Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 124

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 124

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(1) The first of the name in America was the above-named Willian, son of William, of Horsforth. Ile came over a young man, to

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Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1676. He mar- ried Anne Sewall, daughter of Henry Sewall, of Newbury, and sister of Samuel Sewall, afterward the first chief justice of Massachu- setts. November 10, 1676. He received from his father-in-law a farm in the parish of By- field, on the Parker river. He is spoken of as "well educated, but a little wild." or, as an- other puts it. "not so much of a Puritan as some." In 1670 .. as ensign of the Newbury company. in the Essex regiment, he joined the ill-fated expedition of Sir William Phipps against Quebec, which on its return encounter- ed a severe storm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence : one of the ships was wrecked on the Island of Anticosti, and William Longfellow, with nine of his companions, was drowned. He left five children. The fourth of these, Stephen, born 1685. left to shift for himself, became a black- smith: he married Abigail, daughter of the Rev. Edward Tompson, of Newbury, after ward of Marshfield. Their fifth child,

(II) Stephen, born 1723. being a bright boy. was sent to Harvard College, where he took his first degree in 1742, and his second in 1745. In this latter year (after having meanwhile taught a school in York), he went to Portland in Maine (then Falmouth), to be the school- master of the town. The following note was his invitation to move there :

"Falmouth, Nov. 15, 1744.

"Sir: We need a school-master. Mr. Plaisted advises of your being at liberty. If you will under- take the service in this place you may depend upon our being generous and your being satisfied. I wish you would come as soon as possible, and doubt not but you'll find things much to your content.

Your humble serv't, "Thos. Smith.

"P. S .- I write in the name and with the power of the selectman of the town. If you can't serve us pray advise us per first opportunity."

The salary for the first year was £200, in a depreciated currency. He gained the respect of the community to such a degree that he was called to fill important offices being successively parish clerk, town clerk, register of probate, and clerk of the courts. When Portland was burned by Mowatt, in 1775, his house was de- stroved, and he removed to Gorham, where he lived till his death, May I, 1790. For fif- teen years he was the grammar school master ; parish clerk twenty-three years; town clerk twenty-two years; from 1760 to 1775, from the establishment of the court to the time of the revolution, he was register of probate and clerk of the judicial court. He married, in

1749, Tabitha Bragdon, daughter of Samuel Bragdon, of York. Their oldest son,

(III) Stephen. born 1750, inherited his father's farm, and married Patience Young, of York. December 13. 1773. He represented his town in the Massachusetts general court for eight years, and his county for several years as senator. From 1797 to 1811 he was judge of the court of common pleas. He died May 25, 1824. ITis second child,

(IV) Stephen. born in Gorham, in 1776. graduated at Harvard College in 1798. After studying law in Portland he was admitted to the Cumberland bar in 1801, where he soon attained much distinction. In politics he was an ardent Federalist, and represented Portland in the Massachusetts general court in 1814. In 1822, after the separation of Maine from Mass- achusetts, he was one term in congress. In 1828 he received the degree of LL. D. from Bowdoin College, of which he had been a trus- tee for nearly twenty years. He was elected president of the Maine Historical Society in 1834. He married, January 1, 1804, Zilpah. daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, of Portland, and died in the famous Wadsworth- Longfellow house there in 1849. William Willis. the historian, said of Hon. Stephen Longfellow : "No man more surely gained the confidence of all who approached him, or held it firmer ; and those who knew him best, loved him most." In this same house, which had been her home since childhood, Zilpah ( Wads- worth ) Longfellow died in March 1851, and her illustrious son, America's best loved poet, wrote in his journal, under date of March 12. 1851 : "In the chamber where I last took leave of her, lay my mother, to welcome and take leave of me no more. I sat all that night alone with her, without terror, almost without sor- row, so tranquil had been her death. A sense of peace came over me, as if there had been no shock or jar in nature, but a harmonious close to a long life." Mrs. Longfellow was noted for her purity. patience, cheerfulness and fine manners, and held a high position in the society of the town by her intelligence and worth.

