Part II

ABBOT IN THE EARLY DAYS

CHAPTER XXIV

PERSONALITIES IN ABBOT FINANCE

IT IS interesting to trace the gradual steps in the story of the School's finances. At first the principal had much financial responsibility. He took the school at his own risk, levied and received the tuition fees, and had charge of expenditures, including the meager salaries of his associates. It was nearly twenty-five years before the Trustees assumed all this care, and the Treasurer began to play the star part, according to modern practice. The Trustees, however, were exceedingly solicitous for the success of the school, and were constantly backing it with pledges, advances of money, and rearrangements of notes, which were necessary for reasons which will appear a little later.

It may be enlightening to single out some of the important characters in the history of Abbot Academy finances. Real people they were, walking the streets of the same Andover, and planning for the school with the same genuine regard for its welfare as the friends of today.

First, there was Madam Abbot herself, whose kindly face, looking out of the old-time ruffled cap, is familiar in a dim and general way to hundreds of women who have looked at the portrait day after day in chapel. She was certainly not one who would be looked to in these days to finance the establishment of an educational institution --- the plain, unassuming little widow of frugal ways. Happily, however, she did not let the fact that she did not have a great deal of money deter her from planning to make what she had count for something. She had had practical experience in helping boys to get schooling. Her gifts to the school, even the thousand dollars which started the enterprise, were entirely promissory in character, but a large proportion of her property was held in trust for the new project. Let the years commend her foresight and generosity.

In point of time, "Squire" Farrar comes into the story before Madam Abbot. Indeed, if he had not had the education of 169 boys and girls on the brain, and advised her---or so tradition has it---in regard to the disposition of her estate, Abbot Academy might have waited long, or failed to be. Squire Farrar is one of the most picturesque and best-known figures in the educational history of Andover. Fortunately for both Phillips Academy and Abbot Academy, he was what Professor Park [long-time President of Abbot Trustees] once called "an incorrigible arithmetician." He delighted in keeping accounts and was a careful, shrewd business man. He was for nearly forty years treasurer of Phillips Academy, and though not holding that official position at Abbot seems to have felt the burden of financial problems.

These were of necessity serious, for until the promised funds were released in 1850, two years after the death of the donor, the school was always in debt. The scheme to provide for the interest on the borrowed money, by charging rent to the principal for the Academy buildings, may be attributed to the canny Squire, for at about this time he is known to have been devising plans of similar intent for financing the proposed Teachers Seminary of Phillips Academy. It was evidently expected that the tuition fees received by the first principal, Mr. Goddard, would more than suffice to cover his salary. This supposition was not warranted, however, nor did the later proposition that rent should be paid if the receipts exceeded $800 prove productive, at least for a number of years.

Under these conditions there was constant need of resourcefulness to meet the outstanding obligations. As soon as the receipt of Madam Abbot's legacies made it possible to straighten out affairs, Squire Farrar offered to the Board his resignation as trustee in a letter that shows not only his anxious care, but his warm affection for the school. The kindly feeling prompting these expressions shines out of his face in the existing portraits. The influence of his strong personality in shaping the new institution during those first twenty-two years must indeed have been very great. His letter written with the formality characteristic of the time is here given in full.

"Gentlemen, I am happy in being able to announce to you that our Academy is clear of debt. The three mortgages that have rested upon it for nearly twenty years are all cancelled with simple interest upon the whole. Our debts are all honorably paid, and we have our beautiful building and ample grounds free and clear, with enough left in fund, I hope, to keep the building in repair. I desire to bless a kind Providence that has sustained me during so many years of anxious solicitude upon the subject, and favored me with the satisfaction of witnessing so happy a result.

I beg leave, now, Gentlemen, to tender to you the resignation of my seat at your Board that it may be occupied by one younger than myself, and better able to render service to the beloved Academy. That the divine blessing may continue to rest upon our favored school, and that you may be spared to witness its prolonged and increasing prosperity, is the prayer of, Gentlemen, your most sincere friend and servant,

Samuel Farrar."

The president of the Board of Trustees during most of this long period was "Deacon" Mark Newman, previously principal of Phillips Academy for fourteen years. He belongs in this chronicle because of his gift of the land on which the school was to be placed, one acre --- the "ample grounds" mentioned above. He was a predecessor of Mr. Draper in the book and publishing business and also in philanthropic interests. Though in no sense a leader, he seems to have been depended on in all the important councils of the time on "the Hill." Dr. Fuess, the Phillips Academy historian, speaks of him as "a small, handsome man, with fine delicate features, but not at all imposing in appearance," and as "slow of speech and thought, deliberate in manner and often rather shy."

 

Dates of Treasurers' Terms

Amos Blanchard, 1828-47
Amos Abbott, 1847-52
Nathaniel Swift, 1852-76
Warren F. Draper, 1876-1901
George Ripley, 1901-02
Samuel L. Fuller, 1902-06
Burton S. Flagg, 1906-

The first treasurer of the Board was "Deacon" Amos Blanchard, who served for nearly twenty years. In David Hidden's tally-book there occurs in evidence thereof, May, 1829, the item, among others, "I gave Mr. Parker an order on Esqr Blanchard for 25 dollars." Mr. Parker, incidentally, was working for "7/6 pr Day." Mr. Blanchard was one of the solid business men of the town, being one of the three trustees who personally took over the responsibility of the annual payment of the interest for a term of years, the other two of whom were Mr. Newman and Honorable Hobart Clark.

On Mr. Blanchard's death in 1847, Amos Abbott became treasurer, a man shown to be held in esteem by his fellow-citizens, since he served as town clerk, treasurer, moderator of town-meeting, postmaster, member of the school committee, and was sent three times to Congress, besides being for varying periods in both houses of the State legislature. It is not surprising to learn that he was an eloquent speaker, of courteous address, and a general favorite. The honored gentleman had the distinction of being the only man---with the exception of a temporary service of "Colonel" Ripley --- [so called because he was on the governor's staff] to act in turn as clerk, treasurer and president of the Board of Trustees; of having as "merchant" furnished, by the witness of the tally-book under "Materials that I bought for the Academy," such indispensable articles as "10 lbs of 10d Nails," "300 lbs of Nails at 71 Cents a lb," "6 pair of Best hinges at 20 Cents a pair "; and most important of all, of having sent his seven daughters to Abbot Academy.

The appointment of the succeeding treasurer in 1852 marks an epoch in Abbot history. Nathaniel Swift, a newly elected trustee, who now came into the office, was the first treasurer of the school in the modern sense. With whole-hearted energy he immediately put at the service of the Board the keen business sense, gained by long commercial and banking experience, the "correct judgment" for which he was noted, and his fine aesthetic taste, building up the finances, and improving the outward aspects. He was especially interested in beautifying the grounds with graded lawns, and well-placed shrubs and trees, thereby fulfilling the ideals of Mr. Farwell, principal 1842-52, who had found time amid the crowding duties of teacher, "steward and treasurer," as he called himself, to obtain and set out some unusual varieties of trees.

Mr. Swift was unwearying and conscientious in his attention to details, prudent in expenditures, but not niggardly. Miss McKeen tells in her History how his face would light up with pleasure when he could surprise them with some long-desired improvement, or increase in salary. Many pupils paid their tuition bills to the friendly treasurer in the cheery sitting-room of his own house. His account books, like many such itemized records, are full of human interest, more often giving the everyday names of the girls than the dignified ones found in the catalogues. These are the first books on file listing tuition fees and salaries, the previous ones having doubtless been retained by the principals, who had these matters in charge. More diverse expenses begin soon to enter in, because of the expansion of the plant.

