“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.

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“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.

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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

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A Closer Look at the Life of Elizabeth Pitkin Porter

Elizabeth Pitkin Porter, hailing from a prominent family in Connecticut and married into the wealthy Porter family of Hadley, was a woman of high stature and importance in the community. Pious and deeply caring, she attended church regularly, taught her grandchildren to read and write, and often traveled across western Massachusetts to support ill relatives and friends. Elizabeth’s life, however, had a darker side-- an open secret amongst her friends and family. Elizabeth suffered from anxiety attacks, crippling episodes of depression, and, ultimately, an all-consuming addiction to opium. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth’s mental health struggles and exposure to opium were ongoing and long predated her husband’s tragic death in the Seven Years’ War. Feelings of isolation and loneliness plagued Elizabeth through early marriage, motherhood, and widowhood; finding a cure became an ongoing and often fruitless crusade.

In 1742 Elizabeth Pitkin left her childhood home in East Hartford for Hadley to marry Moses Porter, leaving behind many friends and family members. Over the next few years, Elizabeth experienced extreme anxiety-- perhaps a response to the dramatic change in her social environment. By February 1747, shortly before becoming pregnant with her daughter, Elizabeth received a prescription for an opium-based drug after a visit with the family doctor, Richard Crouch. The year 1752 brought another significant change in Elizabeth’s life. The couple moved away from their house in the Hadley town center, a site of socialization and camaraderie with neighbors, to the home Moses built, two miles away from any other property, which certainly contributed to Elizabeth’s feelings of isolation. By 1753 Elizabeth was diagnosed with “hysteria” -- a catch-all term for anxious, depressed, or supposedly amoral women-- and prescribed laudanum, an alcoholic solution containing opium.

At the time laudanum was lauded as a panacea-- a treatment for both physical and mental ailments. One English physician, Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), celebrated the drug’s versatility, “Among the remedies to which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and efficacious as opium.” Towards the end of his life, Benjamin Franklin depended on laudanum to relieve the excruciating pain from his kidney stones. Abraham Lincoln was prescribed ointments containing laudanum to counter periods of depression. While some of the drug’s negative side effects were understood-- in 1818 the American Dispensatory even warned of the “tremors, paralysis, stupidity, and general emaciation” from excessive usage-- opium addiction was never publicly recognized until the release of Thomas De Quincey’s book in 1821, Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Quincey described the drug’s potency: “[H]appiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be had corked up on a pint bottle and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the coach mail.” Long before Thomas Quincey’s forays with the drug, Elizabeth would succumb to opium’s intoxicating effects.

The Seven Years’ War, beginning in 1755, called Captain Moses Porter away from his home, wife, and daughter at Forty Acres. While Moses fought under Colonel Ephraim Williams at Crown Point in northern New York, Elizabeth toiled at home, raising their daughter and living in constant fear that Moses would soon die. During this time, the property’s distance from other homes became particularly unbearable for Elizabeth. One letter from Moses in July of that year reveals Elizabeth’s depressed mental state “I Received yours of the 14 of July [on] 19 of the same which was such a cordial to [me] as I had not had since I left you… You hinted something of being [alone] even in company I am very sensible of it my [self] but I believe you have a double portion of it.”

Elizabeth also experienced the stresses of war more immediately, writing to Moses about army deserters who “milk our cows devour our corn destroy our garden and are often about the house in the night.” In August, sensing depression and apathy in Elizabeth’s letters, Moses wrote: “I could have been glad to ha[ve] seen a Little more of the Hero in your letter.” Moses could not have fully understood the trials Elizabeth faced at home. Elizabeth simply dismissed his critique, insisting, “You must not expect masculine from feminine.” The couple’s correspondence, however, would soon cease. The Battle of Lake George in early September proved fatal for Moses; his sword would later be returned to a bereaved and traumatized Elizabeth.

Moses’ death inaugurated a new period in Elizabeth’s life: widowhood. Elizabeth did not remarry, continuing to raise her daughter and run the farm with the help of a distant relative, Caleb Bartlett. The diary of Elizabeth’s daughter provides insight into her life during this period, cataloging the multitude of doctor’s visits, her growing dependency on laudanum, and desperate attempts to battle depression and addiction.

A typical treatment for depression at the time included regimented exercise and outings. Elizabeth rode horses and visited watering holes supposedly blessed with healing properties throughout western Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut. During one such trip Elizabeth wrote to her daughter: “How long I shall be upon my Jorney I cant tell, I shall endeaveur to follow the directions of Providence for the recovery of my health, I hope I aint worse then when I left you. I wish I may return in a Comfortable state of health.” Her mention of “Providence” reflects the important role religion held in her life. While Elizabeth saw her faith as a path to heal, and the church provided structure and neighborly support, oftentimes the church was not beneficial for women with chronic depression. Women who were unable to overcome prolonged periods of depression could be perceived as morally repugnant and, consequently, often masked symptoms of depression to avoid public scrutiny.

When non-pharmaceutical methods failed, doctors often opted for laudanum to treat depressed or “hysterical” women. During the 18th century, opium was especially popular in treating medical issues specific to women. In his Treatise on Opium written in 1753-- the same year Elizabeth received a prescription for laudanum-- Dr. George Young advocated the use of opium to curb nausea during pregnancy. The Married Woman’s Private Medical Companion, written by A.M. Mauriceau in 1847, suggested opium to relieve menstruation cramps:

Let the patient have near her a few pills, consisting of opium… She is to take one of these pills the moment the pain attending this discharge comes on. A pill may be taken every hour till the pain ceases: more than two will seldom be required; yet they must be taken in quantities sufficient to mitigate the pain.

Elizabeth also suffered from physical problems, including “Rhumatizm,” which were commonly treated with laudanum as well. The “cure” for many of Elizabeth’s physical ailments was in fact the source of her pain and, like many chronic opioid users, Elizabeth suffered from muscular weakness, impaired memory, apathy, and cessation of the menses. Attempts to quit were still made, especially with encouragement from family and friends, but, even so, Elizabeth remained in the depths of severe addiction. One diary entry from Elizabeth’s daughter in 1784 offers a glimpse into the continued presence of opium in her life— even at the age of sixty-five. Her daughter wrote: “Old Mrs. Alexander came here with view to persuade my mother to leave off taking opium but in vain-- she took it before night the next day.” Elizabeth died in 1798 at the age of seventy-nine; a victim of a medical practice that had yet to grasp the full effects of chronic opium use.

Sources:

“ATrain Education.” What Precipitated the Opioid Crisis? ATrain Education. Accessed July 20, 2021.

Crandall, Russell. Drugs and Thugs: The History and Future of America's War on Drugs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021.

Mauriceau, A M. The Married Woman's Private Medical Companion. New York, 1847.

Mays, Dorothy A. Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival, and Freedom in a New World. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Pendergast Carlisle, Elizabeth. Earthbound and Heavenbent. New York, NY: Scribner, 2004.

Phelps, Elizabeth Porter. The Diary of Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps, edited by Thomas Eliot Andrews with an introduction by James Lincoln

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Update From the Archives: Constant Huntington

For nearly two months, I have been nose-deep in the correspondence of Constant Huntington, the middle son of George Putnam Huntington and Lily St. Agnam Barrett Huntington, graciously donated by Katherine Urquhart Ohno. There is something extraordinarily intimate about reading someone’s letters with their family, friends, and business colleagues. Although I will never meet Constant, I feel that I know him at least a little from reading his letters to his siblings, business requests between his colleagues, travel stories to his friends, and much much more.

When you spend so much time with a person’s words you are bound to find hidden treasures. One was this photo of Constant and his wife, Gladys, labelled “Tamia’s Wedding”. Constant and Gladys had many friends in many places, they were quite the esteemed pair. I love the sophistication in their clothing and the way that they interact with the camera as if this photograph was taken on their way to somewhere much more important.