General Wadsworth was descended from John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, whose court- ship has become well known to all Americans and thousands of foreigners through the charm- ing poem written by his grandson. The Gen- eral's wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, was a descend- ant of Richard Warren and Henry Samson, and the blood of nine persons who came over in the historic "Mayflower" flowed in the viens of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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(V) Of such ancestry was born Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and he grew to manhood with the best possible inheritance and environ- ment. His first letter was written to his father, who was attending the general court in Boston, and seems worthy of reproduction even in a short sketch :

"Portland, (Jan. -- , 1814). "Dear Papa: Ann wants a little Bible like little Betsey's. Will you please buy her one, if you can find any in Boston. I have been to school all the week, and got only seven marks. I shall have a billet on Monday. I wish you buy me a drum. Henry W. Longfellow."

At the age of five he had been fired with military ardor at the breaking out of the war of 1812, and insisted upon having his hair powdered and carrying a tin gun, ready to march for the invasion of Canada. His first printed verses, called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond" appeared in the Portland Gasette, No- vember 17, 1820, and although his brother and biographer, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, thought other boys of thirteen have written better verses, few have been actuated by more patri- otic impulses. The Longfellow children were thrilled by their Grandfather Wadsworth's accounts of his capture by British soldiers, his being imprisoned at Castine, and his escape at last, and these stories made an impression upon Henry which shows in many of his patriotic poems, so lasting are early influences. In 1821 Longfellow entered Bowdoin College, but pur- sued the first year's studies at home, taking up residence at Brunswick in 1822. He main- tained a high rank in his class-one of marked ability-and graduated fourth, standing higher than thirty-four classmates. At commencement he was assigned an English oration. "His was the first claim to the poem, but as that effort had no definite rank, it was thought due to him that he should receive an appointment which placed his scholarship beyond question." This statement of his standing in college was made by his old teacher there, Professor A. S. Packard. In May, 1826, he sailed in a packet- ship for France, to study in Europe that he might fit himself to be professor of modern languages at Bowdoin. His experiences there were most interesting, and among them his acquaintance with Lafayette was particularly so, he having taken a letter to the Marquis, who was entertained at the Wadsworth-Long- fellow honse in 1825. In August, 1829, he return- ed to America, and the following month took up his work as professor of modern languages,

editing for his classes several French and Span- ish text-books. In September, 1831, he mar- ried Mary Storer Potter, daughter of Judge Barnett Potter, of Portland. She was a very beautiful young woman, of unusual cultivation. He held his Bowdoin professorship five and a half years constantly at work upon transla- tions, and while in Brunswick arranged to pub- lish "Outre-Mer." In 1834 he was offered the Smith professorship of modern languages at Harvard, and at once resigned at Bowdoin, and set sail, in April, 1835, for Europe, to perfect himself in German, and to make himself famil- iar with the Scandinavian tongues. Mrs. Long- fellow died, in Rotterdam, November 29, 1835, and he at once left for Heidelberg, where he passed the winter and spring, spending the sum- mer in Switzerland, and returning to America in October, 1836. In December of that year Mr. Longfellow moved to Cambridge and as- sumed his duties at Harvard.

In 1839 "Hyperion" was published: also "Voices of the Night," his first volume of poems. In a short time followed "Ballads and Other Poems," "The Spanish Student," "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," "Evangeline" came out in 1847 ; "Kavanagh" in 1849: "Hia- watha" in 1855: "The Courtship of Miles Standish" in 1858: "Tales of a Wayside Inn" in 1863: "New England Tragedies" in 1868; and between this last year and 1880 appeared the translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy," "The Divine Tragedy," "Christus," "After- math," "The Masque of Pandora, and Other Poems," "Keramos and Other Poems," and "Ultima Thule." besides the "Poems of Places." in thirty-one volumes, which Longfellow edited.

In July, 1843. Mr. Longfellow married Fran- ces Elizabeth Appleton, daughter of Mr. Na- than Appleton, of Boston, who is described as "a woman of stately presence, cultivated intel- lect, and deep, though reserved, feeling." Their life in the charming old Craigie House in Cam- bridge was ideal, and they were constantly visited by the literary men of America and all foreigners who appreciated the charm of his poetry, and could secure letters of introduc- tion. His intimacy with Emerson, Lowell. Holmes, Whittier, Motley, Agassiz. Bryant. Sumner, Bancroft, Cornelius Conway, Felton, Richard Henry Dana, father and son ; James T. Fields, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Arthur Hugh Clough, George W. Greene, Hawthorne, Charles Eliot Norton, Prescott, Ticknor, Samuel Ward, and many other noted men, both in this coun- try and Europe, gave great pleasure, and the letters which were exchanged between them

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prove how deep was their attachment. Mrs. Longfellow was fatally burned, July 9, 1861, and the burns which her husband received while trying to extinguish the flames which enveloped her, kept him an invalid for some time. The "Cross of Snow," which was found among his papers after his death, expresses very beautifully his great grief, even after eighteen years had passed.