For many years the School had had a hard struggle for existence. The total sum donated by Madam Abbot was $10,109.04, always so designated. This caused Professor Park to say at a meeting in 1886: "These four cents have played a conspicuous role in the history of the Academy. They have been a sign of its indigence from its earliest to the present day."

The need of a dormitory, always a handicap, had become imperative. The declination of one candidate for the principalship --- Peter Smith Byers --- had pointed out this lack, and the opening of a high school in Andover emphasized it, for it showed that the Academy must thereafter depend largely on pupils from out of town, who would naturally require adequate boarding accommodations.

In this emergency, the prime mover seems to have been Mr. Jackson, who was at the time of his appointment on the original Board of Trustees, pastor of the West Parish church and twenty-six years of age. His long term of service --- fifty years --- was of inestimable value to the school. His counsel was apparently sought and heeded by trustees and principals alike. From the evidence at hand, it looks as if the trustees most vigorous in action in the earlier years were Mr. Jackson and Squire Farrar, well supplementing each other in attainments, and in the later years, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Swift. Not only were literary and academic interests referred to the scholarly minister, but such practical matters as money raising. In an interesting letter he speaks of being "appointed a committee" at this time, and of "obtaining subscriptions, traversing the streets evenings, after my day's work in the city" [in the State Library]. By his presentation of the object, he was able to secure a large proportion of the needed sum. Peter Smith, president of the Board from 1854 for five years, who had early made a generous pledge contingent on the raising of other funds, came forward later with loans and further gifts, which, with those of his brother (and partner in the Smith and Dove Manufacturing Company) John Smith, made the new dormitory a reality. Much more could be recalled as to these good friends, but it belongs to a story by itself, the story of Smith Hall

Mr. Swift resigned as treasurer in 1876, after a term of nearly twenty-five years, covering the brief administrations of three women principals and part of the term of Miss McKeen. Davis Hall and South Hall had been added to the plant some years after the first dormitory, the grounds had been enlarged and the affairs of the school in general put on a firmer foundation.

Mr. Draper, whose service as treasurer follows next, is well remembered by successive generations of students of his time, and the calm, benevolent face in Miss Patterson's portrait has been making its impress upon the girls as they have passed and repassed it. He was the school's greatest benefactor, his gifts amounting in all to at least $100,000, and yet absolutely modest and unassuming. The frugality which he himself practiced, saving that he might give, can hardly be understood by the young people of the present. In the same way, his economy in the care of school funds was painstakingly calculated to the finest point. When he was asked for something which he could not see his way clear to grant, he would often put his hand in his own pocket. Mr. Draper was wise and just, thorough and persistent. His conservatism was balanced by his absorbing desire for the best things for Abbot.

Large plans looking far into the future were under consideration early in this period. Then the Academy and Smith Hall were moved to give room for growth, Draper Hall was built [in 1890] and the campus took on something of its present appearance. As the years went on, the items in the treasurer's books began to show the trembling hand of age, and before he had quite rounded out twenty-five years of service, Mr. Draper laid down his task, though he still remained on the Board.

At his retirement, the Trustees realized that radical changes were needed in methods and policies, and Colonel Ripley, then president of a Boston bank, who was chairman of the Executive Committee, temporarily took charge of the finances, and the next year put into the hands of Mr. Fuller, an efficient young man not long out of college, the reorganization of the department. This transitional period was most important. In it the great project of the McKeen Memorial was carried on to completion, and the new century was well under way. And so, in 1906, the present financial administration began, and with it broader policies, suited to the modern age.

In this sketch of Abbot financial matters, dealing more with people than with measures, it has seemed hardly right to leave out those who made the beginnings possible. The story after the early fifties, however, includes only those who had to do with the management of affairs. The characterizations are inadequate, but the reader may with sympathetic imagination see between the lines something of the devotion to ideals at the cost of self-sacrifice that has helped to bring Abbot Academy to its high standing among the schools of the country.

Authorities consulted:

History of Abbot Academy, McKeen.
Historical Sketches of Andover, Bailey.
Descendants of George Abbott of Rowley, Mass., Lemuel Abbott.
Old New England School: a History of Phillips Academy, Andover, Fuess.
File of Phillips Bulletin.
File of Abbot Courant.
Obituaries and articles from Andover Townsman.

 

Where They Lived

The houses where these early friends lived at the time of their service are here indicated, with the hope that this may draw them more closely within the Abbot Circle, to the minds of the present generation.

Madam Abbot: house on Main Street, lower corner of Wheeler. Samuel Farrar: built and lived in the house, formerly on Main Street where the Archeology Building stands, now below Peabody House facing Phillips Street.

Amos Blanchard: house which was later the home of Trustee Edward Taylor, and from 1918 the home of the Andover Historical Society, 97 Main Street, and again called the Amos Blanchard House.

Amos Abbott: house on Main Street opposite the entrance to Locke Street, now numbered 106.

Nathaniel Swift: the well-known house on Main Street was moved about to face Chestnut Street, behind the Savings Bank Building.

Mark Newman: house on Central Street once next to the South Church, now divided and changed beyond recognition.

Peter Smith: Smith homestead in West Parish, later demolished.

John Smith: house in Frye Village made into Shawsheen Manor.

 

CHAPTER XXV

A GARLAND OF MEMORIES

A Reward of Merit

I WENT to school first in 1832, and summer terms for four years. We used to go upstairs into a bare sort of an attic room to recite our lessons.

"When Mr. Lamson [the principal] was married, the girls marched down to his house two by two and were given some wedding cake. It was in the middle of the forenoon."

These scraps of information from an old lady's memory illustrate, for one thing, the usual custom of the time for girls to attend school for only part of the year. Even twenty-five years later than this, it was commonly felt that when a girl went away to boarding school for a term or two her education was not only quite complete but had additional frills.

According to supplementary evidence it was during the "long recess" that successive groups of pupils for several days went in procession down School Street, duly marshalled by Mr. Lamson, to be received by the bride, at a house east of the South Church, later moved away. Mr. Lamson was the one who instituted school excursions to points of interest in the vicinity, among them being Nahant, the East India Museum at Salem, and some Lowell factories.

 

Sunday in the Thirties

Martha Ann Brown, 1834, of Salem, at the age of ninety-three told a little story that was written down for the school by a discerning friend. This is of value as marking a transition period in the details of Sabbath observance.

"She remembers playing ball with the two daughters of Professor Stuart of Andover behind the pillars of Abbot Hall. These were Mary Ann and Abby Stuart; Elizabeth, the elder daughter [1829, later Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and mother of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 1858,] had finished at the Academy before she came. On the Sabbath question there were two classes then in Andover. One believed that the Sabbath began at sundown on Saturday, ending at sunset on Sunday, the other observed all of Sunday. One Sunday evening the Stuart girls came for her to play ball behind the pillars, but her mother forbade it, as against the Sabbath."

 

The Train Waited!

Many girls remember the "old railroad", but many may not know that the name indicates the route of the first train into Andover, in 1835. The accompanying incident told by Phebe Chandler, who was a pupil in 1835-36, shows the accommodating ways of railway trains of that day. "Mary was a very sprightly and interesting little body. When the cars first ran from Andover to Wilmington the school went for a ride one day. The principal object was to gather berries for an hour or two. Mary fell into a ditch of mud and water. She was taken to an old farm house near by where they had an old fire place with a crane and hooks. Her stockings were hung on the hooks to dry. The engineer whistled and rung the bell in vain. Her clothing had to be washed and dried before she could return. Then we went seven miles in twelve minutes. It was considered a wonderful feat. In the afternoon Mary drew a picture of herself in the ditch and Mr. Brown [the principal] standing on the bank with arms outstretched to help her."