I found a fascinating letter from Hans Fallada to Putnam + Sons written in 1946. Fallada was an author from Germany who in his letter opens up about his isolation in the years after WWII and the aftermath the war had on his family and his career. Hans Fallada was a controversial author in Berlin during WWII due to the Nazi’s politicizing his work, and the allegations against him that he was homosexual. His work was very popular in the mid-1930’s, and one of his novels, Little Man, What Now?, was even filmed by Universal pictures (Wilkes). It was fascinating to find this tidbit of history amongst Constant’s letters especially when this letter was written in the year before Hans Fallada’s death.

After a fruitful six weeks of reading and studying Constant’s letters, I ended up with six full boxes of archived and organized materials. Countless histories, secrets, and family dramas can be revealed in these pages, and it is exciting to have begun the process of uncovering them!

Sources:

Wilkes, Geoff. Afterword of Every Man Dies Alone (10th Anniversary Edition). Melville House. 2019

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The Triumph and Tragedy of Frederic Dane Huntington

For much of his life Frederic Huntington seemed to be the model all-American citizen. He was a football player, successful lawyer, and served his country in WWI. The end of his life, however, is marred by mysterious events and tragedy.

Frederic (Freddy) Dane Huntington was born on December 5, 1889 in Ashfield, MA. He was the youngest of six children to George Putnam Huntington and Lilly St. Agnam Barret Huntington. Freddie’s father, George, died in 1904, after which Freddy was supported through school by his mother and four older brothers. From 1904-1906 Freddy attended St. Paul’s School, an elite boarding school in Concord, N.H. He went on to Harvard from 1908-1912 where he was a prominent athlete, playing football, hockey, and other sports. In 1909, his sophomore year, Freddy was 20 years old, 5’8, weighed 166 lbs., and played center position on the football team-- the same position he had played his freshman year. In 1911 newspapers across the U.S. printed articles on Frederic’s incredible strength and athleticism. Articles with titles “New Strong Man at Harvard” and “Harvard Boy Excels Champion Pugilist” had nothing but rave reviews for Freddy, saying he was “nothing but muscle.” That year, Freddy was “first string center” for the varsity football team and was the strongest man in that year’s registration and the lightest man to try out for his position. His astonishing strength was determined by a series of tests under a system devised by Dr. Dudley A Sargent. This method included points for strength of arms, legs, and chest and lungs: weight is also figured into the calculations. With his legs Freddy was reportedly able to lift 1,263 lbs. and with his back 594 lbs.! In 1912, his senior year at Harvard, he was the chosen captain of the All-America Hockey team. Freddy graduated that year with a Bachelor of Arts degree and remained at Harvard to study law. He obtained a Bachelor of Law degree in 1915 and was admitted to the Bar.

For a year Frederic practiced law in Boston for Choate, Hall, and Stewart. His time there was cut short by his joining the Massachusetts National Guard in 1916 when he was the Sargent of Artillery in Mexico. From 1917-1919 Freddy was overseas in France as Captain of Battery A 101st Field Artillery, 26th division. Freddy served at Chemin des Dames and Meuse-Argonne, two battles that were crucial in the Allies’ offensive effort during the war. In April 1919 he was detained as Judge Advocate, a lawyer who advises a court-martial on points of law and sums up the case, after the Armistice. Freddy returned to the U.S. August 11 and was discharged August 25, 1919. The war was “a shattering experience for him.” There is no record of Freddy being wounded, but a 1920 diary entry by his older brother Michael Paul St. Agnam Huntington (known as Paul), recorded that Freddy still coughed a lot, saying “the gassing two years ago had left its toll.” His mother said that he was never the same again. Like many other soldiers, Freddy may have suffered from PTSD as result from his service during WWI.

Dress sword presented to Freddy by Members of Battery A 1st F.A., M.N.G. inscribed with his name

In 1923 Freddy became the Assistant Treasurer for Real Silk Hoisery Company in New York City and was living in Bedford Hills, NY. A year later he married Elsie Entress (b. 1899, d. 1948) on February 9th, bringing her down to Norton, Virginia so that his brother Paul, an Episcopal minister, could marry them. Freddy and Elsie had no children.

Things become alarming for the Huntingtons in 1938. By this time Freddy was the Treasurer for Real Silk Hoisery Company and the Huntingtons were known New York socialites. On December 9th, an anonymous telephone caller demanded $50,000 from Mrs. Huntington. A man with a gruff voice reportedly said:

“Tell your husband to provide $50,000 within the next 48 hours. Otherwise something will happen to you. I will send you further instructions.”

That night police guarded their Katonah home and the 48-hour deadline expired without another word from the would-be extortioner. The Huntingtons were unable to discover an explanation for this threat.

Tragically, Freddy died just two years later at the age of 50. On January 7, 1940, Frederic drove to Hadley with his German-Shepherd dog, presumably to visit his brother James Lincoln Huntington, who was working on researching and preserving “Forty Acres.” After a prolonged absence, James went looking for him and found Frederic and his dog’s bodies frozen to death in the Old Hadley Cemetery. Frederic had shot his dog with a pistol before turning it upon himself; the death was ruled a suicide. Conflicting news articles stated that the bodies were either found at the cemetery entrance or over the Huntington family plot.

For more on Frederic’s family click here.

A large thank you to Sheilagh Smigen-Rothkopf who became interested in Freddy Huntington when taking a tour of PPH last summer and delved into many resources including ancestry.com and newspaper archives describing events in Freddy's life and sending the information onto the Museum.

Works Cited:

Caroline Smith, Museum Assistant. “Huntington Family Cross-Stitch.” Sept 1, 2019. Accessed August 2020. Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum. https://www.pphmuseum.org/blogging-through-the-museum/2019/9/1/huntington-family-cross-stitch

D.M.G Hunting. “War Stories.” June 2007. Accessed August 2020.

“Elise Huntington Entress.” Elise Huntington Entress - Ancestry.com, www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Elise+Huntington_%28Entress%29.

Amherst College. “Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, 1698-1968 (Bulk 1800-1950) Finding Aid.” Five College Archives & Manuscript Collections, http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_odd.html#odd-gh

The Nebraska State Journal. “New Strong Man at Harvard.” Lincoln, Nebraska. October 22, 1911.

News-Journal. “Harvard Boy Excels Champion Pugilist.” Mansfield, Ohio. October 27, 1911.

The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. November 20, 1909.

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Mildred Hunting Wheeler: A Woman of Will

Mildred Alice Hunting was born in Watertown, NY on January 25th, 1894 to Stanley Hunting and Grace Devendorf. She was the oldest of four children, Frederick (b.1899), Maro (b. 1895), and Dorothy (b. 1904). Mildred attended public school in Watertown and later Maryland College for Women. She graduated on June 7, 1915, having completed her studies in the College in Domestic Science and Arts, where she achieved a Teacher’s Certificate. After graduation, during World War I, she worked with the Red Cross gathering medical supplies, serving as a hospital aide, making home relief calls to the poor, and attending rallies and military drills.

In 1922 Mildred met Edwin (Teddy) Sessions Wheeler, the man who would become her husband, for lunch at a midtown New York tearoom. After their meal, Teddy waved her away as she boarded the Manchurian for a three-month tour of Europe. This European grand tour was an alternative form of education to a degree from a prestigious women’s college. Mildred sailed with a group of friends to explore France, the Swiss Alps, and Italy, taking photos and sending postcards along the way. [1] She spent her time on the ship playing piano and singing hit ragtime music with her friends.

Returning to Rochester, NY after her trip to Europe in 1922, Mildred paid afternoon tea visits to friends and neighbors, and traveled often to see college friends. But she was restless at home and unfulfilled, her solution was to travel. Mildred’s work with the Red Cross during World War I led her to become interested in the Near East Relief, a committee founded in 1915 in response to the massive humanitarian crisis triggered by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which displaced millions of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. Mildred worked for Near East Relief [2] in Persia from 1926 to 1928 with friend Marjorie Wilson, spending time in Tabriz, Iran. In Tabriz, she managed the household while Marjorie Wilson managed the process of closing the orphanage for the last group of Armenian children whose parents had been killed by the Turks during WWI. These remaining children were placed into foster care.