Mr. Longfellow's eldest son, Charles Apple- ton Longfellow, went to the front in March, 1863, and was wounded the following Novem- ber. The father's anxiety must have been great, but how could a son of his, with all the Wadsworth military traditions, have failed to volunteer in the dark days of 1863? In June, 1868. Mr. Longfellow and a large family party, consisting of his two sisters, his brother Sam- uel. his three daughters, his son Ernest and his wife, and Mr. Thomas Appleton, the beloved brother-in-law, went to Europe, where much attention was showed him. Queen Victoria received him at Windsor, after informing him she should be sorry to have him pass through England without meeting him. Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Holland, the Duke of Argyll, Lord John Russell, and Tennyson, entertained him, and even the lower classes showed their admir- ation. He said that no foreign tribute paid him touched him deeper than the words of an Eng- lish hodcarrier, who came up to the carriage door at Harrow and asked permission to take the hand of the man who had written "The Voices of the Night." After fifteen months of delightful travel the party returned and the last years of the poet's life were spent in Cam- bridge with occasional visits to his native town and other places. In Craigie House, surround- ed by his family and mourned by thousands, he passed away. March 24, 1882, and surely no lovelier spirit ever dwelt among men. The British nation has enshrined his image in West- minster Abbey ; his native town has placed a bronze statue in a square named for him. But such fame as his needs no outward emblazon- ing while human hearts can thrill with emotion at his lofty sentiments most gracefully ex- pressed.

Mrs. Anne (Longfellow) Pierce, a beloved sister of Longfellow, most generously donated to the Maine Historical Society the Wads- worth-Longfellow House in Portland, where lived General Wadsworth, his distinguished sons-Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth killed at Tripoli. at the age of nineteen, while serving under Commodore Preble ; Commodore Alex- ander Scammell Wadsworth, who was second

in command to Captain Hull in the famous fight of the "Constitution" and "Guerriere ;" the Rev. Samuel Longfellow, the well known Unitarian clergyman, whose exquisite hymns breathe forth the true spirit of religion, and whose biography of his brother is a model of such work. But its best known inmate was America's loved poet, Henry Wadsworth Long- fellow, to honor whose memory and to visit whose early home thousands yearly throng the rooms in which grew to manhood one who was descended from the best blood of New Eng- land, and who shed an added lustre upon names already distinguished.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of EMERSON America's most famous men -philosopher and poet, was born in Boston, May 25, 1803, son of Rev. William and Ruth ( Haskins) Emerson.

He received substantial instruction from his mother, and also from his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, a woman of deep scholarship, and entered the grammar school at the age of eight, soon afterward entering the Latin school. He was already giving evidence of his intellectual powers, when eleven years old writing a poetic version from Virgil, and other verse. When fourteen he entered Harvard College. As a student there he excelled in Greek, history, composition and declamation, winning several prizes in the two latter subjects ; was class poet in 1821, and had a part at commencement. For a few years he assisted his brother as teacher in a school preparatory to Harvard and also in a young ladies' school in Boston. At the age of twenty he took up the study of theology, and attended lectures at Harvard Divinity School, but did not pursue the full course. He accepted the Channing theology, was licensed to preach, and supplied various pulpits. In 1829 he became colleague of Rev. Henry Ware. Jr., pastor of the Second Church ( Unitarian) Boston, and for eighteen months occupied the pulpit while that divine was abroad, finally succeeding him, and remained in the pastorate until 1832, when he resigned, on account of conscientious scruples against administering the communion as provided in the church office. In the two last years of his ministry his church was open to all classes of reformers, and several anti-slaveryites spoke there. In 1833 he visited Europe, in quest of health, meeting Walter Savage Landor, Cole- ridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle, and preached in London and elsewhere. In 1833-34 he lec- tured in Boston on "The Relation of Man to