 

No Transportation Problem!

A daughter writes: "My mother --- Lydia Flint --- attended Abbot Academy [1842-49, entering at eleven]. She often told me when I was a small child of how she used to ride to the Academy horseback, oftentimes bare back too, and one day the horse ran away with her that way."

 

How about the Oysters?

The following incident occurred just a few weeks before the opening of Smith Hall, the first Abbot dormitory. The house where Mrs. Cheever lived was later known as Davis or French Hall, which stood where McKeen Hall is now. The story was told by Sarah Barton (Mrs. Rice).

"October 14, 1854, I took the cars at Boston in company with Dr. Jackson for Andover. How well I remember my first evening at Mrs. Cheever's. Miss Hasseltine gave permission to Lucy, Annie and some others for an oyster supper in honor of the new scholars. But alas! we were brought from our high estate in a trice and all of us sent to our rooms for making too much noise! It seemed dreadful --- I suppose the noise did too."

 

Girls Will Be Girls

Hannah Kittredge, 1849, once regaled an Abbot reporter with this tale:

"That Anne P. was a bright girl, a very bright girl. She had a little music box --- the kind that goes la-la-la-la-la --- and she set it going in school. When Miss Chapman came to look for it she had passed it on to me and I had it in my desk. It was a little bit of a one, not more than two inches wide. I set it going and passed it on to the next one. So Miss Chapman couldn't find it at all.

"One day Mr. Farwell [the principal] said to her, 'Miss P., we can't have this any more. I shall have to expel you or write a note to your father or keep you in at recess the rest of the term. You may choose which it shall be.' She said, 'Write a note to my father'. The next day he shut her up in the schoolroom for something and we threw a stone up at the window and she opened it and let down a string and we fastened something to eat on it for her. When Mr. Farwell came in to let her out she said, 'Mr. Farwell you haven't given me that note to my father yet'. Another day she raised her hand before the whole school and said 'You haven't given me that note to my father yet', and he never did give her any note to her father."

 

Abbotts at Abbot

In the old days when, as the saying goes, every other one in the line-up of Andover citizens was an Abbott, it was the custom to differentiate the girls familiarly by adding in the oriental way the names of the fathers. For instance, there were at one time so many Mary Abbotts, according to the authority of a contemporary, that they were simply called "Mary Pascal" (i.e., daughter of Pascal), "Mary Jim ", "Mary Thompson ", and so on. This practice later caused in one or two cases some confusion in identifying Academy students.

In this connection, an incident told in her old age by Miss "Mary Thompson" Abbott [really Mary Elizabeth] about her school days, with gentle merriment, may here be set down for its local color. Her father, Mr. Thompson Abbott, was a man of importance, being one of the firm of the village grocery store.

"My father didn't have a private horse besides the one at the store, though Mr. Higgins did. So once he got a depot carriage and sent for me. The man came to the door and said, 'I've come for Higgins and Abbott's daughter'."

Another of her stories may be included because it opens the door for a glimpse into the home of the poet Whittier. "My mother", she is remembered to have said, "was a Friend and often went to see the Whittiers. One day Mrs. WThittier began to apologize because she had not changed her dress, when my mother said quickly 'I didn't come to see thy clothes, I came to see thee.' Then Greenleaf laughed and said, 'Now, thee's got it, Mother!'"

 

Election Time, 1860

The following letter is a plain tale of the simpler life of an earlier time yet full of touches that will bring up memories to the school girl of any period. The pleasure in getting her room adorned, the joy at seeing her family come in sight, the special favor of going away for a "week end", the lonesomeness afterward --- are they not written in the universal book of girlhood?

"Andover, Nov. 7, 1860. My dear sister, I have but just time to write a short letter to you before tea as I have to dress before then. I've got on my morning dress. I did not go down to dinner as I had a severe headache and was quite tired. This morning I swept, dusted and arranged things in Miss McKeen's parlor and bedroom, and our room, made two beds, watered the plants, fed the birds, etc., went down in the basement and washed out the bowl and pitcher, went down town and did lots of little things.

"My room is changed somewhat since I wrote you. A carpet is on the floor, a red black, green and white one. A black and red table cover is on the table and a pretty stool is in the room. Father's and Mother's miniatures are hanging up above the table. It is much pleasanter.

"Last Saturday forenoon I was sitting by the window writing a composition, when I looked out the window and saw Father and Mother and Aunt Sarah. I ran downstairs as fast as I could and went out to meet them. I was so glad to see them. They went in Miss McKeen's room. She excused me from Saturday exercises, viz., composition, mental arithmetic and parsing. Our folks stayed till three o'clock, and then I went with them in the carriage to Lowell. We reached there about dark. Sabbath day we went to the Methodist church and Sabbath School. Monday morning we went out shopping, got some slippers for me, needles, worsted, etc. Mother also got me these things for my room. She and Father had their daguerreotypes taken, and put in little frames. After dinner Abner brought me back to school in the buggy.

"The Sewing Society met here yesterday and in the evening the Theological students and young folks came. I don't feel very contented today. I feel lonesome. I do wish you could write oftener.

"We are going to illuminate tonight. The Theological Seminary have purchased 1200 candles to illuminate. Goodbye. Your sister, Helen."

This letter was written on a Wednesday --- then the school holiday --- with "lots of little things" to do. One is almost sorry it couldn't have been tucked in sometime on Thursday, so that the writer might have told more about the illumination.. Was there a parade? Was there excitement in the school over the coming election --- Lincoln versus Douglas? One wonders.

 

Styles For Schools

The same girl writes, on November 9, 1861, the very latest news.

"Last evening there was a party at Professor Stowe's for the junior class of the Seminary, and all the older young ladies of our school were invited. Two teachers and eight girls went and I will describe to you particularly the dress of three and an outline of the rest. Miss McKeen wore a blue silk. It is beautiful, a gored skirt with two flounces of plain blue silk pinked, and the sleeves with two ruffles just like the skirt. And she had a real pretty lace collar and undersleeves and white kid gloves, her hair curled the same as usual and with curls hanging down over the back part.

"Nellie went, and wore my white dress! It was just right for her. I had the satisfaction of hearing it praised a great deal. Only a few knew it was mine. Her hair was braided in two broad braids and looped up, and she had some white flowers and green leaves in it. She had two beautiful gold bracelets on --Georgie's --- her own gold chain around her neck, a few flowers and leaves in her dress instead of a pin. White kid gloves, a fan and pineapple handkerchief completed her toilet. Lucy says she was noticed a good deal there. I should think she would have been, she's so pretty.

"Kitty wore a white tarleton dress and pearls (imitation of) in her hair and some flowers. She looked splendidly. She walks like a princess. Lucy wore a drab and brown silk, with white lace cape trimmed with magenta, and scarlet flowers in her hair. Katie wore a purple and white silk, Sarah a blue berege tucked, Lucy a pink silk, and Miss A. a green poplin with a Zouave waist. They all enjoyed it very much. They got home about 11-1/2 o'clock. I was asleep. Every one says their house is beautiful, so many pictures and pieces of statuary."

 

ACADEMY AND SMITH HALL
IN 1854

SMITH HALL AT THE CLOSE
OF THE CIVIL WAR

A Critic of 1840

One of the treasures in the school archives is a little old green-colored catalogue. On the margins and between the girls' names are various comments written in pencil so faintly as to be scarcely readable. As, one by one, the names came under the eye of the critic, she delivered her judgment with frankness and finality. There was no hesitation, no hedging.

"I cannot love that which looks so much like affectation", she says in one case. In another, "spoiled by indulgence ", and again "self confidence", and " I do not like an everlasting 'my' ".