Upon her return home in 1928, Mildred had no thoughts of marriage. In her diary she rarely mentioned men and only once hinted at desire. She comes across as a strong-willed, no-nonsense woman who thought the socially acceptable men around her to be immature. Mildred called receptions “stupid” and rejected the affectations of men who wanted to show off their “manliness.” She wanted a man who was as competent and well-mannered as she was, and she found him in Teddy Wheeler.

Mildred with her two children Richard and Elizabeth.

On December 3, 1929 Mildred married Edwin (Teddy) Sessions Wheeler [3] (1891-1967) at a small ceremony in All Souls Universalist Church in Rochester NY. Teddy was a man of traditional values and had a good job working for the International Nickel Company. For him, Mildred was the ideal woman. Teddy complained about having lived too much and too long among strong women but then he married one. Mildred was as accomplished and independent as Teddy’s sister and mother. Mildred described him to her sister, Dorothy, as “a sympathetic and kindly soul,” “such a quiet soul and conservative.” She wrote, “…he is sweet to me and insists I am quite perfect. When Teddy is about my hair gets in a very untidy state. I have never been so rumpled. But it’s such fun.” They had two children together, Richard, born 1931, and Elizabeth, born 1932. After the birth of their two children, Mildred and Teddy moved out of Brooklyn, NY to Westfield, NJ. Tragically, in December of 1933 Mildred became ill with diaphragmatic pleurisy, and died a week later in her home in Westfield, New Jersey.

[1] To learn more about Mildred’s travels click here: https://pphtravelogue.weebly.com/mildred.html

[2] The Near East Foundation is still in existence, learn more about them here: https://www.neareast.org/who-we-are/

[3] Edwin Sessions Wheeler is a descendent of Elizabeth Porter Huntington (1803-1864).

Sources:

Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum. https://pphtravelogue.weebly.com/mildreds-biography.html

Elizabeth Wheeler. “A HUNTING–McCOY--WHEELER STORY: Circa 1920 to 1950”

Near East Foundation. “History,” https://www.neareast.org/who-we-are/.

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Epes Sargent V: Sea Captain

Capt. Epes Sargent, Cephas G. Thompson. c 1820, located PPH Front Hall, oil on canvas.

Mary Otis Lincoln, Cephas G Thompson, c 1820, located PPH Front Hall, oil on canvas.

A collection of letters from the Sea Captain Epes Sargent V (1784-1853), were donated to the museum by Elizabeth Dyer Merrill. The majority of them are addressed to Sargent’s third wife, Mary Otis Lincoln Sargent (1795-1870). But there are a couple addressed to some of his children as well as a return letter from Mary to him.

Most of our knowledge about Epes Sargent V comes from another set of letters already in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, that give a first hand account of his life at sea. These new letters give some further insight into his family life. Epes Sargent was the fifth Epes born to the Sargent family originally from Gloucester Mass. He was orphaned at the age of five with his two sisters, Amelia Bernard and Frances, and from there they were raised in their grandfather Foster’s home. Sargent then took after his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather in becoming a ship owner. After suffering some losses in a business venture with his brother in law John Barker in the late 1810’s, Epes took to the sea in his brig ‘Romulus’ and later the ship ‘Volga’. In the 1820’s he made four trips to St. Petersburg, Russia, most of his letters to Mary were addressed from there or Copenhagen. Mary and Epes married in 1821, having met through his children, as they went to Derby Academy in Hingham where she taught. Her father Abner Lincoln was the first Preceptor of the academy.

(Portrait of Hannah Dane Sargent Huntington, located in Bishop’s Study)

Together Epes and Mary had five more children to add to the first five from Epes’s second marriage. Their daughter Hannah Dane Sargent, named after his second wife, married Frederic Dan Huntington, tying together the Sargent and Huntington families.

In his letters Sargent comes across as having been a very loving and devoted husband and father.

“I feel an assurance My Love that you will never have cause to regret your having bestowed your affections on me, mine believe me is not a light and momentary passion but a pure and solid affection- Love founded on the firm basis of regard for your inestimable goodness, in you my Dear Mary I am fully confident I have indeed a bosom friend, and my children the best of mothers- I shall feel anxious for the happy day to arrive when I shall be permitted in deed and in health to call you mine-...”

Epes Sargent V to Mary Otis Lincoln, May 26th 1821

Epes was constantly asking after everyone’s health and remarking how he wished to be home with his family. Considering that both of his previous wives died, it seems he was anxious to spend time with his family just as they wished to have him home. Between his and Mary’s letters it also becomes clear that even though he was at sea on his ship, Mary and the children were able to watch for him with a spyglass, and discern his figure onboard the ship when he was in or close to port. This spyglass was given to the museum by David M.G. Huntington and is still on display as part of the collection today!

“Will it afford my dear Husband any pleasure to know how narrowly he has been watched this day? Believe me when I say it has to me been a day of trial that I hope not soon to be made sensible of again- the spy-glass has not been taken from my eye but for a short time, and then only that I might see our little ones made comfortable, or to give others an opportunity to catch a glimpse of their Fathers form. Which we could plainly distinguish from all others;...”

Mary O.L. Sargent to Epes Sargent, June 12th 1823

While the family was living in Boston in the early 1820’s, these letters also include the Sargent’s search for a house elsewhere. Before leaving for St. Petersburg aboard his ship the “Romulus”, Epes spent time engaging with Mr. Hatersons about taking over his home. While in St. Petersburg, he remarked that Mary would have to handle the move by herself as he wouldn’t be home in time to help. Over the years the family moved four more times, they tried living on a farm in Milton Mass. but moved back to Boston after a short time and then to Western Avenue and Roxbury.

As Epes spent more time abroad he was enjoying it less and less. A common theme in his letters is that the markets often are not good for him, causing a loss of profit, and that he is tired of being away from home for such a large part of the year. He doesn’t go into huge detail about his trips themselves, but rather focuses on sharing his love for his wife, and addressing each of his children with interest in how they are growing and learning.

Epes Sargent VI, attributed to C. Harding, Date Unknown, located PPH Dining Hall, oil on canvas.

In the summer of 1828, Sargent took his third son, Epes Sargent VI along with him to Russia. In his letter to Mary, he remarks that he wished he had more free time to go about the city with his son, but that his friends there were entertaining the fifteen year old, and would even have Epes leave him there, something he didn’t seem inclined to consider!

The younger Epes did not take to the sea like his father, and instead pursued a career in writing, becoming an Editor of the Boston Evening Transcript and writing plays and poems as well. See this post for more information on Epes VI!

After his fourth trip to St. Petersburg, it seems that Epes finally got to spend more time with his family as he wished. Epes died at his Roxbury home on April 19th 1853.

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Paul Shipman Andrews: A Champion for Peace

On December 15, 1917, Hannah Sargent Sessions (daughter of Ruth Huntington Sessions and favorite granddaughter of Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington) married Syracuse lawyer Paul Shipman Andrews (1887-1967). In her memoir “Sixty Odd”, Ruth describes her daughter’s marriage in vivid detail:

“The engagement was already a year old, and Paul was expecting to be sent to France in the spring. Roger[1] played the march, and I an accompaniment to a violin obbligato, by a student in the music department, while an old English wedding-hymn was sung and the married pair knelt after the benediction; it was very reverent and lovely. Then, as they rose from their knees came the dramatic feature of the occasion. Roger sounded the strains of The Star- Spangled Banner from the large trumpet, the tones of which filled the hall. The guests were already standing and smiling—bringing the affair to a triumphant climax…” [2]

Paul (third from the right) during his service in France, WW1

With that, Paul became a member of the Huntington family. Paul’s family, the Andrews, had quite a reputation of their own. His mother, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, was a popular writer best known for her 1906 short story “The Perfect Tribute”, and both Paul’s father and grandfather were well known lawyers in Syracuse. It was no surprise that he followed in their footsteps. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale in 1909, and earned his law degree from Columbia University in 1912. After his service as a Captain in France during World War One, he would go on to become dean of the Syracuse University College of Law. His tenure as dean was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War; he once again served (this time as a Lieutenant Colonel) in North Africa and Italy from 1943 to 1946. During the war, he was heavily involved in humanitarian efforts to aid people displaced by the fighting in Italy. He received an award from the Italian Red Cross for his efforts.

