USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. II > Part 41
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In 1873 Miss Rankin closed her eventful missionary career in Mexico, turning over her mission to the American Board and re- turning at the age of sixty-one to Bloomington, Ill. There she lived, making occasional missionary addresses and honored by all who knew her, until her death, which occurred December 8, 1888. The writer well remembers her tall figure, strong-featured face, modest but composed and resolute demeanor, and that she was always welcome at his father's house and at his own, especially to the children. Probably the last letter she wrote was to Mrs. Goodrich, whose husband's gift of $10,000 made the success of her Monterey enterprise possible and who had lately been called to rest. In it she expresses her great gratitude to Mr. Goodrich and
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honor for his memory, as well as her own readiness for the de- parture to a better country, so soon before her. This was November 4. She wrote this letter from a bed of sickness, and a few weeks later she fell asleep. For twenty years this single- handed woman was the most prominent Protestant power in all Mexico. She made the beginnings there which are never to be overturned till He shall come whose goings are of old.
In a house on the bank of the river, in the rear of the block now occupied by Harry Howe and others, was born Elizabeth Maria Bonney, October 12, 1815. She was the daughter of Peter Bonney and Eleanor Savage. From her earliest youth she gave promise of future intellectual power. She began her education in the old school-house in District No. 8, and later attended the academy at Concord, Vt. After teaching in Littleton for several terms, she accompanied her brother Benjamin W. to New York, and there attended a private school. She graduated from this institution of learning, went to Galveston, Tex., to engage in teaching, at the end of a year accepted a position in New Orleans, La., and was very successful in her profession. About 1841 she married W. R. B. Wills, a lawyer in good practice in that city. After his death she was employed in the editorial department of the "New Orleans Picayune," then under the charge of the celebrated journalist George Wilkins Kendal. When gold was discovered in California, she was sent to that Ter- ritory in the interests of this paper, and reached the city of San Francisco in June, 1850. San Francisco was then a strange union of a sleepy Spanish town and a bustling mining-camp, and gave little promise of the beautiful city it has since be- come. Mrs. Wills, with her keen observation and powers of vivid description, wrote such interesting accounts of events and conditions in California that her letters to the "New Orleans Picayune," and later to the " Delta," were widely copied by East- ern papers. She had been in the city but a short time when her love of teaching inspired her to open a school for girls, and this institution, located on Clay Street, was the first of its kind in that city. In 1856 she founded a girls' school in Marysville, Later she returned to San Francisco and opened a school in the old French Consular Building, which was a noted structure because it had been brought complete from France and set up in the city of the Golden Gate. She was one of those women who have the rare faculty of imparting knowledge and developing the powers of youthful minds. She devoted her life to teaching, with her a labor of love, and she had no superior in her profession in the State of
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her adoption. Her last service was as teacher of the higher Eng- lish branches in Madame Zeitska's Institute in San Francisco, where she remained until her last illness.
The admission of California into the Union was celebrated throughout the State September 9, 1850, and Mrs. Wills wrote an ode for the occasion which was sung by ten thousand people to the tune of " The Star-Spangled Banner." The City Council pre- sented her with a bracelet and a large gold medal bearing the inscription "Presented to Mrs. E. M. Wills, by the Citizens of San Francisco, as a token of gratitude for her ode in honor of the admission of California to the Union, October 29, 1850."
A short time after, she married Henry Parker, of whom we know little, except that their wedding trip was taken to the Sand- wich Islands. On her return in February, 1852, she published in pamphlet form an account of the journey and her observations during her sojourn there. This was entitled "The Sandwich Islands as They Are, not as they Should Be," and gave her a national reputation on account of her denunciation of the con- duct of the missionaries in these islands. She says in her preface : -
" I have been stimulated by a sense of duty to society to expose the monstrous deception which has so long imposed upon the world, and especially upon those whose truthfulness and purity would prevent a suspicion of duplicity in others. At least I trust an investigation may be the result of these developments, which ought long since to have been made by a bolder and more skilful hand than my own."
The vigorous and forcible style in which the account is written may be judged by the following extract : -
" The present state of the Sandwich Islands is that of an un-Chris- tianized despotism, covered by a thick but transparent veil of hypocrisy which should long ere this have been torn off. That the board of mis- sions is aware of the manner in which its confidence is abused and its aid expended, is not for one moment to be supposed, for the whole mission- ary community of these islands is interested in keeping it in ignorance ; and I am sure the pious and charitable who have so liberally contribu- ted their substance for what they believed the holiest purposes would shrink with horror from aiding or abetting such hypocrisy ; and I trust that all such will read these developments with the same spirit in which it is written, which is that of a love of truth and good faith superior to all fear of censure."
The result Mrs. Walton so much desired was accomplished. A partial investigation was made, and some of the charges made
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in the book were refuted, but others were not. The effect of the work was most wholesome, and ultimately led to a correction of many of the abuses. 1
While she was conducting the school at Marysville, she married George Henry Gordon Walton, a lawyer, who was in full sympa- thy with the work of his talented wife. Mrs. Walton died April 20, 1892. She was a woman of marked intellectual power and great independence of character, always having the courage of her convictions. From time to time she discussed in the columns of the press in San Francisco questions in which she was in- terested, and in many ways left her impress on the community in which she lived. Thus, from this little hamlet in the Granite Hills went out a force which pervaded and elevated a community in sister States thousands of miles away.
Another native of Littleton who won a national reputation was Mrs. Adeline Wallace Chadbourne, who was born April 20, 1817.
She was the daughter of Asahel Wallace and the grand- daughter of William Wallace, whose father, John Wallace, was a member of the famous Major Robert Rogers rangers in the French and Indian War. She was the wife of Major B. H. Chadbourne, who served in the war in an Illinois regiment.
