“We were into peace all the time”: Ministry and Activism in the Life of Elizabeth Hunting Wheeler

“We were into peace all the time”: Ministry and Activism in the Life of Elizabeth Hunting Wheeler

By Katlyn Durand

Elizabeth Hunting Wheeler, the 3rd-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington and the Reverend Dan Huntington, followed in the Reverend's footsteps when she became a Congregationalist minister in 1985. For more than a decade, the anti-nuclear war and gay- and lesbian-rights activism of the 1980s and 1990s helped define Wheeler’s ministry, and offers a framework through which to study this family’s history.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1932 to Mildred Hunting Wheeler and Edwin Sessions Wheeler, Elizabeth Wheeler, known to her friends and family as Liz, experienced loss early in life when her mother passed away in 1933. Her father and his second wife, Helen McCoy, raised Wheeler along with her older brother Richard Hunting Wheeler and step-sibling Nancy McCoy Bower in Westfield, New Jersey. While Wheeler’s father was Unitarian, Helen McCoy was Presbyterian, and “believed that religion and children ought to be together.” The new blended family attended the Presbyterian Church in Westfield, and faith played a role in Wheeler’s life throughout her younger years. McCoy gifted Wheeler a Bible for her birthday in 1941, and Wheeler’s diary in 1946 includes hand-copied Bible verses, descriptions of church events, and a new year’s resolution to read her Bible, underlined twice in red.

Looking back, Wheeler is skeptical of religion having much influence on her early life. In an oral history interview conducted on July 9, 2024, Wheeler asked, “What would have an impact on a little child who could then reflect upon it? None…it lasted, however.” 

Wheeler graduated from Miami University in 1954 where she studied international relations, government, and labor economics. From 1959 to 1966, she worked for the African-American Institute, and from 1968 to 1972 as Director of Development and Public Relations for Hampshire College. Wheeler’s tenure at Hampshire College coincided with her discovery of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum, where she served as board member, Vice President, and President throughout the 1970s. But her career soon took a sharp turn from the secular to the sacred.

“I wasn’t functioning,” Wheeler explained. “The work I was doing was important…I understand that, but there was something missing that wouldn’t go away.” Wheeler saw attending seminary as an opportunity to “chase down all the weird ideas and anxieties…everything that you ever had in your mind that you couldn’t get out of it.”

In 1980, she enrolled in Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and graduated in 1984 with a Master of Divinity degree. From 1985 until her retirement in 1997, Wheeler pastored three congregations in Massachusetts and New York
Wheeler entered the ministry during the Conservative Resurgence, otherwise known as the rise of the Christian right during the 1980s. A political force cultivated by Jerry Falwell Sr.’s Moral Majority movement and pursued by two-term president Ronald Reagan, the Christian right largely organized around “opposition to abortion, gay rights, equal rights for women, sex outside marriage, and single-parenting.” However, Wheeler’s experience in Christian ministry looked a bit different.

“The churches that I was in, both North Adams and Stockbridge, were liberal churches,” said Wheeler, “so we were into peace all the time.” In 1985, Wheeler became the first female pastor at the First Congregational Church in North Adams, Massachusetts. Deindustrialization hit North Adams in the mid-1980s, signified in part by the 1985 closing of the city’s chief manufacturer, Sprague Electric Company. The following year, “North Adams had the highest unemployment rate in the state.” A group of Williams College students and the First Congregational Church together developed a free weekly meal program to help mitigate the privation.

The church’s commitment to peace also extended beyond the local community. On October 24, 1985, a picture published in local newspaper The Beacon shows Wheeler dressed in her ministry robes and giving “an inspirational prayer” to an anti-nuclear war peace rally at the North Adams State College (now the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts). An article in the Berkshire Eagle published the same day includes a picture of Randy Kehler speaking at the same rally. A peace activist living in Colrain, Massachusetts at the time, Kehler is credited for inspiring Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers in 1971 after Ellsberg heard Kehler speak at a War Resisters League conference in 1969. 

When asked if she remembers her speech at the anti-nuclear war peace rally, Wheeler responded, “Not a word.” 

“It was just part of the daily routine. But the daily routine included service to the poor, and opposition to the violent…A little embarrassing not to remember the centerpiece of one’s ministry,” Wheeler added, laughing.

But Wheeler credits her congregation for her involvement in the peace rally. “It would just be normal that my congregation would expect me to be there…that’s their doing, in a way.”

Wheeler left progressive Western Mass in the mid 1990s, but activism continued to define her ministry at Riverside Church in New York City, where she was Associate Minister from 1994 to 1997. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in 1967, a sermon critiquing the American war in Vietnam. Additionally, Riverside Church’s LGBTQ+ ministry, called Maranatha, has long participated in New York City’s annual Pride Parade. Wheeler shared in this tradition, marching with what she remembers as a 40- or 50-person contingent of church members in the mid-1990s.

Placing Wheeler’s life in the broader context of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington legacy highlights the roles religion has played in this family history. Elizabeth Pitkin Porter and Moses Porter were Calvinist, as were their daughter Elizabeth Porter Phelps and her husband Charles Phelps. The Phelps’s daughter, Elizabeth, married Congregationalist Bishop Dan Huntington and became a Congregationalist herself before being excommunicated in 1828 for her Unitarian beliefs. Frederic Dan Huntington, their youngest child, became an Episcopal Bishop, and his son James Otis Sergeant Huntington converted to Anglicanism and founded the Order of the Holy Cross. 

Wheeler is also not the first family member to interpret and practice religion through an activist lens. Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington and Reverend Dan Huntington supported the abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century, and Reverend Huntington sat in the Black section of their church in Hadley to protest racial segregation. 

For Elizabeth and Dan Huntington, church was a stage upon which to enact their abolitionist stance in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. For Elizabeth Hunting Wheeler, ministry was a space to meet the needs of her community, for activism against nuclear war, and to support gay and lesbian rights in the 1980s and 1990s. Such microhistories present religion as a potential through-line across the legacy of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family, helping connect different generations of the family and locate them in their larger historical contexts of social change and efforts to build justice movements. 

Sarah Phelps' Album

During the acquisition of Phelps Farm, the farmstead across the road from the museum that was created by Moses Charles Porter Phelps, the son of Charles Phelps and Elizabeth Porter Phelps, the PPH Museum added a number of artifacts to its collection. One of these  is a scrapbook made by Sarah Phelps in 1835. This book is codex bound and filled with article cuttings from a newspaper or magazine. The articles within the album range from opinion and advice pieces to short stories and excerpts from books.

The case of the book is covered with a marbled paper that covers the case boards and the edges of the leather corner covers and spine. A number of pages have been cut out, indicating that the book was bound before the articles were pasted in and was likely purchased as an empty book. Each of the pages that was cut out is not represented in the page numbering. The spine is embossed with “Ladie’s Album, Vol. 5,” though it is unknown if this was the name given to it and separately added after Sarah had finished filling the book or if it had that title when it was purchased. The whereabouts of  volumes 1-4 are unknown, if they exist at all.

Albums, and specifically ladies’ albums are a type of scrapbooking common in the 19th century.[1] Patrizia Di Bello discusses the nature of these books and their rise to popularity in her book Women’s albums and photography in Victorian England: Ladies, mothers and flirts. Part of the rise of scrapbooking was a result of technological shifts in papermaking, which made paper and other journaling supplies more accessible and affordable.[2] The articles pasted in Sarah’s album contain romantic advice and opinion columns, excerpts from books, and short stories. The articles chosen, as discussed by Patrizia Di Bello, show the nature of women’s literature and what types of stories and information were marketed to women.  

After opening the marbled front cover, The first entry in the book is a hand-written alphabetical table of contents. Due to the alphabetical organization, it functions more as an index, as it is more helpful in finding a story the reader already knows the name of than it is in finding the order of the articles within. Since the articles are not arranged within the book in the order they are written in the table of contents, they were likely added day by day and the index was added once the book was filled rather than as each piece was pasted in. Further research might reveal the chronology of the book's entries, however as they are not dated it is difficult to determine this detail.

There are pressed flowers and leaves between some of the pages of the scrapbook, showing some of the continuous use of the book beyond its construction. Between pages 28 and 29, there is evidence of what was likely once a leaf that has since fallen apart. The next piece is a flower between pages 52 and 53. Between pages 68 and 69, there are a pair of evergreen (perhaps arbor-vita) sprigs. There is another flower between pages 120 and 121. There seems to be no direct connection between the plants and the articles, so it is likely that they were added as she was pasting in the articles for the day if she found an interesting flower or leaf.

Sarah Phelps (1805-unknown) was the eldest surviving daughter of Sarah Davenport Parsons Phelps and Moses Charles Porter Phelps. She was 12 years old when her family moved to Phelps Farm from Boston, and her mother died from Typhus. Her life was written about by her niece, Ruth Huntington Sessions, in “A Lady’s Reading 80 Years Ago”.[3] Throughout the article, Sarah is referred to as “Ms. Lucia”, though personal details, such as the discussion of her siblings, show that it is referring to Sarah. Ruth writes about Sarah’s love for reading, which can easily be seen in her album and the stories Sarah collected within it.

Between the mid 1700s to early 1800s, the process of European papermaking was revolutionized with the Fourdrinier machine, which used and automated the process of wove paper.[4] Wove paper is distinct from laid, or chain-and-laid paper, and named from the mesh conveyor belt that was made from woven bronze wires. The development of a flexible conveyor belt made possible long continuous sheets of paper, unlike the individual sheets made in a chain-and-laid mold.  Hence, wove paper was more efficient to produce in large quantities and it quickly replaced laid paper in most uses. The pages of the book lack the distinctive chain-and-laid lines, so it is easy to assume that the book is made from wove paper.

Overall, the album is in excellent condition, and depicts ladies’ reading practices in the early-mid eighteenth century. The clipped and pasted articles within show the topics that most interested Sarah, though future efforts are needed to find the origins of some of the pieces and figuring out what magazine or paper they came from.

Notes

1. Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Routledge, 2017), 39-42.

2. J.N. Balston, The Whatmans and Wove (Velin) Paper : Its Invention and Development in the West, 1998.

3. Ruth Huntington Sessions, “A Lady’s Reading 80 Years Ago,” The New England Magazine 21 (October 1899): 145–53, 

4. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Fourdrinier machine." Encyclopedia Britannica (August 23, 2010).

Citations

Balston, J.N. The Whatmans and Wove (Velin) Paper : Its Invention and Development in the West, 1998. 

Di Bello, Patrizia. Women’s albums and photography in Victorian England: Ladies, mothers and flirts. Routledge, 2017. 

Easley, Alexis. “Scrapbooks and Women’s Leisure Reading Practices, 1825–60.” Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, no. 15.2 (2019). 

Sessions, Ruth Huntington. “A Lady’s Reading 80 Years Ago.” The New England Magazine 21 (October 1899): 145–53. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064988122&seq=155&view=1up.

Sessions, Ruth Huntington. Sixty-odd, a personal history, by Ruth Huntington sessions. Brattleboro, Vt: Stephen Daye Press, 1936.  

Britannica, Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Fourdrinier machine." Encyclopedia Britannica, August 23, 2010

Reparative Description, History, and Archives

Through the ongoing process of the study of history and the collection of historical documents, the understanding of what is acceptable description has changed many times. As such, many historical descriptions use terms that have been recognized as unacceptable and harmful. The mandate of archivists and historians, as curators of this information, is to make it accessible to people and to tailor the description and interpretation of documents and events in ways that mitigate continued harm. While we cannot undo the past, and cannot and will not try to rewrite what happened or change the language used on the documents, we can and do seek to be more mindful of the language we use going forward when describing historically marginalized groups and documents referring to them. This process is known as “reparative description” and guides the ethical choices made in description of historically marginalized groups.

“Reparative description” is defined by the Society of American Archivists as “remediation of practices or data that exclude, silence, harm, or mischaracterize marginalized people in the data created or used by archivists to identify or characterize archival resources”, and calls for people working with documents to recognize the impact that their own words have on the interpretation of a record and the harm that can come from word choice.(1)

Two communities that have been historically underrepresented and misrepresented in the historical record are African American people and Indigenous people. One legacy of colonialism and enslavement is the language we use to categorize and describe artifacts. This language often centers the enslaver’s voice over the personhood of the enslaved, and privileges colonial perspectives while ignoring indigenous voices and ideas. As keepers of the historical record, and the people trusted to describe processes and events in history, archivists and historians are tasked  to present history in ways that show the voices that have been ignored for so long and describe the items in ways that center the personhood of all parties involved.(2)

There are many narratives in history that have arisen from description that removes agency and personhood from different communities; the idea of Terra Nullius, ideas of paternalistic colonialism or outright ignoring of indigenous displacement, the idea of the paternalistic slaveholder, and many other historical misconceptions and fabrications that have come from the privileging of white colonist voices in history. Through reparative description, we attempt to correct these misconceptions and shed light on histories and perspectives that have been ignored and erased.

At the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum, we have been working to expand our tour and our research to include what records we have of the enslaved people on the property rather than falling into the tradition of ignoring and forgetting the enslaved labor that underpins so much of our history. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, records of enslaved people and other disenfranchised persons are rare, having been considered unimportant for so many generations. Our work now is on finding these documents and bringing them to light.

Related to this is the process of history-making through archival appraisal and selection. With the number of records that have been and continue to be created, there is a limited space and budget for caring for and stewarding these materials. There are quite a few factors that work into what of these records are kept and added. The first moment of appraisal is the choice of a person to keep a document or record, to decide that it is important to them rather than destroy it. Many records are lost due to this well before they can be considered for archiving. The next point is the decision to donate the records to an archives. In order for this to happen, either that person, or their family, must consider the records to be worth something and worth saving. Many more records are lost here either because certain groups do not realize that archiving is an option or do not believe, due to historical precedent, that the archives would agree. Items that pass both of these stages must then go through processing and appraisal, at which point an archivist goes through the collection and makes decisions about what is worth keeping, what is valuable to history, what is important. It is this point of the process that is most vulnerable to abuse. Though archivists and historians, by and large, no longer hide behind the mask of impartiality and try to recognise their biases, biases have and continue to affect what items are kept and preserved. The cycle of privileging of wealthy white men’s voices enforces their power over the narratives told and rejecting, ignoring, and destroying resources that focus on other groups that are considered “less important” to history leads to continued donation from wealthy white men who see themselves reflected in archives, and a skepticism of archives among marginalized communities whose records and voices have been rejected again and again.

While the harm that has been done in the past cannot be undone and should not be trivialized, what archivists and historians can do is describe it in such a way that does not cause further harm by playing into harmful and inaccurate narratives of history. This reparative work is central to the archival and historical professions as they exist today, and will be a long and difficult process of redescription without loss of context.

Notes

1. Amanda Wick, Review of Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts, by Dennis Meissner. American Archivist 83, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2020): 204–208.

2. Alexis A. Antracoli et al., essay, in Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist Description Resources (Philadelphia, PA: Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s Anti-Racist Description Working Group, 2019).

Citations

Antracoli, Alexis A., Annalise Berdini, Kelly Bolding, Faith Charlton, Amanda Ferrara, Valencia Johnson, and Katy Rawdon. Essay. In Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist Description Resources. Philadelphia, PA: Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s Anti-Racist Description Working Group, 2019. 

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, and Hazel V. Carby. Silencing the Past: Power and the production of history. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2015. 

Wick, Amanda. Review of Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts, by Dennis Meissner. American Archivist 83, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2020): 204–208. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-83.1.204.

“Reparative Description.” SAA Dictionary: reparative description. Accessed July 10, 2024. https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/reparative-description.html.

Striking While the Iron’s Hot: The Trans-Atlantic ‘Adventures’ of Charles (Moses) Porter-Phelps

Phelps Farm, built in 1815, served as Charles (Moses) Porter-Phelps' (1772- 1857) escape from the hustle and bustle of Boston. He, the first son of Elizabeth and Charles Phelps, spent his youth in Hadley at Forty-Acres, before attending Harvard University as a young man. After graduation, he moved to Boston where he would try his hand at law, meet his to-be wife Sarah, and delve into a series of business deals that would largely work out in his favor. The wealth he amassed during his time in Boston paid for the construction of Phelps farm in the later years of his life. The large homestead, built right across from the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, would serve as a home for several generations of the Phelps family, forever tying future family members with the sort-of work Phelps conducted.

