Adams Fields, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.. See Key to Correspondents.
Amelia: Amelia Jackson Holmes (1843–1889) was the only daughter of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Amelia Lee Jackson. See Key to Correspondents. Mrs. Holmes died on February 6, 1888.
Mr. Brooks: Phillips Brooks. See Key to Correspondents.
Ella Walworth Little: See Key to Correspondents.
Emma Caruth is just alive: It seems likely this
is Emma Carruth (1849-31 May 1888), despite
the difference in spelling. Emma Carruth was Assistant
Treasurer (1873-1882) and then Treasurer of the Woman's Board
of Missions of the Congregational Church (1882-1888).
Her sister, Ellen (1848-1923, followed her as treasurer
(1888-1896).
“Bill Bacon” is now talking Charities with A. F.
: Not surprisingly, there were several prominent
Americans named "William Bacon" in the latter part of the 19th
century, including the Massachusetts State Senator John
William Bacon (1818-1888). A likely identity for the
person with whom Annie Adams Fields (see Key to
Correspondents)
would confer about "Charities" is the William Bacon who served
on the board of directors of the Unitarian charity, the
"Children's Mission to the children of the Destitute" for many
years.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 74,
Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more
information about the individual transcription, contact the
Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by Linda
Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
St. Augustine
Monday
[March 4, 1888]*
Dear O. P.*
Well,
I didn't know there was such a place as this in
America! All the way down through the north of Florida
and from Jacksonville here I had a sense of disappointment
because the country seemed hardly more southern than North
Carolina, except for the little palmettos on the ground, for
it was flat and covered with pine woods.* But when you
get into this old town there are all the
queer things you see in Southern Italy or Spain it seems to me-- strange flowers and loads of roses and kinds of palm trees leaning over walls and the people are so many of them of Spanish descent that it keeps up the outlandish feeling.* And somebody very rich of the Standard Oil Company has fallen in love with the place and built the shops and other buildings in old Spanish style and -- as for
the Ponce de Leon it is simply beautiful.* You must come next year and stay there. Mother would have such a time! There is so much to see and the sea wind is cool though the sun is so hot. They have picked all the sweet oranges long ago but the bitter ones are left on the trees and look just as well! Tomorrow this hotel is going to shut up so we are going to move over to the Ponce de Leon.* They
[ Page 4 ]
say that this is much better kept in some ways, but I
should like to be there to look about at my leisure.
The Lorings had friends the here. You don't
know what good times we had together. Katherine
Loring* is such a nice girl and has lived abroad a good deal
and got so much out of it and is a born traveller so that we
have been much the gainers. She has made the plans and
we have taken the good of them. They live up at
Pride's Crossing near [n written over b ?]
Mrs
[ Page 5 ]
Cabots* and I knew her but it was before she went off the last time about two or three years ago. You wouldn't care much about Jacksonville -- it might be a town anywhere except for the orange trees. We were in a first rate hotel the little time we stayed, but here there is really something to see and enjoy. The streets are as narrow as can be for driving and the Spanish balconies poke out overhead so you
[ Page 6 ]
can walk along in the shade of them.* I have been dreadfully afraid of having Mrs. Fields go up the rivers or indeed to stay long here for it is really wilting hot now and too hot to have come for any length of time, but we are going to take one day's journey to where we can see the pink birds fly about.* Florence Cushing* is here & knows K. L. also, and we have pleasing times. I am so sorry to miss a letter to you but I was out gadding all the early part of the day until the ^last^ mail was gone. I sigh
[ Up the left side of p. 6 ]
and sigh for Caddy. Oh Caddy such joys and even [grimed ? ] hens a squawking is no more from Sister
[ Up the left side of p. 1 ]
We haven't been to the old Spanish fort* yet but are going tomorrow or perhaps early this evening.
through the north of Florida...: Henry Flagler (1830-1913), a partner in Standard Oil, invested heavily in the transformation of St. Augustine. FL. He quickly developed his hotels in St. Augustine and the railways that would bring northerners to them. However, the work was not quite completed in the spring of 1888, when Jewett and Fields first visited. For that visit, Jewett and Fields could travel by sleeper car from New York to Jacksonville. There they would ferry across the St. John's River, and then take another quite uncomfortable train to St. Augustine. See Thomas Graham, Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014.
of Spanish descent: While the Minorcan community of St. Augustine was significant in 1888, they did not form a majority of the local population. At this early point in Jewett's acquaintance with St. Augustine, she had not yet absorbed the knowledge of the town she would gather before publishing her main story set there, "Jim's Little Woman." See The Diverse People of "Jim's Little Woman" by Sarah Orne Jewett.
the Ponce de Leon: As she writes this letter, Jewett has not yet stayed at the Ponce de Leon hotel, and she has not yet learned very much about Henry Flagler, a partner in Standard Oil, who was investing so heavily in the transformation of St. Augustine.
the pink birds fly about: While one might assume these pink birds would be flamingos, in fact flamingos rarely are seen in Florida, especially in north Florida. More likely, Jewett and Fields are expecting to see Roseate Spoonbills.
the Spanish balconies: Bronsontours.com provides an architectural history of St. Augustine. Spanish home architecture in the city featured second-story balconies to provide shade and to shelter lower windows and doors from rain and wind.
Born in 1853 outside Boston, MA, Florence Cushing was the daughter of an esteemed family known as “The family of judges” for their participation in legal affairs. Florence Cushing was the valedictorian of her Vassar class of 1874 and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She was among the founders of the Girls’ Latin School of Boston as well as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which became the American Association of University Women, an organization of which she was the second president (1883-1885). She was the first alumna to sit on the Board of Trustees, and served between 1887-1894 and 1906-1912. In 1913, she was elected to life membership on the Board, a position which she held until 1923, when she became 'trustee emerita.' For her exemplary work and devotion to Vassar, Cushing Hall [now Cushing House], built in 1923, was named after her. She died at home in Norwell, MA on 20 September 1927.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Ponce de Leon,
St. Augustine -- Monday
[March 11, 1888]
Dear O. P.
Here we are I am thankful to say, so comfortable in this beautiful place with a big room and a little room out of it, looking out into the great Spanish court of the hotel with a big fountain and gardens and palmetto trees, and through the big arched and cloistered walk into the street. Really it is a perfect palace of a place and though we were told again that it's [meaning its] beauty was all it had and the table was n't good we never half
[ Page 2 ]
believed it, and had as good a dinner and breakfast as "Youngs"* could give and who need ask more? It costs but when you feel as if you had your money's worth it gives you quite a different feeling!* Mrs. Fields got here pretty well on the whole though she is very weak poor thing and I know she longs to be at home. I feel as if this were the right place for her for a few days at any rate since she isn't able to start [st over other letters] on the home journey, and being so amused and pleased with the hotel that it helps along a good deal. You feel as if you
[ Page 3 ]
2
were living in a bran [instead of brand] new palace and every way you look you see something really artist-like and charming. For instance the [deleted word] china is real china of the most lovely pattern of gold on white in little figures and such pretty shapes -- so refined, as if a lady had picked ^it^ out, and the carpets are so full and handsome* -- You will perfectly delight in it and if I don't have some of my family spending their little all in St. Augustine the latter part of next winter it will be because I can't prod 'em!!! Mrs. Fields has said
[ Page 4 ]
over and over that Mother must come, and how it would please Mary. We will start Caddy with Pretty Peggy* and "her folks" and come as a whole.
-- I was afraid after I wrote yesterday that I spoke as if I thought you had been impatient about my being gone so long, but I didn't mean it that way. I feel the worse because you have been so good about it when I know you want me. I would have been home long ago if I had started for mere pleasure. And it has seemed to me some days as if I
[ Page5 ]
were pulled almost in two! I think it all depends
upon the next few weeks or months whether Mrs. Fields ever
gets strong again. She seems to pull up a certain
distance and then something pulls her back, and if she got a
bad cold it would go very hard with her. There is said
to be a very good doctor* here and I am going to get her to
have him come today and be sure she is on the right track about
after this upset. There goes the band -- oh how I hope
this same one will be here next winter!*
Ever so much love from
Sarah.
Notes
A travel guidebook described Young's in 1895: "The main entrance to this hotel is on Court Avenue, and the hotel extends to Court Square and Court Street. It is one of the largest and best of the hotels on the European plan. One of the features of this hotel is the ladies' dining-room, the entrance to which is on the Court Street side. This is a handsomely decorated room 100 feet long and 31 feet wide. It connects with other large dining-rooms, and a cafe for gentlemen on the ground floor. This hotel is a favorite place with New Yorkers. ... Recognized as among the best [hotel restaurants in the city] are those connected with Young's Hotel, the Parker House, and the Adams House. That of Young's Hotel is very extensive, occupying a large part of the ground floor of that establishment. It has dining-rooms for ladies and gentlemen, lunch rooms, and convenient lunch and oyster counters."
It costs: Thomas Graham in Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine reports that charges, including meals, at the Ponce de Leon ranged from $5 to $25 / person / day, which compared well with other first-class hotels. In 1894, the nearby, less luxurious Cordova Hotel, also owned by Flagler, charged $3-$4 / person / day for a room and 3 meals.
real china ... carpets are so full and handsome: Thomas Graham in Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine says that Clarence B. Knott was in charge of supplying the Flagler hotels in St. Augustine. He managed large warehouses in St. Augustine, ordered materials in bulk and distributed them to hotels as needed. These included everything from electrical parts to china, silver, linen and carpets. "Knott would obtain samples of goods from several companies to make sure they met Mr. Flagler's high quality standards, and then he would negotiate the lowest possible price with one supplier. For example, in 1903 Wanamakers of Philadelphia received the contract for all fabric materials, from table and bed linen to carpets and window draperies" (Chapter 17).
Mary ... Caddy ... Pretty Peggy: Though this letter is addressed to Jewett's sister, Mary, it seems clear that she is speaking to both of her sisters, Caddy or Carrie being the younger. The identity of Peggy is not known.
very good doctor: This is likely Dr. Frank F. Smith, whom Jewett later recommends to Lilian Aldrich (see below).
the band: Thomas Graham says that the Ponce de Leon was one of the hotels that employed bands during the winter seasons of 1888 through 1890. During January - April period of 1888, Jewett could have heard two performances per day, morning and afternoon, of Maurice J. Joyce's Military Band, including a program of sacred music on Sunday morning (175). These performances took place in the loggia. Joyce's band was well known, especially in New York, where he and Thomas H. Joyce were prominent entertainers at Saratoga Springs and in New York City.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University in Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 94 letters to Mary Rice Jewett; 1888-1900 & [n.d.] (Nos. 92-94 incomplete). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (121).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Jackson Garrison
[ 1888 ]*
Dear Mr. Garrison
Will you please send me here one of the Atlantic portraits of Mr. Whittier?* I want to give it to a school for coloured Children which interests Mrs. Fields* and me very much. I do not know the new portrait very well but I should like the best one.
I saw a picture of your father hanging on the wall and so I thought that Mr. Whittier ought to be there too --
Mrs. Fields joins me in kindest regard; she is much better for coming South but hardly strong again even yet --
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1888: Other letters of this year indicate that Jewett and Fields were in Aiken, S.C. during March 1888.
Mr. Whittier: John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 4, Folder 159, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. Trafton's notes indicate the the manuscript is held by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ 22 March 1888 ]*
Aiken, Thursday
Dear O. P.