Cover page of Paul’s 1953 treatise “Cost of War or Price of Peace” Now a part of the PPH collection

Notes

[1] Hannah’s brother, American composer Roger Sessions (1896-1985)

[2] Sessions, Ruth Huntington. Sixty Odd: A Personal History. Brattleboro: Stephen Daye Press, 1936, 393.

[3] Both groups were part of the greater “World Federalist Movement” a popular 20th century political movement bent on creating a new international system that could prevent another global war

After the war, Paul became quite concerned with the growing threat of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1952, he retired from his position at Syracuse, and devoted the rest of his life to advocating for global peace. To this end, he spent a year working for the pentagon during which he produced a paper titled “The Cost of War and the Price of Peace”. This extensively researched paper details what steps Paul believed were necessary to achieve peace in an increasingly turbulent world. After his time at the Pentagon, he spent the remainder of his life working in a similar capacity for two organizations dedicated to peace through global disarmament: the United World Federalists (UWF) and the World Association of World Federalists (WAWF) [3]. He spent much of the 1950s and 60s traveling throughout Europe and Africa, sharing his proposals with kings, statesmen, and several popes.

Peace remained Paul’s project right up to his death in 1967, at the age of 79. Obituaries were published as far away as Switzerland, and the UWF posthumously declared him their “Man of the Year”; both acts stand as testament to Paul’s reputation among the international community as one of peace’s greatest advocates.

A Swiss obituary for Paul, published 1967. The headline reads “A Champion of Peace”

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Charles "Chippy" Phelps Huntington

The death of a child is a story that loses none of its bite over time. It is hardly an unusual occurrence, but the blow never softens, each consecutive tale of child mortality just as tragic as the first. Nowadays, generally speaking, most healthy children are able to reach adulthood. However, this wasn’t always the case in the past. In the first half of the 20th century, there were innumerable threats looming over children. Between 1900 and 1950, scarlet fever, measles, polio, the Spanish flu epidemic, and the sudden availability of automobiles were all great concerns—and that’s on top of two world wars. The world was, and is, a dangerous place for children, and the particular brand of tragedy that is child death did not pass over the Huntingtons.

A membership card for the ‘Vacation Reading Club’

Charles Phelps Huntington, nicknamed “Chippy,” was the youngest son of Lona Marie Goode and Michael Paul Huntington. He was born on May 13, 1928, in Delaware. This photograph, along with the treasure trove of Chippy’s childhood scrapbook, is a recent acquisition of the museum. The scrapbook is full of wobbly letters and the sorts of odds and ends that children find important taped into the pages—a ball from a BB gun, a movie theater ticket, a Macy’s advertisement, a valentine. It paints a vivid picture of a sweet and cheerful boy; his scrapbook holds a membership for the ‘Vacation Reading Club’ showing how many books he’d read, perfect attendance certificates, report cards (he had very good grades), a little homemade bicycle license, and all kinds of notes and letters. He exchanged several Valentine’s Day cards with a girl called Georgia Shelley, who wrote him a thank-you note that he taped into his scrapbook. There’s a thank-you card from an aunt to whom he wrote a get-well card while she was hospitalized. His eldest brother also wrote family letters that addressed him directly, and the little personal details are quite charming (‘Chippy, how are the doggies?’).

Chippy’s homemade bicycle license, signed by his father

About a third of the way into the scrapbook, though, the haphazard, cheerfully misaligned scraps of paper stop very abruptly. There is a report card, with columns for the teacher to fill out every five weeks; it is completed up through week 15, where Chippy’s school absences (the first of his life, if the perfect attendance certificates stuck into earlier pages are to be believed) are marked in the ‘½ days absent’ section. Then, the scrapbook picks up again with pages and pages of lovingly arranged baby photographs, pictures of Chippy as an infant, a toddler, a child. Chippy’s faltering cursive does not reappear. Tragedy had struck: one day in 1937, as Chippy was walking to school, he was hit by an automobile and died. He was nine years old.

After her son’s death, Chippy’s mother, Marie, took over the scrapbook to memorialize his life. She seems to have kept absolutely everything: old telegrams and greeting cards congratulating Marie on his birth; baby shower notes; cheery birthday cards from Chippy to each of his parents. A personal favorite—a Mother’s Day card on which Chippy wrote a poem: ‘To my mother,’ it says, ‘When you smile, then life is sunny. / When you speak I know good cheer / When you love it is forever / You are treasured Mother dear. From Charles P.H.’ The big green scrapbook is simultaneously the record of a young child’s life as he documented it and the grief of a mother at her young son’s death; both an archive and a memorial.

There is a poem, printed on a piece of stiff paper, at the end of the scrapbook; Springtide, by Phila Butler Bowman. It is unmarked but for the name of the poet in Marie’s handwriting at the bottom, and one highly significant alteration: in the second to last line, ‘Someday, we shall see her face again,’ Marie has crossed out ‘her’ and written ‘his.’ With this change, the poem reads:

Springtide

I know I shall find my violets

Each year in the same old place,

So I grieve not that snow or a silence fall,

Knowing the hidden grace.

For love strikes down with a deeper root

Than any woodland thing.

Someday we shall see his face again,

And our hearts will say,

“It is Spring!”

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Epes Sargent (1690-1762)

Among recent acquisitions to the Foundation from David M. G. Huntington was a ~10x12 inch print of this portrait by John Singleton Copley. Epes Sargent is the Great-Great-Grandfather of Hannah Dane Sargent who married Frederic Dan Huntington in 1843. The Sargent family in this moment ties together two amazing artists in connection with the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family.

Copley was an American artist located in Boston, and well known for his attention to detail, especially in portraits. In looking at Epes’ portrait, one can see powder from his wig settled on his shoulder, the intricate lines on his hand and face, as well as the smooth detailing in the fabric of his clothing. The addition of the marble pedestal Sargent leans on is also an indication of his well-to-do status. Copley eventually moved to England during the Revolutionary War to further pursue his career in the London Academy.

Epes Sargent was born in Gloucester Mass in 1690- the seventh child to Mary Duncan and William Sargent. A prominent figure in his time, Epes had a wealth of property and a merchant business. He was the principal magistrate for several years, and also acted as representative in Massachusetts’ general court in 1744. During this time he was married to his first wife Esther McCarty. Among their ten children was Epes Sargent II and Winthrop Sargent.

Following Epes Sargent II line of descendents leads to Hannah Dane Sargent Huntington (1823-1910). Her husband Frederic Dan Huntington, son of Elizabeth Whiting Phelps and Dan Huntington, was a bishop in Syracuse, New York. After his mother passed in 1855, the family mostly used the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House as a summer vacation home. Not only did Hannah’s lineage track back to Epes Sargent, but her father Capt. Epes Sargent’s wife Mary Otis Lincoln, was a descendent of Major General Benjamin Lincoln. Lincoln worked with George Washington during the Revolutionary War and then rooted out Shay’s Rebellion in 1786 as he remained a prominent figure in Massachusetts.

Winthrop Sargent on the other hand is the Great-Great-Grandfather of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), who is known as one of the most successful portrait painters of his era. Famous for showcasing the personality of his sitters, one of his most well-known works is titled Madame X, painted in 1884.

Frederic Dan Huntington and Hannah Dane Sargent’s marriage brought together this lineage of families, and adds further personal connection and history to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum today!

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Adam James Huntington

Adam James Huntington, the great-grandson of Dr. James Lincoln Huntington who founded the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in 1948, stopped by for tea and a tour on Saturday, August 10th. Adam came wearing a tie that belonged to his grandfather, John Higginson Huntington, author of "A Bean From Boston". Adam will be off to study architecture at RPI this fall. Last time he visited PPH, he was just two and attended the 250th family reunion!