Phelps’ first career in law ended when he closed his office in Boston in the summer of 1799, citing that the expenses to live in Boston far outweighed his salary, returning to Hadley to live with his family; during this summer he helped oversee some alterations to the home.(1) In 1800, he married his first wife Sarah Davenport, and decided to live in Boston once again. In the city, he would shift his career for the first of many times over his life. A business partnership with Edward Rand anchored his growing family in the city where Phelps experimented with merchant business from a wholesale on the No. 3 Cadman’s Wharf. Unfortunately, this would be a short-lived endeavor— in that same year, Rand died in a duel, permanently ending the arrangement. Soon after, Phelps strikes up a connection with William Belcher, a tradesman out of Savannah, Georgia, and for several years, the family’s income came from the ‘runs’ he and his partner did between ports in Boston and Georgia. Together, the men made their fortune in commodities cultivated by enslaved African Americans in the American South— goods like cotton, rice, and tobacco— selling such products to Northern American and European markets. During this time, Phelps occupied a store on the India Wharf in Boston, the city's headquarters of trade with international and domestic markets. Though a short-lived and tenuous peace had been met on the European continent, putting a brief pause on the Napoleonic Wars which ravaged the continent,  Phelps and Belcher mutually dissolved their partnership— at least that is what Phelps attests to in his diary.(2) Although a number of factors likely contributed to this decision, it is possible that highly protective trade acts like the Embargo Act of 1807, which fully banned all American exportation to the European continent, contributed to the mutual end of affairs. (3) 

Still, Phelps decided to send the rest of his stock of Havana Sugar, nearly $200,000 of goods in today’s currency (2024), to Rotterdam on the off-chance he may turn some profit in European markets in the summer of 1807.  He’s only notified of the whereabouts of his shipment after he travels back to Hadley to be with his dying father— Charles Phelps Jr.. Phelps writes that by a ‘miracle of God,’ his shipment did in fact reach Rotterdam.(4) His business partner in Rotterdam, Mr. Cremer chose to hold on to the goods until the price inflated, and as a result, Phelps’ shipment sold for over $26,000—a little over half a million USD when adjusted for inflation— after deducting the price of freight. Cremers' decision to hold onto the goods further explains why Phelps cited confusion on the shipment's whereabouts and his surprise when he learned that the ship made it to the continent. He notes in his autobiography that this is a godsend to his business, and with some embargoes lifted by 1809, he returns to Boston with his family and begins to dip his hand into international trade once again. With this large sum of money, the family continued to live as an incredibly wealthy family, skirting the financial crisis many families went through. Most overseas businesses ceased in 1812 and goods produced within the United States became increasingly more expensive; while many families struggled during this time to afford necessities, the Phelps had a mass of wealth that would sustain them for several years, regardless of Phelps’ labor status. 

         In the spring of 1812, America entered what Phelps calls a ‘useless’ war with Great Britain, the War of 1812, (5) during which all Trans-Atlantic commerce was suspended. (6) A letter sent to Phelps in 1812 discusses the complex geopolitical conflicts that drastically impacted trade. The writer warns Phelps of the various treaties that would alter the viability of trade with nations like Russia, France, and Britain.(7) According to Phelps, any trade that was occurring during this time had an air of militarism, as ships were under constant threat from the British Navy. Over the next few years, businesses like the Phelps’ would be pushed to seek out new markets internationally as the regular channels of commerce closed. His business would become chiefly connected to webs of trade in northern Europe, though specifically to the iron business in Gothenburg, Sweden.

One side of a draft letter to Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps which outlines various political conflicts in Europe that hindered the viability of trans-Atlantic trade, written from Hamburg on March 3, 1812. The writer (unintelligible) describes the benefits and drawbacks of trade with Sweden, particularly that though Sweden is still open to trading, the trade market is limited. By the end of the letter, the writer hopes that the ‘embarrassment to Commerce” will cease by the Summer— that market conditions will improve.

“My own business was now chiefly connected with the trade of northern Sweden, some of my shipment of that kind having been quite successful— and during the two coming years my business was almost wholly in that line. Indeed, during the war I kept quite a respectable wholesale and retail Iron Store on the Long Wharf.” [Phelps, 48]

Above is a deed of shipment, signed by Nicholas Myers, outlining a shipment of goods from Gothenburg Sweden, on May 9, 1812, to Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps in Boston. According to the deed, 2,284 bars of Swedish Iron and 102 bundles of Swedish Iron (weighing 40 tons) were shipped by John Cunnigham upon a ship called the Indian Chief to Phelps in Boston. The deed requests that Phelps pay $560 and 6 cents as a delivery fee, about 13,242.59 in today’s currency (2024).

 A receipt of shipment dated May 8th, 1812 attests to this transition in trade, as some 2,285 bars of Swedish iron were transported from Gothenburg to Boston and delivered to Phelps.(8) A wholesale that he’d purchased on the Long Wharf in Boston was the headquarters of his business— a business, which, like the many other iron traders, took advantage of the market for iron available in accessible ports in Sweden. Such trade would become instrumental in the progression of industrialization into and through the mid-1800s. 

By 1815, the U.S. was quickly returning to its once peaceful relationship with the European countries, as the Treaty of Ghent was agreed upon and signed in December 1814, officially closing the conflict on all fronts. The shift in geo-political relations once again resulted in a shift in economic relations, straining the viability of the Swedish iron trade with America. International trade was returning to a state of normalcy as blockades fell and markets were reopened. In Boston specifically, the prices of imported goods began to fall.(9) As a result, Phelps chooses again to shift his career, leaving the mercantile business for good and entering banking, moving into a position as a cashier for the Bank of Massachusetts.(10) 

 “At this period the commerce of Europe and America was fast resuming its usual peaceful relations. Men bred to this business and well established in it, might indulge reasonable hopes of success— but the untrained- desultory shipper must now expect as a matter of course to pocket more losses than gains— and the truth of this was fully verified in the business in which I allowed myself to engage, small as it was, for the two succeeding years, such being the aspect of things, I was induced to the close of the year to accept the office of Cashier of the Massachusetts Bank…” [Phelps, 61]

Banking at any level was a privilege of the time, something reserved for only the upper echelons of society, and was a career well suited to his class and status. He remained in Boston for a few more years before moving back to Hadley and building Phelps Farm. 

The choices Phelps made during this unsteady time in American history allowed his family to escape the financial burdens that befell the general population of early Americans. From trading in Southern American goods to trading Swedish iron, he relied on his business to consistently sustain his family’s high-class lifestyle during some of the most tumultuous financial times of the early 19th century, building a generational fortune for the Phelps family and a large farmhouse to go with it. Still, his initial ‘runs’ of cotton, tobacco, and sugar up the eastern seaboard would implicate the family’s wealth in the continued enslavement of African Americans in the southern portions of the United States and the Caribbean— prolonging systems of enslavement throughout the country even after slavery ends in Massachusetts.(11) And, his later decision to import iron to the United States made him one of many merchants of iron who played an essential role in furthering the industrialization of the U.S. through the early 1800s— a process that would have harrowing implications for labor relations and the health of the climate into the early 20th century and today. Therefore the decisions Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps made during his life chiefly connected the family to a web of commerce which, while sustaining his family’s status, would be influential in determining the lives of generations of Americans to come. 

End Notes

(1) Phelps, 20

(2) Phelps, 32-33 

(3) The Embargo Act of 1807 came as a response to French and English naval policies which dictated that all vessels found trading with England and France respectively were to be seized. 

(4) Phelps, 37

(5) The American War of 1812 being an expansion of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars (1793-1819) in mainland Europe. Trade warfare resulted from this expansive war, with trade blockages often halting imports/ exports out of entire countries for extended periods. Piracy was commonplace and ships, and the cargo they held, were frequently confiscated.

(6) Phelps, 47 

(7) The signature on the letter is unintelligible

(8) Shipping Receipt, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

(9) Adamson, 71

(10) Phelps, 61

(11) Slavery legally ends in Massachusetts between 1782-1783.

Sources

Adamson, Rolf. “Swedish Iron Exports to the United States, 1783–1860.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 17, no. 1 (January 1969): 58–114 

Phelps, Charles (Moses) Porter. Autobiography (1857) Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers Box 10 Folder 21 Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Shipping Receipt, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Letter Addressed to Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Sifting Through the Negatives: An Exploration of Silhouettes and Family Ties

Within the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, several silhouette portraits are displayed atop mantles throughout the house. Three are kept in the ‘Long Room,’ two in the Dining Room, above the fireplaces. Two more sit in the closet within the SE Bedchamber also known as the ‘Barrett Room.’ These portraits commemorate past members of the family as well as their unique ties to the house, and help to provide a lens into the developmental history of photography, and early modes of self documentation. While the material origins of each silhouette is unknown, two signed silhouettes provide us a window into the ways in which these works were produced. 

History of the Form

In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, silhouettes reached a peak in their popularity— the most notable period being from about 1790 until 1840, when photography was made more accessible. Before the onset of photography, silhouettes were the predecessor to this practice of remembrance around the home. This early form served to capture specific moments in a person’s life, even just through a side profile view of their face and clothing at a specific age. The earliest silhouettists began as portrait miniaturists—which were simple outlines filled with dark paint. As the silhouettists adapted to the craft and developed their artistic skills in silhouette-portraits, they began to assume different modes of production. Silhouettes vary in their procedure and resulting distinctive look; whether the pieces were achieved through ink, paper, or fabric would result in a separate classification of method. One style of silhouette creation is the ‘hollow cut’ silhouette, a paper-cutting technique which involves laying a silhouette cutout from a sheet of white paper over a black sheet of paper or fabric to create a black silhouette with a white background. This is also the most common technique used in the pieces in the museum, save for one framed piece from the family's collection.

Charles and Sarah 

Kept in the ‘Long Room’ are the silhouettes of Moses ‘Charles’ Porter Phelps (1772-1857) (son of Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Charles Phelps), and his first wife, Sarah Davenport Parsons Phelps (1775-1817). They are dated to about 1800, which is when this style of portraiture was very common. At the time, Charles was a successful merchant in the port city of Boston, and the couple may have wanted to have portraits done as it was a trend of the period, especially for someone of their class. 

Technique and Procedure 

These beautiful silhouettes can be classified as “hollow-cut”, with the white paper being cut to the shape of Charles’ and Sarah’s bust, then placed over black paper to reveal the silhouette. 

Silhouette of Moses ‘Charles’ Porter Phelps c. 1800

Although the silhouette was already cut out to reveal the shape underneath, the artist may have felt that the image did not have enough movement or detail to fully encapsulate the essence of Charles’ profile and decided to pen in more detail the texture of Charles’ hair, with ink over the white paper. This technique continues on the rendering of his shirt where William extends Charles’ chest with flounce ruffles, as well as on Charles’ face where eyelashes are highlighted. 

Silhouette of Sarah Davenport Parsons Phelps c. 1800

These purposeful additions can also be seen within Sarah’s piece. Life is breathed back into the silhouette through ink embellishments that enliven and capture the naturalistic qualities of her hair and outfit. Ruffles are added to the front of her garment, as are charming stray hairs which stick out of the perfectly organized bonnet and ribbons— qualities which emphasize the femininity of her persona. 

The appearance of the frame speaks to the longstanding history that the pieces carry, with tarnishing to the formerly bright shining gold frame alluding to the amount of time that they have sat within the house—-the white paper’s yellowing shares this same aging tradition of materials in these conditions. It can be imagined that the frame would have been chosen to highlight the sophisticated nature of these silhouettes, emphasizing the importance that the two profiles hold as they commemorate Charles’ time and work done in Boston. The white ovals provide contrast when laid over the reddish-orange background to add emphasis on the silhouettes and further present them in a way that draws all of the viewer’s attention to the silhouette first, preventing an interrupted sequence of attention. Instead of getting lost in the glittering gold frame or the accented red background, the onlooker is drawn first to the black silhouetted figures in the center while holding in their peripheral the significance of the silhouettes through all of the other details.

Social Context and Material Culture 

Signature of William M. S. Doyle

The silhouettes of Charles and Sarah are a fascinating piece of the family’s history and provide us with more context about him as an individual and the life which he created in Boston. Both silhouettes are marked with the signature Doyle, which points to the famous silhouettist - William M. S. Doyle (1769-1828), who owned a highly successful business surrounding this trade in Boston, Massachusetts. William M. S. Doyle founded his business with Henry Williams (1787-1830), forming Williams & Doyle, who marketed themselves as being “Miniature and Portrait Painters at the Museum; where profiles are correctly cut”. With reasonable assumption, we imagine that during Charles Porter Phelps’ travels and trading done in Boston, he would have taken his wife to Doyle’s business, and brought the pieces back with them to the farmstead in Hadley, MA. As the couple lived in Boston at the time of these pieces' creation, Charles and Sarah likely brought them to the farmstead later as keepsakes from their time in the city. 

Mr. and Mrs. Otis 

Silhouettes of “Mrs. Otis” and “Mr. Otis”

The next set of silhouettes within the ‘Long Room’ represent a different side of the family at Forty Acres. Belonging to the wife of Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-1904), Hannah Dane Sargent (1822-1910)— who likely would have brought the silhouettes with her to the farmstead from her own family collection. The labels at the bottom of each silhouette being “Mrs. Otis” and “Mr. Otis” (depicted below) initially confused staff here, as this last name is not mentioned directly in the family tree that we use on the property. However, after digging through the Sargent family tree - Hannah’s mother’s name appears as Mary Otis Lincoln. Mary’s maiden name, living on as her middle name after her marriage, benefits the genealogies we seek to trace as we classify the portraits. We now know that these silhouettes were likely of Hannah’s grandparents on her mother’s side— the Otis family lineage. Hannah likely would have brought these silhouettes into the home to commemorate her grandparents similar to how today we hang pictures of family around our homes. Before photography, this would have been the way that family members would have been remembered around the home. 

Technique and Presentation

What's particularly interesting about these silhouettes is that they are not made out of the ‘hollow-cut’ paper technique. Instead they are crafted with black paint on a white background and decorated with a bronze/gold finish on the top. This process is known as “bronzing” which came into popularity after 1800 for the ways in which it highlights details on the person being depicted without having to go through the extra work of using ink on paper after (as seen in the prior silhouettes). Black paint would have been used to foreground the individual, with gold paint being added for extra detailing. The gold also serves to add more dimension and complexity to the piece, almost lifting the figure out of the ink by providing texture to the hair and clothing that would have otherwise been left to assumption. Over time, silhouettists began to curate their craft further to incorporate this color theory to communicate texture beyond shiny inks such as gold and bronze, instead using lighter grays to achieve the same effect on the viewer.

The framing of this piece by way of the purposefully chosen solid back borders to encompass the silhouettes emphasizes the bronzing that has been done to the figures which pop out to the viewer significantly with this choice. The cohesive relationship between these elements draws the bronzing of the figures out further, creating a deeper and more complex first view of the silhouettes for the viewer. A gold background would have undermined the complexity and beautiful nature of this technique, commanding the attention of the viewer away from the carefully chosen inking done in these pieces that add complexity and depth, to that of the shining gold borders. The separation of the two pieces down the middle emphasizes that the two pieces were created separately (in the fashion of silhouette technology, they were crafted one at a time). The frame itself saves the pieces from an empty split down the middle, instead creating the effect of two separate frames in one.

Despite the age of these two silhouettes, the paper does not seem too affected by the test of time save for slight yellowing. The identification for the two figures was done in pencil at the bottom of each piece, and the fact that this is still legible to this day proves that the paper has not succumbed to the testing of time.

Fourth Generation Young Boys

Silhouette of young boy in the fourth generation (a)

In the Dining Room, two distinct silhouettes sit above the fireplace. Two profiles of young boys sit adjacent on the mantle and represent the fourth generation of the family, which includes the Bishop—Frederic Dan Huntington. This generation of 11 is headed by parents Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington (1779-1847) and her husband, Dan Huntington (1774-1864). Within the limited description that is available to us through our collection—it is recorded that the two boys are brothers of Frederick Dan and that the pieces would have been created before 1815. Knowing this, the possibilities for the figureheads include brothers (listed in order) Charles, William, Edward, John, Theophilus, or Theodore. Theodore was born in 1813, which would have made it difficult for his bust to be that of the silhouette pieces, as he would have been merely 2 years old (at the latest, since we do not know the exact date of the pieces’ creation). All of the other boys were born before 1815, so this note in our archive really lends no aid as to which of the other brothers it could have been. Although we don’t know for certain their identities, their relationship to Frederick Dan is important as it situates the portraits as a part of the family tree and aids in honoring the children of this generation. 

Technique and Presentation

Silhouette of young boy in the fourth generation (b)

The pieces fall under the “hollow cut” procedure similar to Charles and Sarah, yet hold none of the detail that Doyle brings into their depiction through later-added ink. They are simply cut white-paper overlay silhouettes of the young boys, framed with silver and gold foil—which add emphasis on the centered busts. The aligned gold stars on each corner of the frame draw the viewer’s eye to the center of the piece, which is surrounded by silver foil to point all attention to the silhouette. Although all of the adjourning details within the frame are beautiful on their own, they are used as a tool to make sure that the viewer knows exactly where they are meant to be looking within the piece. It can also be theorized that the foils and frame were added to create a ‘high-class’ feeling to the otherwise plain silhouette, considering that the aforementioned style of these silhouettes are “hollow-cut” and do not have any detailing to liven the piece otherwise. The frame and shine of the silver and gold make the piece feel expensive, as well as more important - less likely to be ignored.