Such a howling windy day and everybody groaning over the cold but the thermometer is at 42 above which isnt so very bad. I suppose it is the effect of all the storms about us.* We had a good [ deleted word drive ?] ^walk^ this morning but didnt try to drive as we were out all day yesterday and ^today^ you ^would^ feel the wind so much in a gig! Yesterday afternoon we went over westward about half a dozen miles to a big cotton mill and went all over it. I havent been in one since I was small and it carried me back to the days of Joanna Buckley.* The
people interested me very much. They were all "poor
whites" as they call them here – and or would have
been without this steady work. I saw the "doffers and
spoolers"* poor little snips and a slow little boy about as
big as Theodore up in a kind of big cage on the wall making
bands – or big twisted cotton cords on a machine.* He
looked as if he ought to be out playing instead of making
bands at twenty cents a day. And they work twelve long
hours. It was a beautiful bright day and we had pleasant
hours of it and there are lots of flowers in
bloom.* I would like to
know what has become of my
[ Page 3 ]
2
letters. I didn't have half I ought [ after written over a word ] the big storm, and now I didn't get one today. The Southern trains take their time it seems to me. Next week Thursday we mean to start from here and go to Charleston and perhaps to Beaufort but it all depends upon our getting north. The train's [meaning trains] north are crammed full now and we hardly know what plans to make as we want to stop here and there and the cars are all taken up by through passengers from Florida.* The Edmunds* want us to make them a little visit in Washington but that will depend upon our being longer [ 82 circled in the margin, in another hand ] on the train than we had planned
for they dont leave until after we do, and of course dont
want us until they have been at home a day or two. The
snow storms make us shy about going North too soon, but we
both want to stop in Washington for a couple nights or
so. I send you two or three
photographs* of the people here and be sure to show them to
John and Hannah and Annie.* John will laugh at the
stylish team. In one cotton field picture you can see
just how the cotton looks growing, and in the other an
occasion of pickers. Mrs. Fields sends particular love
and affection and wishes you could share our pleasure. I
wish I had more interesting facts, but there isnt much
a-happening!
Love to all from Sister.
22 March 1888: As indicated in the notes below, Jewett writes after major snow storms in March 1888 disrupted travel and mail in New England.
storms all about us: The Great Blizzard of March 11-14, 1888 dropped up to 5 feet of snow in New England, leaving drifts as high as 50 feet, causing many deaths, halting trains and confining people to their homes, in some cases for as long as a week.
cotton mill ... Joanna Buckley: It is likely that
Jewett visited William Gregg's Graniteville cotton mill, about 6 miles
west of Aiken. Jewett was familiar with textile mills as
a result of living in South Berwick, within easy walking
distance of the mills across the Salmon Falls River in Rollinsford, NH.
No certain information about Joanna Buckley
has been located. United States census records identify
a Joanna Buckley working in a cotton mill in Lewiston, ME in
1880. It is possible that a Joanna Buckley worked for
the Jewett family at an earlier date.
"doffers and spoolers": A doffer removes full spindles of thread from a spinning machine, replacing them with empty ones. A spooler is responsible for a machine that winds spun thread onto the spindles.
Image of a doffer from the Library of
Congress
in a kind of big cage on the wall making bands: Twisting bands often was done by young boys in 19th-century cotton mills, either by hand or by machine. I have not been able through internet research to understand exactly how this task fits into the process of producing threads and yarns. Assistance is welcome.
Theodore, son of Carrie and Edwin (Ned) Eastman, was born August 4, 1879. At the writing of this letter, he would be 8 years old.
Image of a band boy from Wikimedia
Commons
flowers in bloom: In this letter, Jewett appears
to divide some paragraphs with long spaces between
sentences. I have rendered these spaces to approximate
hers, though it is not easy to be sure when she intends this.
through passengers from Florida: It appears that
as early as March of 1888, the number of people
wintering in Florida was large enough to fill the returning
trains for several weeks.
the Edmunds: George Franklin Edmunds (1828 - 1919) was a Republican U.S. Senator from Vermont. In 1852 he married Susan Marsh (1831-1916); they had two daughters, Mary (1854-1936) and Julia (1861-1882).
two or three photographs: Below are images of the photos Jewett sent to Mary. The steer cart may be of special interest, because Jewett includes such a cart, with some comic effect, in "The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation."
John and Hannah and Annie: These are Jewett family employees in South Berwick. John Tucker, who appears often in Jewett's nonfiction, was in charge of their stable and grounds (see Blanchard, pp. 37-8). Annie probably is Annie Collins. See note below.
Images
Jewett
included
in
this letter
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ 1888 ]*
Dear Peg,
Then Olive moved nothing with her but the worktable!*
Perhaps there was a picking up after her, but we can set down
six good chairs to her account and feel she did well by us on
the
balance -- How that old furniture went from one house to
another in old times when there wasn't so much buying of
new! Please don’t let [Siden's / Siddie's?]
little chair in the pantry be used for standing upon by
Philander, Mary!* it wouldn't bear him perhaps. I
try to picture to myself the roof a 'histing and I am that
pleasured about Caddy's* mule
[page 2]
mule [ repeated word ] that I wish I could see it this minute driving by down this red and yellow road. -- Yesterday was as crisp as October and the pea vines were nipped to the sorrow and astonishment of beholders -- I have just got your Wednesday letter which skipped here amazing lively! A. Warren didn't send the jars herself but told me that an old gentleman ^was going to ^ send them whom I saw there last year + that some big ones were coming by the next Fayal packet.* She had an outburst of fear because she thought she had told him North Berwick, but very likely Mr. Morgan didn't get what he wanted and waited -- I grieve to have
[ page 3]
stirred you up for nothing, but it was an innycent Sister to begin with.
We mean to do the next best thing to Florida and step as far as Savannah. What do you think of that? We mean to break the journey North and to be free of the Vestibule train,* and we are going to stay a day or two just to see Savannah where we can get pretty easily from here, and then come up to Beaufort and we have promised to make a little two days visit to Miss Laura Towne (Mr. Darrah's sister-in-law) just out of Beaufort on one of the Sea Islands.* Then we are coming up
[page 4]
to Charleston for a day and night and then up to Petersburg
to spend a day with Mr. Lassiter,* his mother being dead and
he having gone home to stay with his father and imploring us
-- Then we can go up to Washington and make our little
visit. I think after Tuesday Morning you had better send
one letter Wednesday to Sea Island Hotel, Beaufort, S.C. and
^also^ Thursday and Friday: and ^then^ Saturday to
Charleston Hotel Charleston and after that I will tell you,
but probably to Washington. Yes, next year you and
Mother and I must come down and dally along home seeing the
places. I should love it! Really it takes
hardly longer to go right through in the vestibule train to
Jacksonville than from New York than it does to go in
ordinary trains from here. ----- Yesterday we had
[page 5]
3
a nice day going to walk in the morning, and just as we came
out of the woods we met Sally Norton from Cambridge, who is
here with Mrs. William James and the Lorings whom we l
I like so much especially Miss Katherine Loring* and we
[loitered ?] round a while together, and in the
afternoon we took a long drive with Mary Edmunds* out into the
country to a little pottery, and it was such a picture to see
the old coloured man at his potter's wheel and a great fire
blazing in the end of a long cabin and all the pots and jugs
set about to dry. I must now close this letter with much
love to all. I am glad to hear such good news about Will
Collins tell Annie.* I
[page 6]
know it will make her feel happier to think he is at work again, and trying to do well. --------- -------
& gals. These violets are enclosed by Mrs. Fields with love to you and Mother. I wish that the little pink ones would get there without [mizzling ?] all up. We got them in the woods yesterday and they were so pretty. I will answer your sister Eastman's letter when I get blowed up ^to begin^ again like the minister, but she shall not want for peanuts.
Yours
Seddie
Notes
1888: This date appears here probably in another
hand. As the notes below indicate, it is correct.
Olive: This may be Olive Raynes, operator of and teacher in the popular South Berwick private elementary school that Jewett attended. Or, more likely, Olive Grant, the Jewett sisters' dressmaker. See Blanchard, Sarah Orne Jewett, pp. 20-21, 37, 55.
Philander: Given that a roof seems to need
repair or perhaps rebuilding, it is possible that Jewett is
speaking of Philander Hartwell Fall (1833-1915).
This note appears in an entry on "Capt.
Isaac P. Fall (1830-1909), Civil War veteran, mason," at the Old
Berwick Historical Society:
"Historian Marie Donahue wrote in The Old Academy on the Hill, her history of Berwick Academy, that the academy schoolhouse preceding Fogg Memorial was built in 1853 by a contractor named Ebenezer Fall. Another member of the family, Philander H. Fall (1833-1915), is listed as a building contractor in the Maine Register business directory of 1880."
Caddy: Caddy is a family nick-name for the youngest Jewett sister, Caroline Eastman, referred to at the end of the letter as "your sister Eastman."
A. Warren … Mr. Morgan: Warren is an old family
name in the South Berwick area, but whether this person is
connected with that family is not yet known. See Gladys Hasty
Carroll's Dunnybrook (1943) for an account of
the family. Mr. Morgan also has not been identified.
Jewett may refer to another acquaintance. Alice Amelia Bartlett Warren (1843-1912)
traveled often in Europe and moved in the same social circles
as Fields and Jewett, being a friend of Henry James and Ellen
Emerson, among other Jewett correspondents. See the
introduction to Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters'
Letters from Europe, 1870-1871 (2008), edited by
Daniel Shealy, pp. lxii-lxiii.
Fayal packet: Though this is not clear, it is possible Jewett refers to a packet boat that makes regular trips to a local port, such as Portsmouth or, more likely, Boston from the Portuguese Island of Faial.
vestibule
train: The development in the 1880s of
technology to allow rail passengers to move between cars by
connecting and enclosing the vestibules or ends of the cars
made it practical to have a dining car and Pullman sleeper
cars as part of a train, allowing easier long runs with fewer
stops for overnight, intercity travel, such as from New York
to Jacksonville, FL. In the earlier Thursday letter from
Aiken, Jewett complains about how crowded the north-bound
trains are. Changing their travel plans frees them from
the difficulty of making stops on their journey north and
being unable to board a later train in the same direction.
Aiken and locations Jewett plans to visit:
It appears that Jewett and Fields did not
follow the itinerary she gives here, interposing a return trip
to St. Augustine by boat.
Aiken,
SC, near Augusta, GA, was a popular winter resort for New
Englanders in the 19th century. Senator George Edmunds
and his family were regular residents at the Winter
Colony in Aiken. It appears the Jewett and Fields
spent a good deal of their time with the Edmunds family,
particularly daughter Mary. Presumably they stayed near
the Edmunds, but it is not yet known which of the many hotels
and guest houses they used.
Savannah, GA is a coastal town on the Savannah river near the South Carolina border. The historically significant city was a popular tourist destination in the 19th century. Savannah is about 120 miles from Aiken.
Beaufort, SC is a coastal town near the Sea Islands, where Jewett sets her story, "The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation." With the notes to that story is extensive information about the town, the islands, and Laura Towne. Beaufort is about 40 miles northeast of Savannah.
Charleston, SC holds considerable historical interest because of its age, its centrality as a port in the antebellum South, and as the site of the opening battle of the American Civil War in 1860. It is about 70 miles northeast of Beaufort.
Petersburg,
VA, near Richmond, could have held particular interest for
Annie Fields, apart from Mr. Lassiter's invitation, because in
the 1880s, while Republicans continued to dominate the
Virginia legislature, institutions benefiting freedmen, such
as Virginia State University, in Petersburg, were
flourishing. The university's first president, John
Mercer Langston, became the first African-American to
represent Virginia in the United States Congress; elected in
1888, he served 1890-91. This would seem a natural stop
after their visit with Laura Towne. Petersburg is about
400 miles north of Charleston. From Petersburg to the
final stop Jewett mentions, Washington, DC, is about 130 miles
north.
Mr. Lassiter: This is quite likely to be Francis
Rives
Lassiter (1866-1909). Born in Petersburg, he
studied law at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and
practiced briefly in Boston, before returning home in
1888. His parents were Dr. Daniel William Lassiter and Anna
Rives
Heath (5 June 1835 - 6 February 1888). He later
served as a Democrat in the U.S. Congress.
Miss Laura Towne (Mr. Darrah's sister-in-law):
Blanchard in Sarah Orne Jewett says that Jewett and
Fields visited "Annie's old friend Laura Towne (1825-1901), a
homeopathic physician and educator who, many years earlier,
had established a clinic and school on the island for its
large population of freed slaves" (193-4).
Laura
Towne's sister, Ann
Sophia (1819-1881), married Robert Kendall Darrah of
Boston. She became a noted American painter.
Robert K. Darrah (1818-1885), according to Memorial
Biographies
of
the New England Historical Society, was a
Boston merchant who became appraiser at the Custom House in
1861 (p. 211). Annie Fields wrote an obituary
piece on Mr. Darrah in 1886.