Click on images to enlarge them

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Thankful Richmond: "Adopted" Daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Phelps

Adoption was not officially established in Massachusetts until 1851, when the Massachusetts Adoption of Children Act was passed.[1] Still, Elizabeth and Charles Phelps raised Thankful Richmond as their daughter after her arrival to Forty Acres as a small motherless infant in December of 1776. Here, she grew up with her new siblings Porter and Betsey.

The Phelps Family Genealogy as printed in *Earthbound and Heavenbent,* with permission of author Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle.

Elizabeth Porter Phelps wrote in her diary on September 13, 1772, announcing the birth of her and Charles Phelps’s first child, Moses “Charles” Porter Phelps. Porter, as the family called him, died in 1857 at the age of eighty-five. Elizabeth gave birth to Elizabeth Whiting Phelps Huntington in 1779 who lived until 1847, dying at 68 years old. In between the births of her two surviving biological children, Elizabeth gave birth to another son, Charles Phelps, in December of 1776. On December 8, 1776; Elizabeth Porter Phelps wrote in her diary about the death of infant Charles. She wrote,

... our babe not well in the Evening took with a sort of a fit, sent for Aunt Marsh— held having such distressed turns grew worse and worse— sent for Mr. Hop in night— he Baptized him Charles—he expired about half after 7. O Lord our God may we take a proper notice of it. Sanctify it to our best Good— it was the Lords by Dedication ever since it had Life and surely it may suffice me that the Lord has taken it away.[2]

Shortly after, on December 29, 1776, Elizabeth wrote about the arrival of an infant whose mother had died shortly after childbirth to Forty Acres. She wrote, “Satter, one Richmond brought his child here about a fortnight old— the mother had twins and Left ‘em when about one week old— she died.”[3] Her name would be Thankful Richmond, later Hitchcock, and she would grow up as Porter and Betsey’s sister, and Charles and Elizabeth’s daughter. Thankful’s father was named Zebulon Richmond and the name of her mother is unknown.[4] Thankful’s twin sister was placed with another family.[5] In her diary entry for July 26, 1778; Elizabeth wrote, “This Day Thankful Richmond Baptized upon our account.”[6]

A 1794 letter from Elizabeth Porter Phelps addressed to her daughters. Box 5, Folder 2, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Thankful grew up as a member of the Phelps family. She was educated with Betsey, her sister. Based on various letters and Thankful’s interview with Sylvester Judd at the end of her life, Elizabeth Pitkin Porter taught her reading and writing.[7] Later, in 1791, Betsey and Thankful lived with and were educated by the Cutler family in Amherst.[8] In 1796, Thankful married Enos Hitchcock. After their marriage, they lived with her parents, Charles and Elizabeth, at Forty Acres for a year and a half until Enos was financially secure enough for the couple to have their own home. In 1798, Thankful, Enos, and their newborn son, Charles Phelps Hitchcock, moved to Brimfield, Massachusetts.[9] Thankful later gave birth to two daughters. Martha was born in February of 1800 and died in August of 1801 at eighteen months old. In January of 1802, Thankful gave birth to another daughter, also named Martha. Based on letters between Betsey and Elizabeth, Thankful had a tumultuous marriage, seemingly due to Enos’ alcoholism and financial instability. Enos Hitchcock died in 1811, and Thankful moved back to Forty Acres, her childhood home.[10] In 1816, she moved into Porter’s newly-built home across the street from Forty Acres, known as Phelps Farm.[11] In 1814, Charles Phelps died without a formal will, which meant that his estate would have been divided between only Betsey and Porter, his two biological children. But Charles declared on his deathbed that he wanted to leave two five-acre plots to Thankful and her son.[12]

Without adoption formally established in Massachusetts until 1851, Thankful was never legally acknowledged as their daughter.[13] But throughout letters and diaries, she is referred to as their daughter, included in the collective noun of their “children,” she refers to them as her parents, and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter is referred to as her grandmother. No matter what, Charles, Elizabeth, Betsey, and Porter made sure that Thankful and her children were cared for and secure throughout their lives. As Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle wrote in Earthbound and Heavenbent, “the Phelpses essentially adopted her as their daughter.”[14]

For more information on Thankful’s life see Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle’s Earthbound and Heavenbent. You can read more about Thankful’s generation of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family on our website and on the finding aid for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers at Amherst College. And as always, we recommend touring the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum to learn more about the six generations of the family.

Sources

A special thank you to Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, the author of Earthbound and Heavenbent, for her expertise on Thankful.

[1] “Massachusetts Adoption of Children Act, 1851,” Timeline of Adoption History ,The Adoption History Project, last modified February 24, 2012, https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/archive/MassACA.htm.

[2] Elizabeth Porter Phelps, The Diary of Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps, in Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers [Box 9]. On deposit at Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, ed. Thomas Eliot Andrews with an introduction by James Lincoln Huntington in The New England Historical Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jan. 1964), p. 236.

[3] Elizabeth Porter Phelps, The Diary of Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps, 297.

[4] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, (New York: Scribner, 2004), ix.

[5] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, (New York: Scribner, 2004), 89.

[6] Elizabeth Porter Phelps, The Diary of Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps, 305.

[7] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, (New York: Scribner, 2004),129.

[8] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 130.

[9] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 136, 138-139.

[10] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 254-255.

[11] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 278.

[12] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 276.

[13] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 88.

[14] Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, 88.

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Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps (1772-1857)

Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps was born August 8, 1772 to Charles Phelps and Elizabeth Porter, starting the third generation to have lived at Forty Acres. He spent his childhood at the family homestead in Hadley, leaving in the Spring of 1780, when only seven years old, to live and attend school in Northampton. Charles and Elizabeth were intent on Porter (nicknamed at the time) succeeding to Harvard. In 1784, Porter continued his education in Hatfield where he lived and studied at Reverend Joseph Lyman’s, a grammar school emphasizing the study of Latin and Greek. A week after his fifteenth birthday, Porter set off for Cambridge to enroll at Harvard College. There he diligently kept an account book following his father’s admonitions, also recording the latest urban fashion and pastimes taking place in Boston. He corresponded with his parents and siblings thorough letters, influencing his sisters Betsey and Thankful with the extravagance of fashion and material items in Cambridge. The archives hold a letter in which Betsey references her new silk stockings that Porter bought for her – the same stockings which Jane Austin had written her sister about, lamenting her inability to afford such luxury just four years earlier (Carlisle 131). Porter also sent Betsey a mandola for her to practice music, this instrument still sits on the sofa in the Long Room of the museum today.

While at Harvard, Porter was greatly influenced by the philosophers and theologians who expressed ideas for the liberation of the Calvinist Congregation and writers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacque Rousseau. This thinking amongst other things, may have caused Porter to switch his belief to the new Unitarian Philosophy in the early 19th century. Porter graduated Harvard second in his class in 1791 and changed his name to the more formal Charles Porter Phelps. Upon being awarded his master’s degree (also from Harvard) he gave a valedictorian speech in fluent Latin. Although today this would have been seen as a grand accomplishment calling for admiration, no mention of praise is seen in diaries or letters from the family. From Charles and Elizabeth’s Calvinist perspective, admiration of that sort would have been discouraged. Looking at Calvinism from today’s point of view we can suspect this admiration would have been seen as encouraging vanity. In his autobiography, Porter writes of his sensitive struggle with self doubt. A struggle that carried on throughout his life. He writes,

This shrinking section has attended me thro life—and tho it may sometime have been productive of good, yet, having so often become its victim, I have no doubt that on the whole, it has proved baneful and disastrous. [i]

Could this self doubt have been an after effect of the lack of approval and emotional support from his Calvinist parents?