Barrett Room Collection

While the other silhouettes within the home sit atop the mantles throughout the house, the silhouettes found in the ‘Barrett Room’ or SE Bedchamber were harder to notice, as they sit within the dimly lit closet which is propped open when tours are given. As there is so much art and historical significance within the Barrett Room decorating the walls, it is easy to get lost before visitor’s even think to look within the closet. However, these pieces serve as historical context for silhouettes as they provide a different use for the profiles rather than just self documentation. 

Marriage document describing William Barrett of Concord, MA and his marriage to Mary Keiser Hall of Charlestown, MA

Within the closet sits the profiles of William Barrett (1775-1834) and Mary Keezer (Keiser) Hall (1785-1870). This framed piece serves to commemorate the marriage between the two, as well as the joining of the two families as a result. Underneath the silhouettes are each of the respective coats of arms for both the Barrett family (on the right), and Hall family (on the left). The two were married on February 12th, 1804 as detailed within the piece; at this moment in history, the displaying of a family’s coat of arms would have been typical of high-class identification. This practice of heraldry—to display a coat of arms within society—was a way that those within the upper class referenced the rituals of a distant past, holding honor and sophistication within its elaborate patterns. A coat of arms was a hereditary device to display status, originally developed in Europe in the mid-12th century and used by the upper echelon of society: nobility, royalty, and others who were the primary power holders within Western Europe. The reference to this past was one that was carried into America to establish this higher class, more sophisticated to even be looking back on the European nobles within history, and displaying a prestigious family name to this same effect. It is clear from this fact alone that both families were wealthy and of high standing, both displaying a coat of arms in the official joining of the two families through marriage.

The two silhouettes in this piece are seen at the top, showcasing the wedded couple above their names and respective coat of arms. Created using black ink on white paper, these silhouettes are not as detailed as some of the other silhouettes in the Museum’s collection. This choice to make the simplistic view of the couple that we see, allows the viewer to not get lost in all of the detail within the piece - as the busy scene describing their marriage below would clash with a “bronzing” technique or later added detailing, as seen in other pieces around the house. Placing the figures at the top of the piece communicates their importance while also keeping the viewer engaged with all portions of the commemorative wedding piece. So much detailing is added to the gothic font that is chosen for the names, their places of origin, as well as the date; coupled with both of the beautiful and circumstantial coat of arms—any more detail would have been lost. The placement of all of the words and imagery was intentional and guides the viewer through the piece, conveying importance, class status, and remembrance in a medium-sized frame.

Familial and Societal Context

Genealogy Tree with Lily St. Agnam Barrett’s connection highlighted (red circle)

When figuring out ties to the central family tree that is used in the museum and on tours, a large portion of the pieces kept in the SE Bedchamber trace back to the wife of George Putnam Huntington (1844-1904)— Lily St. Agnam Barrett (1848-1926) and her own genealogy. After searching through our records and various family trees, William Barrett and his wife Mary Keiser Hall would have been the grandparents of Lily. Knowing this, as well as that Lily would have brought the paper indication of her grandparent’s marriage to Forty Acres shows how her familial ties were incorporated into the home for her own remembrance and display of her ancestry, independent of that of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington lineage. This added union of the Barrett family provides more societal context into the family’s relations within society as the Barrett family were major in their own respective trades in society, William Barrett especially was significant in the cloth dyeing business, securing patents on the many processes that he had developed with his employees. 

News article describing Barrett’s company line

William Barrett started his original textile dyeing business under the name of “William Barrett & Co.” in Malden, MA in 1801. However, this business shifted over time and changed courses with the longevity of William’s involvement in the trade, and in 1804 he rebranded (the same year he got married!). It was in this year that William started a new company and was motivated beyond the Boston market - his attention being turned to New York as a means of reaching higher markets and easier access to mid-Atlantic and Southern coastal cities. Because of this, William bought an old mill and opened his new factory in 1819 under the rebranded business name of “Barrett Tileston & Company” which encompassed a new partnership between himself and William Tileston, his brother, and his nephew. The company would then shift management and titles for the rest of its longstanding history, outliving William Barrett by 105 years, the factory left abandoned in 1939, which later collapsed that same year.

Newspaper article from 1939 describing the Barrett Factory’s collapse

Within the ‘Barrett Room’ or SE Bedchamber as well sit another set of silhouettes commemorating the same couple. An oval shaped frame encompasses a more detailed set of silhouettes done for William Barrett and his wife Mary Keiser Hall. Through our records within our collection it is noted that the couple was married in 1804, so due to reasonable suspicion it can be assumed that these portraits done of William and Mary date to the same year as their marriage document. However, since the last piece was a complete look at the two and their backgrounds, this piece serves to capture more of the detail of the couple as individuals in this important moment in their lives.

Technique and Procedure

Wedding silhouette done of William Barrett and his wife, Mary Keiser Hall

The two silhouettes in this one frame fall under the “hollow-cut” form that is used throughout the house, but prove different as the white paper that has been cut to reveal the profiles of the couple has been laid over a dark fabric, instead of another sheet of paper. The use of fabric to achieve the same effect as paper in other silhouettes around the home serve the same purpose—revealing the silhouette cut from white paper. The detailing done to the clothing befitting both of the figures has not been done with later-added ink, instead just a detailed cutting job that showcases the elaborate hair on Mary and the fancy dress on William—possibly their wedding outfits. The gold framing adds significance to this piece and makes the lasting effect feel more important and emphasized, especially with such a simplistic set of silhouettes being displayed within the gold borders. The paper has significantly aged over time, appearing fully yellowed, signaling the amount of time that has passed since the creation of the two profiles in 1804.

Conclusion and Significance

All of the pieces discussed are an exciting part of the collection on-site that serve as one of the earliest forms of self-reflection. Whether the silhouettes be done through the very common “hollow-cut” technique alive at the farmstead, later added detailing with various kinds of inking (bronze, gold, black), or through elaborate framing— each of these facets serve the individual silhouettes by communicating importance even to the eyes of viewers today. Whether this be done by intentionally shading only the clothing on one’s bust to communicate dimension and prestige, or framing which draws the viewer’s eye to the center; each presents a feeling of importance to the figure captured within the silhouette. The collection of silhouettes that reside at Forty Acres is a testament to the progression of technology alive within the era of their creation. One example of this technology is the “hollow-cut” technique which involves the cutting of a white paper silhouette and laying it over black paper exhibits tact and skill, with later added details being used to add humanity back to the piece. All unique in their own way, each silhouette technique lends its own hints into the lives of the people receiving the service, as well as the artist themselves. Every choice had to be deliberate, especially within the bounds of such a simple yet complex art form. 

Early modes of photography offered before photographs aid in the commemorative nature that these pieces hailed, similar to how we keep photographs of our loved ones sprinkled throughout and around our homes. They aid us in our research on individuals and kinship ties; just by having a silhouette in the home proves the family networks that were alive within Forty Acres. Whether this be the several wives who married into the family who brought their own silhouettes of extended family members with them, the early silhouettes of children who stand to represent the fourth generation of siblings in the family, or a young ambitious merchant and his first wife in the fashionable city of Boston. Having these in our collection better helps our understanding of relations across generations, way before times when one could express this through photography within homes. It is fascinating to see the pieces of familial expression tied to all of the silhouettes within the home— the ways in which they all serve the intended purpose in preserving one’s livelihood through documentation. 

Sources:

Conn, Carole. “American Silhouettes of the 18th and 19th Centuries.” CT Country Antiques, 3 June 2021, www.ctcountryantiques.com/post/american-silhouettes-of-the-18th-and-19th-centuries.

Welter, Lisa. “Types, Techniques and Analysis of Silhouettes.” Arlington Historical Society, 10 Feb. 2021, arlingtonhistorical.org/types-techniques-and-analysis-of-silhouettes/#:~:text=With%20hollow%2Dcut%20silhouettes%2C%20the,outlined%20profile%20of%20the%20subject.

Smithsonian American Art Museum. “William M. S. Doyle.” Smithsonian American Art Museum, americanart.si.edu/artist/william-m-s-doyle-1337.

Silhouette Production Techniques | profilesofthepast.org.uk. www.profilesofthepast.org.uk/content/silhouette-production-techniques-0#:~:text=In%20the%2019th%20century%20'bronzing,of%20various%20shades%20and%20depths

The Social and Cultural Significance of Victorian Heraldry. victorianweb.org/history/heraldry/introduction.html.

“The History of Coats of Arms and Heraldry | Historic UK.” Historic UK, 29 Nov. 2023, www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Coats-of-Arms.

Veronica. “Workday Wednesday: Barrett Nephews and Company.” GenealogySisters, 31 Jan. 2018, genealogysisters.com/2018/01/31/workday-wednesday-barrett-nephews-company.

The Many Spellings of Sezor Phelps

Sezor Phelps was enslaved by Charles and Elizabeth Porter Phelps. Purchased at the age of 18 by Charles in 1770, Sezor would be held by the Phelps family until he was sent to Fort Ticonderoga to be a servant to an officer during the American Revolution. Several records of Sezor have survived in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, Special Collections University Archives, which provide a look into his life on the property. Interestingly, the spelling of his name is not standardized between sources. This post will discuss these variations, and suggest potential reasons for the differences in spelling. While the record of enslavement refers to him as “Caesar” using the classical spelling, I refer to him using the spelling “Sezor” because it is the spelling associated with the one document he initiated.(1)

One interesting part of this puzzle is the naming conventions of enslaved people and why it was that an enslaved man would be named after the Roman statesman Julius Caesar. According to Peter Kolchin in his book American Slavery, 1619-1877, (1993) many early enslavers gave Roman names to their enslaved people ironically. Over time, as the reasons for these names were forgotten, these Roman names would be adopted by the enslaved themselves to connect with their African American ancestors.(2) This idea of ironic or mocking names gives us an explanation for the use of the name of a conqueror for an enslaved man, as well as the common use of such names during the time.(3) This view is also supported by Susan Benson in “Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation”, in which she emphasizes the power differential represented in the naming of another being and the use of names to “mark” the enslaved with uncommon and identifiable or ironic names.(4) Sarah Abel also discusses these naming conventions and the implications of the common names that were used, though primarily in the contexts of the Danish West Indies. One of the names discussed by Abel was “Scipio”, after the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who lead conquests in Africa and was given the moniker “Africanus” in celebration of his victories.(5) Like “Caesar”, this name reflects the vast difference between the enslaved man and his namesake while making a cruel joke on the title “Africanus”.

The earliest document in the archive that references Sezor is a bill of sale, signed in 1770 by Charles Phelps and William Williams of New Marlborough, Vermont.(6) In this document, Sezor’s name is spelled in the classical Roman style (Caesar). This is the only legal document we have referring to Sezor, and reflects the power of the enslaver even in the “official” historical record. While this document, as a legal and financial record, would often be considered the most authoritative, we have chosen to use the document that we have that was initiated by Sezor himself, best reflecting his desires or intentions. This is also the only document that we have in reference to Sezor that is also connected to Charles Phelps, so we do not know how he may have spelled the name, though it likely would be in line with the official documentation.

Bill of Sale for slave (Caesar), 1770, Box 4, Folder 15, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

The second document referring to Sezor also has the most references to him, this being Elizabeth Porter Phelps’ memorandum book, which she wrote between 1765 and 1805. In this daily accounting of the activities at the homestead spanning some 60 years, she writes multiple entries detailing Sezor’s experiences.(7) Most of her entries about Sezor refer to him as “Cesar”, which is a Middle English form of “Caesar” used until the 1700s.(8) Notably, this form is one that appears in John Wycliffe’s Bible translation. Elizabeth’s entries about Sezor primarily discuss an injury he sustained early in his enslavement with the Phelps family and visits to Doctor Porter for his injured hand, but also reference him leaving and being sent to Fort Ticonderoga on her entry of Feb 22 1776. On December 22, 1771, she writes “Last Tuesday Cesar froze his finger”. We do not get any more about his injury until 1775, when Elizabeth writes about Sezor’s “terrible swelled hand, thot to be the rhumatizm”. The entry written on March 7, 1773 is interesting due to the shift in spelling, where she spells his name “Ceasar”, adding yet another spelling of his name to the count. He was referred to as such just this one time and never again in the documents we have access to. It is uncertain whether this was a misspelling on her part, a second but dismissed attempt to spell the name, or why she changed her spelling for just one entry.

The most personal document we have, the one that Sezor himself initiated, is Sezor’s own letter from Fort Ticonderoga dated September 30th, 1776.(9) It is unknown whether he wrote this letter or dictated it as we do not know whether or not Sezor was literate. While there were no literacy laws for enslaved people in Massachusetts, it was still very uncommon and we have no other documentation of his ability to read. Furthermore, depending on which hand was injured, that could also have had an effect on his ability to write. Our view of this document is complicated by the many factors that we do not know, whether evidence has been lost to time or is held in an attic, basement, or repository, waiting to be found. The writer of this letter spelled his name “Sezor”, an entirely phonetic spelling of the name by someone entirely unfamiliar with the classical tradition. This further indicates that Sezor was not literate, as one of the primary practices of literacy is the writing of one’s name. This spelling is also the most interesting, as it represents both Sezor’s own self-expression of his name and an attempt of an enslaved man, and likely a literate servant, to reconstruct a name that they were unfamiliar with as best as they knew how.

Letter from Sezor (Caesar) Phelps to Charles Phelps, 30 September, 1776, Box 4 Folder 12, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

Each source represents a different level of education of the author and of familiarity with the classical tradition. There are several factors that could explain the differences in spelling. The first factor, being education, would put William Williams, as a wealthy man who was likely classically educated, putting the proper spelling of his enslaved man on the bill of sale. This is our highest level of familiarity and understanding of the name. We then move to Elizabeth, who, while literate, would not have been classically educated and may have either had a vague understanding of Latin or had a brief glimpse of the bill of sale and attempted to reconstruct what she saw. In either case, she would know the basic construction of the name, but not the details that actively clash with most English spelling guidelines. Our final level is Sezor himself and/or the scribe, who would not have any familiarity with the spelling or meaning of the name, and only have the phonetic cues to attempt to construct it.

Another possible reason for the naming discrepancies is the lack of large-scale or widespread standardization of English in the time period. It is important to note that while there were several different dictionaries created and multiple attempts to standardize spelling from the 15th century onwards, this was a long process that would go on well into the 18th century.(10) As such, it is hard to say how much of the spelling is influenced by non-standardized spelling versus differently standardized spelling. Furthermore, many of these attempts were not as widespread as Webster’s Speller, the first comprehensive spelling standardization of American English, which was not published until 1783, seven years after our last information on Sezor. This offers an explanation for many of the less standard or familiar spellings of common words in Elizabeth’s diary, notably in her spelling of “Satterday” as well as other instances of double letters being dropped in her writings, such as “asist” and “weding”. To this end, it is entirely possible that each person, or at least those who were literate, would have had a different spelling for a name, and as long as they could tell who was being referred to it was not considered important, especially in writings kept for personal use. 

Regardless of the status of standardization, this would likely not directly have an effect on names, as unlike many other words, which can be standardized into a “proper” form, names are much more fluid, having many different spellings that are all considered “correct”. As such, while the timing of the widespread standardization of language may have played a role in the unstandardized spelling of Sezor’s name, it is likely much more connected to levels of familiarity with the Classical tradition and the name “Caesar” itself being strangely pronounced for its spelling due to shifts in Church Latin.

Finally, I think it is important to note that the name “Caesar” itself is not an intuitive name by any means, and even alongside other classical names would have been more difficult to spell. To understand the strangeness of the name “Caesar”, we need to delve into a few different topics, namely the difference between classical and church Latin and the differences in pronunciation between the two. In classical Latin, Caesar would be spoken [ˈkäe̯s̠är], very similar to the German “kaiser” which originated from it.(11) In classical Latin, no space or time was wasted on silent letters, everything had a purpose and had a specific sound associated. The letters “c” and “k” both represented the hard “k” sound, and “ae” represented the diphthong  [ae̯], which was pronounced similar to a long “i” in “fine”. With this understanding of the original pronunciation of the name, it is also important to note the multiple changes in linguistics and shifts between languages that caused us to get to the modern /ˈsizəɹ/ pronunciation due to the divergence between Ecclesiastical, or church, Latin and classical Latin. 