Sally Norton from Cambridge: Sara (Sally) Norton (1864-1922) was a niece of James Russell Lowell, and the daughter of Charles Eliot Norton, (1827-1908), who was co-editor of the North American Review (1863-1868) and then professor of literature and art at Harvard University. Jewett and Sally Norton became close friends and frequent correspondents.
Mrs. William James: The American philosopher and psychologist, William James (1842-1910), married Alice Howe Gibbens (1849-1922) in 1878. For information about the impressive Mrs. James, see Alice in Jamesland: The Story of Alice Howe Gibbens James by Susan E. Gunter (Nebraska 2009).
the Lorings … Miss Katherine Loring: Katharine Peabody Loring (1849-1943) of Beverly, Massachusetts. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary Edmunds: Daughter of Senator George F.
Edmunds. See note on Aiken above.
the old coloured man at his potter's wheel: The
Aiken area was part of what became known as the Edgefield
district for making pottery. An important local enslaved
African-American potter, Dave Drake
(ca. 1801-1870s) probably predates Jewett's visit.
However, according to Brenda Baratto of the Aiken County
Historical Museum of South Carolina, the date of Dave the
Potter's death has not be established. The fact that
Mary Edmunds, who had some familiarity with the area, led
Jewett and Fields on a long carriage ride to visit a specific
African American potter suggests that this particular potter
was widely known and believed to be worth visiting. Dave
-- or perhaps members of his family still making pottery --
presumably would be at or near the Pottersville
site where Dave began his career, which was roughly 24 miles
from the Winter Colony area of Aiken. They might easily have
visited other potters nearer to Aiken's Winter Colony.
While it now seems unlikely that Jewett actually met Dave the
Potter, perhaps she did.
Will Collins tell Annie: See Annie Collins
in Key to Correspondents.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
The tender majesty of this high day is with me still, dear friend (though the hour has slipped past which sets its limit in time --) and I love to write to you in the shadow of its associations. -- Mr. Brooks* preached quite a wonderful sermon this morning; taking man as his own Jerusalem, receiving every-
thing as coming from God & and greeting it with Hosanna. A "hard doctrine": but hard as everything worth having is hard, either in getting or holding or loving. ----
-- [ Naturally ? ] all the familiar elements are here -- Coolidge* has come -- with ready cheer, & my little Ella* from the Bible Class is to arrive in the morning -- but below, there is a sharp [ remembrance ? ] of the message brought from Paris, & my dear Lizzy Booth* lying still & dead. It is all so strange -- so deep -- & so significant. This, & all that has wrung one's heart while [ unrecognized word ] Brooks has had so much to suffer, seems [ touched in/it/if ? ] a year since{.} I felt the warmth that your dear letter brought: [ warmth ? ] & comfort -- and fea-
tures which I [ unrecognized word ] to have painted with my own brush. I cant tell you how the landscape made me feel: what [ surges ? ] of desire -- what a tenderness of [ unrecognized word ] & prospect! -- Do you know how closely you understand what is
know that it is sweet, and I bless you for it -- & tell you [ unrecognized word ] about it every day. --
I have been working somewhat ardently this last fortnight: and now comes a clearing of the studio decks which makes me feel as if my brood had found their wings. Almost everything is done: ( as much as that can happen in my incom-
petence -- ) Goldilocks* hangs in [ Gold ? ] Mary's parlour. Exhibitions claim their prey: and even the [ altar=piece so written ] is rolled in a tight box, is on its way to Worcester on a trial trip. I repair [ thirteen ? ] this week, to face the situation: and I shall report whether I survive [ this sight ? ] -- when this is over & my deductions made, & the picture at 77* again. I shall let it rest awhile, & attack the problems of St Andrews, which thicken as things go on, with much memorial work to be thought out - [ & ? ] etc --
Meantime all these works and ways are helped by your tidings -- it is so good to know that the dear friend thrives in the soft air, and that presently even we with our [ unrecognized word ] will not have too
vigorous an environment. Alice Warren* says that she liked the looks of your party; & I [ deletion] ^hope her^ artists remorseless eye is to be trusted! She will be here on the 3rd, as will that ample companion, Miss Loring:* and together they will go to [ Waterbury ? ] where [ Mr. ? ] Warren precedes them.
Dear, I have only begun to [ speak ? ] with you: yet for my shame I pause & ask one little word, sometime, at your hand: or one little thought at your heart. And O do come
home in time for the tea-party on the 19th [ two unrecognized words ]! I am your SW
Notes
1888: Though the letter is not dated, it was assigned this date in Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907), which was Palm Sunday in 1888, and that is confirmed by Whitman's noting the recent death of Elizabeth Booth. At this time, Jewett and Fields were in South Carolina. See notes below.
See also, "To Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence" of 8 June 1888, in which Whitman writes: "At this little Chapel of St. Andrew's there is a chance to give so many people pleasure; for some who would not dream of having a memorial window on the ordinary terms can arrange with me for having it come as part of the decoration ... and so I hope it will make some of the people who worship a little happier" (Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman, pp. 28-9).
In this letter, Whitman's handwriting is challenging. I have guessed at many more words than are indicated in my editorial notes.
Mr. Brooks: Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) became rector of Trinity Church (Episcopalian) in Boston and became Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died on 23 January 1893. Jewett's "At the Funeral of Phillips Brooks" appeared unsigned in Atlantic Monthly (71:566-567) in April 1893.
Coolidge: Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. Key to Correspondents.
Ella: This person has not yet been identified.
Lizzy Booth: Probably American painter Elizabeth Booth (1846 - 22 March 1888), who died in Paris.
Goldilocks: This would seem to be a painting, but it has not yet been identified, nor has the person to whom it was delivered. Likewise, the altarpiece Whitman mentions remains unidentified. Whitman refers to the classic fairy-tale, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
77: Whitman's home address, 77 Mount Vernon Street.
Alice Warren: Alice Amelia Bartlett Warren (1843-1912) traveled often in Europe and moved in the same social circles as Fields and Jewett, being a friend of Henry James and Ellen Emerson, among other Jewett correspondents. See the introduction to Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871 (2008), edited by Daniel Shealy, pp. lxii-lxiii. Find a Grave.
Miss Loring: The two Loring sisters were Katharine and Louisa, who became Jewett correspondents. Katharine probably was in St. Augustine, FL, at this time, but it appears in 1888 letters from their father, that Louisa was in Massachusetts. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 5, Item 234. Part of this letter appears in Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman, Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1907, "Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett: 1882-1903," pp. 61-109.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
[1888 in upper left corner, in another hand]
My Dear Loulie,
I have begun on the wrong side of my little sheet of paper which is quite discouraging, but I am going to send you a note in a hurry at last since it has been so long in starting! Our coming to Aiken has been most successful for we have found old and new friends, and the weather has been almost always delightful so that
2
we have played out of doors to our heart's content ^It is lilac time now! -- ^ . Mrs. Fields* has gained very fast, but she does not get her whole strength back yet: I can see that she is tired more easily than usual and being so long in bed has taken her usual fleetness of foot away from her for the time being, so that she is much provoked at not taking such long walks as she likes -- But I think that time is doing wonders, and she has lost the terribly pale look that worried me so when we came away. The storms and
like to tell you -- There ought to be a second Millet* for this Southern country -- to paint the coloured people at work in the cotton fields and their cabins and the peach bloom that was like little pink clouds everywhere when we first came. You would like the great Southern pines so much with "spills" nearly two feet long !!! We have driven a great deal and seen the country about here pretty thoroughly.
Tomorrow we go to Charleston for the night on our way to Beaufort where we are going to spend the next week and make a little visit to Miss Laura Towne* in the course of it. Here are some wild violets which I delight in -- crowfoots they call them. If it
were not so wet you should have some other flowers -- I am so sorry about not seeing your sketches, but "some other ship -- some other day" -- to quote the Kate Greenaway* [ booksy ?]{.} A. F. sends much love and so do I to you and "Martina." *
Yours faithfully
S. O. J.
Notes
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields; See Key to Correspondents.
Page 3: a blotted line appears in the top center of the page, extending 4 lines down, which may be the impression made by a violet to which Jewett refers on p. 4.
a second Millet: Jean-François Millet (1814 -1875) "was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France."
Miss Laura Towne: Laura Matilda Towne (1825-1901) was one of the first northern women to move to the South to serve freedmen during the American Civil War.
Kate Greenaway: Catherine "Kate" Greenaway (1846-1901), British children's verse writer and illustrator. Her first books of illustrated poems was Under the Window (1878), in which appeared, "I Saw a Ship."
"Martina": Jewett may have written "Martine." This person's identity remains unknown.
The manuscript of this letter is held by Columbia University Libraries Special Collections in the Sarah Orne Jewett letters, Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College, from a Columbia University Libraries microfilm copy of the manuscript.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[Probably March 31, 1888 ]*
Dear O. P.
Sister has come to the prettiest place now that ever was! The hotel is a great big old-fashioned Planter's house looking out on the lovely bay and Sea Islands beyond -- all the land very low like the tropics, but fig trees and magnolias and live oaks and all the trees as green as grass and yesterday we picked great boughs of
[ Up the left side of page 1]
There is a monkey show* under the window!
[ Added sideways in the top margin of page 1]
Sister is now seen how rice grows!*
[ Page 2 ]
Cherokee roses* and in the Charleston gardens roses were all
blooming ^in full bloom^ on arbors and seemed to be as big as
grapevines or else stood up tall like lilacs and things.
I was delighted with Charleston -- you have no idea what a
foreign sort of place it is -- The French Huguenots
came there didn't they?* and you are always seeing lovely iron
work gates as you
[ Page 3 ]
do abroad ^and so many touches of French taste^. You take [deleted letter] in for the first time how rich and splendid things were before the war and now you can not conceive the piteous desolation, for some of the best houses on the Battery (a sort of bank on the harbor side) are so shattered by the earthquake* that the owners have gone away and left them to drop to pieces{.} The walls are cracked and crumbling
[ Page 4 ]
-- the chimneys are gone and the cornices all awry and ready to fall where they have not fallen already.* I've done for honors and saw everything we could think of or that the nice colored driver could think of. Of course one might spend a great deal of time in such a place and I look forward to seeing it again. As Sunday was coming and the best train for Beaufort was a morning one we started off and here we
[ Page 5 ]
are. Mrs. Fields doesn't seem nearly so tired as she did yesterday. The sea air is lovely and so soft. I am not sure now just what we shall do or where we shall do it! we must wait to hear from Miss Towne before we go over to the Island. You see we have just got here and it is but a little after one o'clock. Katharine Loring and [and written over a letter ] her father who are perfectly charming people
[ Page 6 ]
to go anywhere with are going to Florida from Savannah next week -- not by rail but by sea, down an "inside" channel to Jacksonville among the Georgia Sea Islands, if they can arrange it, and if they do we have half a mind to go too, in which case we perhaps can go to Savannah from here by boat which would save cars. We should only stay a few days for it is getting hot but it would give us a lovely summer like look at St. Augustine. Don’t be too sure, for I am not, whether it will come right to do it, but I thought I would tell the plan.* I
[ Up the left side of page 5]
keep thinking how you and Mother will enjoy Charleston.
Love to all from Sarah. Tell Caddy not to let yellow
[onions ?] grow on her pelter.*
Notes
Link to an image of the Sea Island Hotel in Beaufort, March 1911, from the Penn School Papers.
31 April: This is an impossible date. Given Jewett's location, she almost certainly meant 31 March, which fell on a Saturday in 1888.
monkey show: Possibly Jewett refers to an example of the fairly common small "dog and pony shows" that typically included monkeys. Henry B. McKay offers this description in Do You Remember When?;
This was during the years from 1900 to 1906. They seemed like huge affairs to me then, but when I look at the lots today, they must have been comparatively small shows. The ponies were all small, of the Shetland or Indian type ponies. They were well trained and could race in singles or in groups hitched to small chariots. They were made to jump and dance and perform in every way except talk, and perhaps a little of that.
The dogs were many and varied. They were very intelligent and also well trained. Each would come out when called by name and would go back to his little stool when his act was finished. They would jump over hurdles, through hoops onto a pony, or on each other's backs. They would walk a ladder, a tight rope, a pole at the command of the trainer. The act that always caused the most excitement was to see a little fox terrier climb a ladder into the top of the tent and jump off into a net only a few feet above the ground. The oh's and ah's as it was climbing, the stillness when it got ready to jump, and the sighs of relief when it safely landed in the net are real today!
