Worthy women of our first century

Preface

The volume here offered to the pubHc is so far from fulfilling the hopes of the editors that they think it due to those under whose auspices it is published to give an idea of what it was meant to be, and of the causes of its partial failure. The work was undertaken by the desire of the Women's Department of the Centennial Commission. They wished to connect their own labors with a record of the lives of American women in earlier times ; to show what they had been and effected under the difficulties, domestic, social, and political, which are to be found in all new countries and civilizations while the roads are being made; to offer to their young countrywomen honorable models and examples. The intention was to collect a series of brief biographies, one for each of the original States, so as to illustrate the very various conditions and demands of life in the older parts of the country. The choice of subjects in point of date ranged from the colonial epoch to the last generation. It was not thought desirable to include any one still living or but lately dead. This necessarily excluded so many of the States that it confirmed the limitation to the first, contemporaneous, thirteen. In order that the work might not be too voluminous, each State was restricted to one memoir. It was not requisite that the subject should have been a woman connected with Revolutionary times or historical events, although especial interest attaches to those who were. The conspicuous women of the Revolution, and indeed of America down almost to the present day, had found biographers in Mrs. S. J. Hale and Mrs. E. F. EUett.

PREFA CE.

Their notices are too short and sketchy to give a clear idea of character and individuahty ; but they had suppHed a complete register of names and events. All that we required, therefore, was the lives of women of weight and mark, whose influence was felt for good in their own circle, whether a wide or a narrow one; who had thought and acted for themselves, either in decisive public issues or in the even tenor of priv^ate life. It was also earnestly wished that the memoir for each State should be written by a woman from that State, that the welded chain of the Pine-Tree flag might once more be held by clasping hands, not the mailed grasp of men, but the not less firm and sustaining hold of women; that as this Centennial Anniversary has reknit the bond of brotherhood throughout the country, that of sisterhood should be drawn as close.

Such was the scheme. Every pains was taken to find out proper heroines for the memoirs, and proper biographers, and also to avoid unsuitable ones. The editors were engaged for upwards of six months in corresponding with distinguished and patriotic people all over the country to try and get the information necessary to proceed upon. Then followed letters to and from ladies in the thirteen States, which, if they could be published, would form a most interesting and entertaining collection. Still, this did not succeed in bringing about the object completely. Mrs. Gillespie, the President of the Women's Department of the Centennial Commission, in an appeal which she sent forth last autumn, and which was circulated throughout the country, begged for biographies of eminent and memorable women, but without calling out a single satisfactory reply. There were great difficulties at every step. In the first place, although the editors endeavored to be explicit as to what they wanted, the answers they received almost invariably referred only to women of Revolutionary times, as if none other were eligible. It then appeared that, although the older States are rife with traditions and anecdote-s of women who did honor to their place and day, material for biographical notices of them, correspondence, journals, written record of any sort, personal recollections, are wanting. One

PREFACE.

of the most noble and impressive female figures in our annals is Faith Robinson, wife of the first and mother of the second Governor Trumbull of Connecticut; but, beyond two or three striking stories, and the veneration for her name and worth which her children have transmitted to their descendants, nothing remains of her. Again, some of our most prominent and admirable women did not belong either by birth or family to the States with which their names are connected. Mrs. John Jay, of the Revolution, who held so high a position in New York, was a native of New Jersey; Mrs. Judson, of our own times, the missionary and martyr, if ever self-devotion deserved the crown and palm-branch, hailed from New Hampshire, but was born in Massachusetts. In other eminent instances, such as that of ]\Irs. John Adams, the life and correspondence are already so well known that to republish them in any form would be a twice-told tale. In most cases, however, the ladies were not scribes : often in following up their traces it was found that every scrap of writing had perished, either through the jealousy of affection, or indifference, or accident. In the South, where the circumstances of life are more picturesque than along the rest of the Atlantic coast, — where romantic situations and heroic incidents are more frequent in feminine existence, owing to the solitude and remoteness of plantations accessible only by wood-roads or lonely rivers, — where, too, the peculiar responsibilities of slavery fell heavily upon the women of the master's family, developing the administrative ability and qualities of housekeeper and nurse in a signal degree, — the practice of keeping private papers was general ; but fire has always been the enemy of those frame houses, with their open chimney-places, pine torches, and careless servitors, and the war swept off most of their remaining archives, public and private. Besides, it has been with our recollections as with our relics: nations, like men, when they are young, forget that they will ever grow old, and learn to prize mementos of their earlier time. There has been from the first a lamentable destruction of what were really national heirlooms, to which the approach of the Cen-

PREFACE.

tenary first called general attention ; and so it has been with reminiscences. Our people had not begun to remember.

These are the principal obstacles we have had to encounter. On the other hand, there has been everywhere the warmest interest in the undertaking, — ready sympathy from those to whom we have applied, and help where it was to give. Unfortunately for some of the memoirs, those best qualified to prepare them were too much taken up with other duties to do so. But the ladies to whom application was made exerted themselves to find able substitutes. Many of those who undertook the task have been hampered by ill health or the pressure of other claims, but their researches and inquiries have been as thorough as if they had been writing history. We are particularly indebted to the families of the women chosen as representatives, for their willingness to allow the use of the material they possess and for their active assistance in collecting more. We owe hearty thanks for advice or aid to Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mrs. Oliver Hubbard, of New York, Mrs. M. P. Cutts, of Brattleboro', Lloyd P. Smith, Esq., of Philadelphia, Mrs. Catherine Pennington, of New Jersey. In regard to the memoir for Pennsylvania the writer must express her gratitude to the Logan family and connections generally, most especially to Mrs. John Dickinson Logan, who copied from the diary of her husband's grandmother, to which only near relations have access, all the extracts given from it, and pages more not quoted, from which the picture of the heroine's character and life has been completed.

Nevertheless, with all this effort and this encouragement, w^e have only six sketches to offer as the result. Nor have we in all of these the living personal representation we hoped would be presented in every case : the scantiness of material made that impossible. Should the volume, such as it is, find general favor, it may be the means of obtaining biographies from the remaining States. If suitable ones be sent, as we trust they may, a second volume will be published.

Philadelphia, October, 1876.

Contents

STATE. SUBJECT. AUTHOR, PAGE

Virginia. . . . Mrs. T. M. Randolph. . . Miss S. N. Randolph . 9 New York. . . Mrs. Philip Schuyler. . . Miss S. F. Cooper . . 71 Massachusetts. . Mrs. Samuel Ripley. . . Miss Elizabeth Hoar. 113 New Hampshire. Women of New Hampshire. Mrs. Francis W. Fiske. 229 South Carolina. Mrs. Rebecca Motte. . . A Lady of S. Carolina 259 Pennsylvania. . Deborah Logan Mrs. Owen J. Wister . 279

WORTHY WOMEN