The first point of divergence between the Ecclesiastical and classical Latin was the decline of Latin as a commonly spoken language. While there were always regional usages and dialects, after Latin fell out of common usage Ecclesiastical Latin began to much more strongly reflect the regional usages in the most powerful states in Europe, namely, the kingdom of the Franks. Ecclesiastical Latin was standardized under Charlemagne as part of his educational reforms in the late 8th century.(12) As a result of this, Ecclesiastical Latin follows many of the same rules of pronunciation as French, leaving behind many of the hard letters that characterized Classical Latin. This process would become even more noticeable with the rise of French as the Lingua Franca, or international language used between states that do not share a language, as French pronunciation became a mark of status and education. The Great Vowel Shift in England between 1400 and 1700 also impacted the pronunciation of the name in English, as the letters “ae” began to represent a hard “ee” sound rather than the [ae̯] diphthong.(13) Each of these shifts made “Caesar” a loan name from a dead language whose nearest relative had completely shifted from the pronunciation of the time, resulting in a name that was not pronounced anywhere near how it was spelled and was not spelled to English spelling conventions even before the standardization of English pronunciation.

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Notes

1. Letter from Sezor (Caesar) Phelps to Charles Phelps, 30 September, 1776, Box 4 Folder 12, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

2. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993). 45.

3. Leah Grandy, “Naming Culture in the Book of Negroes,” Naming Culture in the Book of Negroes | The Loyalist Collection, (2018). PMH Staff, “Caesar, Cato, Pompey - Why Were Enslaved People given Greco-Roman Names?,” Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site Virtual Wing, (March 2023). Susan Wegner, “Classical Names and Concepts Used in the Service of Slavery.” Antiquity and America.

4. Susan Benson, “Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation,” An Anthropology of Names and Naming, 2006, 177–99.

5. Sarah Abel, George F. Tyson, and Gisli Palsson, “From Enslavement to Emancipation: Naming Practices in the Danish West Indies,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 61, no. 2 (April 2019): 332–65.

6. Bill of sale for slave (Caesar), 1770, Box 4, Folder 15, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

7. Elizabeth Porter Phelps Diary Entry, Box 7, Folder 1, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

8. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Caesar (n.1), Forms,” December 2023.

9. Letter from Sezor (Caesar) Phelps to Charles Phelps, 30 September, 1776, Box 4 Folder 12, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

10. Jack Lynch, “Samuel Johnson and the ‘First English Dictionary,’” The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries, September 24, 2020, 142–54.

11. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Caesar (n.1), Etymology,” December 2023.

12. Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool: F. Cairns, 1982).

13. Robert Stockwell, “How Much Shifting Actually Occurred in the Historical English Vowel Shift?,” Studies in the History of the English Language, July 30, 2002, 267–82.

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Citations

Abel, Sarah, George F. Tyson, and Gisli Palsson. “From Enslavement to Emancipation: Naming Practices in the Danish West Indies.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 61, no. 2 (April 2019): 332–65. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0010417519000070. 

Benson, Susan. “Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation.” An Anthropology of Names and Naming, 2006, 177–99. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511499630.010. 

Grandy, Leah. “Naming Culture in the Book of Negroes.” Naming Culture in the Book of Negroes | The Loyalist Collection, 2018. https://loyalist.lib.unb.ca/atlantic-loyalist-connections/naming-culture-book-negroes. 

Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery, 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993. 

Lynch, Jack. “Samuel Johnson and the ‘First English Dictionary.’” The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries, September 24, 2020, 142–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553780.013. 

Stockwell, Robert. “How Much Shifting Actually Occurred in the Historical English Vowel Shift?” Studies in the History of the English Language, July 30, 2002, 267–82. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197143.2.267. 

Wegner, Susan. “Classical Names and Concepts Used in the Service of Slavery.” Antiquity and America. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://bcma.bowdoin.edu/antiquity/classical-names-and-concepts-used-in-the-service-of-slavery/. 

Wright, Roger. Late Latin and early romance in Spain and Carolingian france. Liverpool: F. Cairns, 1982.

Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Caesar (n.1), Etymology,” December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/4997121486.

Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Caesar (n.1), Forms,” December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6980508813.

PMH Staff. “Caesar, Cato, Pompey - Why Were Enslaved People given Greco-Roman Names?” Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site Virtual Wing, March 15, 2023. https://www.philipsemanorhall.com/blog/caesar-cato-pompey-why-were-enslaved-people-given-greco-roman-names. 

Archival Materials

Letter from Sezor (Caesar) Phelps to Charles Phelps, 30 September 1776, Box 4 Folder 12, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

Elizabeth Porter Phelps Diary Entry, Box 7 Folder 1, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries

Bill of sale for slave (Caesar), 1770, Box 4 Folder 15, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers (MS 1148). Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.

Etchings in the Window, July 22nd, 1837

On July 22nd in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House, 186 years ago, Harriet Blake Mills and Mary Dwight Huntington etched into the window of an upstairs bedroom "H.B.M. 22nd July 1837,” and faintly, "Mary Dwight Huntington, July 22nd."

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The faint etchings outlined in red for visibility

Etching one’s name into a window, likely with a diamond ring, was not uncommon during the 19th-century. Many other instances of names etched into windows can be found in residences, museums, and university buildings across the country. In 1843, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne would use Sophia’s diamond ring to etch messages into the windowpane at The Old Manse in Concord, MA.

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Etchings in the window of The Old Manse in Concord, MA. 

Mary Dwight Huntington (1815-1839) was the daughter of Dan Huntington and Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington. H.B.M. is likely Harriet Blake Mills (1818-1892), the sister-in-law to Charles Phelps Huntington (1802-1868), who was the eldest child of Dan and Elizabeth. Harriet, born in Northampton in 1818, would have been just 3 years younger than Mary. Two days after the etching, on July 24th, Elizabeth Huntington wrote to Edward Huntington, “Charles and his family dined with us one day last week. They brought over Harriette and left her with us till Saturday.” It was a Saturday on July 22nd in 1837 when the two women etched their names into the window at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington house. 

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“Charles and his family dined with us one day last week. They brought over Harriette and left her with us till Saturday.” July 24th, 1837

Mary Dwight Huntington, 22 years old in 1837, would only live to 24. In 1839, she fell ill with fever. She was not alone, as many other family members became ill with presumably the same sickness. Mary’s brother Theodore, Mary’s cousin Sarah Phelps and her sister Marianne, and Caroline Judkins of Hadley all suffered from “fevers” during the month of October. Theodore, Sarah, and Marianne survived their sickness. Caroline died October 8th, and Mary D. Huntington died October 14th, 1839.

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“Sarah Phelps and Marianne both very sick yet, the friends were considerably encouraged last week about them, but then seems to have come on a secondary fever with Marianne, which is rather alarming.” October 24, 1839

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“Caroline Judkins, who was taken sick at the same time with Theodore, has finished her labours and sufferings, as we hope, and as your aunt said, had probably found Whiting and Catherine, in the great company of the redeemed.” October 9th, 1839. Caroline Judkins died October 8th.

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“My dear Edward, Our dear Mary has been sinking rapidly since Thursday night; & will not probably live out this day.” October 12th, 1839

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“Dear Edward, We still live, and are all gaining strength, thro’ the mercy of our God upon us. There is a breach in our number, and we miss at every step our dear Mary, who was so much the life of our family circle.” October 24th, 1839, ten days after the death of Mary.

It is likely that Mary and her family experienced an outbreak of typhus or typhoid. Two years prior, in 1837, a typhus epidemic swept through Philadelphia, and throughout the 19th-century both typhus and typhoid were common; typhus was also a significant disease during the Civil War. Typhus and typhoid have similar symptoms, often described as “a sudden onset of fever and other flu-like symptoms about one to two weeks after being infected.”¹ This would conform with the numerous mentions of “fever” throughout the family letters during this period referring to the sick. 

Until recently, the identities of those who had etched their names into the window at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum have been shrouded in mystery. With this new research, we know that Mary D. Huntington was the one to leave her mark just a few years before her untimely death. We’re now able to look at the moment in 1837 as perhaps a happy shared moment of bonding between Mary and Harriet that created a memorial to Mary’s short life. 

Sources:

¹ Mullen, Gary R., Lance A. Durden, and Jonas King. Medical and Veterinary Entomology. London: Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier, 2019. 

“Nooks and Crannies: Uncovering the Secrets of the Old Manse.” LivingConcord. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.livingconcord.com/event/nooks-and-crannies-uncovering-the-secrets-of-the-old-manse/.

“Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers.” Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, Global Valley. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.ats.amherst.edu/globalvalley/exhibits/show/pph-papers. 

“What an 1836 Typhus Outbreak Taught the Medical World about Epidemics.” Smithsonian.com, April 21, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-1836-typhus-outbreak-taught-medical-world-about-epidemics-180974707/. 

In the Archives with Catharine Sargent Huntington

Last month, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum interns and staff made a visit to the Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) at the W. E. B. Du Bois Library of UMass Amherst to take a look at the PPH Family Papers. We turned the pages of Elizabeth Porter Phelps’ memorandum book, the scrapbooks and journals of museum founder James Lincoln Huntington, and the recent acquisition of Charles Porter Phelps' "adventures" and shipping receipts from his time as a merchant in Boston from 1799-1816. The finding aid can be viewed on their website, here.

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Our discussion with Aaron Rubinstein, Head of the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, and Danielle Kovacs, Curator of Collections, related the donation of the PPH Family Papers from the Porter Phelps Huntington Foundation Inc. to SCUA, in 2021. A large number of boxes contained the papers of Catharine Sargent Huntington, which had previously been placed on deposit and processed by archivists and staff at Amherst College. Over the course of 2022, Cheryl McNeill Schwab at UMass assessed the work that had already been done and, realizing there were still boxes that had not yet been sorted, described and processed, saw the need to create a more comprehensive finding aid to better integrate them and ensure that interested visitors might have easy access. 

Two PPH interns were invited behind-the-scenes to assist in the sorting of these boxes. The discoveries we made in the archiving process – though not all revolutionary – were at once amusing and insightful, and did much to flesh out the rich stories we have already collected about this incredible woman.

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As was written in a 2016 PPH blog post linked here, “Catharine Sargent Huntington was a prominent actress, activist, and Boston society member. The only daughter of George Putnam Huntington and Lilly St. Agnam Barrett Huntington to survive past infancy, Catharine was born on December 29, 1887 in Ashfield, Massachusetts and grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire.” Over the course of her 100 years of life, she “influenced and inspired those interested in theater and justice in the Boston area and beyond”, traveled around the world, aided in local war reconstruction efforts, fostered important relationships with family and fellow creatives, and in the process amassed a significant collection of papers and other artifacts that have proved to be invaluable in our family research efforts.

According to the SCUA webpage, Catharine’s papers span “almost a century from the late 1800s to the late 1900s'' and include “more than 2,300 pieces of correspondence; photographs; scripts; original manuscripts of her poems, speeches, newspaper clippings; estate and will information; personal financial documents; and much other printed material and items of ephemera.” They have been organized into 5 series: Correspondence; Personal; Professional; Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, Inc; and Photographs and negatives. As interns working to assess what were sometimes antiquated, complex, and stuck-together documents, sorting items into definitive categories became a challenge early on – some papers were nearly illegible, and others were clearly related to multiple series. These challenges sparked fascinating conversations with other archivists in the office, and gave us unique insight into the ethics of the very human decisions being made when documenting history.

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As we lifted item after item out of old cardboard boxes and into labeled folders, much of what we found were bills, a surprising number of blank decorative cards, and letters from family and friends updating her on their travels. One such note was a postcard sent by still-living British-based artist Kaffe Fassett in 1963. His short message wishes Catharine a Happy New Year from California and features a lyrical pen drawing of what appears to be a dove, as well as a photograph of a young Fassett in front of a wall of paintings.

We discovered another group of postcards both sent and received by Catharine from various cities in France, written in a mix of English and French, with vibrant touristy pictures on the fronts. Paired with a stack of 2-inch wide contact prints of French architecture and countryside, there was much material evidence in these boxes of the time she spent working as a nurse’s aid with the YMCA and helping the war reconstruction effort in France between the years of 1914 to 1920.

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On a personal note, it was Catharine’s writing and poetry, perhaps never intended to be seen by others, that proved the most emotionally impactful, and effectively endeared me to her as a character in history. “First Snow” was one of a handful of short poems found amongst her papers, all of which describe natural scenes, daily activities, and allude to the melancholic passage of time. 

My ultimate favorite find, however, was a single yellow paper with three curious lines of type. Whether this paper was used to test a new typewriter, air out frustrations, or communicate some secret code, the humor of its incoherent message took me aback – it felt surprisingly relatable. Though Catharine lived well into the 1980s, her carefully labeled black and white portraits and handwritten correspondence sometimes felt like artifacts from a very distant era. It was through the seemingly innocuous loose papers floating around archival boxes that I began to feel a stronger connection to who she was outside of her known relationships and accolades. These few intimate snippets of daily life cemented for me that there is so much still to learn about her. So many gaps and mysteries and stories that may have left no record. The sentiment of Catharine’s “I wonder” pervaded our time in the archives.

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Since Catharine’s death in 1987, her papers and collections have continued to filter into the Museum, with each new letter, certificate, and piece of furniture enhancing the patchwork history of her life. The process itself of regularly receiving, processing, and sharing these artifacts reminds us that our understanding of this whole family, and the museum that tells its stories, is ever-evolving.

Leverett Center School Watercolor by Georgiana Sargent

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Hanging above the door in the “bishop’s study” at Forty Acres is a watercolor painting of the Leverett Central School, a one-room schoolhouse in Leverett, Massachusetts where Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington preached some of his first sermons in 1841. The painting dates to 1895. On the original catalog card for the painting, museum founder James Lincoln Huntington writes “Miss Sargent was cousin of George P. H. She made this watercolor of the schoolhouse...” The painting features a red schoolhouse atop a grassy hill, bright green from the sunlight shining on it. The hill slopes to the left of the frame, and behind it are visible the mountains in the distance, and the blue sky and clouds above them. Towering trees cast a shadow over the schoolhouse. In the bottom corner of the painting is written “Leverett, Aug ‘95, G.W.S.”

Leverett’s Central School at 94 Depot Road was one of many one-room schoolhouses that serviced the Leverett area. Throughout the summer of 1841, Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington preached inside the schoolhouse. “Mr. Huntington seems to have given his first sermon at the House of Correction in East Cambridge, March 22nd, 1841,” wrote Arria Huntington in her 1906 book Memoir and Letters of Frederic Dan Huntington: First Bishop of Central New York. “During the following summer he ministered to a little flock of ‘Liberal Christians’ who gathered in a lonely schoolhouse on the hills above the Connecticut Valley.’”

Leverett’s Central School, built in 1800, served as a schoolhouse in Leverett for 150 years until it was replaced in 1950. The schoolhouse was often referred to as the “Little Red Schoolhouse,” which explains why the building appears red in the painting. Interestingly, though, the schoolhouse is said to have been clad in white-painted clapboards “sometime after 1850”, as is shown in the photograph. Would Georgiana Sargent have known it to be red in her lifetime? Perhaps she was painting the building as it once was. A flagpole in the photo above is also not present on the painting by Georgiana. In 1950, the town of Leverett replaced the still active one-room schoolhouses in the area with Leverett Elementary School. The building presumably still stands on privately owned land and is a part of the Leverett Center Historic District.

Leverett Center School in 1990 from the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System

Flowers by Georgiana Welles Sargent

Miss Sargent AKA G.W.S. is Georgiana Welles Sargent (1858-1946). Georgiana’s  father was John Osborn Sargent, whose half-sister was married to Frederic Dan Huntington. Her family lived on 35th Avenue in New York City and had a summer home in Lenox, Massachusetts. Later she would live in Europe with her family and eventually move back to New England. “Cousin Georgie” was close with the PPH family, often writing letters to the family from various residences.

Georgiana was an avid gardener, painter, and art collector; in 1924 she donated hundreds of prints to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in honor of her father, John Osborn Sargent. Evidence of her painting practice beyond this watercolor include a sketchbook of floral and landscape paintings among the museum’s collections. The schoolhouse was likely one of many landscape paintings she made in her lifetime. Any connection Georgiana had to the schoolhouse outside of her relation to Frederic Dan Huntington is unknown.

Among the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family papers at UMass Amherst is a photograph of her and some correspondence, and the museum contains numerous artifacts once belonging to her (mostly clothing and everyday objects). Georgiana was said to have been single all her life, though her frequent correspondence and closeness with the family tells us that she never was alone. Georgiana died in 1949, the year that the Porter-Phelps-Huntington house became a museum. She was 91.

Sources:

“Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers.” findingaids.library.umass.edu, http://findingaids.library.umass.edu/ead/mums1148#odd-gws. 