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the Globe," and "Travels in Europe." In the latter year he was invited to the pastorate of the Unitarian Church in New Bedford, but de- clined on account of his scruples with refer- ence to communion. In 1835 he lectured in Boston on biographical subjects-Luther, Mil- ton, Burke, Michael Angelo, and George Fox. In 1835 he lectured before the American Insti -. tute of Instruction on "Means of Inspiring a Taste for English Literature." During succes- sive winters he lectured in Boston on "English Literature," "The Philosophy of History," and "Human Culture." In 1838 he preached for several months in the Unitarian Church at East Lexington but declined a settlement, say- ing. "My pulpit is the lyceum platform." In 1838-39 he lectured on "Resources of the Pres- ent Age," and in 1839-40 on "Human Life." In 1838 he delivered the address before the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School, in which he explicitly defined his faith, and which awoke such controversy that he sepa- rated from the Unitarians. In 1839 began the transcendentalism movement in Boston, and Mr. Emerson became an assistant editor of its organ, The Dial, in 1842 became sole editor, and acted as such until 1844, when it lapsed. In 1841 was organized the Brook Farm ex- periment, with which he did not fully sym- pathize, but its founders and leaders were among his intimate friends, and he frequently visited them.

In 1841 Mr. Emerson's first volume of essays was published. and republished in England, winning for him high reputation there as well as in the United States. In 1847 he lectured in various places in England on "Representative Men," and in London on "The Mind and Man- ners of the Nineteenth Century," and also lec- tured in Scotland, where he was most cordially received. On his return home he lectured on "Characteristics of the English People." He was among the first contributors to The Atlan- tic Monthly at its founding. In 1860 he warmly espoused the anti-slavery cause ; in January, 1861. took a prominent part in the annual meet- ing of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society ; and in February, 1862, delivered an anti-slav- ery address in Washington, on "American Civilization," which was heard by Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet, and next day the President made his personal acquaintance and the two held a long conference on the subject of slav- ery. From 1868 to 1870 he lectured at Har- vard on "The Natural History of the Intellect." In 1872 he lost many valuable papers, includ- ing the sermons of his father, by the burning

of his house, and in this disaster contracted a cold and sustained a shock from which he never recovered. He delivered the last ad- dress he ever wrote, April 19, 1875, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Concord fight, at the unveiling of French's statue, "The Minute- man." In 1879 he lectured on "Memory," be- fore the Concord School of Philosophy, and the following year delivered his one hundredth lecture before the Concord Lyceum, on "New England Life and Letters." He was an over- seer of Harvard College, 1867-79; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; a member of the American Philosophical Soci- ety, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. He received the degree of LL. D. from Har- vard College in 1866.

Mr. Emerson married, September, 1829, Ellen L. Tucker, who died in February, 1832. He married second, September, 1835, Lydia Jackson, daughter of Charles Jackson, and a descendant of Rev. John Cotton. He died in Concord, Massachusetts, April 27, 1882.

LOWELL James Russell Lowell, one of America's most distinguished authors and who has left an enduring mark upon American literature and thought, was born in Cambridge, Massachu- setts, February 22, 1819, and came of an ex- cellent ancestry.

He was descended from Percival Lowell, who came from Bristol, England, in 1639, and settled in Newbury. His father, Rev. Charles Lowell, was born in Boston, August 15, 1782, son of Judge John and Rebecca (Russell) Tyng Lowell, and grandson of Rev. John and Sarah (Champney) Lowell and of Judge James and Katherine (Graves) Russell, these generations numbering among their members named, distinguished clergymen and lawyers and jurists.

Charles Lowell was graduated from Harvard College A. B. 1800, A. M. 1803; studied theo- logy in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1802-04; was made a fellow of Harvard, 1818; and received from the same institution the degree of S. T. D. in 1823. After completing his theological course in Edinburgh he traveled for a year in Europe. He was installed pastor of the West Congregational Church, Boston, January I, 1806, and served in that capacity fifty-five years. His health failing, in 1837, Dr. Cyrus A. Bartol became his associate, and Dr. Lowell traveled for three years in Europe and the Holy Land. He was secretary of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society ; a corresponding

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member of the Archaeological Society of Athens; and a founder and member of the Society of Northern Antiquarians of Copen- hagen. His published works included: "Ser- mons, 1855; "Practical Sermons," 1855; "Meditations for the Afflicted, Sick and Dying :" "Devotional Exercises for Communi- cants." He was married, October 2, 1806, to Harriet Bracket, daughter of Keith and Mary (Traill) Spence, of Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire, and sister of Captain Robert Traill Spence, U. S. N. The Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell died in Cambridge, January 20, 1861.