In addition, to add the necessary spice to the show there were always a few monkeys. They were dressed in clothes, some as old men and women and some as babies. They pushed wheelbarrows, baby carriages, jumped on and off dogs and ponies, and did the many things that always amuse grown folks, as well as the children. The climax of the monkey show was when a paper house was placed in middle of the arena and set afire. Bells rang, horns tooted, and firemen came out, who were monkeys pulling a little red fire engine.
There was a hand pump of the old-fashion fire engine variety and they pumped water and actually put the fire out.
The show was held in a tent and there was another smaller tent behind for the animals. They usually stayed there for a week. The charge was only twenty-five cents. It could easily be walked to, from our part of town.
how rice grows: Wikipedia says of St.
Helena
Island: "The area was noted to be similar to the rice
growing region of West Africa and soon captured slaves were
brought to the Sea Islands, mostly from what is today Sierra
Leone. Rice, indigo, cotton and spices were grown by these
slaves, as well as Native Americans, and indentured servants
from Europe. The mix of cultures, somewhat isolated from the
mainland, produced the Gullah culture."
tell the plan: Though documentation so far is
sparse, it appears that Jewett and Fields accepted the
Lorings' invitation, for Jewett and Caleb Loring write later
letters from St. Augustine (see below).
Charleston .. Huguenots: Wikipedia confirms that among the earliest settlers in Charleston were Huguenots: "The French Huguenot Church of Charleston, which remains independent, is the oldest continuously active Huguenot congregation in the United States."
the war ... the earthquake: Jewett refers to the American Civil War, 1861-1865. The effects of this war on southern landscapes receives attention in two Jewett stories, "The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation" (August 1888) and "A War Debt" (January 1895).
Wikipedia says: "The Charleston Earthquake ... occurred at 9:50 p.m. on August 31, 1886, and lasted just under a minute. The earthquake caused severe damage in Charleston, South Carolina, damaging 2,000 buildings and causing $6 million worth in damages, while in the whole city the buildings were only valued at approximately $24 million. Between 60 and 110 lives were lost. Some of the damage is still seen today.
"Major damage occurred as far away as Tybee Island, Georgia (over 60 miles away) and structural damage was reported several hundred miles from Charleston (including central Alabama, central Ohio, eastern Kentucky, southern Virginia, and western West Virginia). It was felt as far away as Boston to the North, Chicago and Milwaukee to the Northwest, as far West as New Orleans, as far South as Cuba, and as far East as Bermuda."
not to let yellow onions grow on her pelter: This passage is so obscure that I doubt that I have correctly read Jewett's handwriting. A pelter is a pelt, a cleaned animal skin, with the fur remaining.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University in Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 94 letters to Mary Rice Jewett; 1888-1900 & [n.d.] (Nos. 92-94 incomplete). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (121).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
St. Helena's Island Sunday [ April 1, 1888 ]
Dear O. P.
I
feel
as
if
I
were
at
the
end
of the earth, but I only hope that all the other ends are as
pleasant! We came across the long ferry in a rowboat
this morning and then drove across Lady's Island and
three miles, and across St. Helena's seven miles* before we
came to the great clump of live oaks and the old plantation
house* where Miss Towne and Miss Murray have lived
[ Page 2 ]
for over twenty years.* They have done everything for the colored people in teaching them other things besides book learning or rather they have taught to find the application of book learning to every day life. You would be surprised to see how neat and nice their houses are -- and they were all out working on the land this morning as we drove along and were so respectable looking and polite* -- Miss Towne has a fortune which has
helped her in many ways but nobody can tell how many sacrifices must be made when anybody starts out to do a thing like this and sticks to it -- Miss Murray is an Englishwoman and they are such an interesting pair -- and way off here they keep account of what is going on in the world and read and think about things as if they were in the middle of them, and perhaps more than we do. All the way
along we have been seeing palms and palmettos and strange trees and flowers -- and you have no idea what a difference there is in the size of the Sea Island cotton plants from those in Aiken. On some of these islands the cotton was worth $200 a pound (to put with silk) when the common cotton was only five cents.* I don't know where to tell you to write next until we settle about Florida but I think to Washington unless you hear the contrary. Just Care Senator Edmunds.*
Notes
old plantation house: The original building of the Penn Center was the Oaks Plantation house.
Miss Towne and Miss Murray: Laura Matilda Towne (1825-1901) was one of the first northern women to move to the South to serve freedmen during the American Civil War. According to the PBS web page, "Only a Teacher," "The teachers who went south sought not only to teach the freedmen how to read and write, but hoped to help them develop socially and morally. They saw themselves as missionaries who would 'bring the light of God's truth' to people they assumed were in need of such enlightenment." Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Towne and her family became interested in abolitionism when her father moved to Boston to superintend the city gas works. Their commitment deepened after her father retired to Philadelphia, where they joined First Unitarian Church, then under the leadership of the pacifist and abolitionist, William Henry Furness (1802-1896). Towne eventually trained as a physician and was in practice when she felt the call to St. Helena in 1862. She remained at Penn School until her death.
Ellen Murray (1834-1908), Towne's close friend, shared the work at Penn School from 1862 until her death, primarily as teacher and school administrator. In South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times v. 2, Ronald E. Butchart's "Laura Towne and Ellen Murray" (pp. 12-30) says that Murray was born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, and though her father died when she was 2, she and her two sisters were educated in Europe and eventually came to live in a substantial home in Newport, RI. There she became a teacher. Invited by Towne to help with the Penn School, Murray became an ardent abolitionist and advocate for African Americans. Scholarly Editing presents one of her poems from The Anti-Slavery Standard of 1864 and provides useful biographical notes on her.
Though both Towne and Murray came from privileged backgrounds and were well-educated, Butchart does not confirm that either was independently wealthy, as Jewett suggests here. He says how the partners became acquainted is unclear, though Towne at least once spoke before a Quaker meeting in Newport, RI. Though Murray was a Quaker, her family were prominent members of the Anglican Trinity Church, Saint John, New Bunswick, founded by Loyalists after the American Revolution; see History of Trinity Church, Saint John, New Brunswick, 1791-1891 by Frederick Hervey John Brigstocke, pp. 123-4.
working on the land: Jewett elaborates this description of freedmen farming on St. Helena in "The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation."
Sea Island cotton plants: Sea Island cotton was of a special long-stranded variety, making it particularly valuable. After the Union gained control of the islands, it was eager to continue cotton production during the American Civil War.
Senator Edmunds: Of the stop in Aiken, Blanchard says, "… they ran into the distinguished abolitionist Senator George Edmunds of Vermont, who was vacationing there with his family, and the two parties joined forces for a few days." Jewett's letter indicates that their meeting was planned rather than fortuitous, as Blanchard suggests. See notes above for more on this family.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University in Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 94 letters to Mary Rice Jewett; 1888-1900 & [n.d.] (Nos. 92-94 incomplete). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (121).
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
4th Mo 7 1888*
My beloved friend
Thy letter from the Jersey Pine Barrens* was very welcome. I am glad thee and dear Sarah* are out of Boston at this [ unrecognized word, possibly time ? ]. The weather is intensely cold and there is a March bitterness in it which is very trying.
I am thankful that I am much better than when I wrote the last. I wish, however, I was
with you or at some place farther towards the sun. Why do you not go to the nice winter Hotel at Hampton, Va? and if you cant venture [ easily ? ] out of doors walk under the glass shallow verandas? It is much warmer there, and you would gladden the heart of dear General Armstrong,* who says he is always better for seeing thee.
I read with great satisfaction thy "Shelf of Books"* and
Sarah's [ chancery ? ] story.* She seems just as much at home among the Canadian French as among the New England farmer.
I enclose a [ slip ? ] which will show thee that I am again provided with [ a 'city lot' ? ]{.} I shall be very "land poor" if this thing goes on.*
With love to our dear child Sarah, I am with grateful love thy old friend
1888: A Huntington Library archivist has read Whittier's date as 6th month, and he may well have written a 6, but the hand is not at all clear. That he writes to Fields in New Jersey and speaks of the cold weather in Boston makes it more likely that he wrote in early April, when Fields and Jewett were returning slowly from their winter 1888 Florida trip.
Jersey Pine Barrens: A large forested area in southern New Jersey, characterized by poor soil and unusual vegetation.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
General Armstrong: Whittier maintained an interest in the Hampton Institute, founded in 1861 to educate former African American slaves, now known as Hampton University. The first principal of the school was General Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839 - 11 May 1893).
"Shelf of Books": Fields's "A Shelf of Old Books: Leigh Hunt," appeared in Scribner's Magazine, March 1888.
story: Whittier refers to Jewett's ""Mère Pochette," in Harper's Magazine, March 1888. Though he seems to call it a "chancery" story, this transcription is uncertain and the label seems not relevant.
goes on: Whittier's reference in this paragraph is not yet known. Presumably, this has something to do with his two homes, a winter home with his cousins at Oak Knoll in Danvers, MA, from which he writes this letter, and a summer home in Amesbury, MA.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4848. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Rev. George Bainton
St. Augustine Florida 10 April 88
My dear Sir
Your most kind note gives me real pleasure and I am very sorry that I have none of my books at hand and so cannot send you a written page from one of them as I would like to do -- I am very pleased because you like my New England stories. I often remember with amusement
Believe me with high regard
Sarah O. Jewett
Revd George Bainton
Coventry
Henry James said of Thoreau: Jewett's reference proves complex upon examination. In his controversial book, Hawthorne (1879), Chapter 4, American author Henry James ( 1843-1916) says of Thoreau: "Whatever question there may be of his talent, there can be none, I think, of his genius. It was a slim and crooked one; but it was eminently personal. He was imperfect, unfinished, inartistic; he was worse than provincial he was parochial; it is only at his best that he is readable."
Whittier's: John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
I have extended my journey but I expect to be in Washington on Monday ^next^ and if the proofs are ready I will look them over there. I shall be in Charles Street* the end of the week, and I will see you then. As soon as I get nearer to Boston I will send the rest of
the copy, but I do not want to run the risk of its being lost, by trusting it to the uncertainties of small expresses -- as I have only one copy of the story --
Mr Alden* offered to waive the usual [ six corrected ] months delay with another story lately printed in Harper's so if you matter runs short I should like to put Mére Pochette
in -- It was not printed right by a mistake & some ^pages^ were left out, but I have the manuscript and I think it is worth
Thank you for the picture of Mr. Whittier which seemed to give Miss Schofield* great pleasure --
S. O. Jewett.
Please direct to me care of Senator Edmunds *
Washington, D.C.
but there will only be time to send proof until Saturday afternoon the 14th ------
Notes
1888: Jewett's topic is the proof for her story collection, The King of Folly Island (1888). See notes below.
In the upper left of page 1 in blue ink and another hand is Sarah O. Jewett.
Penciled on the bottom left of page 3 are initials, probably F.J.G, for Francis Jackson Garrison.
Charles Street: The Boston address of correspondent Annie Adams Fields, at 148 Charles Street. See Key to Correspondents
Mére Pochette: This story appeared in Harper's in March 1888 and was collected in The King of Folly Island the same year.
Mr. Alden: Henry Mills Alden (1836-1919) was editor of Harper's Magazine for fifty years -- from 1869 until 1919. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Whittier ... Miss Schofield: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). Miss Schofield has not been identified. See Key to Correspondents.