Gibavic, Annette. Leverett’s One Room Schools, 2000. 

“Historic Building Detail: LEV.19.” MHC. Accessed August 2, 2023. https://mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=LEV.19. 

A Sibling's Brushstrokes

Loose brushstrokes dappled in hues of earthy tones capture these small moments of adolescence depicted through Constant Huntington’s watercolor portraits of his brother and sister. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum collection recently acquired these two watercolor paintings by Constant Huntington. Born in 1876 to the parents of George Putnam Huntington and Lily St. Agnam Barrett Huntington, Constant grew up in Boston, MA. In 1916 he married Gladys Theodora Putnam. Together they lived in Sussex, England where they raised their daughter Alfreda Huntington before moving to Westminster, London where he resided until his death in 1962. The first of Constant’s watercolors is of his sister, Catharine (b.1887). She is situated against an unidentifiable background of blues and reds that bleed into one another. She sits waist up with her body turned in a ¾ profile towards the viewer. Her skin is pale but rendered with subtle hues of warmth that garner the complexion of a child. Constant captures his sister's features with swift strokes of the brush as seen with the simple outlines of her eyes that turn down and her quiet smile. Her hair falls loosely into her eyes which further removes the viewer from her gaze, yet she remains quite accessible given that she is positioned so close to the forefront of the image. Whether Constant was aware of this dichotomy is unlikely, but in doing so the viewer can gain insight into a tender moment between siblings, yet her lack of detail and head turn provides a sense of ambiguity that allows the viewer to see a child from their own life and further connect to this tender moment.

From Catharine’s grip stems three vermillion blossoms, each upright and sturdy as if they are reaching up to greet Catharine who returns a glance down at them. While these flowers also lack some detail, Constant seems to have attempted some shading by going in with darker hues of the base colors. The green stem bleeds into the green of Catharine’s right sleeve making it somewhat difficult to distinguish between plant and girl.

The subject of the next watercolor by Constant could be one of his brothers, either Barrett or James. The boy too sits in profile to the viewer, this time turned completely to the side. His darker hair is pushed behind his ear yet still manages to fall in his face as he peers down. He is seated at a desk where he is painting with watercolors. His work mimics the flowers in Constant’s portrait of his sister, with the familiar shades of green and vermillion. Perhaps Constant was particularly intrigued with these flowers, or he had leftover colors he wanted to use. Or maybe they were all painting together and Catharine and/or the flowers were the subject. Constant’s understanding of human anatomy here is a bit underdeveloped. For example, he depicts the boy wearing a loose and boxy jacket which makes it hard to imagine the body of a child occupying such a large garment underneath. Additionally, his hands that secure the paper and paintbrush are quite large and awkward in their positioning. If you take a closer look at his right hand that commands the brush, his thumb seems to be just as long as his pointer finger.

With this piece Constant appears to have avoided the bottom half of his brother; even though he is seated at a desk, his legs are all but a large shape of light green. Constant pays particular attention to the jacket where he adds darker colors for the shading and creases. I find the line work quite lovely on the edge of the hood and undershirt. I imagine Constant switching to a smaller brush or lightly using the tip to capture these fine details. He also seems to experiment more with details in the face, as seen with the nostril and added pupil that is otherwise absent in his work of Catharine.

Shays' Rebellion and Forty Acres

As this house was one of the more prominent estates in western Massachusetts from before the birth of this country until almost the 20th century, one would imagine it had some influence or connection to the significant historical events in the region, including revolts and revolutions. Shays’ Rebellion, which is considered the most significant military intervention in western Massachusetts, had multiple connections to Forty Acres, including two men with two very different perspectives on the altercation. 

America's massive war debt, accumulated during the Revolution, proved an important factor leading to Shays’ Rebellion. The cost of financing the war, including monetary incentives for soldiers who fought in the revolution and loans from the federal treasury, left Massachusetts with a staggering amount of debt--  $41,500,000 to be exact (with a current day worth of over one billion dollars) .  To make matters worse, a trade embargo imposed by Great Britain barred the newly formed nation from the important British West Indies trade route. Consequently, merchants could not form vital trade partnerships that were necessary to finance a new country. This exacerbated the ongoing recession, while state and federal debts likewise resisted mitigation.

As a result, the federal government raised the taxes to a crippling level-- the tax rate ballooned by over 1000% between 1774 and 1786 . To combat this, most states printed and issued more paper money to get the economy flowing again and allow farmers to pay off their debts, or excuse them all together. Massachusetts, however, decided to follow through with these taxes , and furthermore wanted all debts to be repaid in the same currency as they were borrowed-- strictly gold and silver . Prior to the war, the economy of western Massachusetts depended on an extensive bartering system, and thus many people lacked universal material currency. When taxes grew astronomically following the Revolution, the populations in western Massachusetts who had relied on a bartering economy found themselves with little gold or silver to pay them . 

In Western Massachusetts, the courts were flooded with foreclosures from farmers, many of whom fought in the war, and immediately people gathered to storm the courts. Their goal was to stop or hinder these court proceedings by intimidating the judges. Daniel Shays, a farmer from Pelham, Massachusetts and former soldier in the American Revolution, emerged as the leader of this revolution . Along with Shays and local militias, many community supporters  also gathered at these courts, including former owner and operator of Forty Acres, Charles Phelps. However, he was in support of  the courts and militia as opposed to Shays. Elizabeth Porter Phelps noted multiple times in her diary how her husband “set out for Springfield” to “uphold the court” in both 1782 and in 1786 . Charles' presence would be expected at these rebellions as he was very tightly connected with the local government; he had been reelected twenty times as a local selectman and also served as the deputy to the General Court in Boston in 1780. Charles’ frequent trips to Boston to trade cattle equipped him well with gold, silver, and paper money. This set him apart from his neighbors as his government ties and financial security allowed him not to feel the effects of these taxes and recession as much as others .

Charles Phelps was also present in 1786 at a very significant court closing in Springfield- the last one until the final meeting of the two sides in January. This is unsurprising given the large audience this exchange, which affected almost everyone in the area, attracted. Either they supported the rebellion, or, like Phelps, supported the government. On this day, September 26, 1786, Daniel Shays reportedly led a large group of nearly 600 to the Springfield courthouse where they attempted to interrupt another court hearing, something they had done succesfully in five other Massachusetts towns that summer. Aiming to protest peacefully, Daniel Shays attempted to make a deal with General William Shepard to allow the protestors into the courthouse and to have many foreclosures thrown out; however, Shays’ requests were far outside of Shepard’s control, and no deal was made. However, the two men agreed to let the “Shaysites” protest outside the courthouse, if they agreed not to attack the militia or the judges residing inside . This bittersweet end failed to satisfy either side, and soon enough they would meet again in a bloody exchange.

The protest at the Springfield courthouse on September 27th, 1786

By late January 1787, the Massachusetts government sensed that an attack on the arsenal in Springfield by Shays' forces was imminent. To combat this, Governor James Bowdoin asked General Benjamin Lincoln to aid General Shepard and the militia in Springfield, where he would arrive on January 20th. Lincoln was a recently retired revolutionary war hero who was handicapped in battle with a gunshot to the knee, but still led many armies into battle and was even present with George Washington when Cornwallis officially surrendered to America. After the war, he served as the first Secretary of War under the Articles of Confederation; however, he retired soon after and resided in Hingham . Benjamin Lincoln also brings the second link between Shays’ Rebellion and Forty Acres: his great granddaughter, Hannah Dane Sargent, would marry Frederic Dan Huntington . Even though Phelps and Lincoln were strangers then and never met each other, they each supported the same cause. This presents a fascinating  example of how the connections of Forty Acres stretch incredibly far.

General Benjamin Lincoln

Generals Lincoln and Shepard were well prepared on the day of January 25, 1787 as they had been guarding the Springfield arsenal for days in anticipation of the Shaysites’ attack. Again, Charles Phelps assisted their forces,  predominantly by providing  supplies and food on multiple occasions. Elizabeth recounts in her diary how on January 14th, he brought the meat of two slaughtered oxen to the militia men at Springfield . Despite superior numbers, Shays' forces of over 1400 were easily defeated by the 1200 men guarding the arsenal. As the militia were posted up in front of the building and waiting for the advancement, it allowed them to easily fire upon the approaching forces. Additionally, as this was in mid January in Massachusetts, Shays and his men faced nearly four feet of snow as they attempted to “storm” the arsenal. A cannon was fired, followed by muskets from many of the militia, which as a result scattered Shays and his army . In the following days, Lincoln and the militia continued to push Shays and rebel forces back until January 30th, where Lincoln and the militia had moved northward to Hadley. Here, he attempted one last time to convince Shays to stand down, and yet again Shays refused and pulled his men back to their headquarters in Petersham. Just days later on February 3rd and 4th, Lincoln and the militia struck at the headquarters, dissolving Shays’ revolutionary forces once and for all .

The scene of January 25th, 1787 at the Springfield arsenal

Even though this rebellion was defeated quite anticlimactically, it still left an incredibly lasting effect on the United States as a whole. Shays’ Rebellion successfully got the attention of the federal government and pushed them to centralize legislative power in hopes to prevent similar rebellions through restricting such excessive taxes, offering more support to local militias and easing the rules set upon the state governments that limited their power to shut down these uprisings. Subsequently, this pushed the US to move past the Articles of Confederation which lacked the ability to have a strong central government, and move onto the Constitution which strengthened the federal powers and allowed states more power over their citizens. Additionally, the state government of Massachusetts also lessened  taxes and forgave many people's debts. Even though Charles Phelps and Benjamin Lincoln were fighting for the opposite side of these results, they most likely would still be in favor of how things turned out. As Benjamin Lincoln was a prominent member of the revolutionary army and Charles Phelps was linked to the revolution in many ways, they were both sympathetic towards the movement led by Daniel Shays. Benjamin Lincoln was a fan of liberty, and he was most certainly not against men like Daniel Shays who were fighting in its name, just as he had less than ten years prior. He too agreed with always questioning authority, and if these taxes were to affect him, there's a good chance he too would have participated in the Rebellion. However, Lincoln was a well-paid retired war general living in Hingham, Massachusetts, where the bartering system was not as universal; he had sufficient gold and silver to pay off the problematic taxes. Yet again, Forty Acres and those who passed through it serve as a wonderful perspective for American history, in this instance giving two views of one of the most prominent military encounters in Massachusetts’ history.

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Work Cited

“Benjamin Lincoln Papers.” Massachusetts Historical Society. Accessed August 9, 2021. https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0254. 

Shays' Rebellion - Historic Scenes. Springfield Technical Community College. Accessed August 9, 2021. http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/scenes/home.do. 

Carlisle, Elizabeth Pendergast. Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (1747-1817). New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. 

Ladenberg, Thomas. “Paper Money and Shays’ Rebellion.”Chapter in Critical Issues and Simulations Units in American History. Accessed August 9, 2021. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/lesson_plan_ladenburg.cfm. 

Weir, Robert E., ed.Benjamin Lincoln at 40 Acres: An Exhibit to Commemorate the Bicentennial of the Shays Rebellion.

The Making of a Manuscript: A Look at Gladys Huntington's Editing Process From Turgeniev to The Borrowed Life

I.

“TURGENIEV: A Play in Two Acts” proclaims the cover of a typewritten manuscript in the the Gladys and Constant Huntington collection. It’s an unassuming document, the pages of which are beige and slightly worn with age. Undated and unsigned, the only hints at its provenance are the name and professional address of “C. Huntington” in London and a sheet of Putnam & Co Ltd stationery noting that the manuscript had been sent- to and from whom as of yet unknown- “with compliments.” The initials S.H. are marked in the top-left corner of the first page. In all of my research into their life in London, reading of their correspondence, and work with their notebooks, no such play has been mentioned. 

Another manuscript in the collection, printed on the same material by the same typewriting, shorthand, and duplicate company (Ethel Christian, advertised as “The Smartest in London”), is clearly identifiable as Gladys’ play “The Ladies’ Mile”, which she had written early in her life (dated 20/12/1944)  and planned to adapt into a novel following the success of Madame Solario. The manuscript notes “Mrs. Huntington” at Amberley House in Sussex as the return address. This only compounds the mystery of “Turgeniev”- did Gladys write it? Did Constant, whose name is printed inside the cover? If it was sent from the Putnam offices, presumably to be reviewed by a reader, how did it end up in Constant’s or Gladys’ hands? An off hand quotation from Willa Cather’s 1918 novel My Ántonia by one of the characters suggests that the play must have been written following its publication, and the “Putnam and Co Ltd” stationery indicates the manuscript was sent at some point after 1930, when Constant secured a controlling interest in the London branch of Putnam and changed the name from G. P. Putnam’s Sons. By this time, Constant had led the London offices for over two decades (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Archives).

“Turgeniev'' is the fictionalized drama of the life of Russian literary giant Ivan Turgenev (the commonly accepted Western spelling of his name, curiously shunned by the author of this play). The play takes place in the early 1860’s, in the French villa of Madame Pauline Viardot, a renowned opera singer of Spanish descent. She lived there with her husband Louis, and for a time, with Turgenev, who had fallen madly in love with her after watching her perform in Russia when he was a young man (Battersby). He followed her to Europe and became a permanent fixture in the Viardot household, passionately in love with Pauline and a close companion to her husband and children. The unusual arrangement presumably worked well for the three, though it caused much dismay to the Russian public, who resented the fact that such a luminary Russian author would live beyond their national borders (Battersby). 

Dostoevsky (who would later come to regard him with disdain) wrote of Turgenev upon meeting him, “A poet, a talent, an aristocrat, superbly handsome, rich, clever, educated, twenty-five years old- I can’t think what nature has denied him” (Schapiro 50). Unfortunately, their political differences would later prove an insuperable barrier between the two men, and any hope of an amicable relationship faltered. Likewise, his relationship with Tolstoy was marred by tension and political differences; at one point, Turgenev’s public dislike of Tolstoy became so extreme that it prompted a challenge to duel (an event which ultimately went unrealized) (Schapiro 172). The names of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy resonate throughout the modern day, marking their enduring literary achievements, while Turgenev’s name has faded somewhat from all but those with an express interest in Russian literature. Of course, his enormous impact on the literary and political landscape of Russia is still remembered well by his country. Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches is widely credited for bringing about the abolition of serfdom in Russia, and the Turgeniev play picks up the public’s confusion over his next novel, Fathers and Sons, which takes a more ambivalent attitude towards the future of Russia. Coupled with his relocation from Russia to France at Viardot’s behest, Turgenev’s political alliances were publicly called into question.

The front page to the Bantam Classic edition of “Fathers and Sons”, which speaks to Turgenev’s impact as a writer.

The play’s text is rife with consideration of the same questions that preoccupied the literature and life of Turgenev- whether art should strive for political or aesthetic ambitions, the literary imagination, and the destructive force of passion and love. While the play is grounded in the history of Turgenev and Viardot, the next generation of characters come from the author’s imagination. The ethereal Delphine Viardot, fictional daughter of the nonfictional Pauline, is one such character. In Countess Alexandra Tolstoy’s introduction to Turgenev’s seminal work Fathers and Sons, she quotes a remark he made to a friend:  “I could never invent my characters...I could not create an imaginary type. I had to choose a living person and combine in this person many characteristics in conformity with the type of my hero” (Tolstoy viii). The author of Turgeniev seems to have picked up on his technique; Delphine is often referred to as almost a creature sprung from Turgenev’s mind:

TURGENIEV: It may be only a fancy, but sometimes I am afraid...that you enter too much into what I have imagined...My child, Delphine, it mustn’t become a spell that we will have to break. You mustn’t have your life in my imagination. (77.3.I)

❋

TURGENIEV: To tell the truth, [Bazarov] has taken on a life of his own, and now he alarms me a little- and he himself is laughing at me! That is what sometimes happens- a creature of the imagination goes forth and lives, independent of its creator!

DELPHINE, who has been sitting in an intense stillness and inner concentration, puts down her work, and gazes at him. (13.1.II)

The Frankenstein-esque undertones of this scene are unmistakable- both in the sense of Delphine and of Yevgeny Bazarov, protagonist of Fathers and Sons. Indeed, Turgenev told the same aforementioned friend, “The character of Bazarov tormented me to such an extent, that sometimes when I sat at the dinner table, there he was sticking out in front of me. I was speaking to someone and at the same time I was asking myself: what would my Bazarov say to that?” He reportedly kept notes of imaginary conversations with Bazarov (Tolstoy ix). In the second quotation, Turgeniev’s description of his relentlessly animate character is paired with Delphine’s curious reaction to it, aligning her with his literary imagination that brings characters to life.

Excerpt from "Turgeniev"

Pauline Viardot and Ivan Turgeniev argue over the nature of artistic inspiration.

II.