In 1792, Porter headed to Newburyport to study and board under Theophilus Parsons, a prominent lawyer of the 18th century. Interestingly, John Quincy Adams had studied under Theophilus Parsons just four years earlier between 1787 and 1788. As well as being an esteemed lawyer, Parsons was also a strong advocate of the Massachusetts State and federal constitutions. Parsons, with the help of John Hancock, formed three amendments for the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights. Porter stayed in Newburyport until a few months after the expiration of his clerkship there in January 1795. During his residence he had come to know Sarah Parsons, niece of his mentor Theophilus Parsons. Sarah had lived with her grandmother in Boston and upon her death moved to Newburyport in 1794, bringing the two closer together the months before Porter was admitted to the bar and left to open his own practice in Boston. By 1795, the two were engaged to be married. In June of that year a party was organized for a group of young people from Newburyport to attend an ordination in Haverhill. In his memoirs, Charles confesses that he did not know what controlled his action, but he invited another woman to accompany him—leaving Miss Parsons to try to find a seat with her Uncle’s family. He says, “what demon of folly—or madness—took possession of me I know not...and soon I felt that every attempt to apologize only exasperated the bitterness of the insult.” [ii]. His self-deprecation had caused him to shrink from any public display of his affection for Sarah whom he “most desired to propitiate and honor” [iii]. After the ordination party, Charles and Sarah grew cold to one another, leaving his sisters and mother to grow in fear that he would not find love—his best chance seeming to have gone. In May 1796, Charles Phelps (Sr.) and Elizabeth Phelps visited Boston as Charles (Sr.) was representing the general court. While there, Elizabeth, upon meeting up with her son expressed a wish to visit an old friend living in Newburyport (knowing well that Sarah would be there). Charles Porter was to do his mother a favor by driving her in his chaise. Could this have been a covert plan by Elizabeth to rekindle the spark her son and Sarah Parsons once had? Porter took his mother’s intrusion happily and resolved to “make a final effort, either to restore myself to her forfeited favor or on the other hand to ensure the extinction of all my hopes by a repeated – and what in this case would inevitably prove to be – an irreversible rejection.” The plan worked successfully and the couple were once again awaiting their betrothal.

While in Boston, Porter’s parents, Charles (Sr.) and Elizabeth, encouraged him to settle back home in Hadley and Porter felt his law office was not giving him the kind of success that ought to keep him from Forty Acres. In April of 1799, he closed his office and spent that summer helping outline the new renovations his father wanted for Forty Acres to both expand the property and keep his architectural design contemporary. The family, in hopes of Charles and Sarah moving in after their wedding the following Spring, started work on a third floor for the couple. This renovation is what changed the profile of the house from a pitched roof to a gambrel roof (an architectural design that many elite homes in Boston were favoring at the time). However, after these renovations to Forty Acres in 1799, the couple chose to stay in Boston where Charles formed a business partnership with Edward Rand—leaving the third floor unfished as we see it today. Together Charles and Rand formed a merchant business from No.3 Cadman’s Wharf until the summer of 1801.

In the late afternoon of Saturday June 13th at Dorchester point, just south of Boston, Rand stood, gun raised, in a duel against a Mr. Miller. Supposedly, Miller had challenged Rand on account of a “lady from Rhode Island”. Porter writes, “Rand had the first fire and missed and that then Miller took deliberate aim”[iv]. Porter was called upon to retrieve his partner’s body and helped to bury him in the Granary burying Ground late that night. Everyone directly involved in the duel skipped town, for duels had been illegal acts since 18th century. Porter continued his export business until 1816 when he began his political career as a Boston Representative to the State Legislature. By the end of that year he had received a large profit from his buisness and chose to use the money to build a house on his share of the ancestral Hadley property. This house still stands as Phelps Farm today. To great sorrow, Sarah contracted Typhous fever and passed away on the move to her new home. Her cousin, Charlotte Parsons came to help a devastated Charles in bringing up his and Sarah’s five children. Porter and Charlotte grew close and married in 1840, parenting four more children—many did not survive youth. Charlotte died in 1830 and in 1833 Porter married for his third time to Elizabeth Judkins. He continued running the family farm he had built for he and Sarah and gained status as a Hadley lawyer and selectman.

Charles Porter Phelps died December 22, 1857 at the age of 85 a man of respect; honored and and trusted by this Hadley Community. He had served ten terms as as Hadley Representative in the legislature and senator of the Hampshire district and was acknowledged by his neighbors as a man of high principle and clear judgment.

Notes:

[i] Phelps, Charles (Moses) Porter. Autobiography 1857 (p.19)

[ii] Phelps, Charles (Moses) Porter. Autobiography 1857 (p.17)

[iii] Phelps, Charles (Moses) Porter. Autobiography 1857 (p.20)

[iv] Phelps, Charles (Moses) Porter. Autobiography 1857 (p. 35)

Sources:

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

Carlisle, Elizabeth Pendergast. Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres, 1747-1817. Scribner, 2004.

The Phelps Family of America, and their English Ancestors, with Copies of Wills, Deeds, Letters, and Other Interesting Papers, Coats of Arms and Valuable Records. Volume II Pittsfield, MA: Eagle Publishing Company, 1899.

Search these links to find more about Theophilus Parsons or about John Quincy Adam’s time as his student!

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/theophilus-parsons/

https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_HJEOAAAAYAAJ#page/n5/mode/2up/search/Phelps%2C+Charles

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John Morrison: Indentured Servant, Oranmental Gardener, and Unlikely Family Friend

Today, the layout of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum’s North Garden closely resembles its original eighteenth-century design. At the time of its creation, the North Garden’s design differed from the traditional kitchen garden arrangements that were prevalent throughout colonial Massachusetts. Unlike the typical Hadley kitchen gardens, the North Garden was carefully planned and featured exotic flowers and crops. The unique North Garden was designed and maintained by John Morrison. Morrison arrived in the Colonies as a conscript in the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Upon his arrival to America, he found himself taken as a prisoner of war. He eventually ended up in Hadley, Massachusetts at Forty Acres. It was here that he spent the rest of his life.

Looking from the North Garden towards the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House

In June of 1776, John Morrison and the Seventy-First regiment of Highlanders arrived outside of Boston Harbor. Unaware of the evacuation of Boston by the British Troops, the Highlander’s ships were engaged by American vessels upon their approach to port. After a two-hour navel engagement, the British ships sailed towards Boston were they hoped to find refuge in a British-controlled port. As they sailed closer to port, they were attacked again by the same American vessels from the earlier skirmish. The Highlanders suffered even more casualties and their commander, Lt. Col. Campbell, decided to surrender to the Americans.[1] John Morrison was among the two hundred sixty seven Highlanders taken as prisoners of war.[2] Approximately one year later Morrison arrived at Forty Acres as an indentured servant.

Throughout Massachusetts, the recruitment of local men into militias had put a strain on the available labor force. The shortage of able-bodied farmhands posed a serious set-back to the planting and growing of crops on farms throughout the area. As a result, farmers petitioned the local Committees of Safety for permission to use captured enemy soldiers as labor in their fields.[3] John Morrison was one of the captives sent to supplement the diminishing labor force on farms across Massachusetts. On March 23, 1777 Elizabeth Porter Phelps mentioned in her diary that “one of the Highlanders” whom was captured by her cousin Colonel Porter, was sent to live and work at Forty Acres.

Upon his arrival, John Morrison was initially put to work in the fields. Back home in Scotland, Morrison was an ornamental garden. With his experience, Morrison eventually was given the responsibility of creating and maintaining the gardens at Forty Acres. Most families in Hadley at the time had gardens but, they were most oftenjust extensions of their vegetable plots. It is likely that the Phelps were the only family in Hadley with their own private gardener. According to Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, author of Earth Bound and Heavenbent, formal gardens, like Morrison’s, were a rare sight in rural Massachusetts. They were more common in the South. She further claims that Southern gentry often relied on indentured servants to serve as formal gardeners, citing George Washington and his formal gardens.[4] This trend extended to the North as evident by Morrison’s labor at Forty Acres. Prior to Morrison’s tenure at Forty Acres, Elizabeth had described gardening as sporadic and casual.[5] Morrison’s North Garden was carefully planned; it was laid out in a rectangular shape with four subdivided paths, a circular rose-bed at the center, and was lined by fruit-trees along its sides. The meticulously designed North Garden brought a sense of elegance to the rural landscape that surrounded Forty Acres.