Senator Edmunds: George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) was a Republican U.S. Senator from Vermont. In 1852 he married Susan Marsh (1831-1916); they had two daughters, Mary (1854-1936) and Julia (1861-1882).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. Houghton Mifflin Company. Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944. MS Am 1925 (962).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Rives Lassiter
13 April [ 1888 ]*
Mrs. Fields and I hoped to be in Petersburg tomorrow but I am sorry to say that she has been ill for a day or two and so we must wait here until she is strong enough
for the long journey --
It makes me very anxious for she has never recovered her strength after last winters illness, though she has seemed much better of late and I thought the journey was sure to do her good -- It
is no return of the lung [ trouble corrected ] however --
With best regards and hoping to see you soon I am always
Sarah O. Jewett
1888: This letter was composed during Jewett and Fields's first journey south together, undertaken to help Fields convalesce from pneumonia.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Rubinstein Library, Lassiter Family Papers, Duke University. Box 21. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Caleb William Loring to Louisa Putnam Loring*
April 17, 1888
Dearest Louisa,
Thank you for your pleasant notes. I suppose Katharine has written to you much that I shall say: how different Florida is from So. Carolina; --* here all the fields are green with grass; the green here [unrecognized word: lasting?] keep that growing, though underneath it is as sandy as around Aiken. The Pride of China trees* are in
This is a curious old Spanish town* with its large fort & the Old City gate & its narrow streets; though on those streets the Yankee wooden houses crowd the old coquina stone ones & take the place of the old gardens. And the great sight is the Ponce de Leon hotel & the Alcazar & the Squares & gardens & fountains; & in the evening the
Josh Blake & his [ Cara? Cass?]* & her family have been very attentive; she has a nice house right on the sea wall: just rebuilt after the old fire.* There are quite a number of little attractions, [views & scenes ?]. I saw some stuffed rattle-snakes,*
Our excursion to Silver Springs* was most delightful: think of a [ditch ?] never [beginning ?] at once some fifty feet or more wide & very deep right out of the ground: the water so clear you could see the smallest fish, fifty-feet down,
swimming about. Then we saw an old orange grove with palms seventy feet high & all so shady & cool & [regularly ?] over-grown with wild oranges & grape fruit &c.--
The blacks too are much more flourishing than around Aiken, better dressed with glass in their houses & not those old shuttered cabins.
Orange groves everywhere in the interior on the way to Silver Springs, most of them recently set out. but I shall have a good deal to tell when I get back. The case comes on this week or not at all.* I hope to get off Friday but don't know.
With my very best love
Ever your affectionate father
Notes
Caleb William Loring to Louisa Putnam Loring: See Key to Correspondents. where Louisa's sister, Katharine also is identified.
So. Carolina: As indicated in Jewett's letter of 22 March, she and Fields enjoyed the company of the Caleb and Katharine Loring in Aiken, SC in late March. This letter indicates that Caleb and Katharine have returned to St. Augustine from Aiken at the same time that Jewett and Fields have done so, apparently during the first week in April. This suggests that they did indeed take the coastal cruise they had been thinking about in late March.
The Pride of China trees: It is not clear to which tree Loring refers. "Pride of China" apparently is the common name for several species. That he sees it in St. Augustine and specifies that it has blue blossoms in April makes it unlikely that he refers to trees commonly called Pride of China, such as Chinaberry.
old Spanish town ... large fort & the Old City gate ... old coquina stone ones ... the Ponce de Leon hotel & the Alcazar: For details about and images of these aspects of St. Augustine, see the notes on Jewett's story set in St. Augustine, "Jim's Little Woman."
Josh Blake & his [ Cara? Cass?]: These people have not been identified.
the old fire: Fires were relatively frequent in St. Augustine in the 19th century, and it is not clear, therefore, which fire is the "old" one. Recently in 1887, a fire had devastated much of the center of the town, leaving the cathedral, for example, as a shell.
some stuffed rattle-snakes: It is likely that Loring saw the snakes at the Vedder Museum. "Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions: The Vedder Museum" says of Mr. Vedder (1819-1899): "Dr. John Vedder, his title as 'Doctor' stemming not from a University but the remnant of a short stint practicing as a self-taught dentist, was born in Schenectady, New York, on July 22, 1819. He seems to have been a bit of an adventurer, traveling and working at various times and places as a soldier, blacksmith, machinist, locomotive engineer, inventor, dentist, taxidermist, and, in his final occupation, museum and zoo curator.
"In his travels he had gathered a large collection of natural oddities and curiosities, including many animal specimens he stuffed and mounted himself. He turned them into a traveling display for a time and then, in the 1880's, opened a permanent museum in an old colonial era house on the corner of Bay and Treasury Streets in St. Augustine. A major part of his attraction was also an exhibit of live animals, including collections of snakes, birds, alligators, and some other native and exotic wildlife."
Silver Springs: Wikipedia says "Silver Springs is a U.S. unincorporated community and the site of aquatic springs in Marion County, Florida. The springs are one of the largest artesian spring formations in the world, producing nearly 550 million gallons of crystal-clear water daily. Silver Springs forms the headwaters of the Silver River, the largest tributary on the Ocklawaha River, a part of the St. Johns River system."
The case comes on this week or not at all: Caleb Loring as a trustee under the will of Mary Wadsworth, filed a suit in June 1887 (Loring v. Carnes) that was not heard until November 1888. While Loring may be referring to another case altogether, this is a likely possibility.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Beverly MA Historical Society in the Loring Family Papers (1833-1943), MSS: #002, Series IV. Letters to Katharine Peabody Loring, and Louisa Putnam Loring, Box 1, Folder 15, Letters 1887-1916. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to
Lilian Aldrich
18 April 1888
Dear Lilian
When
you
and
Mr.
T.B.A.
and
Mr.
Pierce*
take
another journey together don't go to Europe but start a little
earlier than this and come down to [deleted word] a
most beautiful hotel in as quaint a Minorcan town* as any in
Minorca or Spain! As for the hotel, it is the most
luxurious and refined and really charming place that I ever
saw -- I sighed when I heard about it in the winter, but when
I saw it for myself I sighed no more! I am looking down
on a moorish courtyard with a fountain
[Page 2]*
if you please and palm trees and roses and balconies with gardens of flowers hanging over their edges, and a tower that might belong to Venice showing over the tiled roof -- You see I ought not to say Venice, but I have never been to Spain and don't know whether such a tower ought to grow there or not -- But you put a mark in at St. Augustine in your guidebook and open it there next time.
You
are
wanting
to
hear
about
dear
A.F.
I
know, and I am glad to say that she is better, for she had
another illness lately which pulled her back a good deal and
made me
[Page 3]
very anxious.* I can see now that she gains every day but she will have to be very careful this summer -- By the morning paper Mrs. J.T.F. and Miss Sarah Jewett the actress are reported! and they are having as good a time together as they can -- Sadie is playing the player, you see and wonders if people who identify her think she is a likely looking star !!!! --*
We
were
so
saddened
yesterday
by
the
news
of
Mr. Arnold's death* which seemed terribly sudden though I knew
when I saw him a summer ago in Stockbridge* that he had angina
pectoris -- and I was
[ Page 4 ]
sure that I never should see him again. Poor Mrs.
Arnold and Nelly! I have an aching heart whenever I
think of their sorrow -- But it will be a great comfort to
have the world acknowledge Mr. Arnold's genius. It is a
thankless task for any man to be ahead of his time and people
[ deleted word ] resent anybodys [suggestion written
over another word] that they might think otherwise than
they do, or that they might behave better, or live their lives
for higher ends -- I grew very fond of Mr. Arnold in those
delightful weeks he gave us in Charles Street. I learned
so much from him, and I can hear his voice now reading the
Scholar Gypsy by the fire in
[ Page 5 ]
the library. I was wondering just now if Miss Harriet Preston* still had the enthusiasm for him that she had years ago and was the first to teach me. I think then almost no one could have written about him as appreciatively as she could. I remember a review of his poems that she wrote once for the Atlantic that I must read again someday or other.
I can only say that his "Literature and Dogma{"} taught me as much or more than any [book altered from bod] I ever read of what one should know of spiritual truth and right living and right mindedness.
I am so eager to see this new paper of his
about America. I don't doubt that there is a great deal
of needed truth in that ^it^, but in the Shelley paper
he gave a sign of illness and weakness in the way he spoke - -
- -
Now I am writing to you ^at last^ after thinking about you both many times, and I have so many things to say that I find it hard to stop.
About our Southern journeyings, I dont dare to begin, but I must take a long summer day and try to tell you some of the charming things that have happened. Our visit on one of the Sea Islands off Beaufort and some of the Aiken experiences.*
A. F. sends much love with mine to you and kindest remembrance of the grandmothers & the boys for I cant stop calling Tal and Charley by [up the left side of page 4] that name yet a while -- Yours affectionately S. O. J.
[Up the left side of page 5]
We have planned our going home so many times that I am afraid to set another date for fear of another delay, but I think you will see us within a fortnight now{.} Of course we have to stop by the way.
[In the left side and top margins of page 1]
The Brownell poem* did not get to us in very good season but we read it with a wish to say how much we cared for it. If St. Augustine were a day nearer Boston it would be perfect.
Notes
Mr. Pierce: Henry Lillie Pierce (August 23, 1825 -- December 17, 1896) became wealthy in the chocolate business and went on to become mayor of Boston and a congressman from Massachusetts. He became a very close friend of the Aldrich family, who often were guests aboard his yacht, the Hermione. Among their cruises together was an 8-week trip among Caribbean islands in early 1896, which included Jewett and Annie Fields.
Minorcan town: St. Augustine numbered a significant population of Minorcan ancestry at the end of the 19th century, but Jewett seems to refer more directly to Henry Flagler's decision to build the Hotel Ponce de Leon in a Spanish style. See Marty & Jim in St. Augustine and The Diverse People of "Jim's Little Woman."
[ page 2]: Jewett has numbered the folded sheets 2 and 3, but I have inserted a number for each page in the sequence.
very anxious: The 1888 southern trip, on which Jewett accompanied Annie Fields was to seek rest and warmth to help Mrs. James T. Fields recover from a serious attack of pneumonia.
likely looking star: According to Richard Cary
in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters, "Sara
Jewett (1847-1899) was the leading lady of Augustin
Daly's Union Square Theatre company. Miss Jewett of South
Berwick recounts drolly that upon several occasions during her
travels she was mistaken for Miss Jewett of New York, then
considered one of the most beautiful women in America. In an
ironic extension of the parallel, illness and enforced
retirement became the lot of both thespian and literary
Jewett. Sara Jewett's last appearance as an actress took place
in the spring of 1883." See her obituary in Boston Evening
Transcript.
J.T.F. is Mrs. James T. (Annie
Adams) Fields.
Mr. Arnold's death: British poet and cultural
critic, Matthew
Arnold (24 December 1822 - 15 April 1888). Arnold
visited America for the last time in 1886. His wife was
Frances, his daughters were Eleanore and Lucy. He is the
author of the poem, "The Scholar Gypsy" (1853) and of numerous
prose works, including Literature and Dogma
(1873). His essay on Shelley appears in Essays in
Criticism, Second Series (1888). His Civilization
in
the
United States appeared in 1888.
Stockbridge: Stockbridge,
MA. In a 1932
Yale
dissertation, Chilson H. Leonard presents chronologies
of Arnold's visits to the United States. Of Arnold's
1886 American trip, Leonard writes: "He
spent most
of
this
visit
in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where
he
botanized
,
fished, swam, and
played
with his infant
granddaughter.
"
Arnold's daughter, Lucy, and her family, friends of Annie
Fields, had a summer home in Stockbridge.
Harriet Preston: Harriet
Waters
Preston (1836-1911) was a Massachusetts author and
translator and a mutual acquaintance of Jewett and Marie
Thérèse de Solms Blanc (1840-1907). Jewett may refer to
Preston's essay, "Matthew
Arnold
as a Poet," Atlantic 53 (May 1884) pp.
640-650.
Aiken experiences: See letters above for some
account of Jewett's stays in Aiken, SC and St. Helena.
This letter, dated 18 April, indicates that
Jewett and Fields traveled to Aiken after their first
stay in St. Augustine and then accepted the offer to return to
St. Augustine by boat with the Lorings. This letter was
written during their second stay at the Ponce de Leon in the
spring of 1888.
Tal and Charley: The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born in 1868.
Brownell poem: It seems likely that one of the Aldriches has shared with Jewett and Fields Thomas Bailey Aldrich's sonnet, "Henry Howard Brownell," (1820-1872), which appeared in Atlantic 31 (May 1873) p. 609, not long after Civil War poet's death.
HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.
THEY never crowned him, never knew his worth,
But
let him go unlaureled to the grave.