Seemingly at a crossroads with identification of this manuscript, I reached out to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where they hold a G. P. Putnam’s Sons Records collection. With so little information to go off, the archivists there were equally as stumped, but promised to look further in their records of reader’s reports and contracts to find if it had ever been published. The issue resolved itself upon the recent visit of the Urquhart-Ohno family, bearing gifts of more archival material to add to the Constant and Gladys Huntington collection. Among this new material was a playbill for The Borrowed Life: A Play in Three Acts by Gladys Parrish, produced by the Three Hundred Club. A glance through the cast list shows characters Dmitri Alexeitch Arkov, Comte De Laumont, Baron Korff, and Madame Thomar- familiar names from the character list of Turgeniev. However, the play’s namesake is missing, replaced with Ivan Petrovitch Stanin; Pauline and her husband Louis have become Pauline and Edouard Maligé; even Pavel Alexandrovitch Iretzky (who hadn’t appeared to have a real-life counterpart that I could find) was transformed to Pavel Alexandrovitch Islenyev. The addition of a third act is likewise a fascinating change. According to the playbill, Act III reportedly contains “Scene I- Late afternoon in the following November” and “Scene II- Early evening, a month later.” These are new scenes, added on to the revised Turgeniev as it transformed through the editing process to become The Borrowed Life. We don’t presently have a copy of the text of the final play or access to any of its reviews in contemporary newspapers, so the amount of change the manuscript underwent is unclear. Does Turgenev borrow the life of Delphine, using her as if a character in one of his books? Does Pauline borrow the life of Turgenev as it would have been in Russia by compelling him to move from Russia to France?

Page 1 of the Playbill for "The Borrowed Life"

Page 2 of the Playbill for "The Borrowed Life"

Page 3 of the Playbill for "The Borrowed Life"

Evidently, critics and audience members still recognized the mark of Turgenev on Gladys’ play, despite her attempts to distance it from his life and history by changing the title and character names. Perhaps this is why the Sheffield Daily Telegraph in the above image notes it as being of “unusual interest.” Writing about writers and their works was and is not uncommon, and the tumultuous story of Turgenev’s life presents a particularly potent topic for a play like this one. Perhaps Gladys decided she aligned with Pauline Viardot’s idea of art as a transcendental, individual experience rather than Turgenev’s more grounded, politicized approach. In moving away from Turgeniev as a semi-fictional history of a life, she creates The Borrowed Life as a more universal exploration of the intersections between politics and art, and collective and individual loyalties, a work inspired by but not restricted by its ties to a historical reality.

Thanks to these new acquisitions from the Urquhart-Ohnos, we’re able to bear witness to Gladys’ writing process- in this case as she edits Turgeniev into The Borrowed Life. Not only does this play speak to Gladys’ development as a writer as she hones her craft through numerous drafts and changes, but it also demonstrates her growing literary sensibilities. It opens (at least in the Turgeniev version) with representatives of liberal and conservative Russian politics sent to convince Turgenev to return to Russia and interpret his work for their people; much of the play concerns itself with various interpretations of Turgenev’s work as it applies to the political landscape of Russia. As Turgeniev the character and Turgenev the man both remark, his characters and plotlines seem to come alive and require tending to. The climactic debate between Pauline and Turgenev, in which these political consequences come up against purely literary ambitions, has occupied literary critics for many centuries. In Turgeniev, or The Borrowed Life, Gladys gives it form in the words and affairs of two prominent 19th century musical and literary artists.

Bibliography

https://archives.library.illinois.edu/rbml/?p=collections/findingaid&id=943&q=&rootcontentid=90949

“Giant Actor as Turgeniev.” Sheffield Daily Telegraph [Yorkshire, England], 28 November 1930.

Schapiro, Leonard. Turgenev, His Life and Times. 1st American ed., Random House, 1978.

Tolstoy, Alexandra. Introduction. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, Bantam Classics, pp. i-xiii.

Waddington, Patrick. “A Catalogue of Letters by I. S. Turgenev to Pauline and Louis Viardot.” New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 1983, p. 249.

Educational Endeavors

One of the many things that links the disparate branches of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family was their deep commitment to education, both for themselves and for others. Across generations and geography members of the family founded, worked at, and donated to schools all over the country, some of which still stand today. From gendered boarding schools to vocational schools for Black and Native Americans to the local day school, the family exhibited a real investment (in every sense of the word) in education. 

The family’s involvement in education can be traced back to some of the very first settlers of Hadley. Elizabeth Pitkin Porter was remarkably well educated for the mid-eighteenth century and passed such qualities down on to her daughter, Elizabeth Porter Phelps, whose ability to read and write permitted her meticulous diaries which have, in turn, been integral in shaping the Museum and the stories it tells. There are several accounts, too, of Elizabeth Porter Phelps doing as her mother did and educating the next generation of women, or, as Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle puts it, “teaching the skills necessary to become the industrious wives of farmers, educated women, and God-fearing members of the pious community that she strove to perpetuate.”   

The man whom Elizabeth Porter Phelps married, Charles Phelps, was perhaps the first to formally engage with institutional education, serving as one of the Trustees of local Hopkins Academy for over thirty years. Charles’s younger brother Timothy also married the younger sister of Emma Willard, the beginning of a fruitful relationship between the Emma Willard School, then called the Troy Female Seminary, and the family. 

Portrait of Elizabeth Huntington Fisher

Elizabeth Huntington Fisher, the daughter of Elizabeth Whiting and Dan Huntington, was among the first students to attend the now-prestigious school in Troy, New York. Her sisters soon followed in her footsteps, and Huntington Fisher even returned to the school after she graduated to teach. 

Like his father in-law, Dan Huntington dedicated his time to the local school, Hopkins Academy. He was its principal for three years (1817-1820) but a Trustee for much longer, serving in the role until he died in 1864.  

Portrait of Reverend Frederic Dan Huntington

Elizabeth and Dan Huntington’s youngest son, the Reverend Frederic Dan Huntington, was active in the educational world as well. Founder of the St. John’s School in Syracuse, New York in 1869, he endeavored “To rear men well-built and vital, full of wisdom… full of energy… full of faith.” Even though the school still exists today, Frederic Dan Huntington might have been found lacking in the execution of his goal, as even the school’s own website conceded that “dwindling enrollment left the school on the verge of closing” less than twenty years after it opened. Under new management, the school rebranded itself into a military academy and thrived well into the twentieth century.  

Portrait of Arria Sargent Huntington

Frederic Dan’s daughter, Arria Sargent Huntington, was also prominent in Syracuse for her contributions to education as well as the advancement of various other social causes. As well as founding hospitals, shelters, and working associations for women, Arria served as the School Commissioner for the Syracuse Department of Education; a great achievement, but one especially remarkable given the number of women in leading administrative positions at the time. During her six-year tenure from 1897 to 1903, Arria also headed and participated in a number of School Committees that kept the educational system well-serviced and functioning.

Photo of James Otis Sargent Huntington

Frederic Dan’s son, James Otis Sargent Huntington, was perhaps foremost among the family in the creation of schools. Founder of the Order of the Holy Cross, which describes itself as “An Anglican Benedictine Community of Men,” his religious work coincided with his commitment to education. Under the direction and with the help of James O.S. Huntington, the Order founded two schools which are still educating students to this day, though the Mission in Liberia and a “Home for Wayward Girls” in Tarrytown, New York cease to operate. One of the schools founded by James O.S. Huntington can be found (albeit under a slightly altered name) in Sewanee, Tennessee. Originally called the St. Andrew’s School, it was created in 1905 to serve “deserving mountain boys” and interrupt the “cycle of poverty” in a historically underserved part of the country. Though the school has undergone many alterations, including a stint as a military academy, it has remained true to its religious roots. The Kent School, also founded by Huntington several hundred miles away in Connecticut, shares many characteristics with that of Sewanee. Founded with the help of James O.S. Huntington in 1906, it too retains its affiliation with the Episcopal Church and upholds its founders’ emphasis on spiritual education. Shared by the two schools, too, is a costly price of attendance: upwards of $50,000 for boarding students in 2021.  

Roger Fenn, courtesy of https://www.fenn.org/page.cfm?p=516

These two were not the only private schools founded by the family. In 1929, Roger Fenn, descendant of Elizabeth Porter Huntington Fisher, founded the private, all-boys elementary institution called the Fenn School. Located in Concord, MA, its goal was to give “each boy…guidance and support in accepting a continuing and growing responsibility to himself, to his fellow students, to his school, and to the larger community.” In reading the educational missions of the various schools founded by the family, the common goal of creating better citizens can be easily traced. However, though they might have been noble in their goals, the demographics of contemporary and current students likely skew towards white and wealthy, a fact that should be noted in a discussion about the family’s educational philanthropy.   

Portrait of Mary Otis Lincoln Sargent

These were not the only members of the family to have worked at a private elementary school. At the Derby Academy, the oldest coeducational educational institution, you could find Mary Otis Lincoln Sargent teaching and her father as headmaster. It was there where Mary met the sea captain Epes Sargent V, the father of one of her students and her soon-to-be husband.  

Photo portrait of Collis P. Huntington

On the outer branches of the family tree lies Collis Potter Huntington, second cousin once-removed of Dan Huntington and founder of the Central Pacific Railroad. A tycoon of transportation and one of America’s “Big Four,” C.P. Huntington was instrumental in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and left a visible imprint on the nation in the form of railways and spikes. Lesser known, though, is the impact he made through his educational philanthropy. Collis P. Huntington has been described as “an ardent abolitionist and a supporter of African American education,” and his donations to the Virginia-based Hampton Normal and Industrial School for Negroes and Indians and the Tuskegee Institute reflect that. The Hampton School, now called Hampton University and an HBCU, was where Booker T. Washington got his start and was created with the goal of giving Black and Native Americans “Practical experience in trades and industrial schools.” Both of the schools which C.P. Huntington patronized are credited with training “’an army of black educators’” that spread out across the country. 

The particular brand of education that Collis was endorsing, however, should be analyzed. As one account notes, “Booker T. Washington’s projects, and schools that followed his principles were funded by wealthy, white, northern donors… They approved of his approach of not directly confronting racial inequality but ‘uplifting the people’ through education.” Though Washington was undeniably undertaking important and influential work, it emphasized uplifting oneself and almost tacitly absolved the systems and people that created the hurdles to self-support in the first place. Furthermore, while the scholar Paulette Fairbanks Molin notes the “pioneering model in academic instruction and manual-technical training” of the Hampton Institute, she also highlights how “The Hampton plan included now-familiar components of off-reservation boarding schools” that isolated students from their families and attempted to erase their traditions and cultures.  

As mentioned above, while many of the educational endeavors of various members of the family might have been noble, they often reflect the period and their socioeconomic position: these were religious, white, and wealthy members of American society and even when they supported a cause like Black education it was only under specific terms and conditions. Less formal methods of education should also be mentioned – while historical records are forgiving for men who founded and patronized schools, there exists alongside this narrative a long history of women tutors and learners in the household that merits further exploration and discovery. Ultimately, though, it is remarkable that there existed such a strong connection between this family and the world of education, their propensity to start, fund, or work at schools spanning well over a century and across the United States.  

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Works Cited:

“The Art of Wealth: The Huntingtons in the Gilded Age.” Pasadena Now. January 31, 2013. https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/a-gilded-age-family-saga-new-book-provides-fresh-insights-on-huntington-familys-wealth-art-collecting-and-philanthropy/. 

Baratta, Catherine. “Arria Sargent Huntington’s Curriculum Vitae.” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53cd26f2e4b03157ad2850da/t/596fb01317bffc637c5c23c0/1500491811546/Baratta_Arria_Sargent_Huntington.pdf. 

Binnicker, Margaret. “St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School.” Tennessee Encyclopedia. March 1, 2018. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/st-andrews-sewanee-school/. 

Carlisle, Elizabeth. Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres. New York: Scribner, 2004. 

“Dan Huntington.” Finding Aid, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers. Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_odd.html#odd-dh. 

“School History.” The Fenn School. https://www.fenn.org/page.cfm?p=516. 

Morgan, Tina. “The Making of Manlius Pebble Hill: A Tale of Two Schools.” Manlius Pebble Hill School. http://www.mphschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Tale-of-Two-Schools.pdf. 

“Hampton Institute and Booker T. Washington.” Viriginia Museum of History & Culture. https://virginiahistory.org/learn/historical-book/chapter/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington. 

“History.” Hampton University. https://www.hamptonu.edu/about/history.cfm. 

Molin, Paulette. “Training the hand, the head, and the heart: Indian Education at Hampton Institute.” Minnesota History: Fall 1988. http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/51/v51i03p082-098.pdf. 

“Our History.” St. Andrew’s-Sewanee. https://www.sasweb.org/about/history. 

“Our History & Traditions.” The Kent School. https://www.kent-school.edu/about/our-history-traditions. 

The Contentious History of Midwifery in Massachusetts

The invasive, “modern” approach of the male midwife on the left versus the homeopathic remedies of the traditional female midwife on the right

In a speech given at the Obstetrical Society of Boston in December 1910, Dr. James Lincoln Huntington railed against midwifery-- a practice he viewed as a relic of a more primitive past. Denigrating the midwife as an “evil,” “ignorant,” and dangerous woman governed by superstition as opposed to science, Dr. Huntington advocated for new regulations and laws to curtail midwifery in Massachusetts. Huntington's vitriol against midwifery is representative of a larger movement in late 19th- and early 20th-century medicine to replace independent female caretakers with male “professionals,” but sorely downplays the essential roles midwives held for centuries, particularly in New England. One of the earliest European settlers to arrive on the Mayflower in 1620 was a midwife, and Huntington’s ancestors in western Massachusetts greatly depended on midwives.

Elizabeth Porter Phelps’ diary is peppered with accounts of midwife-assisted deliveries. In early August of 1772, Elizabeth detailed her own experience. After Elizabeth “perceived some alteration,” Charles sent for Mrs. Elizabeth Parsons Allen, a midwife in Northampton who throughout her career oversaw more than 3,000 births across Hampshire county, and “just six minutes before six in the morning,” little Charles was born. In August of 1803, Elizabeth wrote to her daughter describing the delivery of her daughter-in-law, Sally, “One more birth has been in this house… I feel as if my head was turned.” When Sally began to feel contractions, Charles Phelps fetched Elizabeth’s friends, Penelope Gaylord and Dorothy Warner, and the midwife Mrs. Eunice Allen Breck, Elizabeth Allen’s daughter. Unless a doctor was called in for an emergency operation, birth remained a strictly female affair; with the women attending often astutely aware of the laboring woman’s pain. Betsey’s difficult delivery of her son, Theodore, in February 1813, for instance, required multiple healers, and thus a male physician, Dr. Osborn, was present. Dr. Osborn arrived with “instruments of dissection,” and collaborated with the midwife to ensure the safe delivery of the child. 

A traditional all-female scene of birth

Midwifery also held an important societal role as midwives were often expected to uncover the identity of the father-- an answer obtained during the height of labor pains to ensure honesty. This information was vital to determine the child’s future source of financial support, and midwives often testified in court cases. A midwife’s testimony won Hadley resident Mirian Pierce alimony from the alleged father of her child, Samuel Cooke II, despite his vehement denials. Cooke was ordered to provide “35 pounds, 13 shillings, and 6 pence for maintenance of the child to date” and to pay for Mirian’s legal fees. Cooke was also mandated to pay a weekly forty shillings and continued to do so for seven years. 

Most towns, especially rural communities, had at least one midwife. Midwifery afforded a woman a stable income and a decent amount of status in her community and was a tradition typically passed down through generations. In Hampshire County, Elizabeth Allen gave her medical textbooks, sidesaddle, and personal knowledge to her daughter, Eunice. The intergenerational nature of the position partially accounts for the dominance of midwives as opposed to doctors in the field of childbirth, as these women simply had more experience. Prominent Maine midwife Martha Moore Ballard, living in Augusta from 1778-1812, delivered around 1,000 babies and was much esteemed in her community. Ballard did not deliver her first child in Maine until the age of forty-three, but in her hometown of Oxford, Massachusetts Ballard witnessed many births conducted by older women and thus gained vital experience. Ballard also came from a family with a strong medical background-- an uncle was a doctor, and both of her sisters married doctors. In Ballard’s meticulous records she only called for a doctor twice in her career. Male doctors were not necessarily more competent in obstetrics than female midwives. In fact, Ballard noted numerous errors of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Page, who arrived in Hallowell in 1791-- a testament to her greater knowledge. Ballard described one such incident when an elite family insisted on having a doctor present during their daughter Hannah Sewall’s delivery. 

They were intimidated & Calld Dr. Page who gave my patient 20 drops of Laudanum which put her into such a stupor her pains (which were regular & promising) in a manner stopt till near night when she pukt & they returned & shee delivered at 7 hour Evening of a son her first Born.