These are among the most drastic criticisms, and incidentally the most modern in sound.

Many of the comments are concerned with personal appearance, ranging from "rather pretty", "a pretty creature", to "many are lovely but you exceed them all". There is much moralizing in this connection, as for example "less lovely than some, but far more estimable", "winning, gentle manners well supplied the place of beauty", and "the beauty of her person prefigured the greater beauty of her mind".

Some of the pretty girls, however, were quite sharply denounced. "Beauty is vain", "thou art fair to look upon but not worthy of affection", "capricious beauty", and "alas! that falsehood should appear in such a lovely form".

As expressions of early nineteenth century ideals of womanly virtue and of the sentimentality of the time, these fragmentary notes do their part admirably. Complimentary descriptions read "most amiable", "meek and quiet happiness", "superior merit", "moral and intellectual beauty". An affecting comment on one name is this --- "Pensive beauty, I pity thee. The heartless world will wring thy gentle bosom with many a pang." Romantic girlhood speaks in "You are entitled to my love. The mead of willing sympathy thou gave and oh! experience only teaches how sweet it is." One is constantly diverted by imagining such expressions coming from the pencil of a young person of today. Would or could the average girl, indeed, use such a wide vocabulary? Can you think of her as referring casually to the "native grace" of a schoolmate? Wise as she was, the critic met her match occasionally, be it noted. Once she confesses "don't know what to make of her" and again records someone as "a perfect enigma."

"I do not approve of so much reserve" she says of one, anticipating the modern ban on repressions. On the other hand, it is delightful to find that there were at least two girls in the list of over a hundred who seem to have had the happy, care-free attitude associated with present day school life. One was "lively and lovely", the other showed "gay, open-hearted joyousness". Very likely there were many more, but it was quite in keeping with the habit of the time to place emphasis on qualities that are now considered less engaging.

 

Looking Back

Elizabeth Mitchell (Mrs. Strong), 1845, at the age of 92, when she was the oldest known alumna, recalled early days. There is a fascination in taking so long a journey into the past by means of the actual memory of another. Through the mists of the years some few details or impressions push their way. Her childhood memories were naturally not so much of school as of expeditions to Indian Ridge, and of coasting in the fields behind her house, the second above the school, [purchased by the School in 1958] with big sister and sometimes Academy boys.

Imagine the little girl in her sun-bonnet tripping down the hill with her older sister to the school-room for the children "downstairs," probably in the south room, while the north room was used for the more mature pupils. The upper hall is said to have been crowded twice a year with townspeople, Theological Seminary and Phillips Academy students and home friends, to hear the wise young things go through the ordeal of oral examinations. She loved her girl-teacher, one of the older pupils, who may have been taking a "teacher's course," and "learning practically the art of teaching" in the Preparatory Department, at least this had been done two years before. Modern pedagogic theories were already well-known in Andover, the seat of a pioneer teachers' seminary (connected with Phillips Academy).

Abbot had been founded fifteen years. The "spacious and splendid edifice" was an object of pride in the town, with its massive wooden columns, that were twenty-two days in the making, by an old tally book record, being "turned" in Cambridge. The grounds at that time, and indeed for twenty years after, consisted of one acre of ground, carefully fenced in, the gift of one of the trustees.

The principal, Rev. Asa Farwell, had just begun his ten-year term of service, finding a well classified course of study already established. In 1845, the pupils numbered 180, including probably the "preparatory class." "Tuition, including Vocal Music, and charge for all English studies, $5.00 per quarter, or 50 cents per week. For languages there is an extra charge of $2.00 per quarter. For instruction on the Piano (24 lessons) $10.00. Tuition in the Preparatory Department 25 cents a week."

 

Teachers at the Bar

Decided comments on the teachers of a little later period were made long afterward by a little apple-cheeked old lady, Marcella Brown Kelly, 1854, whose acquaintance with the faculty was spread over several years, because when she went out to teach in district schools, ambition kept sending her back to study. Later, in 1856, she went to Oberlin College ---a move that required a good deal of courage in those days. [Agnes F. Smith, 1854, also went to Oberlin, graduating in 1859] Mrs. Kelly said:

"I remember Miss Hasseltine very well. She was a fine teacher, tall and portly, with a fair face and fair hair, very fine looking. I remember just how she looked on the platform. On Monday mornings we had Bible lessons and composition. I used to study all day Sunday after I got home from meeting so as to learn my lesson. We learned the whole book of James by heart. We had to stand up and repeat it, and as soon as a girl made the slightest mistake she had to sit down. Then we studied all the female characters of the Bible. Oh, she was a fine teacher!

"Then I remember Miss Wakefield [Sarah, 1846, "asst" teacher 1845-47]. They all thought she was very stern but I liked her. Miss Mary Sexton [teacher, 1845-49, later Mrs. Asa Farwell] was amazing pleasant, always smiling and smooth. She was easy going, but the girls did not learn their lessons so well for her. She would let it pass, but Miss Wakefield would scold them. I liked Miss Wakefield best. She spoke out and out what she meant."

The name of Miss Nancy Hasseltine, the first woman principal, has seldom failed to bring an appreciative response. One old lady straightened involuntarily as she exclaimed with enthusiasm, "She looked like an empress."

 

Just Plain Lessons!

The foregoing mention of teachers in connection with the work of the girls leads naturally to other reminiscences relating to studies. How plain is the witness even in the briefest of them to the strong influence of the personality of the individual teacher!

From Elizabeth Dickinson, 1840: "I have the pleasantest memories of my teachers, especially of Miss Parker who taught me to love Geometry above my natural food."

From Phebe Chandler, 1836: "If one thing more than another interested me it was the study of Astronomy. I seldom retire without looking for the stars if they are to be seen, and everything connected with the heavens is always interesting. I was terribly afraid of lightning till Mr. Brown gave us a lecture one evening.

"It is strange I can remember so few with whom I studied and recited, talked and walked, and saw every day. But it was not so common to correspond then as now, for every letter cost six and a quarter cts. and out of state ten cts."

 

Wise Choices

In the light of present day discussion about the wisdom of taking advantage of a natural inclination, and about the periods in which some freedom of choice in general subject shall be given to young students, it will be interesting to read a statement, written twenty-five years after her school days, by Elizabeth Emerson, of the class of 1856, later herself a teacher at Abbot.

As the daughter of Professor Emerson, of the Theological Seminary, she had in addition to her own excellent mental ability, a family background of sympathetic interest and intelligent cooperation. This made her one of the exceptional students in whose behalf so many pleas are now put forth. That she appreciated the latitude given her is evident from the enumeration of her debts to the school.

"My first cause for gratitude is that when I became a pupil, the course of study was entirely flexible. It was a school adapted to help to the utmost the well disposed and the judicious. The Botany class of that first term was an unbounded delight. Miss Sexton did not dream that the tall, awkward girl was scarce in her teens, and, although the Principal [Mr. Farwell] had said 'I think that Botany requires more mental discipline than you have,' yet he courteously allowed the pupil to have her own way, and for that, I thank him. I know who at the close of that term could not only recite 'icosandria' and 'polyandria' the most glibly but also could find the hiding places of the greatest variety of flowers, and keep the class supplied with specimens.

"It was not the one with the greatest 'mental discipline' [she could not struggle through the multiplication table and had not heard of the rule of three] but it was the one who had not outgrown the child's enthusiasm for wild flowers.

"To that same system of allowing every one to do that which was right in her own eyes, I am grateful that I was allowed, unchallenged, to review the simple patent demonstrations of Euclid, and to look into the beauties of Algebra before being required to struggle through the abstruse horrors of 'Greenleaf's National.' When the 'mental discipline' was at last gained for that truly advanced study, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, the progress through its every problem was a constant rapture.