Hereafter -- yes! -- are guerdons for the brave,
Roses
for martyrs who wear thorns on earth,
Balms for bruised hearts that languish in the dearth
Of
human love. So let the lilies wave
Above
him,
nameless. Little did he crave
Men's
praises.
Modestly,
with kindly mirth,
Not sad nor bitter, he accepted fate,
Drank
deep
of
life,
knew
books
and
hearts
of
men,
Cities
and
camps, and War's immortal woe;
Yet bore through all (such virtue in him sate
His
spirit is not whiter now than then!)
A
simple,
loyal nature, pure as snow.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University in Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 119 letters to Thomas Bailey and Lillien (Woodman) Aldrich; [188-]-[1902]. Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907. Thomas Bailey Aldrich papers, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (2654-2772). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett consistently spells Mrs. Aldrich's name as "Lilian.
Annie Adams Fields to Anna Loring Dresel?*
April 20th 1888.
St. Augustine, Florida
Dear friend:
The days are slipping away with sorrowful rapidity, when I remember that it means I am not to see you before you sail. But I have been kept back by lack of strength to take the journey northward with safety and my physician here still
prescribes a day or two of delay. Nevertheless I must add that in this beautiful place I am at last rapidly improving. Indeed I have reason to think I may return perfectly well. But meanwhile I think of you [and ?] your going! and comfort myself with the [memory ? ] that change places as we may the same love waits for us and hearts we lean upon are unchanged.
St. Augustine is a new experience indeed. How I wish you could see it in these months of April and May when Florida is true to its lovely name and redolent with flowers of every kind. The Magnolia Grandiflora easily leads in the train.* I have never seen anything so truly queenly, so exquisite as this flower is in this its home. The odor is so delicate too that you hardly observe it in the room, and its pure beauty is something I
have scarcely been able to look upon with dry eyes.
A singular fortune has befallen this little half decayed Spanish town. One of the richest oil kings of this wonderful country of ours has taken a fancy to the place and has built a palace here for a hotel as huge and glorious as the Spanish palaces of old.* I should weary you if I tried to tell you of its [gardens ?] and fountains, its campaniles domes and arcades, of the artists who have exhausted their taste and skill here, of the baths, like the Roman baths of old, -- but sometime I hope you will all come to see it.
Meanwhile, dear friend, you will rejoice with me that our
absence has been softened in this way -- Sarah is quite well and sends her dear love with mine to you all. Come back dear Anna
to yours affectionately, Annie Fields.
Notes
Anna Loring Dresel: This letter's recipient has not been determined with certainty. Friends of Fields who might be addressed as Dear Anna, include Anna Dawes, Anna Loring Dresel, Anna Johnson, Anna Eliot Ticknor, and Anna Clarke (wife of James Freeman Clarke). A later letter of June 18 with a similar salutation -- "My dear friend" -- is believed to be addressed to a member of the Loring-Dresel family, since it is included among the Ellis Gray Loring Family papers at Harvard's Schlesinger Library. This suggests that Fields is addressing Anna Loring Dresel.
Magnolia grandiflora: Wikipedia says "Magnolia grandiflora, commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the southeastern United States, from southern Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas and Oklahoma. Reaching 27.5 m (90 ft) in height, it is a large, striking evergreen tree with large, dark green leaves up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide, and large, white, fragrant flowers up to 30 cm (12 in) in diameter."
richest oil kings: "Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 -- May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway." Fields and Jewett are staying at his newly opened Ponce de León Hotel in St. Augustine.
The manuscript of this letter is held by Milne Special Collections, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham, N.H.: Fields, Annie, Correspondence, 1882-1911, Special Collections MS 58. Transcription and Annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
From "Loose Letters" in the Papers of Annie Adams Fields
by Annie Adams Fields
Mr. Flagler* said it was a disappointment to find people leaving the hotel in April because this month and May are incomparably beautiful in Florida. Winter is all very well, but it is still winter here as every where. There is however a lovely sea breeze the moment the weather becomes warm which makes this coast comfortable{.}
He said the memory of his boyhood in the country with his torn hat and bare feet which he [ warmed ? ] [several deleted words ] on
times when he sat on the door step with his piece of pumpkin pie in his hand, was the remembrance of a part of his life for which he was most grateful{.}
He said in building this hotel he was reminded of the story of a deacon of the congregational church in the country who had lived to old age and was always a model to the community{,} ^who^ was seen by the minister returning from market one day [ several deleted words ], whither he had gone to sell his small produce, as drunk as a lord. The friends pretended not to see each other but the following day the minister knew it was incumbent upon him to call upon the deacon. As he approached the place
using the left side of the page as the top.
The previous page almost certainly is on the other side of this page, also using a side as the top. ]
he saw the deacon was at work in his garden and far from pretending not to see him he rose from among his cabbages and advanced towards the minister. When they came within speaking distance the deacon [ spoke written over a word, possibly said ] at once.
"Now don't say one word, here I'd been serving the Lord stiddy for fifty-five years and I thought I'd take a day off for myself" --- Said Mr. Flagler, {"}so I took a day off and built this hotel!!"
A friend of his told him that he was reminded in seeing what he was doing of his own little son at school. He asked Eddy what they had been doing. O{,} said Eddy{,} each boy was told to bring five cents for the poor and drop it in the box reciting a text at the same time. So each boy in turn said "It is more blessed to give than to receive" and other passages
It is quite likely that Mr. Flagler is not yet fifty years old. He has a
clear cut intelligent face but he is evidently laden with many cares and his wealth has not been an unmixed blessing. Altogether ^it^ was very interesting to see him in view of what he has done and is doing to make this spot of earth beautiful.
Mr. Flagler: Henry Flagler, a partner in Standard Oil, who, at this time, was investing heavily in the transformation of St. Augustine, FL, building hotels and a railroad to make the town accessible to tourists.
This manuscript is held by the Massachusetts Historical Society in Annie Fields papers, 1847-1912, MS. N-1221, "Loose Letters, 1852-1916." This transcription is from a microfilm, available courtesy of the University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence Kansas: Annie Adams Fields Papers 1852-1912. Folio PS 1669.F5 Z462 1986, Reel 3.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
My dear Annie:
1 was so glad to have your letter which followed me about till it found me. I have much news (of my own affairs) to tell you. I have just returned from Boston & the Clifford,* where Karl* & I had to go to pack & send off all our earthly belongings, for our landlady gave up her flat & of course, we had to go too -- I am so sorry to leave that dear peaceful place where we were so happy for 3 years -- I knew not where to turn, it was all so sudden, nor what to do with our things till Oscar & Cedric said
"store them in the loft at the De Normandie house", so I sent them to Portsmouth & there they are & I shall probably take some little place in Ports next winter & [ live corrected ] there & not [ go corrected ] back to Boston at all -- One reason wh makes it easier to do this is that Roland & Mabel are going to live in the city of New Haven -- he has had a splendid position offered him as Micrologist at the State Agricultural Experiment station there -- the salary is some thing fine & they are to go there the first of July. That means no vacation, never any vacation any more while they are there
for all his work comes in the summer & this makes me ache to the marrow of my bones, he needs it so, he dwindles & fades for lack of fresh air & the Sea -- But this is one of my crosses {--} I must bear the pathetic pain of it --
Another piece of news is that Karl's little place here burned down a week ago, with all his beautiful tools, his photographic paraphernalia, every thing, over a thousand dollars worth of things -- that was hard! I had worked & toiled & moiled so many years to get all his things together for him, & was so happy this spring to think that at last he had all he needed & was content -- I felt so safe & at ease about him! But that is not to be, I am so thankful no
worse catastrophe happened -- Fortunately the afternoon had been rainy & the wind that night was blowing from the S.W. away from the buildings, or every thing in the shape of a house would have burned to the ground -- I shudder to think of it.
Dear I wish I could see the great Magnolia flower! Thank you for telling me & for your dear words. I shall miss my weekly evening with you next winter more than any thing-
We are so busy here! Would I had time to tell! I am working in my garden most all day, just now -- You know there is nobody to help me -- if I only get the beds dug & laid out, I do all the planting{,} transplanting, hoeing, weeding, watering, everything
myself & it takes much time & strength -- Do write to me{.} This is only a word to take you & Pinny* my dear love!
Your C.
Notes
Clifford ... Karl: Karl is Thaxter's disabled adult son. During this period of her life, Thaxter and Karl wintered at the Clifford Hotel in Boston. See Rosamond Thaxter, Sandpiper (Randall 1963,1999), p 185.
Later in the letter, Thaxter mentions her brothers, Cedric and Oscar Laighton, and her youngest son, Roland and his wife, Mabel. See Key to Correspondents.
Beginning in the winter following this letter, Thaxter and Karl resided with her bachelor brother, Oscar, at his De Normandie house in Portsmouth.
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893,
MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 5 (230-249) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p561n
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields ( Fragment )
(hasn't a hoard somewhere for me. We haven't received some of the things we bought and there is much wondering. We particularly want some brass works from Enoch Robinson & some curtain stuff from Hovey's* &c -- -- ) Poor Pin* she is all flustered at getting notice from Houghton Mifflin & Co. that the last proofs of the book are sent and they want them right back tomorrow
[ Page 2 ]
[ Manuscript breaks off. No signature. ]
Notes
April 1888: This date is confirmed by Jewett's expectation of the imminent publication of The King of Folly Island (1888).
Parenthesis marks in this letter were penciled by Fields.
Enoch Robinson ... Hovey's: Enoch Robinson & Company manufactured fine home hardware, such as doorknobs, locks, etc. Mr. Robinson also is remembered for building the "Round House" in Somerville, MA.
C. F. Hovey and Company was a dry goods store on Summer Street in Boston, from 1848 until well into the 20th Century.
Jewett and her sister, Mary, had moved into what is now known as the Sarah Orne Jewett House in South Berwick, after the death of their Uncle William Durham Jewett in 1887, and in 1888 were engaged in improving the house.
Pin: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Mère Pochette: "Mère Pochette" was originally published in Harper's Magazine (76:588-597), in March 1888 and collected in The King of Folly Island and Other People (1888), published by Houghton, Mifflin.
Beaufort story: "The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation," set in Beaufort, SC, was the lead piece in Atlantic Monthly (62:145-150) in August 1888.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Annie Fields (Adams) 1834-1915, recipient. 194 letters; 1877-1909 & [n.d.] Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (255). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Tuesday morning
[ April/May 1888 ]*
Dear Fuffatee
(The great town meeting day is dawning fair and soon the citizens will appear! ---- I shall have a busy day doing nothing! but to go to the bank &c and see what I can of life! I do hope that your dear eye is all right again{.} I though of Pond's Extract* [ deleted word, possibly but ] too late to tell you how good it would be.) I had such a delightful morning with they friend* and the dear Cartlands
[ Page 2 ]
[ Page 3 ]
him. You never saw such a perfect delight as they had in the coquina* you sent -- neither had ever seen any before and they did so look at it and wonder over it, and I was so thankful to a thinkful Fuffatee for having sent it -- I told
[ Page 4 ]
them a little pink thing! lets talk about it! (Then I went to see Fanny Stone* and could hardly refuse when she begged me to stay all night. Her father had gone to Washington and they were alone -- the two girls. Fanny seems better I think already and was very dear, and I have promised that late in May we will go and spend a night and have a picnic up the Artichoke river.)
Well, then I came home and found Mother alone as Mary* does not come until this morning{.} After tea I bestowed the ^ring^ [ deleted word ]
[ Page 5 ]
and oh if you had seen the pleasure and delight! I never can tell you what a pleasure it was to me -- and later in the evening she told me all about the wedding, and the coming down here. It was very touching -- she has just come by and wants me to tell you how pleased she is with the ring & thinks it is beautiful ^&c ( -- I send you some letters. There are words for you in Laura's and Mrs. Rumseys* -- I must go now, Fuff dear -- you[ Page 6 ]
will see me back tomorrow but perhaps not until the afternoon five oclock -- as I like that fast train, but I have not come to the point of deciding yet.) Dear dear little Fuff. I love you and think of you a great deal.Notes
April/May 1888: Internal evidence indicates that this letter was composed not too long after Jewett and Fields returned from their first trip to St. Augustine, FL. See notes below.
Parenthesis marks in this manuscript also were penciled by Fields.