Martha Moore Ballard

Ballard also wrote of another time when one woman giving birth “was delivered of a dead daughter on the morning of the 9th instant, the operation performed by Ben Page. The infants limbs were much dislocated as I am informed." And later described Dr. Page as a “Poor unfortunate man in the practice. Whether male or female, experience was the determining factor in a midwife’s success; even so, Martha Moore Ballard remains largely unknown in the local history books while Dr. Benjamin Page received much acclaim, particularly for his contributions to the field of obstetrics. 

Societal obstacles for male midwifery were also present. Male practitioners of midwifery were met with fierce opposition and suspicion. After attempting to practice midwifery as a man in 1646, Francis Rayus of Massachusetts received a fine of fifty shillings and scorn from his community. The delivery room was not a welcoming realm for men; during the colonial period, midwives were often mandated to swear an oath to keep men out of the “lying-in chamber” unless necessitated by an emergency. Part of this opposition rested in the conservative desire to preserve female purity, “delicacy,” and moral standards. By the late eighteenth century, affluent women were far more likely to employ male doctors, believing modern medical science would lessen the excruciating pain of childbirth, although midwifery still maintained its primacy. These doctors opted towards privatizing the experience of childbirth: conducting deliveries in dark rooms, covering the patient in cloth, and prohibiting female friends and relatives from assisting with the pregnancy. 

“The Man-Midwife, or Female Delicacy after Marriage… 
Addressed to Husbands”

A jealous husband looks with disdain at the male midwife tending to his pregnant wife.

Modern instruments for obstetrics

Male domination of obstetrics, coming to fruition in the twentieth century, was a gradual and hard-fought outcome. The growing influence of European medicine in the late eighteenth century, a result of more Americans studying abroad, resulted in a new interest in male midwifery (to be renamed obstetrics in 1828). William Shippen, an American doctor who studied abroad, returned to America mind-brimming with scientific techniques and modern technologies to aid in childbirth-- including forceps to move the fetus, laudanum to ease pain, and ergot to induce a hasty delivery. Shippen became the first man to teach midwifery in American medical schools in 1762 and thus began his lifelong crusade to legitimize obstetrics. Male obstetricians attempted to recast childbirth as a process requiring highly skilled medical intervention-- care only trained male doctors could provide. The timing coincided with the Victorian era belief that women were incapable of learning complex medical and scientific treatments. In 1848, one doctor and professor of medicine, Charles Meigsm wrote: a woman “has a head almost too small for intellect but just big enough for love.” Unsurprisingly, female midwives were excluded from advanced medical training or could not afford the same expensive new technology male obstetricians owned. In time, the chosen attendant at childbirth became inextricably linked to class. Lower-class women typically employed the cheaper expertise of the midwife, whereas upper- and middle-class women increasingly opted for a more interventionist male physician who provided painkillers as well as a certain amount of social cachet.

An unflattering portrayal of the midwife

From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, male obstetricians worked tirelessly to further legitimize their position and turn public favor against midwives, exploiting women’s fears of childbirth and midwives’ often foreign backgrounds. The presence of midwives in medicine posed a problem for male obstetricians: non-traditionally educated immigrants and black women successfully performed many of the same tasks as male obstetricians, suggesting that childbirth did not require some occult medical knowledge to be safe and successful. Prominent obstetrician Joseph B. De Lee even accused midwives of delaying the advance of obstetrics, insisting, “as long as the medical profession tolerates that brand of infamy, the midwife, the public will not be brought to realize that there is high art in obstetrics and that it must pay as well for it as for surgery.” Clearly, De Lee was partially motivated by financial incentives and the boost to his field’s prestige at the fall of midwives.  

Obstetrician James Lincoln Huntington

Dr. James Lincoln Huntington, the founder of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House, was among the most vocal of these male obstetricians. In an essay and speech Huntington co-authored with Dr. Arthur Brester Emmons at the Boston Obstetrical Society meeting in December 1910, “A Review of the Midwife Situation,” the two men condemned midwifery. The doctors suggested policy changes to prosecute midwives more easily in Massachusetts and to strip them of their right to practice. Huntington and Emmons both reiterated De Lee’s assertion of the strictly scientific nature of obstetrics, “Bacteriology, antiseptic and aseptic surgery have put obstetrics on an entirely different basis, raising it to the position, sociologically at least, of the most important branch of surgery.” The men did not veil their contempt for independent female medical care that midwifery entailed, promoting instead “the efficient trained nurse of to-day, acting in harmony with the doctor, who carries the responsibility.” When discussing midwives in Germany, male obstetricians also suggested their hesitancy about trusting women’s ability to safely treat patients: 

In the first place, one observing the work of the midwife in the confinement wards is struck by her lack of what is known as the aseptic conscience; that is, the knowledge that she is or is not surgically clean. After faithfully scrubbing her hands for the allotted fifteen minutes she will unconsciously touch something outside of the sterile field and continue as if surgically clean… But if the midwife makes these breaks in the hospital under the eyes of her instructor, and in ideal surroundings for surgical cleanliness, how much more likely will she be to fall into careless ways when out alone in a peasant’s house?

The men instead hailed Ireland’s system of midwifery, where midwives acted under the close supervision of “medical men,” as a paradigm to be emulated in Massachusetts. The men quoted an anonymous Massachusetts physician who wrote in 1802 as another authority on the matter:

As medical science has im[proved], it seems at last to have been settled that physicians regularly educated could alone be adequate to the exigencies of obstetric practice… Among ourselves, it is scarcely more than half a century since females were almost the only accoucheurs. It was one of the first and happiest fruits of improved medical education in America that they were excluded from the practice.

Xenophobia was perhaps another source of these men’s anxiety towards midwifery, as they specifically blamed the “midwife-habit” on “the mighty river of emigration which has swept into this country within the last half-century.” The two doctors were especially concerned about the lack of collective public disapproval of the practice of midwifery, “What we must first do is to arouse public sentiment, and first of all, we must have the enthusiastic support and united action of the medical fraternity.” In the conclusion of this speech the men verbally attacked the midwife once more, describing her as “ignorant, half-trained, often malicious,” and insisting that, “women and infants pay for this “freedom” in deaths, unnecessary invalidism, and blindness. This reference to deaths is another critical factor in the attack on midwives by male obstetricians. At a time when high infant mortality rates in the United States were being questioned, obstetricians were eager to shift the blame from their still relatively new branch of medicine to midwives who lacked the same ability to defend themselves.

Sources:

Huntington, James Lincoln, and Arthur Brewster Emmons. “A Review of the Midwife Situation.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 164, no. 81 (1911).

Miller, Marla R. Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. =

Schrom Dye, Nancy. “History of Childbirth in America.” Women, Sex, and Sexuality, Autumn, 6, no. 1 (1980): 97–108.

Sullivan, Deborah A. “The Decline of Traditional Midwifery in America.” Essay. In Labor Pains: Modern Midwives and Home Birth, edited by Rose Weitz, 1–22. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.

Thatcher Ulrich, Laurel. “‘The Living Mother of a Living Child: Midwifery and Mortality in Post-Revolutionary New England.” The William and Mary Quarterly 46, no. 1 (January 1989): 27–48.

Gladys Huntington's Literary Circle

Although Gladys Huntington’s name wasn’t truly known to the public as that of a writer until after her death,[1] she maintained friendships with other authors, some rather well-known, throughout her life. They would often exchange their writing along with their correspondence, encouraging each other and editing their work. Her husband's vocation at Putnam's publishing also granted her a certain increased access to literary circles. This is an overview of some of Gladys’ literary connections and their correspondence, as found in the collection generously donated by Katherine Urquhart Ohno. Gladys certainly had even more friends and acquaintances in the writing world, but these are ones whose correspondence with her survives to this day.

Click on each letter to be redirected to a larger view with a complete transcription.

Content warning for mentions of suicide.

Lady Cynthia Asquith

Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Asquith by Bassano Ltd., 1912. National Portrait Gallery, NPG X32899.

The real reason of this letter is to tell you how immensely impressed I have been by “Carfrae’s Comedy” which I have just read for the first time. I was enthralled. I think it has so much quality, and throughout that sense of something momentous impending that Conrad has to so great an extent. I think Blanche is a very real creation, and there is so much good writing in the book.

Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Asquith (1887-1960) was a versatile writer, horror/ghost fiction pioneer, and diarist. Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Asquith (1887-1960) was a versatile writer, horror/ghost fiction pioneer, and diarist. Much of her work was not known until after her death in 1968, after which her children published their mother’s work.[2]

In 1941, Lady Cynthia wrote Gladys complimenting Carfrae’s Comedy, Glady’s debut novel released in 1915 to mixed reviews. Cynthia was impressed and encouraged Gladys to write more.

Why ever-ever-ever don’t you write another??? Wouldn't it be a good opportunity - this long convalescence? 

Learn more about Lady Asquith here!

Fleming, Colin. “Remembering the Forgotten First Lady of Horror, Cynthia Asquith.” Vice, November 1, 2016.

Fowler, Christopher. “Forgotten Authors: No 4 - Lady Cynthia Asquith.” Independent, October 22, 2011.

Clifford Bax

Clifford Bax by Howard Coster, 1940. National Portrait Gallery, NPG x2780.

The letter is undated and without its envelope, but references “the ‘tough’ and democratic audiences of 1945” so we can assume it was written around then. It references The Ladies’ Mile, a play Gladys wrote but never appears to have published, which she was working on turning into a novel at the time of her death in 1959. This is the only letter between the two that we are aware of, which makes the phrase “you are a strange person with hypersensitive antennae” all the more odd, as it implies a close, jovial relationship between the two, yet Bax opens the letter with “Dear Mrs. Huntington” rather than “Dear Gladys”.

Clifford Bax (1886-1962) was a prolific English writer who explored many mediums (including playwriting, journalism, criticism, editing, translation). He is best known for his plays, such as The Rose without a Thorn (1933) and The Venetian (1931).[3]

In this letter to Gladys, Bax writes:

“What a strange play you have written in “The Ladies’ Mile” (not a good title: not dignified enough): but then you are a strange person with hypersensitive antennae.”

Learn more about Clifford Bax here!

Clifford Bax Papers. University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries: Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation.

Lady Gregory

Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) was a writer and playwright who was influential in the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She founded Abbey Theatre, the national theatre of Ireland, along with William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn.[4] Lady Gregory was sympathetic to Irish nationalism and focused on Irish traditions and legends in her writing.[5]

Augusta, Lady Gregory by George Beresford, 1911. Hulton Archive, Getty Images.

In her letter, Lady Gregory refers to Gladys as “Mrs. Huntington”—an indication that the two were not particularly close—but it also references some mutual friends, the Shaws. Her letter thanks the Huntingtons for hosting her. It is unlikely that the two exchanged writing samples and had a more surface, social level relationship. 

Learn more about Lady Gregory here!

“All This Mine Alone: Lady Gregory and the Irish Literary Revival.” New York Public Library.

Remport, Eglantina. “A reappraisal of Lady Gregory.” The Irish Times, January 18, 2019.

Viola Meynell

Viola Meynell by E.O. Hoppé, 1916.

There appears to be a pattern of Viola’s criticisms being somewhat backhanded emerging, saying she’s certain Gladys will fix the first part and that she thought Gladys would struggle to stay on topic. She appeared to greatly enjoy it, however, as in another letter, she wrote:

“There’s something about your writing which in a little casual-sounding phrase gets a whole volume of truth - I can hardly express what an utter sense of satisfaction it gives me. I literally don’t know any writing that brings me in more direct touch with life.”

Viola Meynell (1885-1956) was an English writer, best known for her poetry and short stories. She was the daughter of prominent British Catholic writers and publishers, Wilfrid and Alice Meynell.[6] She corresponded with Gladys from at least 1938-1945, discussing life, health, and writing.

In a letter from 1938, Viola compliments Gladys’ writing:

“It is a more wonderful thing even than I expected - at least more wonderful within, that it is at all times accessible, as it were, and does not disappear down labyrinths, as I had thought it might conceivably do here and there.

[…]

I had mostly succeeded in my effort to read it as by someone unknown to me, that I might get the suspense and thrill of half-revealed circumstances and events. (It is so good not to know sometimes, and to be only half-told). But the gradually accumulated weight of agony had to be fastened on to you, and I had the dismay of knowing that it was far worse than I thought.”

Seven years later, the pair was still corresponding about Gladys’ writing:

“I also am thrilled with your beginning, + I am more glad than I can say that you have embarked on this, for I know it will be a wonderful book. I felt, perhaps even more than the other two, the necessity of telescoping this first part, but it is hardly necessary to mention that, because I have enough experience to know that one always goes back, later, + tightens up the beginning.”

Learn more about Viola Meynell here!

Viola Meynell Letters. Boston College, John J. Burns Library: Archives and Manuscript Department.

Leo Myers

Leopold Hamilton Myers (1881-1944) was a British novelist, best known for his book series The Root and the Flower. He supported anarchism and Russian communism, as is evident in both his work and his correspondence with Gladys. He chafed against the expectations of society his entire life and explored spirituality in his work.[7]

Leopold Hamilton Myers by Howard Coster, 1934. National Portrait Gallery, NPG Ax136088.

In a letter to Gladys from October 13, 1940, he mentions working on a book about “…the beautiful world of Anarchism which will eventually come.”

Leo and Gladys corresponded consistently from 1939 (or earlier) to 1941. Their correspondence covered many topics: war, politics, writing, daily life, physical and mental health, and more. Leo was depressed for the duration of their correspondence and became emotionally volatile, which led to the dissolution of many of his friendships toward the end of his life.[8]

Leo was very encouraging of Gladys’ writing. On July 26, 1939 he wrote:

“The description of happiness is exceedingly good. I liked to get away from the love interest for a bit - into happiness. I liked the delicate candour + truth […] of your treatment of P’s nerves + health, I liked the house with its people, & I liked enormously the Uncle John + family part at the end. ”

Beyond compliments, Myers also criticized her work, clearly preferring her less ‘literary’ writing. In the same letter, he says:

“I think this lump is better - more un-literary (Proustian) than the rest. I felt the opening […] to be just a touch Proustian in their attitude […] + the almost too exact narration of details of feeling + sensation.”

Packet holding Gladys and Leo’s last correspondence, on which Gladys wrote.

He and Gladys had a sudden fight about his treatment of a mutual friend, fellow writer Desmond MacCarthy, in March/April 1941, ending their friendship for good—his last letter to her was so insulting she destroyed it. Unfortunately, Myers committed suicide in April 1944, a path Gladys would also take 15 years later.

In 1959, Gladys wrote in her diary on January 18:

“Mr John Morris (Leo Myers’ friend) will come for a drink.” 

Somewhat romantically and fancifully, I interpret this entry as Gladys’ having realized that although what Leo said to her was unacceptable, it was motivated by mental illness and fit into a larger pattern, so she connected with some of his friends.

I also find it interesting that Gladys and Desmond MacCarthy came to be friends. Such good friends, in fact, that her defense of his treatment could end a friendship. In 1924, MacCarthy wrote a less-than-flattering review of Gladys’ play Bartons Folly, saying:

“Miss Gladys Parrish’s Barton’s Folly, acted at the Court Theatre last Sunday, had that “something,” though it was a bad play.”

He concludes his review:

“Though inexpert, confused, and full of bugbears, Barton’s Folly is the work of an imagination.”

It is fascinating to imagine how the potential he sensed in her in this review gave start to a valued friendship.

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It is important to note that all of these literary connections all hail from the upper echelons of society, including some with titles. Although Leo Myers purported to support communism and anarchism, he did not, to our knowledge, redistribute his own significant wealth. He also indicates that Gladys is also sympathetic to those causes in her correspondence, yet her social circle seems confined to her own class. This speaks to who could afford time spent writing and who could not in society around the ‘30s and ‘40s.

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[1] Gladys' journey to recognition as a writer, and as the author of Madame Solario, was not straightforward. To learn more about it, check out this blog post!
[2] Fowler, Christopher. "Forgotten Authors: No 4 - Lady Cynthia Asquith." Independent, October 22, 2011.
[3] "Clifford Bax papers." University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, D.254.
[4] Van Riper, Tyler. "Alas! a woman may not love!" by Lady Gregory. Washington & Lee University: Shenandoah.
[5] "Augusta, Lady Gregory. Encyclopedia Britannica, May 18, 2021.
[6] "Viola Meynell Letters." Boston College, John J. Burns Library, Archives and Manuscripts Department, MS.1986.035.
[7] Hope, Joan. "L.H. Myers." Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2021.
[8] Creswell, Sophia. "Myers, Leopold Hamilton (1881-1944), novelist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004.