"The optional was the best course for me then; it would have been exceedingly disastrous if the fixed course had not been instituted when it was."

The reference here is evidently to the fact that before the end of the long period of her study at Abbot (eight years), a regular course leading to a diploma was established. She was, in fact, a member of the second graduating class.

 

Young Brains at Work

"The jolliest girls among us", the daughters of Professor Stuart and Doctor Woods [of the Theological Seminary] were called by a schoolmate. This evidence as to human, social qualities is good to supplement the frequent references to the intellectual prowess of these gifted young women of Andover Hill. There were nine in these two families besides three Emersons, two Adamses and three in the Barrows family, distributed through the earlier years of the school.

Unusual literary ability makes their recorded impressions real assets, historically considered. Amusingly enough, the reminiscences here quoted from a paper written by Harriet Woods (Mrs. Baker), 1832, describe her difficulties with composition writing. What she needed was a little scope for her originality!

An effectively told incident of the period just before she entered Abbot is also included to show how keen was the working of her young mind.

"During the year which followed [the opening of the school in 1829] I woke up wonderfully and enjoyed my studies exceedingly. To this day I remember some of the illustrations Mr. Goddard used in rhetoric. I had always disliked arithmetic but now I became enamored of mental arithmetic and carried my Colburn's Sequel back and forth from school, trying to puzzle my father and brother over the examples I had conquered. I also studied Geometry and liked it. A little white, leather-covered book like the Geometry called Linnear drawing with a description of the various kinds of architecture, Corinthian, Gothic, Doric, etc., has been of great practical benefit to me in life. The practice in drawing cultivated exactness in sight, so that ever since I have been able to draw patterns without tracing to work embroidery.

"There was one exception to my pleasure in the Academy, and that was my dread of composition day. It hung like a nightmare over me from one week to another. Perhaps had Miss LeRow understood me better, she would have allowed me to write on some familiar topic, but to be expected to produce a theme on some abstract subject which might be read aloud before the school, was an infliction terrible to be borne. I recollect one occasion when I was told to write on 'Charity', which I then thought meant benevolence and on which I was required to write at least two pages of note paper. I sat down to my desk and sharpened my slate pencil for a first draught. I hadn't the shadow of an idea on the subject and after a long time had only advanced one line. 'Charity is a good thing'. I think my brain must have been black and blue with my painful effort. I'm sure my eyes smarted with the effort to keep back my tears. I cannot recollect the manner in which I at length became released from these didactic subjects and received permission to select my own."

A little later, at 16, under Mr. Lamson she was, as she recalled, "a kind of under teacher in Geometry" and "was often called upon in Natural Philosophy to perform experiments before the class".

Now follows a tale not directly about Abbot but one that shows more of Harriet's girlish characteristics. Visualize the big high-ceiled front room of the old colonial house (now numbered 193 Main Street), and be amazed not only at her audacity but at her versatility and ingenuity at the age of 12 in correcting her mistake. She may have used these traits later in her volunteer work in a hospital and orphanage. She also wrote many stories suitable for Sunday School libraries.

"Father had purchased a new carpet for the study, a nice ingrain, though of rather large figure. The room was seventeen feet square. I remember going home from school one day and finding all the furniture moved out, the old carpet gone, and the floor just dry after having been washed. I am ashamed to say that I, a young girl only a dozen years old, resolved at once that I would pull the great roll of new carpet in from the hall, cut and commence to make it before any one knew what I was about. I knew where father kept a large pair of sharp shears and I lost no time in carrying out my purpose.

"Just as I was laying down the last breadth some one tried to open the door. It was Daniel, to whom as a loving brother I confided my plan. I was a little mortified when he said gravely, 'I don't see how you dared to do it without leave, but I hope it will all come out right.'

"Father's voice in the hall interrupted our conversation. He came in, stood still in amazement, his eyes fixed on the carpet, and mine on his face. For one moment there was an expression of great displeasure, but catching a glimpse of my anxious face he asked quickly, 'Did your mother know of this?' 'No, Sir.' 'I'm very sorry you touched it. Don't you see you have cut it all wrong? These large figures are made to alternate and look very awkward running across the room in straight lines. The man where I bought the carpet told me that it must be cut with care in order that the piece, which was all he had of this kind, would cover the floor. Now, besides the awkwardness of the figures which cannot be made to match, I shall have to buy some other pattern to fill up the sides from the hearth.'

"'No Sir, I allowed for that', but I could say no more. With a burst of tears I rushed from the room and flew to my chamber where Daniel soon found me, and tried but in vain to comfort me.

"All at once with a sudden thought I ran down to the study. Fortunately no one was there. I recollected that when I cut off the breadths I saw, that by turning every other one, end for end, it would be right. Quickly as possible I pulled away every alternate breadth. The effect was magical. The great figures went diagonally from one corner of the room to the other. It was exactly right and when bound and stretched would just cover the length of the room. Then I laid down the short piece, saw where it could be cut in two, and made to match at the ends of the hearth. I caught my breath and the shears at the same time and soon had all laid in exact order on the floor.

"Then I walked with rather a triumphant air, I confess, to the sitting room and said, 'Father, mother, will you please come in here a minute'. I ushered them into the study, where I pointed to the carpet without a word of explanation.

"'Why! Why!' ejaculated father. 'I don't understand it. What have you done, my child?'

"With smiles and tears I explained how the mistake had occurred. I had forgotten to alternate the breadths so as to make the match.

"'Well! Well! 'he said patting me on the head, 'but I want you to promise me you will ask your mother before you undertake any such business'."

 

CHAPTER XXVI

WOMEN PIONEERS

HIDDEN away in the Alumnae Office are various and sundry bits of information, accumulated through the years, about Abbot girls of early times who did not follow the beaten paths. Given unusual ability or originality and initiative, some individuals receive from favoring circumstances the impetus needed to blaze new trails. The records are tantalizingly meagre and must be read with the imagination alert to catch what is lurking between the lines.

 

A Wood Engraver

An early pioneer in the art realm was Hannah Dole, 1835, of Georgetown, afterwards Mrs. Sylvanus Merrill. Before coming to Abbot she had studied at Bradford where she did such excellent work that the principal is said to have "placed her name in the Boston Recorder as a person highly competent to teach." It was probably in the interim of teaching that she took a final year of study at Abbot. At Bradford she came to know Ednah Littlehale, a fellow pupil, whose acquaintance proved an important influence in her later life. Some fifteen years later, or about 1851, Miss Littlehale, who had become the first secretary of the short-lived but influential Boston School of Design for Women, remembered Miss Dole's artistic ability and persuaded her to enroll as a pupil there. Miss Dole's work was so good that Miss Littlehale took examples to two well-known engravers, John Andrew and Mr. Bricher.

"One morning," so the story goes, "as she was sitting at her work a gentleman strolled into the room, came and stood at her side and noticed her work a few moments, then introduced himself and showed her some specimens of her own work, praising it and asking her to do some most difficult work for him which must be finished in a given time. She refused because having studied so short a time she did not feel competent. However, he quietly told her that he considered her the most competent person to do it he could find. She did it satisfactorily and worked for him several years." The artist mentioned was one of the two referred to above. It is known that she did work for them both.