Fuffatee: Variation of "Fuff," a nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Pond's Extract: Pond's Extract was a healing patent medicine developed by Theron T. Pond (1800-1852).
thy friend: John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
Joseph Cartland (1810-1898) and Gertrude Cartland (1822-1911) accompanied Whittier on his summer vacations in Maine and New Hampshire for five decades, and Whittier lived in their home at Newburyport, Massachusetts most of his last fifteen winters.
Fields has penciled an X after "friend" and noted at the bottom of the page: "Whittier --".
coquina: Wikipedia says: "Coquina ... is a sedimentary rock that is composed either wholly or almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and mechanically-sorted fragments of the shells of molluscs, trilobites, brachiopods, or other invertebrates."
This is a strong clue to the date of this letter, very likely in the spring after the first trip Jewett and Fields took to St. Augustine, FL -- where coquina is common on the beach and is an important construction material -- in the winter and spring of 1888.
Fanny Stone: Frances Coolidge Stone (1851-1931) of Newburyport, MA, was the daughter of Massachusetts politician Eben Francis Stone (1822-1895), who served in Congress in 1881-1887. Among her closest friends was Alice Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
The short Artichoke River is in Newburyport.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Laura's ... Mrs. Rumsey's: Identifying Laura is problematic, but it seems likely that Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards is the only Laura among their acquaintance whom Jewett would refer to by first name. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Rumsey probably is Susan Fiske Rumsey (1823-1902) of Buffalo, NY. It seems likely that Jewett and Fields met her during their winter 1888 travels, which included time in St. Augustine. FL and Aiken, SC.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Annie Fields (Adams) 1834-1915, recipient. 194 letters; 1877-1909 & [n.d.] Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (255). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Etta*
[ 1888 ? ]
I did not receive your note until today as it did not reach Brooklyn until after I had gone to Boston. You are very kind to ask me to visit you but it would be impossible this spring, even if I had received the note while I was near you, for I have already been away from home over three
three [ repeated ] months in Washington [ DC or &c ?] -- and it is very necessary that I should be at home to look after my writing as well as all things which have been sadly neglected.
It does seem a great while since I saw you but I hope we shall meet before long -- Sadie* and I often spoke of you and I wish you could persuade her to visit you for I think the change would do her ever so much good -- Please remember me to Mrs. Hasbrough* and dont forget that I am your sincerely & affly
Notes
Etta: This letter remains mostly a mystery. Among Jewett's acquaintance was Etta Dunham, the daughter of James Dunham of New York, and the subject of a portrait by John Singer Sargent. That she seems to reside in the New York City area suggests that she is the recipient of this letter, but no corroborating evidence has been found. Likewise, Sadie and Mrs. Hasbrough are as yet unknown. The transcription of "Hasbrough" is doubtful; it could be "Hasbrouck" or "Hasbrouch." Among Jewett's correspondents is Sarah (Sadie) Jane McHenry Howell, a Philadelphia relative. No evidence has get been located to suggest that these people are connected with each other, except perhaps by being known to Jewett.
1888: This date is based upon Jewett indicating that she has been away from home for three months, including time in Washington, DC. The only time she is known to have been away from home for so long in the spring and that included a stay in Washington, was in 1888, when she accompanied the ailing Annie Adams Fields on an extended southern trip. It has not been confirmed that they stopped in Brooklyn on this trip, nor is it known whom they may have visited there.
The New York stop suggests another year when Jewett was away from South Berwick for about 3 months before April, in 1896, when she and Annie Fields joined friends on a grueling Caribbean cruise. However, there is as yet no evidence that Jewett visited in Washington, DC on that trip.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. While working from a microfilm copy, this is uncertain, but the note appears to be written on two sides of a card. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
George Bainton to Sarah Orne Jewett
May 3. 88.
Dear Madam
Your most kind & generous letter has just reached me. Will you please accept my sincerest thanks. It will find a very prominent place among the few cherished souvenirs of the kind I possess. I have no scrap of the handwriting of your [ noble ? ]
Your graceful & very beautiful stories have long been [ known ? ] to me, & have always proved very
[ Page 3 ]
delightful [ reading ? ]. I only regret they are not more widely [ known ? ] in England. I have called the attention of several publishers to their great merit & charm, & believe they would well repay publication.
Trusting you will long live to continue your useful & most interesting work.
I am, with most sincere respect,
George Bainton.*
Miss Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Whittier: John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
Bainton: Bainton has underlined his signature twice.
Jewett's name is underlined with a flourish.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Bainton, George. 2 letters; 1888-1889, bMS Am 1743 (15).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
4 Mo 30 1888
My dear Annie Fields
I don't know where thee are, but I venture to write thee at Charles Street, in the hope that thee and Sarah* have come back from your long Southern outing.* I trust you have brought with you strength to bear the Bear [ of ? ] the East wind which, for some time yet will blow from Labrador ice-bergs. For myself I am thankful that I have lived to see another spring, [ and ? ]
watch the slow, beautiful resurrection of Nature. A little north of us, as seen from our hills, the
I am looking over the proofs of my verses of the new edition* with a strong desire to drown some of them like so many unlikely kittens.
But my publishers say that there is no getting rid of them, that they have more than nine lives. I hope I am correcting a little of the bad grammar, and rhythmical blunders, which have so long annoyed my friends who have graduated at Harvard instead of a country district school.
What a loss English Literature has sustained in the death of Matthew Arnold!* Thee knew him well, he was a friend of thine, and I am sure thee must feel it deeply. Do you go to the Seaside again this summer? I trust I shall see thee
in Boston before the time of thy flitting. I suppose Celia Thaxter* is at the Shoals, by this time.
I have not read much lately. My eyes will not allow me to use them as I once did. But I have greatly enjoyed the Buchholz Family.* The fun of it is genuine but sometimes a little heavy.
With love to our dear Sarah Jewett, and, keeping you both in remembrance, I am most affectionately thy friend
Notes
1888: Penciled at the top of page one: "10." An "x" is penciled near the bottom left of page 1, before the words "I am thankful." Another penciled "x" appears on page 2, before "I am looking over..."; and on page 3 before "What a loss to English Literature ...."
outing: By 30 April 1888, Fields and Jewett had, indeed, returned from their long recuperative trip to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
mother and sisters: Whittier's family home reminds him of all the now deceased women of his immediate family: his mother, Abigail Hussey Whittier (1780-1857) and his sisters, Mary Whittier Caldwell (1806-1861) and Elizabeth Hussey Whittier (1815-1864).
new edition: It seems likely that Whittier is working on his collected works, issued by Houghton Mifflin under various titles in 1888.
Arnold: British poet and critic, Matthew Arnold (1822- 15 April 1888),
Celia Thaxter: See Key to Correspondents.
Buchholz Family: German author, Julius Stinde (1841-1905), wrote a series of books with stories of the Buchholz family, "vivid and humorous studies of Berlin middle-class life," beginning in 1876 and continuing into the 1890s. L. Dora Schmitz's translations, published by Scribner's Sons, began to appear in the U.S. in 1886.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4652. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Walter Romeyn Benjamin
Mr. Benjamin will please find enclosed a cheque for the letters of Sainte-Beuve and Mme. George Sand, advertised in the May no. of The Collector.*
South Berwick Maine
Notes
Collector: French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869). The Sainte-Beuve book she requested may have been: Correspondance 1822-1865[-69] (1877) or Nouvelle Correspondance de C.A. Sainte-Beuve (1888).
French novelist, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, who published as George Sand (1804-1876). English translations of letters of George Sand began to appear in 1886 in multiple volumes.
Richard Cary noted:
Miss Jewett had a marked predilection for volumes of collected letters. Her library included those of Jane Welsh Carlyle, Madame de Sévigné, Voltaire, Dickens, FitzGerald, Lady L. Duff-Gordon, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, William Cowper, Edward Lear, Lady Louisa Stuart, William Thackeray, and three volumes of British Letters edited by Edward T. Mason. In addition, she mentions reading those of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Scott, Lowell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Celia Thaxter, Julie de Lespinasse, Saint Teresa, Queen Victoria, and others.The manuscript of this letter is held by the Colby College Special Collections, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Richard Cary included his transcription in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
[Spring 1888]*
Dearest Fuff,
Your surprising paper* did not come until tonight and I had begun to grow worried about it, but here it is, safe and sound! I have read it as fast as I could, wondering when you did it! The notes are charmingly selected but you take too much for granted on your reader's part. How does he know what books and how you came to have them, and how they look and all those necessary things -- you know perfectly well that in this library* which was gathered most carefully and lovingly, by a book-loving hand near a window which gives on the beautiful bay of Charles River there are certain shelves which hold part of Leigh Hunt's books,* a miscellaneous and most interesting collection which after his death found their way to America.
There Fuff! what a long sentence -- but you forget in writing your paper that your reader hasn't all the general information that would make your particular information interesting. You speak of annotated books and then of Leigh Hunt as a man and artist and annotator and then you get down your Diogenes* -------- and go to work! You must write all your astronomizing proclivities will let you (!) about the bookatees and their being your dear bookatees and make it more essayish in the beginning and not hurry on to your lists. Can't you wait and read it aloud to me and let us talk it over just as we did the Centaur work?* You know it isn't like writing a poem. It has all the material, but it wants to be more smoothly and gracefully set, to be finished, in short, as you finished your beautiful Longfellow paper.* I am not sure that I do not want you to write from your journal and your recollections and a letter or two of L. H's, a half page about your seeing him -- how he looked and was. Then it would come in as pleasantly about your satisfaction when the library came over to America, (interesting to all book-lovers.) Then follows a bit about the books as they stand near the western window and so you naturally take down one and another. All this ought not to give you more than ten or fifteen pages more writing. I do really think the paper needs it, it is only four pages or less of Scribner
print now and you might just as well make it six or seven with its picture. How much I have written! I am a tiresome Pinny* with so many views -- but when you are going to do anything I am so ambitious about it, and insist that it must be your very best. I will send the paper so that you ought to have it Saturday morning, but don't do tired work on it, just hunt for the right journal book (I think 1t would be in the stiff covered one, not in the blue one) and take it to Manchester when we go .
This day seemed very idle to me. I have been good-for-nothing and would not work, but I got John* to take me down to Pine Point* our favorite pine pasture you know, and I felt beter. Tell me how the Linnet* was.
Good night dear dear Fuff -- If you did only dream how I want to see you! What is in bloom in the garden? I wish I could send you a sniff of our big flowering currant bushes.
Notes
1888: While this date is not certain, it seems likely to be close. The letter speaks of Fields's 1886 "Longfellow paper" as being complete, and it seems clear she has completed a first draft of her Leigh Hunt paper, apparently already contracted to Scribners, which appeared in April 1889.
Fuff: Fuff and Pinny Lawson are nicknames Jewett and Fields use with each other. See Key to Correspondents.
paper: It seems clear that Fields is drafting her essay, "A Shelf of Old Books: Leigh Hunt," which appeared in Scribner's in April 1889. When the essay was collected in A Shelf of Old Books (1894), there were several illustrations.
library: This is Fields's own library at 148 Charles Street in Boston, MA.
Leigh Hunt's books: James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was a British critic, essayist, poet.
Diogenes: Diogenes Laërtius (third century C.E.) was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers. According to Judith Roman in Annie Adams Fields, the collection of Hunt's books that she received included his annotated copy of Diogenes Laërtius (p. 126).
Centaur work: Presumably, this refers to Fields's essay, "Guerin's "Centaur," which appeared in Scribner's in August 1892. Georges-Maurice de Guérin (1810-1839) was a French poet. Le Centaure, one of major works, was composed in the 1830s and published after his death.
Longfellow paper: Probably this refers to Fields's essay on American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Glimpses of Longfellow in Social Life," which appeared in Century in April 1886.
John: John Tucker. See Key to Correspondents.
Pine Point: This point on the New Hampshire side of he Piscataqua River forms the southern end of Stiles's (St. Alban's) Cove. Jewett mentions this location in at least two of her works, The Tory Lover (1901) and "River Driftwood" (1881).