After the Revolutionary War, John Morrison remained at Forty Acres. He would eventually be considered a member of the extended Phelps Family.[6] Due to his trusted position and his excellent gardening skills, he was able to request that family members purchase specific seeds from Boston for the North Garden. In 1789, Elizabeth Porter Phelps wrote to her brother in Boston, “Mr. Morrison…wishes once more to request you purchase some flower and kitchen garden seeds—of which I send enclosed in a list.” Two years later in 1791, Charles Phelps wrote his son to update him on the status of Morrison’s garden and pass upon his requests for seeds. Phelps wrote, “John has his hotbed at work—and his cucumbers planted.” He continues the letter by requesting his son get “½ ounce Dutch cabbage seed – and ½ ounce early York Cabbage – and send home.”[7] It appears as if, the family greatly appreciated Morrison’s garden and went to great lengths to procure the specific seeds that John requested.

Morrison was obviously a very skilled gardener and while living at Forty Acres his “exclusive business was ornamental gardening.”[8] However, letters between Charles Phelps and Elizabeth Phelps illuminate another side of the ornamental gardener. According to family letters, Morrison was some-what of a notorious drunkard. His relationship with alcohol led to periods of prolonged absences which frustrated family members. He would allegedly skirt his duties at Forty Acres to instead nap on top of Mount Warner—the hilltop at the edge of family’s estate. It was on top of the Mount Warner where he would recover from his bouts of drinking. The secluded area was a great spot for a nap but, it also gave John a vantage point to admire his work in the garden from a distance.[9] The planned and orderly garden, inspired by European-style gardens, would have stood out from the rural New World landscape that surrounded it. Today, if one hikes to the summit of Mount Warner, it is possible to find “John’s Rock”, a boulder which Morrison regularly used to rest his head during his naps.

Morrison lived the rest of his life with the family at Forty Acres and eventually was buried alongside family members in the Old Hadley Cemetery. After Morrison’s death in 1815, Elizabeth Phelps referenced the declining state of the gardens due to Morrison’s absence. She wrote, “…Our gardens look like a forsaken place…[they] look like a desert but a great variety of pretty flowers which if there was anybody to dig the ground and arrange them would appear well…” In 1949, James Lincoln Huntington, the founder of the Museum, reflected on the remains of Morrison’s garden, “The Plan of the old garden can still be traced; the lilac to the left of the flagstones leading to the south door and the bed of lilies-of-the-valley are believed to been planted by him [Morrison]”[10] John Morrison was an unlikely resident of Hadley—brought to Forty Acres as a prisoner of war and indentured servant. However, he is one of the many to have made their home at Forty Acres. His legacy continues today; visitors to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum are free to explore the North Garden where one can imagine Morrison working to bring a slice of the Old World to rural Hadley.

Morrison's grave located in the Old Hadley Cemetery. The gravestone reads "John Morrison a Scotch Highlander captured with Col. Campbell in Boston harbor June 1770 died in the family of Cha. Phelps Sept. 13 1814 aged about 65"

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[1] Lieutenant-Colonel, Campbell to General Howe. June 19, 1776, in American Archives: Documents of the American Revolutionary Period, 1774-1776. http://amarch.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-amarch%3A96048

[2] Thacher, James, and Samuel X. Radbill. 1862. Military journal of the American revolution: from the commencement to the disbanding of the American army : comprising a detailed account of the principal events and battles of the revolution with their exact dates, and a biographical sketch of the most prominent generals. Hartford, Conn: Hurlbut, Williams & Company. 44

[3] Pendergast Carlisle, Elizabeth Pendergast. 2004. Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and life at Forty Acres, 1747 - 1817. New York, NY. 89

[4] Pendergast Carlisle, 177

[5] Pendergast Carlisle, 178

[6] Pendergast Carlisle, 90

[7] AC Archives, PPH Collection Box 4 Folder 5

[8] AC Archives, PPH Collection Box 21 Folder 5

[9] Pendergast Carlisle, 270

[10] Huntington, James Lincoln. Forty Acres: The Story of the Bishop Huntington House. New York: Hastings House. 1949. 12-13

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John Higginson Huntington

John Huntington, pictured on vacation in Germany.

Though the Porter-Phelps-Huntington legacy is deeply rooted in Hadley, many family members relocated to places around the world. Some moved across the country, motivated by work and opportunity. Others found themselves in a new place as a result of marriage. John Huntington, the son of James Lincoln and Sarah Huntington found himself stepping off of a plane at Heathrow airport in 1946. After 30 years of upbringing, work, and education in New England, London was to be his new home.

Recently, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acquired a collection of John Huntington’s personal papers and photos, donated by his son, Benjamin. The acquisition has given us insight into the life of the 20th century expatriate, touching upon his career, family life, and time spent fighting in WWII. From photographs taken during his army leave in North Africa to telegrams received on the day of his daughter’s birth, the items have helped establish a more cohesive history of the more recent generations of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family.

John Huntington, 4th in from the left, wrote for the Advocate while at Harvard.

Born in Boston in 1916, John had an eventful adolescence. As a child, he attended the Dexter School in Brookline, MA and the William Penn Charter School in Germantown, Pennsylvania. At eighteen, he made his way to Phillips Exeter Academy in NH, where he became involved in theater and journalism. These interests prefaced his studies at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1940 with a degree in English.

In the wake of World War II, John tried to join the U.S military. He was rejected, however, and given a 4F classification as a result of an emergency throat operation as a child. In John’s own words, “To be rejected was a bitter pill to swallow, a bitterness to last a lifetime”. “(1) His only option to serve was to join the American Field Service as an ambulance driver with the British Eighth Army, traveling from El Alamein to Tripoli in North Africa. This experience became his firs t major introduction to Britain.

John’s uncle, Constant Davis Huntington, moved to London in 1905 to head G.P. Putnam’s Sons Publishers. Constant likely created the final bridge for John to officially move to England, offering him a job at the publishing company in the 1940’s. After a short stint of teaching and working at a Chicago-based newspaper, John turned down further work at Milton Academy and traveled to London. A year later, John married Kathleen Margaret Chadburn, an English physician. Together, they had four children: Anne Chadburn, Peter, Paul, and Benjamin.

John and his wife, Katherine Margaret Chadburn

"A Bean from Boston" engraving of John Huntington

In the 1970’s, John came out of retirement to work as an editor for The American, a newspaper published for Americans living in the U.K. He eventually began writing a column called “Sharps and Flats,” a biweekly publication capturing his best memories of life as an expatriate American in England. The column began in 1981 and continued until John’s death in 1987. In one piece, John comically referred to himself as “an escaped bean from Boston.” This quote eventually became the inspiration behind the title of his posthumously published book, “A Bean From Boston”, a compilation of his best pieces from “Sharps and Flats”.

John Huntington’s experiences are forever preserved and shared through his word. His wit and charm shine through in “Sharps and Flats” and offer the onlooker a small window into the life of an intelligent, good-humored man. His travels across the world mirrored the experiences of aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. His desire to write and to document added countless papers to the collection of those before him. Despite spending many years away from the United States, it is clear that he had a connection to Forty Acres far beyond simple ancestry. Documents, photographs, letters and objects strengthen the collection and further our understanding of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family. With acquisitions like this, the foundation is able to present a clearer and more thorough narrative of the people that lived here and the experiences they shared.

John Huntington and his family in front of "Forty Acres"

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Catharine Sargent Huntington

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. With the help of her donation of the North Garden, Catharine’s brother Dr. James Lincoln Huntington donated the house and grounds of Forty Acres to create the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation.