She was then asked to do some wood engraving for Webster's Dictionary. From the evidence in hand, it seems certain that these designs --- said to be forty-four in number --- appeared in the first pictorial supplement of the Dictionary in 1859. The edition bears this note. "To the engraver, John Andrew, Esquire of Boston, and the electrotypers, Thomas B. Smith and Son of New York, is this new feature indebted for its superior workmanship and beauty." Miss Dole made also a large number of engravings for the Youth's Companion and for other publications. She gave instruction in engraving as well as in drawing and painting, and at least two of her pupils became engravers of note.

 

Advanced Ideas in Normal Training

There was another interesting girl at Abbot in that same year of 1835, Susan Hall by name, afterwards Mrs. Austin. Through her father, Samuel R. Hall (who was at that time principal of the "Teachers' Seminary", Phillips Academy) she came to have the opportunity of participating in a forward movement of great interest in the history of education in this country. Mr. Hall was a decided "progressive." He had been the first man in the United States, so far as is known, to organize a school for teaching teachers, and published the first course of lectures on the subject. Because of his position in Andover, he probably exerted an important influence on the early trend of instruction at Abbot.

Susan, brought up in such an atmosphere, naturally became a teacher. She taught in one, perhaps more than one, of the schools in which he had put his theories into practice. Another way in which she contributed to the advancement of the newer ideas was in helping her father to compile his textbooks. One of these was the "Geography and History of Vermont" which may very likely have been written for his Vermont students. An earlier "Geography for Children" was based on the innovation of beginning with the neighborhood of the pupil, dealing with the town first, then with the country and last with the world.

 

Setting Standards

Almost immediately following these two names in the lists is that of Rebecca Tyler Bacon, 1837. Of scholarly antecedents, being the daughter of Dr. Leonard Bacon of New Haven, and of fine mentality, she was, in her study at Abbot, unconsciously preparing herself to foster the beginnings and growth of a great and noble educational enterprise known the world over---Hampton Institute. Miss Bacon had already been a volunteer teacher of the "freedmen" when she was selected by General Armstrong to serve as his first assistant principal.

For two years in the formative period of the school, beginning in 1869, the year after the founding, Miss Bacon was evidently given large responsibility in shaping policies. In Dr. Peabody's story of Hampton, called "Education for Life", there is an appreciative description of Miss Bacon and her work written by her colleague, Miss Woolsey. "General Armstrong is very busy with outside matters, and goes to the North for various purposes, among others to raise money for the school. Miss Bacon has entire charge. She has newly created the whole place, submitting her plans to General Armstrong after they are matured. Her processes of thinking are very deliberate, but she thinks clearly and acts decisively when she reaches her conclusion. She is thoroughly capable and has a great deal to test her capacity. The whole routine of the school --- the course of instruction and division into classes, the direction of the Butler and Lincoln Schools, which are the practice schools for normal scholars, the Sunday-schools and the weekly religious instruction --- all this has been her working sphere, and it is well done."

 

A Best Seller!

Forty thousand copies in the first eight weeks after publication in 1854, is the record of "The Lamplighter", an unusual sign of popularity for those days. The story is mild enough from a modern point of view, but the characterization though not at all subtle is well done. The book went through several editions and the sales reached a total of 120,000 copies. It has been reprinted in late years. Miss Maria Cummins, the author, was at Abbot for a short time, about 1845, and less than ten years later achieved this literary success. Several other novels followed, including "Mabel Vaughan", considered by the critics superior in arrangement and execution to her first work.

 

Woman's Club Organizer

One of the girls from Andover Hill who afterwards made a name for herself was Charlotte Emerson, youngest of three Abbot Academy daughters of Professor Emerson, of the Theological Seminary. Charlotte was a graduate of the class of 1857, the third class to complete a prescribed course. She was especially talented in music and modern languages, studying both in Europe for two years. On her return she taught languages at Rockford Seminary, and organized a conservatory of music. In 1880 she married Rev. William B. Brown. It was in connection with the beginnings of the woman's club movement that Mrs. Brown became nationally known. She was said to be one of the strongest characters among the promoters and, as such, was elected the first president of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs.

 

A Boston "Salon"

The story of Mary Fiske, 1840, afterwards Mrs. Sargent, reads as if it came from the pages of a book on English literary society in earlier days. Mrs. Sargent seems to have opened her home in Boston to the gifted people of her period as a regular meeting place for conversation and discussion. An account, by Sylyester Baxter, of this most interesting group, which appeared a few years ago in a Boston paper, is here reproduced in condensed form.

"Mrs. John Turner Sargent, was the founder of the famous Radical Club, which met as a rule at her home, 13 Chestnut Street. These gatherings, by reason of the distinguished company, were affairs of national interest. The meetings were probably the nearest approach to a 'salon' ever known in this country. The Fortnightly Club and the Thursday Club were socially exclusive affairs, but the Radical Club was very informally constituted. It was hardly radical in the extremist sense; its purpose was more to go to the root of things; in the group were represented all shades of liberal opinion.

"Frequent attendants were Longfellow, Whittier, John Fiske, Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, David A. Wasson, Wendell Phillips, Julia Ward Howe and Ednah Littlehale Cheney. Once I saw there the placid Quakeress features of Lucretia Mott. I remember Charles Sumner for his gray business suit. On rare occasions Emerson was in attendance.

"The subjects for discussion ran all the way from cabbages to kings and on one occasion even in the presence of royalty. For when Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, came to the States to visit the Centennial he attended the Radical Club as a guest of Wendell Phillips. The Emperor was something of a radical himself --- at least a republican at heart --- for it was on this occasion that he told Wendell Phillips that it was his aim to make Brazil fit to be a republic.

"In the discussions of the papers read, wide divergencies of opinion developed. David A. Wasson, one of the soundest philosophical and political thinkers, was a Hamiltonian; his old and intimate friend, Col. Higginson, was an equally ardent Jeffersonian. Once, when Wasson was to read a paper on Hamilton at the club, he urged a like-minded friend to be sure to attend the meeting and help him out against Higginson."

 

A Professional Woman

The name of Mary H. Graves, 1858, is not now known. She was, however, a woman of superior qualities of mind. It was said of her that she "aspired to the ministry". Having studied theology partly under a woman, Rev. Olympia Brown, she was ordained in 1871, and held several pastorates in Unitarian churches in New England and the west. Though she never really left the ministry, the state of her health led her to turn to literary and genealogical work. Because of her skill in these lines she was asked to aid Julia Ward Howe in editing a large volume of biographical sketches called "Representative Women of New England". The publisher's preface paid special tribute to her part in this undertaking. "Our thanks are also due in high measure to Miss Mary H. Graves for her thorough and painstaking work in connection with the editorial department and the verification of the genealogies herein contained."

 

A Brilliant Linguist

Elizabeth Colton (class of 1868) was undoubtedly the most learned of all the women on the school lists. The atmosphere of her home was probably conducive to studiousness, for her father was a minister and her mother, Zeruiah Elizabeth Gould, 1837, brought up in Andover, received the best education available at the time, having attended Abbot Academy for a number of years. Miss Colton at first studied music abroad. She had a fine soprano voice and planned a career as a concert singer, but was dissuaded from this by her family and went to teaching music at Miss Porter's School. After some years, however, she followed what must have been a natural urge for linguistic study. Being already proficient in so-called modern languages, she specialized at Radcliffe, Yale and Berlin, in Oriental tongues. To gain an intimate knowledge of Persian and Arabic she went to India. At the time of her marriage in 1912, to Dr. David Spooner, also an eminent linguist, she had studied more than forty languages and dialects. When she died, in 1927, fifteen years later, she had added, according to accounts, seventeen more to that number. She was made a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, when only two other American women were enrolled, and of several other learned societies.