James Russell Lowell prepared for college at the boarding school of William Wells, Cam- bridge, and graduated from Harvard College A. B. 1838: LL. B. 1840; and A. M. 1841. He received the following honorary degrees : From Oxford University, D. C. L. 1873: from the University of Cambridge, LL. D., 1874; and the latter degree also from St. Andrews, Edin- burgh, and Harvard, 1884; and Bologna, 1888. On January 2, 1884, he was elected Lord Rec- tor of the University of St. Andrews, Scot- land. He was an overseer of Harvard, 1887- 91 ; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Academy of Spain ; and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of Literature of London. In all these bodies he enjoyed a unique distinc- tion, and in Europe his talents commanded the highest admiration.

Mr. Lowell was devoted to letters from the first. While in college he edited Harvardiana. After his graduation he opened a law office in Boston, but had no inclination for the profes- sion, and gave his time to literature, writing numerous pieces of verse which were publish- ed in magazines, and were put into book form in 1841, his first published volume. In 1842 he brought out the Pioneer magazine, which was shortlived. A pronounced Abolitionist, he was a regular contributor to the Liberty Bell and he afterward became corresponding editor of the Anti-Slovery Standard. In 1846 his famous "Bigelow Papers" appeared in the Boston Courier and became famous from the outset, and exerted a powerful influence upon the political thought of the day. These were satirical poems in the Yankee dialect and were eagerly read, not only for their peculiarity of expression, but for their underlying philosophy. He was now a somewhat prolific writer, prin- cipally upon political topics, and through the columns of the Dial, the Democratic Reviewe

and the Massachusetts Quarterly. He spent about a year in Europe in 1851-52. In 1855 he succeeded Henry W. Long fellow as Smith pro- fessor of French and Spanish languages, litera- ture and belles lettres at Harvard, serving until 1886, and was university lecturer 1863-64. He was also editor of the Atlantic Monthly 1857- 62. and joint editor with Charles Eliot Norton of the North American Review, 1863-72. He was active in the organization of the Repub- lican party in 1856. In 1876 he was a presi- dential elector from Massachusetts. In 1877 he was appointed minister to Spain by Presi- dent Hayes, and in 1880 was made minister to the court of St. James, England, serving as such until 1885. During his residence in England he was highly honored, delivering many ad- dresses, and being the orator on the occasion of the unveiling of the bust of Coleridge in Westminster Abbey, in May, 1885. In these various efforts he displayed a breadth of scholarship, originality of thought, elegance of expression and depth of feeling, which proved a revelation to Old World litterateurs. He was a devoted student during all his absences from this country, and in 1887 delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, a course of lectures on the English dramatists. On his return home he retired to his country seat, "Elmwood," on the Charles river, Cambridge, and devoted him- self to study and literature, continuing his lec- tures at Harvard. He edited the poetical works of Marvell Donne, Keats, Wordsworth and Shelly for the "Collection of British Poets," by Professor Francis J. Childs, of Harvard. His published works include: "Class Poem," 1838; "A Year's Life," 1841; "A Legend of Brittany. and Other Miscellaneous Poems and Sonnets," 1844; "Vision of Sir Launfal," 1845 ; "Conversations on Some of the Old Poets," 1845: "Poems," 1848: "The Bigelow Papers," 1848, and a second series, 1867; "A Fable for Critics," 1848: "Poems," two volumes, 1849, and two volumes under same title, 1854; "Poetical Works," two volumes, 1858; "Mason and Slidell, a Yankee Idyl," 1862; "Fireside Travels," 1864; "The President's Policy," 1864; "Under the Willows, and Other Poems," 1869: "Among My Books," 1870; "My Study Windows," 1871 ; "The Courtin'," 1874; "Three Memorial Poems," 1876; "Democracy, and Other Addresses," 1887 ; his "American Ideas for English Readers," "Latest Literary Essays and Addresses," and "Old English Drama- tists," were published posthumously in 1892. At the time of his death he was engaged on a "Life of Hawthorne." His last published

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Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 124

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924