Schoolgirl Art Needlework Samplers

From the mid 18th to the mid 19th century, one of the most distinctive milestones in a girl’s education was the creation of a needlework sampler. A sampler - defined as a piece of needlework with various stitches- was part of the learning process for young girls to attain skills in sewing. A young girl would usually begin to sew around the age of six, often taught by her mother or another woman in the family. By the age of eight or nine girls would complete a first sampler; a piece usually composed of the alphabet, numbers, a Bible verse, or a quote about morality. The sampler piece above was created in 1814 by Bethia Huntington at just eight years old and serves as an excellent example to these preliminary works completed at a young age. The bottom line of Bethia’s work reads “Middletown,” a nod to when her father, Dan Huntington, moved the family from Litchfield to Middletown in 1809 for seven years while he was a minister at the First Congregational Church in Middletown. In 1816 they returned to Hadley after the death of the children’s grandfather, Charles Phelps.

 Another wonderful sampler in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington collection was wrought by Eliza Fitch Lyon at eight years old. Born in 1817, Eliza was the daughter of Maria Warner and Samuel Huntington Lyon. In 1827 she married Theophilus Parsons Huntington in Hadley, where they settled down to raise their three children. Eliza’s piece offers more insight into these initial samplers and is comprised of an alphabet with a supplemental Bible quote and botanical detailing. She takes her work to the next level with the inclusion of intricate floral patterns weaving throughout the piece. If you look closely under the cursive N through X, she experiments with fading blue thread into yellow. The detailing of this piece is quite remarkable regardless of age. Eliza includes numerous fonts and colors and has a keen eye for the details of the flora she includes at the bottom of the piece.

As skills in sewing progressed, plants, animals, or other objects copied from a pattern would sometimes supplement the writing. The execution of writing on samplers with increasingly more intricate designs and motifs provided practice for detailed stitching, along with the hope that producing works with such sentiments would foster virtue by publicly exhibiting morality and accomplishment. In the 19th century, the Pioneer Valley was known in the embroidery world for its “White Dove Style.” This style of sewing white doves emerged in the 1790’s and its popularity continued into the following few decades. Although there are no White Dove pieces at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, the collection contains several sewing samplers; one created by Bethia Huntington in 1814 (shown above) and another by Mary Huntington in 1826 when she was eleven. These works were displayed in homes with pride and as visual representations of their young daughter’s accomplishments.

By the time a young woman reached the age of fourteen it could be expected that she would have created several sewing samplers. Next would come a mixed media figurative scene, interchangeably referred to as either a pictorial scene or a silk embroidery. More than not these works incorporated other mediums such as watercolors into the needlework craft. For example, the piece above beautifully incorporates silk, watercolor, and satin. The plethora of mediums not only adds richness in texture but helps guide the eye through the depth of the harbor. Works as such tended to be very expensive to produce because they required several different skilled craftspeople to assist in creating the final product. Pieces as such not only showcased a young woman’s talent, but the aptitude to learn such craft implied the wealthy economic status of someone who could afford that kind of education.

When the Porter family crest was embroidered by Elizabeth Porter Phelps (circa 1760 - 1817), it was compiled from a painting on wood panel acquired by her mother, Elizabeth Pitkin Porter. The crest depicts five wings central to a plethora of vines and beautifully detailed birds of paradise. A coat of arms was a significant symbol for elite families in the Connecticut River Valley. Embroidering such was the height of needlework arts, as it created the “perfect form for displaying needlework, education, leisure, status, and family allegiance.” In this case Elizabeth may have been taught by her mother or other family members. Typically, such wonderfully elaborate embroidery would have been displayed in the parlor of the home for visitors to see. Although we know from the archives of her grandchildren that she likely commenced the project as part of her schooling at a young age, left it unfinished and returned to it in the final years of her life.

 This article is based off previous research done by Mount Holyoke College alum, Ann Hewitt. Her work on needlework is a part of her larger research paper Becoming Accomplished: The Porter Phelps Huntington Daughters. Her preliminary research on needlework was further edited and continued by Museum Assistant Evelyn Foster.

Sources

Alice M. Earl, Childlife in Colonial Days (Norwood, MA: Norwood Press, 1899), 17.

 https://www.pphmuseum.org/epp-needlework.

 “Object of the Month Archive About.” Massachusetts Historical Society. Accessed July 26, 2021. https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/schoolgirl-needlework-2002-08-01. 

 Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, 1698 - 1968 (Bulk: 1800 - 1950).

 “The ABCs of Schoolgirl SAMPLERS: Girls' Education and Needlework from a Bygone Era.” Milwaukee Public Museum. Accessed July 26, 2021. https://www.mpm.edu/research-collections/history/online-collections-research/schoolgirl-samplers. 

“Faintheartedness whenever I undertake anything new”: Anxiety in the 19th Century

While accessioning recent donations from Phelps Farm, finding bundles of letters divided by year and tied up with string was like opening a gift sent directly from the past - 180 years ago, to be exact.

1841 bundle

Moses ‘Charles’ Porter Phelps (1772-1857) and Sarah Davenport Parsons Phelps (1775-1817) had nine children between the years of 1801 and 1817, when Sarah’s life was cut short from typhus fever. Three years after Sarah’s death, Charles married Charlotte Parsons (1793-1830), Sarah’s cousin, and the couple had four more children. Their son Theophilus was born in the early 1820s. Letters from five of the adult children, Francis, Elizabeth, Marianne, Arthur and Theophilus, were sent to their father Charles throughout 1841.

Charles Porter Phelps, asleep in chair. Unknown year.

A letter from Francis in Boston to his father in Hadley on October 26 stands out because of its length and contents. Francis begins the letter: “Dear Father, my principal object in writing is to make a few remarks upon Theophilus’ state of mind as well as his state of body… He is really sick or he is not.” The tone of the start of the letter comes across as pitiless and critical of his younger brother; the more he conversed with Theophilus, “the more I am satisfied the principal seat of the disease is in the mind…” Francis traced Theophilus’ reclusive tendencies back to his childhood: “When a very little boy, I remember, he used to go off for a whole day a fishing, entirely alone, & I hardly remember an instance when he urged anyone to accompany him… I think he often preferred to be alone, which is certainly uncommon in a boy. That disposition has grown upon him very rapidly since he entered college.”

It was Francis’ opinion that Theophilus “has nothing to do but retrace his steps - to begin by going into such company as comes in his way, & force himself to take a part in what is going on. If he will do that for one month, & then say there is no change for the better, I will hereafter hold my tongue.” Francis believed that Theophilus’ stay in Boston would be a potential solution to his mental health struggles. “I want him to do something - I don’t care much what it is - I wish he would come to Boston, if it were only to gain a victory over that ruinous feebleness of purpose, which is eating away the very foundations of all that is manly in him.” As well-intentioned as Francis’ sentiments were, it’s difficult not to see the perilous dichotomy implied by his statement; that struggles with mental health are the antithesis to “manly” qualities and behavior.

Francis closed by imploring his father: “I hope you will persuade him, or compel him to come to Boston.” Francis believed that Theophilus had nothing to lose, but everything to “gain by conquering himself.” Francis claimed that he believed this to be true, because of his own “experience about this faintheartedness, for it has been one of my besetting sins this life, & I always have been, & still am obliged to contend with it, whenever I undertake anything new.” This final admission by Francis puts the entire letter in a remarkably clearer perspective; Francis’ primary motivations for addressing Theophilus’ reclusion and social hesitation were based upon his own experiences with anxiety, described as “faintheartedness… whenever I undertake anything new.” This sentiment from 180 years ago is still so relevant today for those who struggle with anxiety, even if Francis didn’t have the ‘terminology’ to describe it.

The last letter in the bundle of 1841 is a letter from Theophilus to his father Charles in Hadley. On December 15th, less than two months after Francis’ letter to Charles, Theophilus was now living in Boston. What, and who, inspired his relocation to Boston was not mentioned. Did Charles convince him after Francis was unable to? In his opening sentence, Theophilus says, “my health - I think I can say without a doubt - has improved.” His siblings Francis, Arthur and Caroline “are all desirous that [he] should attend to this study” of law. Theophilus had reasons to be optimistic: he had been offered to study law at the offices of Mr. Brown, and had obtained information from boarding houses about renting a room for $4.00 a week. Not so subtly hinting to his father that he requires funding, “it would be very difficult to live here with an expenditure of $250.00 a year, which was sufficient at Amherst.”

“If I receive no reply to this letter and you do not hear from me in the meantime, you may expect me home on Wednesday of next week, and I shall hope to find a carriage at Hockanum on that day. - Your affectionate son, Theophilus.”

In the post-script, Theophilus writes: “I have concluded not to go home in any case till next week Friday, two days later than I first said. I opened the letter to insert the above.” His closing comments raise more questions than they provide a conclusion: did he return home that next Friday for good, or was it just a short visit home?

According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health issues, “affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.” At such high rates, most Americans have either had their own struggles with anxiety, or know someone who has - and this is not new, demonstrated by Francis and Theophilus’ letters of 1841. Anxiety manifests differently for each individual, and as such, effective treatments vary depending on the person. Some find that the best place to start is with a supportive base of family and friends, to voice their feelings among empathetic ears. We can only hope that Theophilus found the support and empathy for his anxiety, as well as finding treatments that receded his feelings of “faintheartedness.”

References:

Anxiety & Depression Association of America, “Facts & Statistics: Did You Know?” https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/facts-statistics

Charles Porter Phelps Papers, recent acquisition from Phelps Farm. Correspondence of 1841.

Fisticuffs for a Good Cause

Found among the correspondence of Gladys Huntington was a brochure from the “Inter-Hospital Boxing Competitions” at The National Sporting Club on the 23rd of March, 1923. The National Sporting Club was the United Kingdom’s oldest boxing club and is credited with the creation of the original eight weight classes: Fly, Bantam, Feather, Light, Welter, Middle, Light Heavy, and Heavy.

After Gladys attended the Inter-Hospital Boxing Competitions, she likely sent the brochure to her mother, Kate Parrish.

Front of the brochure:

“It may amuse you to see the programme. X means a victory.. Pip won [twice] & only just lost on points. It lasted from 7:30 to 12 & we were riveted with interest to the very end!”

The brochure handed out to spectators listed the competitors for the evening by weight class. Gladys, and undoubtedly other spectators, kept their own tabulations on the winners of each bout: annotated by an “X” next to their name, along with crossing out the names of those who lost.

Content Warning: A quotation below from Gladys’ annotation on the boxers is racially insensitive and considered offensive.

Gladys was moved to remark on the race and ethnicity of two boxers in the Fly class: “Siamese! Negro!!”

The competition seems to have been a fundraiser for seven local London hospitals listed on the back of the brochure with spaces for spectators to tabulate scores.

According to Arthur Frederick Bettinson, former boxer and founder of the NSC, and author W. Outram Tristram, the sport of boxing in England has a long history. Starting in the seventeenth century, “the Piazza in Covent Garden… was a common meeting-ground for Sportsmen, prize-fighters, gamblers, and that ever-flourishing fraternity who find the delights of gaming fiercely beautiful.” Historically a favorite pastime of English noblemen, famous writers such as Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle also professed their love of the sport. The National Sporting Club opened on March 5, 1891 in Covent Garden, and included refined spaces such as a Coffee Room, a “fine Billiard Room,” and a grand staircase - all signifiers of the clientele’s socioeconomic status. The boxing ring was referred to as the “theatre,” an appropriate term for the spectacle of boxing.

The grand staircase

The National Sporting Club: Past & Present

The boxing theatre

The National Sporting Club: Past and Present

The National Sporting Club remained open in Covent Garden until 1929, so this seemingly small piece of ephemera offers a fascinating and tangible insight of early twentieth century sporting events in London - seen through the eyes of a wealthy American woman.

Memorial plaque of the National Sporting Club.

Resources

Thumbnail: https://www.sportspages.com/product/national-sporting-club-boxing-tournament-1961-programme

A.F. Bettinson & W. Outram Tristram, The National Sporting Club: Past and Present. Sands & Co., London, 1902.(7, 20) https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082402078&view=1up&seq=11 

Wallenfeldt, E.C. , Poliakoff, Michael , Hauser, Thomas , Olver, Ron , Sammons, Jeffrey Thomas , Collins, Nigel and Krystal, Arthur. "boxing". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Jun. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing

Alfreda's Autograph Book

Also in a box donated by Katherine Urquhart Ohno, we found Alfreda Huntington’s autograph book, filled with drawings and notes for her from friends and acquaintances. The amount of effort and artistic ability on display within this autograph book is remarkable.

Check out the entire book here!

Art by Patrizia, 1934. Caption says “With love to my dearest friend Alfreda”

Autograph books were small books passed around to gather thoughts and sometimes artistic endeavors of those they encountered, mostly friends and classmates.[1] They are the predecessors of modern practices such as writing in yearbooks. Autograph books owned by older teens and adults would primarily feature poetry, advice, or proverbs from their acquaintances.[2]

February 1934

Let’s throw all study books in the fire!!!

Nicoletta Pucci

Caption in Italian - let us know if you know what it says.

Are these two friends?

With love from

Fioretta Mazzei

The final marked page of her autograph book.

The entries in Alfreda’s Autograph Book were all created in 1934 and 1935, mostly while she was in Italy, as evidenced by friends’ names and the occasional caption in Italian. Alfreda would have been around 12-13 at the time. The various entries show a wide range of artistic ability, ranging from crayon sketches to realistic watercolor. A few names show up more than once. The last page with any markings, following a crayon drawing of a horse, is a single, undecorated signature, reminiscent of a more traditional, adult guestbook or autograph book. Perhaps the signatory was in a rush, perhaps it marks something of the transition into adulthood.

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Further Reading on Autograph Books

Morrison, Katie. “Family Life in 19th Century Autograph Books.” Indiana University Archives, Mar. 13, 2018.

References

[1] "Autograph Books."City of Red Deer.

[2] Allison, Lelah. “Traditional Verse from Autograph Books.” Hoosier Folklore 8, no. 4 (1949): 87–94.

Alfreda the Artist

As a young girl, Alfreda Huntington demonstrated remarkable artistic ability. In one of the boxes generously donated by Katherine Urquhart Ohno, we found Alfreda’s Anthology of Passages from my Favourite Books, which started life as blank books and was filled over time with color and memories.

Look at all the filled pages of the book here:

• Pages 1-34

• Pages 35-68

Alfreda’s Anthology of Passages from my Favourite Books most follows in the tradition of commonplace books. Commonplace books were blank books that the owner would fill with quotes and passages from favorite works, creating a personal anthology. Traditionally, commonplace books didn’t contain illustrations of quotations, but melding genres of homemade books and documents was common.[1] The practice of collecting quotations from others’ works spans back to antiquity and into today, but commonplace books peaked in popularity during the Renaissance and 17th & 18th centuries.[2]

For each passage from one of her favorite books that she chose to highlight, Alfreda would draw, and often paint, an accompanying illustration.

Alfreda here rewrote a passage from R.H. Bruce Lockhart’s Return to Malaya (Putnam, 1936), which was published by the company Constant Huntington was head of, and tells the story of Lockhart's journey to British Malaya. Lockhart was best known for his book Memoirs of a British Agent (Putnam, 1932).[3]

Some of Alfreda’s favorite books, as listed in this book, were Return to Malaya (1936)—as mentioned above, Karen Blixen - Out of Africa (1937), Apsley Cherry-Garrard - The Worst Journey in the World (1922), Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), Dostoevsky - The Idiot (1868), and Thomas Hardy - The Return of the Native (1878).

A selection from Out of Africa is the first one in the book. As the entries in the book appear to have been done in order, although the book is not dated, we can assume Alfreda began it in 1937 or later—age 15 or so.

Toward the end of the book, both the quotes and drawings became less complex—we don’t know why, nor do we know for how long she kept the book.

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Further Reading on Commonplace Books

Locke, John. A new method of making common-place-books. London : Printed for J. Greenwood, bookseller, at the end of Cornhil, next Stocks-Market, 1706. *EC65 L7934 706n. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Sánchez-Eppler, Karen. “Practicing for Print: The Hale Children’s Manuscript Libraries.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 2 (2008): 188-209.

Zboray, Ronald J., and Mary Saracino Zboray. “Is It a Diary, Commonplace Book, Scrapbook, or Whatchamacallit? Six Years of Exploration in New England’s Manuscript Archives.” Libraries & the Cultural Record 44, no. 1 (2009): 102–23.

References

[1] Biersdorfer, J. D. "Create a Digital Commonplace Book." The New York Times, February 10, 2021, sec. Technology.

[2] McKinney, Kelsey. "Social media: Nothing new? Commonplace books as predecessor to Pinterest UT Austin: Ransom Center Magazine, June 9, 2015.

[3] “Books: Sentimental Journey.” Time, December 7, 1936.