 

CHAPTER XXVII

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
A NOTABLE PIONEER

IN the summer of 1852, when Abbot Academy had finished, in Mr. Farwell's administration, the first epoch of its history, and was coming face to face with the staggering proposition of housing its students, there came to Andover Hill a woman of abounding enthusiasm who was to be preeminent later in bringing the project to a triumphant consummation. This was Harriet Beecher Stowe, already becoming famous not only in this country but abroad.

Elizabeth Emerson, 1856, speaks thus from firsthand knowledge: "That was in the zenith of Mrs. Stowe's fame. Uncle Tom's Cabin was in its last chapters as a serial. Theologue and shoe-maker were alike absorbed in the reading and in the fervor of discussion. Your housemaid lingered at her service to catch a paragraph, behind the door; and you might daub unheeded at your easel, for your teacher, with flushed cheeks, was reading the latest installment of the story from the National Era. What a flutter there was in the quiet village when the great stone house [which had been built as a workshop to give employment to "indigent theological students" and later made into a gymnasium] was fitted up and furnished for the authoress whose words were rocking the nation.

Mr. Stowe, whose interesting and unusual personality has been quite overshadowed by the fame of his wife, had been called from Bowdoin College to a professorship in Andover Theological Seminary and was offered by the Trustees the old stone house for a home. All that summer the carpenters, supervised by Mrs. Stowe, were busy transforming the bleak interior into convenient living quarters. Then with much ingenious planning and hard work she made the place ready for her family, boarding meantime at the "Samaritan House", which had been built for the care of sick students. Elizabeth Emerson says further that after Mrs. Stowe had been to tea at her house and commented on her mother's cushioned "barrel-chair" there appeared in the Stowe home, "among the luxurious furnishings", a large and superior one of the same type. A few years later, a girl wrote home from the Academy, "Every one says their house is beautiful, so many pictures and statuary". Her friend, Mrs. Fields, mentions "the cozy aspect of the house in winter, the windows full of flowering plants, and the general air of comfort pervading it." Mrs. Stowe usually referred to it in her letters as "the old stone cabin", sometimes as "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

SMITH HALL PARLORS ABOUT 1876

"ACADEMY HALL" ABOUT 1876

The old house surely had a character all its own and became a center for many good times, as Susan Jackson, who was a young teacher at Abbot during most of Mrs. Stowe's stay, testifies in one of her famous reminiscent papers. She says "Mrs. Stowe was a benefactor to the young folks on the hill. Never before, nor since, has it experienced so much social activity as she promoted. To be sure, an occasional caller might be dismayed by her going off into a 'brown study' or even walking out of the room forgetful of one's presence, but she opened her house often for parties, concerts and merry-makings, till 'the trustees' looked grave and expressed doubts of the influence upon the Seminary, of so much gaiety." She was fond of tableaux and charades, so it is said, and once prepared a Christmas tree with humorous presents for a Faculty party. It was on the occasion of a "levee" at Mrs. Stowe's house, to which some of the older girls at Abbot were invited, that Miss McKeen wore the beautiful blue silk dress, with its two pinked flounces, and ruffled sleeves, as told earlier. Moreover, they did not get home "till 11-1/2 o'clock"!

It should be said here that in the course of an extensive development at Phillips Academy, in 1926, the "Cabin" was moved to Bartlet Street, facing the end of Wheeler Street, and the Samaritan House to School Street, facing the other end of Wheeler Street.

It is delightful to come upon references to Andover in Mrs. Stowe's letters in the charming biography edited by Mrs. Annie Fields [wife of the famous publisher, James T. Fields]. She writes soon after her arrival, "What a beautiful place it is! There is everything here that there is at Brunswick except the sea ---a great exception. Yesterday I was out all the forenoon sketching elms. There is no end to the beauty of these trees. I shall fill my book with them before I get through. We had a levee at Professor Park's last week,----quite a brilliant affair. To-day there is to be a fishing party to go to Salem beach and have a chowder. It seems almost too good to be true that we are going to have such a house in such a beautiful place, and to live here among all these agreeable people, where everybody seems to love you so much and to think so much of you."

She speaks also of riding on horseback with a party down to Pomp's Pond and at another time of climbing Prospect Hill in the evening, and of their singing a hymn up there that "went finely." Her remark to a visitor that she "often rose in the morning at half past four and went out to enjoy the birds and the dawn" is interesting to associate with her beautiful hymn, written in 1855.

"Still, still with Thee when purple morning breaketh
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee."

Not long after she came to Andover, Mrs. Stowe wrote in reply to a letter of inquiry from a London reader of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "So you want to know something about what sort of a woman I am! Well, if this is any object, you shall have statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am a little bit of a woman,---somewhat more than forty, about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in my best days, and looking like a used-up article now.

"I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a man rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and alas! rich in nothing else. But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of another sort. I had two little curly-headed twin daughters to begin with, and my stock in this line has gradually increased, till I have been the mother of seven children." A little earlier she had written, "I like to grow old and have six children and cares endless."

The opinion of others about her looks was different from her own! Mrs. Fields writes: "I remember once accompanying Mrs. Stowe to a reception at a well-known house in Boston where before the evening was over the hostess drew me aside saying: 'Why did you never tell me that Mrs. Stowe was beautiful?' and indeed when I observed her in the full ardor of conversation, with her heightened color, her eyes shining and awake but filled with great softness, her abundant curling hair rippling naturally about her head and falling a little at the sides, I quite agreed with my hostess."

In another connection Mrs. Fields speaks of her "far-away dreaming eyes and her way of becoming occupied in what interested her until she forgot everything else for the time", and says that some photographs showing her "plain beyond words" were taken at such a moment, when her spirit was elsewhere! The portrait by Richmond [which was done in crayon in 1852 in England] "resembles her ", Mrs. Fields writes, "much more nearly than those who have only known her photographs are willing to believe", and "has preserved this sweet living expression of her countenance."

After this praise it is amusing to turn to what the neighbors thought of the likeness, as preserved for years in the capacious memory of Susan Jackson. She writes: "That portrait of Mrs. Stowe so much copied by biographers was first presented to our inspection at a meeting. The number of ladies present was large and we moved from room to room looking at her new pictures and other objects of interest recently acquired. I saw this picture of a lady, but did not read the inscription. Passing on to another room some one asked, 'Have you seen the new portrait of Mrs. Stowe?' 'No, where is it?' I was taken back to the very picture at which I had looked, not dreaming it a representation of anyone I knew."

An Andover alumna has contributed a bit of homely gossip about Mrs. Stowe's love of the fields and her carefree ways. "It came long ago from a seamstress who would make her a beautiful dress, muslin or some thin material, and then she would go walking off down by the pond [Rabbit] in marshy places and get it all wet and drabbled. She would be dreaming there, I suppose, and not notice."

Here is a contemporary reaction: "The Phelps girls were kept busy at her wardrobe making 'black satin dresses that would stand alone'! How we children watched the papers, feeling personally 'taken down' when she was reported as 'clad in simple black satin'!"

During that first year in Andover, 1852-53, Mrs. Stowe must still have been living under the spell of the excitement created in the country by the great anti-slavery story. She was busily engaged in preparing the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin ", containing all the facts and documents used as sources, and she is said to have corrected the proof of the novel here. The book had been written out of an intense earnestness aroused in childhood, as is shown by the fact that her father's sermon on the slave trade made her sob aloud in church, and augmented by experiences in Cincinnati which brought her into close touch with the Negro situation. One of her children remembered hearing a letter, received after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which contained this sentence, "Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something to make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing Slavery is." Whereupon the mother got up from her chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and exclaimed fervently, as if making a vow, "I will write something. I will if I live."