As a young adult, Catharine lived at Cedar Square, Roxbury with her aunt Kate Sumner and attended private school in the Boston area. After graduating from Radcliffe College, Catharine went on to help found the Boston Stage Society. Catharine was associated with many theaters including the Peabody Playhouse, the Brattle Theater, the Tributary Theater, and the Poet's Theater.

While living in Boston, at the age of forty, Catharine was arrested for protesting the death-sentence of Sacco and Vanzetti. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born US anarchists who were wrongfully convicted and executed for the murder of a guard and a paymaster during the armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in April1920. Catharine was one of the one-hundred-and-fifty-six people arrested for sauntering and loitering in August 1927 as part of the Sacco and Vanzetti “Death Watch.” Catharine appealed her $10 fine, which was double that of one-hundred other members of the “Death Watch.” A Boston Globe article from August 24, 1927 titled "Death Watch” To Make Test Case, includes the following:

“Miss Huntington, whose address is 66 Pickney St, said her family had been here for 300 years and read a statement maintaining she had a right to protest as she did.”

In December, Catharine went to trial with seven other members of the “Death Watch.” Among the other members prosecuted were American trade union organizer and Socialist Party leader Powers Hapgood, American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, and the great American novelist Jon Dos Passos.

After her involvement in the “Death Watch,” Catharine continued to surround herself with theatre and activism. In 1938, she founded the New England Repertory Theater on Joy Street in Boston. Catharine owned and operated the Provincetown Playhouse on the Wharf from 1940 to 1973. This structure replaced the original playhouse that existed from 1915 to 1924. In 1965, at the age of seventy-eight, Catharine was awarded the Rodgers and Hammerstein award for "having done the most in the Boston area for the American theater." On her 97th birthday, she was recognized by Gov. Michael Dukakis and the Massachusetts Legislature for her contributions to American theater. Catharine Sargent Huntington’s passionate life continues to influence and inspire those interested in theatre and justice in the Boston area and beyond.

For more information about Catharine Sargent Huntington, visit the Finding Aid to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers here, see a photograph of her wearing Elizabeth Pitkin Porter's wedding dress here, and read the articles from the 1927 Boston Globe below.

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Epes Sargent VI

Portrait of Epes Sargent by Chester A. Harding dating from 1830-40.

This portrait, housed in the dining room of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, is of Epes Sargent VI (1813-1880). In 1828 Epes was introduced to Russian culture when he sailed to Russia with his father, Captain Epes Sargent V. This early exposure to travel would influence Sargent throughout his life, particularly in his involvement in the literary arts. Sargent wrote about his travels through Russia in the literary journal he founded on his return to Boston Latin School.

Sargent would become the editor of several publications including the Boston Daily Advertiser, New York Mirror, and the Boston Evening Transcript. In addition to his editorial work, Sargent was a published poet and playwright. Many of his plays focus on European culture and historical events including his plays The Bride of Genoa and Velasco: A Tragedy in Five Acts.

Sargent was very involved with important literary figures of the time. He and Nathaniel Hawthorne sent letters to one another and Sargent shared some of his poems with Hawthorne. In response to Sargent’s poem, “Adelaide's Triumph,” Hawthorne wrote that it was “perfect” and “brought tears into my eyes, though I am as hard-hearted as a grindstone.”

Later in life Sargent became an advocate for the spiritualist movement, a practice employing mediums as vessels to communicate with spirits of the dead. Sargent hosted séances and published books on spiritualism including The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism and The Proof Palpable of Immortality.

Epes Sargent was the half-brother of Hannah Dane Sargent, the wife of Frederic Dan Huntington. His half-sister and her husband were the 4th generation of the family to reside at Forty Acres.

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Ruth Huntington Sessions

In 1936, Ruth Huntington Sessions finished her memoir, “Sixty Odd”. The book tells of Ruth’s childhood in Boston, Syracuse, and most importantly, at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Home. At the time of publication, Ruth was 77 years old, living in her home now known as the Sessions House at Smith College. She opened up the home at the turn of the 20th century for students, soon to become a loved and respected house-mother for her boarders. Her work in Hadley and Northampton encapsulated much of who Ruth was: a woman deeply concerned with the care and well-being of those around her.

On November 3rd, 1859, Ruth was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Frederic Dan Huntington and Hannah Dane Sargent. An early aptitude and love for music likely stemmed from her parents; Hannah Dane often played piano in the church and at home for the family, and hymnals were never in short supply with Frederic Dan working as a pastor at Emmanuel Church in Boston. Ruth was the Huntington’s second youngest child, but this did not limit her excellent opportunities for education and travel. She attended private academies in her younger years, and in 1880, began her three year stretch studying piano with Clara Schumann in Germany.

Ruth married Archibald Sessions in 1887 and moved to New York City shortly thereafter, eventually becoming a mother to three children. She became actively involved in social reform at this time. As one of the original founders of the Consumer’s League, she was a leading force behind advocacy of improved factory conditions and child labor laws in the city. As an educated and thoughtful individual, she took time to write during these years as well. As an editor, poet, and author of several short stories and editorial pieces, she often left her publications signed only with her initials, “R.G.H”, as a way of never revealing her gender.

In 1893, Frederic Dan passed Phelps Farm onto Ruth after purchasing it from his cousins. The home became a well-loved summer retreat for Ruth just as the original Porter-Phelps-Huntington home was for much of the family. Her time was spent between Northampton and Hadley for the remainder of her life, where she founded the Children’s Home Association and worked with the Hampshire Bookshop. On December 2nd, 1946, Ruth died at 87 years old. Her legacy is easily found within the museum today, whether by her letters and publications, or pieces of the collection like her Kodak camera.

To learn more about Ruth’s story, please visit the Porter-Phelps-Huntington online finding aid at https://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_odd.html. In addition to online resources, many of her publications, letters, and related documents can be found at Amherst College Special Collections, the W.E.B DuBois Library at UMass, or at Smith College. As always, we suggest a tour at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum to capture a glimpse firsthand of life at Forty Acres, just as Ruth experienced it a century ago.

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Person of the Week: Elizabeth Pitkin Porter

Elizabeth was born in late 1719. A member of the prominent Pitkin family of East Hartford, CT, she came to Hadley in 1742 after marrying Moses Porter, son of Samuel Porter III, a wealthy merchant of Western Massachusetts. This marriage significantly strengthened connections between the Porters and Pitkins, who both had long, prosperous histories rooted throughout New England. The Pitkins owned a significant amount of land, both residential and commercial, throughout East Hartford. The family inhabited eight homes along the main street of the city and ran plow lands, a clothier’s shop, and fulling mills at the height of their influence. As Elizabeth Pitkin was the only child of her father’s second wife, she was granted a significant dowry that was brought to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family upon her marriage to Moses.

She moved with Moses and their young daughter to their newly built homestead, two miles north of the center of Hadley, on December 5th, 1752. However, less than three years later, Elizabeth was left alone in the home, as Moses was a captain in the Hadley militia and was called to take part in the Seven Years War. Left to raise her daughter and run the home by herself, Elizabeth’s days were filled with taxing worry and fear. Sadly, on September 14th, 1755, news of Moses’ death in battle reached the homestead. At only thirty-six years old, Elizabeth found herself a widow and a single mother. Despite these circumstances, the home remained in her name and under her supervision for many years.

Soon after Moses’ death, Elizabeth began to experience serious bouts of depression in her isolation, which ultimately led to a debilitating addiction to laudanum, an opiate painkiller often prescribed to women in the 18th century. Through this hardship, Mrs. Porter managed to stay involved in the community. She, to a certain admirable extent, regularly attended church services, made calls on neighbors and family, and put significant time and effort into raising and educating her daughter. Unfortunately, much is still unknown about Elizabeth. In her later life, she seemed to exist only in the shadowy background of the home, even long after her daughter and son-in-law took over the farm. Her eventual death in 1798 marked the loss of a matriarch, but certainly not the end of a powerful, influential, and extremely important family legacy.

To find out more about Elizabeth and the rest of the family, read “Earthbound and Heavenbent” by Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle.

-MK

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