Linnet: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
This transcription appears in Nancy Ellen Carlock's 1939 Boston University thesis, S.O.J. A Biography of Sarah Orne Jewett. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[Summer 1888-96]
Dear Mary
We had a great day a most lovely drive down finding an old house on the way that we explored! such a pretty old place on a hill that a dozen people might step right into to spend the summer it was so clean and pleasant and un-trampified. The woodwork was really charming with wainscotting and handsome fireplaces, and there is a little decent furniture still left though somebody told us the people (Nick Littlefield)* "moved out" six years ago. I wish you and Helen* could see it. It is a rambling old house which always looked interesting, but I can't remember going there. I quite long to ask John Clark.* We had a beautiful picnic in the woods. They were taken out and anchored to trees and we sat in the near neighborhood on a slope; there were beautiful big pines all about and we could hear the sea making a great noise and get a beautiful salt wind. It was so hot at Ogunquit* that we just drove down to the Maxwell Tavern* and then turned down the new bridge to the beach. You have a beautiful view from it but you know the beach itself is pretty soft there -- at any rate it was a high tide. Theodore* caught a chicken partridge by hand just as we were coming out of the big woods which was the great event of the day and we saw a black snake in the road the biggest we ever saw any of us and Mr. Tucker* was speechless for sometime afterward with rage and terror at such a terrible sight. Last night just as I had gone to bed there was a cry of fire and a great blaze down the street and Allen Warren's* house and barn burnt up -- the insurance had run out two or three weeks ago. I believe a kerosene lamp blew up. Isn't it too bad! Carrie* went to church this morning but my nose was burnt that I felt it a proper excuse. Carrie and Theodore went off with their supper round the John Grey road* and had great privileges of seeing the Emery's Bridge congregation* on their way to the evenin' meetin'. I requested Rebecca* to dinner and she also took a nap on your sofa and stayed to tea and we had a very nice time. I am hoping for a letter from you in the morning and find myself thinking of you and Helen very often and wondering what you are doing. The church carpet is all eated with moths and the ladies of the parish* are requested tomorrow at three p.m.
Notes
Summer 1888-96: Internal evidence indicates the letter was written during a summer. As Ned Eastman (d. March 1892) is not mentioned, one might suspect the letter was written between his death and that of Caroline Eastman in April 1897. However, if John Clark is correctly identified below, the letter would have to have been composed before his death on 5 February 1889.
Nick Littlefield: Nick Littlefield has not been identified with certainty. Given that Jewett is reporting on a trip to the vicinity of Wells, ME, it is possible she refers to the deceased residents, Nicholas (1768/9-1834) and Hannah Neal Littlefield (1778-1834), who raised a large family in Wells. However, Nicholas himself would have left the family home long before the time Jewett reports here.
Helen: Among the Jewett friends named Helen, it is difficult to determine which Mary Rice Jewett was visiting when this letter was written. Choices would include Helen Choate Bell, Helen Bigelow Merriman, and Helen Choate Pratt Prince. See Key to Correspondents.
John Clark: While this is not certain, this may be John Theodore Clark (1820-1889), the father of Jewett's friend, Cora Lee Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Ogunquit … the Maxwell Tavern: Ogunquit beach, ME is near Wells. The Maxwell Tavern nearby has not yet been identified.
Theodore: Theodore Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Tucker: John Tucker. See Key to Correspondents.
Allen Warren's house and barn burnt up: Though this is not certain, Jewett likely refers to Edward Allen Warren (1855-1932), who married Geneva Rines (1875-1961). He was well-known as a local contractor and road builder.
Carrie: Caroline Jewett Eastman: See Key to Correspondents.
John Grey road: Also known as Gray's Road, this was northeast of South Berwick, beyond the Emery's Bridge Meeting House. See Pirsig, The Placenames of Berwick (2007), pp. 196-7.
the Emery's Bridge congregation: On Emery's Bridge Road, northeast of South Berwick, was the Emery's Bridge Meeting House, now the Emery's Bridge Christian Church. See Pirsig, The Placenames of Berwick (2007), pp. 184-5.
Rebecca: Rebecca very likely is Rebecca Young (1847-1927). In Sarah Orne Jewett: her World and her Work (2002), Paula Blanchard says: "Rebecca Young, who lived a few doors from the Jewetts, was an old classmate of the [Jewett] sisters from the days of Miss Raynes's school and Berwick Academy and an intimate friend of both Mary and Carrie. She was for many years treasurer of the South Berwick Savings Bank" (p. 203). She was riding with Sarah Orne Jewett on 3 September 1902, when a stumbling horse threw both of them from the carriage.
the parish: Though Sarah Orne Jewett became Episcopalian as an adult, when at home, she and her family regularly attended and supported the First Parish Federated Church (Congregational) of South Berwick.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, folder 63, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Dresel
Wednesday
[ Summer 1888-1896 ]
I have been thinking that perhaps I should hear from you; didn't you promise [ short vertical line ] to let me know, dear, when you were coming to Ogunquit? I shall be here and free between now and Tuesday -- and I should so like
S.O.J.
Summer 1888-1896: This date is a fairly arbitrary guess. In another letter of this date to Mary Rice Jewett, Sarah Orne Jewett reports being at Ogunquit, ME on a very hot day. That suggests that these two letters were compose at about the same time. I have placed both in the earliest likely year.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature RTC01, Box 10, Folder 12. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
Dearest Pin:*
I was glad of your little letter. I thought A.F.* was looking "as* well as could be expected after such n long illness, & seemed very cheerful & more like herself than usual. 'Tis a dreadful disease. Dear Mr. Ward* went down with it at Xmas & only just now begins to crawl out of doors a few minutes at a [ time corrected ].
Is coming here for summer to get strength.
The birds! I laughed too at Mary's* comment. But poor dears, how could they know? I love them all the same, tho' they despoiled my garden of its best glory. They were hungry, poor things! They knew [ no corrected ] better.
I will write to A.F. dear Pin. I am your busiest busy
Notes
Pin: A nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett used by Thaxter and Annie Adams Fields. Sandpiper is their nickname for Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
"as: Thaxter has clearly placed an open quotation mark here, but she does not close the quotation.
Mr. Ware: Rosamond Thaxter reads this name as "Mr. Ward," but to me it looks more like Mr. Ware, a name she mentions in other letters.
Mr. Ware's identity is uncertain, but it is likely he is one of two people.
Darwin Franklin Ware (1831-1890) of Shelburne, MA, seems the less likely. Little is known of him. He is a candidate because Thaxter reports in a letter to Annie Adams Fields in Letters of Celia Thaxter, dated 21 April 1891, that Mr. Ware has recently died and that she misses him. Assuming the letter is correctly dated, this makes this Mr. Ware a strong candidate.
Darwin Erastus Ware (1831- 2 April 1897) would seem to be a stronger candidate, though his death date would call into question the dating of the letter to Fields from Letters of Celia Thaxter. He is a strong candidate because he lived in Boston, was well-known to Fields as a local lawyer and politician who served on the board of the Associated Charities of Boston. His wife was Adelaide Frances Dickey (probable life dates: 1844-1920).
If Rosamond Thaxter's transcription is, in fact, correct, then it may be useful to know that Celia Thaxter was acquainted with William Hayes Ward, editor of The Independent, and with Samuel Gray Ward (1817-1907), an American businessman and poet associated with the Transcendentalists. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence MS Am 1743 Box 4, item 211. Thaxter, Celia (Laighton) 1835-1894. 10 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1888-1890 & [n.d.], 1888-1890.
A typescript is held by the Portsmouth Athenaeum MS129, Rosamond Thaxter's Papers for Sandpiper, Folder 12: Correspondence: Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett, 1888-1893.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
5 Mo 22 1888
My dear Friend
I have been hoping to see thee ever since thy return from the [ South ? ],* but the exceptionally hard winter and the still harder Spring have left me with little strength for effort of any kind. I was under the necessity coming here to attend to some matters of business too long neglected. I wonder whether thee are quite recovered from thy winter illness. Mrs James* write me that she heard
of thy being quite ill at Pilatka [ intended Palatka, FL ? ]. When shall thee go to Manchester-by the Sea? Or shall thee wander at thy own free will to the mountains, or other sea-side places? --
I have not made any plans for the summer. Probably I shall not venture far. I am still slowly looking over the sheets of the new Edition of my poems,* wishing that many of them had not been written, or written better. Who is Margaret Deland?* I have just read a book of hers "John Ward Preacher" which seems to me a
book of real power. The characters are well drawn -- that of the old lawyer especially. Calvinism & agnosticism in Ward & his wife are set in sharp contrast. I am writing for Sarah's new book* which I am sure will be her best.
I enclose a few verses which I have written for the unveiling of the statue of Gov. Bartlett* (a native of Amesbury & a signer of the Declaration of Independence), which will take place on the 4th of July* next. It is that thing which is impossible to any
body but Dr Holmes* -- an "occasional" poem.
My ladies Mrs Woodman & Miss Johns are all up in Alaska, surveying Mt Elias, and the glaciers of [ two unrecognized words Lynn river ?], and listening perhaps to Goldsmith's* "wolf's long howl on Oonalaska's Shore."
This is a poor letter but my heart goes with it, my dearly beloved friend!
Ever affectionately thy old friend
South: By 30 April 1888, Fields and Jewett had returned from their long recuperative trip to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Mrs James: One may speculate that Whittier refers to Alice Gibbens James (1849-1922), wife of American philosopher William James (1842-1910). While on their winter 1888 trip, Jewett and Fields spent time with the Loring family. Katherine Loring and Alice James (sister to William and author Henry James) were partners. Mrs. William James, then, would be likely to hear news of their friends Fields and Jewett from the Lorings and sister Alice. See Key to Correspondents.
poems: It seems likely that Whittier is working on his collected works, issued by Houghton Mifflin under various titles in 1888.
Margaret Deland: A penciled "x" appears in the left margin before this question.
American novelist and poet, Margaret Deland (1857-1945). Her novel, John Ward, Preacher, appeared in 1888.
Sarah's new book: Sarah Orne Jewett's 1888 book was The King of Folly Island and Other People.
Bartlett: Dr. Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), American physician and statesman, born in Amesbury, MA, was among the signers of the American Declaration of Independence (1776), which is celebrated on July 4, the American Independence Day. His statue stands in Amesbury, near the corner of Main and Heritage Vale Streets.
Whittier's dedicatory poem was entitled "One of the Signers."
Dr Holmes: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs Woodman & Miss Johnson: The transcription of these names is uncertain, but Mrs. Abby J. Woodman and "the Misses Johnson" (Caroline and Mary) were three of his cousins. See S. T. Pickard, Life & Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier v. 2, p. 614. See also Whittier's will in Friends' Intelligencer 49 (1892), pp. 637-8.
Goldsmith's: Whittier quotes from Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), "Pleasures of Hope," Part 1, line 66.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4851. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Sarah Orne Jewett
My dear friend,
Thy lovely book with the generous dedication reached me last night. I am glad exceedingly to have my name so pleasantly associated with thine. I was longing for it, and especially needed it for I have been suffering from the dampness and east winds of to me the [ hardness ? ] month in the whole year -- and the loveliest! I have been reading today the King of Folly Island*
with renewed admiration of ^its^ exquisite descriptions, admirable characterization, and pathos which brings tears to one's eyes.
I am sure this [ last ? ] book is thy best and that is saying much.
Thanks to thee & Mrs. Fields* for Senator Edmund's fine portrait.*
I am afraid our dear Annie is not yet quite well. I hope she will feel that she can leave her hard work in the Associated Charities for the present.
I am quite uncertain as ^to^ myself this summer. I scarcely feel like looking forward. I go to Oak Knoll as soon as the rain & fog pass off. The dampness of this spring has been very trying to me.
With grateful love thy friend
Notes
the King of Folly Island: Appearing in 1888, "This book of stories is dedicated with grateful affection to John Greenleaf Whittier."
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents. Mrs. Fields was a leader of the Associated Charities of Boston.
Senator Edmunds: George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) was a Republican U.S. Senator from Vermont. In 1852 he married Susan Marsh (1831-1916); they had two daughters, Mary (1854-1936) and Julia (1861-1882). Jewett and Fields enjoyed friendly association with the family during their 1888 stay in Aiken, SC. See the letters of March 1888.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the South Berwick Public Library, South Berwick, ME. Transcription by John Richardson. Annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.