When later she wrote, it was as if possessed of a spirit. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, feared at first lest she should be made vain by praise. "Dear soul, he need not be troubled", said she to a friend, who later reproduced the conversation for her biographer, "he doesn't know that I did not write that book". "What! you did not write 'Uncle Tom'?" "No, I only put down what I saw." "But you have never been in the South, have you?" "No, but it all came before me in visions, one after another, and I put them down in words." "Still you must have arranged the events." "No, your Annie reproached me for letting Eva die. Why! I could not help it. I felt as badly as any one could! It was like a death in my own family, and it affected me so deeply that I could not write a word for two weeks after her death." "And did you know that Uncle Tom would die?" "Oh yes, I knew that he must die from the first, but I did not know how. When I got to that part of the story, I saw no more for some time." Her temerity in handling the whole subject of slavery so frankly is understood only when one realizes her tremendous concentration on the evil to be done away with. She herself was a mere instrument.

In the spring of 1853, the Andover neighborhood must surely have been thrilled when the word flashed from one to another that Mrs. Stowe had been invited to visit Great Britain in the interests of the antislavery societies. And the letters that came back! One hopes they were passed about among the near friends. They told of glory and honor never before or since bestowed on an Andover citizen. Yet there is still the same modest disclaiming of merit. "When we go in," she writes from Scotland, "the cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strike one with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks so heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's voice to America, a recognition of the brotherhood of the countries."

Again after the remarkable reception given by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, attended by many celebrities, she wrote her brother, "This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it, is a most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as its arrangements have been to me, I am far from appropriating it to myself individually as a personal honor. I rather regard it as the most public expression possible of the feelings of the women of England on one of the most important questions of our day, that of individual liberty considered in its religious bearings."

After this exciting and exhausting season of appointments and travels, Mrs. Stowe came home in the fall to Andover and settled down to work vigorously for the great cause. It was from Andover that she distributed the money contributed so generously in England, some of it for freeing and helping slaves, some for lectures and publications. She arranged for public meetings and often herself made addresses. Her correspondence must have been almost overwhelming from this time. Letters came from Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Harriet Martineau and other equally celebrated people. She was also writing a journal of her recent experiences, which was afterwards published under the name of "Sunny Memories." In these busy days time was somehow found for the care of the house and the family! Would that some one of her neighbors could be here to retell some of the stories of amusing occurrences in the Stowe household when the mother was absorbed in some of her high-minded endeavors!

Harriet Beecher and Eliza, the twins, class of 1855, and the lively Georgiana, called Georgie, 1862, were sent to Abbot Academy. The twins were said to look so much alike that if the red and blue ribbons which they wore were exchanged, confusion ensued. This is possible, though it seems unlikely that it could have been true of them at the advanced age of seventeen, which they had now reached. Charlotte Swift had told of going into the Abbot schoolroom one morning and finding Georgie Stowe near the top of the tall stove pipe, looking impishly down at her.

By the generosity of Andover citizens the much needed dormitory at the Academy had at last become a reality, but the matter of furnishing the great building was in no way provided for. The burden of responsibility seems to have been taken up by the women, perhaps on the initiative of the wife of the devoted trustee, Rev. Samuel Jackson, then living in the house on Main Street, on the lower corner of Wheeler Street, formerly occupied by Madam Abbot. She went to a fount of resourcefulness when she took the serious question to her neighbor, Mrs. Stowe. That preoccupied person, with all the projects in the world on her hands or in prospect in her active mind, might conceivably have gently waved aside another difficulty. Instead, this is what happened, according to the account in Miss McKeen's History. "Mrs. Stowe threw all that glowing enthusiasm of which she is capable into a solution of the problem. 'We must have a festival,' she said. Her neighbor demurred. But Mrs. Stowe's zeal, once kindled, was not to be quenched by practical difficulties. Other interviews followed. The thought began to expand, and to take shape in definite plans of procedure. Other prominent women of Andover were consulted. A meeting for ladies was called in the old schoolroom, at which Mrs. Stowe made a telling speech. It was unanimously voted to make preparations for a festival to be held at that place, the proceeds to be devoted to furnishing the new boardinghouse. Great was the interest excited, and the various committees entered with heartiness into the work."

The "festival" was held on September 29, 1854, with food and various articles for sale, and an admission charge, considered large at that time, of fifty cents. The fact that Mrs. Stowe was to "preside", as announced on the placards, one of which is still preserved, doubtless gave a certain prestige to the event, and brought additional visitors. Whatever else were the duties of presiding, she poured coffee, wearing the "superb" gold bracelet, presented to her, not by Queen Victoria, as has been incorrectly handed down in Abbot tradition, but by the Duchess of Sutherland, at that memorable gathering held in her honor the summer before at Stafford House. The bracelet was made in the form of a slave's shackle and bore the inscription "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken."

"The avails of the festival", says the record, "completed the sum of two thousand dollars which was considered sufficient for furnishing the Hall." In such wise did the subject of this sketch come to the rescue of the school in a time of distress. All honor to her kind heart and alert brain!

In a letter in the archives written about this time, the associate principal, Miss Blair, says that Mrs. Stowe gave the girls delightfully vivid and witty descriptions of her European experiences, and that her professor husband talked on Bible history. These friendly contributions were of great value to a school with no funds for lectures.

During the years of her stay in Andover, Mrs. Stowe did some of her most important literary work. "Dred ", another novel about slave conditions, is said by one critic to be rich in background material and stronger as a sociological study than as a story. The "Minister's Wooing" was published in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, and the "Pearl of Orr's Island ", called by the poet Whittier, "the most charming New England idyl ever written", came out in the Independent. Later she gave readings from her books, and once after an evening in a country place, made this interesting comment. "My audiences, considering the horse disease and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We get into regular gales." That delicious "we" not only shows her quick reaction to a responsive audience but is a good index to her attitude toward her own creations.

Mrs. Stowe made two more visits to Europe, leaving the twins for a year at school in Paris. And then came war time! It was in the fall of 1862 that she was asked to go to Washington to be present at a great thanksgiving dinner for fugitive slaves. It was on this visit that she saw President Lincoln, who is said to have seized her hand, saying, "Is this the little woman who made the great war?" and to have drawn her apart for a quiet, uninterrupted talk.

The Stowes were interested in Bradford Academy as well as in Abbot, for Professor Stowe had been a student there in the early years. Did Mrs. Stowe, with her Beecher enthusiasm for girls' education make an opportunity to compare the courses of study and methods in the two schools? It is not likely. Yet the very fact that she might have done so enlivens the dim history. Imagine what Mrs. Stowe, as sister of Catherine Beecher, and one-time assistant in carrying out her advanced ideas, might have contributed of value to a "round table discussion" undertaken by the two principals, Miss Hasseltine and Miss Rebecca Gilman, Abbot 1840, principal of Bradford. How interesting it would be to know how each of these evaluated the training she had received at her own Alma Mater and followed or swerved from it in the school she had adopted.

In 1864, Professor Stowe left his position in the Seminary, the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and the Andover chapter came to an end. Yet now one of the spots visited by pilgrims to literary shrines is the beautiful Chapel cemetery near her old home, where a tall red granite shaft erected by her children marks her last resting place.

The reason for the length and detail of this chapter is the desire to throw light on some intimate aspects of a famous woman whose engaging interest in Abbot and tireless activity in its behalf resulted in such significant achievements.

Authorities consulted:

Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fields.
Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, C. E. Stowe.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, H. B. Stowe.
History of Abbot Academy, McKeen.
General Catalogue of Abbot Academy, 1913.
Reprints in Andover Townsman of historical papers.
File of
Phillips Bulletin.
File of Abbot Courant.


Chapter Twenty-Eight

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