Mrs. Chadbourne, when the War for the Union broke out, took charge of a sewing hall in Chicago, superintending the making of clothes and other articles for the Union soldiers. In the fall of 1861 she was detailed to assist in seeing that the soldiers who were sent to the front were properly clothed, and served in that capacity for several months ; and having some property in her own right, often expended her own money for their comfort. By the direction of the Surgeon-General she obtained nurses for the army of General Rosecrans from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and assigned them to their respective places of duty.
She continued her work as an angel of mercy among the wounded and dying Boys in Blue, administering to the neces- sities of the suffering while words of hope and cheer fell from her lips, inspiring them with courage and determination to live, -so necessary to a sick and wounded soldier.
In her hospital experience she soon discovered that many of the soldiers there must die, but, if they could be sent home, might live. Inspired with this thought, she devoted her time and strength to secure for them discharges or furloughs, as in her judgment the case demanded. In this work she became known,
1 The pamphlet is scarce, but a bound copy of the text in type-written sheets is in the Littleton Public Library.
.
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not only to soldiers but to officials of high rank, as she hurried from hospitals to Washington and from there to regiments to procure the necessary information and papers that she might return the invalids to anxious homes. The more obstructions hedged the way, the more determined she became, and in this work her superior qualities became known to the government, and when it was necessary to learn the plans of the South, she was commissioned to perform the dangerous and difficult work of securing the information.
In her experience as a Union spy she was several times ar- rested ; but as she carried her information in her mind her true mission and character could not be proven.
One of her missions South was to ascertain the true character of the owners of large quantities of cotton which had been shipped North as belonging to the Union men. She went among them as a Rebel sympathizer, and learned from their own lips the sharp game they were playing on the government. In this transaction she saved the government over a million dollars.
Once she was wounded from the accidental discharge of her own revolver ; from this wound she suffered until the end of her life.
After the close of the war Congress recognized her service by granting her a pension of $300 a year. The Committee on Pen- sions in its report, after recounting her services, says : -
" She served faithfully throughout the war in her capacity as nurse, and until three months after its close, and for her invaluable services the government has never paid her one farthing. We regard hers as one of the most meritorious cases presented to this committee. Mrs. Chadbourne produces high testimonials of her character and of the value of her services from Schuyler Colfax, J. A. Arnold, F. W. Kellogg, Miss Dix, and others."
Among her papers which have been treasured are many letters from the homes which through her energy and determination have been gladdened by the return of a disabled soldier where he could be nursed back to health, and the following in the bold free hand of Edwin M. Stanton : -
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C., April 13, 1862.
Mrs. B. H. Chadbourne has permission to pass within the lines of the United States forces on the western waters for the purpose of giv- ing care and attention to sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army. All officers and persons in the service of the United States will offer her courtesy, protection, and assistance.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Sec. of War.
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After the war she continued to reside in Washington during the winter, but spent her summers with friends in Dalton. She died in Washington, D. C., January 14, 1891. The body was borne to Dal- ton, where the funeral was held in the Congregational Church, the Rev. J. H. Winslow, a war veteran of Lunenburg, Vt., officiating.
Adeline Wallace Chadbourne will be remembered as a conspicu- ous figure in that exceptional class of women who courageously, resourcefully, and patriotically assumed duties which men were not constituted to perform in the epoch-making days from 1861 to 1863; and future generations will point with pride to the ser- vices of Mrs. Chadbourne, who as a co-worker with Dorothea Dix did so much for the cause of the Union and for humanity.
Her earnestness in the service in the track of armies was equalled by that of another daughter of the town, who devoted herself to the service of the Master in a foreign land. Elizabeth Cobleigh was born, May 6, 1848, on the hill farm owned by her father, Ashbel Cobleigh, in the town of Littleton. She was a merry, bright-faced girl, who was converted at the age of thirteen, and joined the Congregational Church at that time. She was edu- cated at Kimball Union Academy, and at Mount Holyoke Semi- nary, South Hadley, Mass., and taught in Littleton and Lancaster in 1864 and 1865 ; in 1868 she married the Rev. Royal M. Cole. They went to Turkey as missionaries, and there have remained to the present day, suffering all the discomforts of life in that land and laboring zealously for the spread of the gospel.
Twice they have revisited their native land for a brief rest and to place their children in school. Mrs. Cole learned the Armenian language, and in thirty-six years of service has done much for the people. During the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks in 1877, the city of Erzroum, where they were located, was besieged, and they suffered many privations, losing three of their children during this war. Mr. Cole acted as surgeon and nurse, going on the battle-fields among the wounded. They established schools and missions, and Mr. Cole was the first Yankee to ascend Mount Ararat and unfurl the American flag to the breeze on that historic summit. Mrs. Cole is endowed, like all the members of this branch of the Cobleigh family, with a strong religious nature. Though of sunny temperament, she is not deterred by difficulties, and is ever alive to the voice of duty. Her labors in Turkey have been blessed, and the work in which she has had a part will make future generations rejoice.
Another daughter of Littleton who has herself honored a dis- tinguished ancestry, is the subject of a biographical sketch written
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by Henry H. Metcalf, published in 1895 in a work entitled "New Hampshire Women " : -
" Mrs. Frances B. Sanborn, one of the most scholarly, cultured, and intellectual of the daughters of New Hampshire, was born in Littleton, November 15th, 1841. From her parents, Henry Adams Bellows, late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and Katherine Walley Bellows, the daughter inherited an estate in literary and intellectual gifts, in refinement of character and taste, in a sympathetic nature and delicacy of moral perception. Her father removed to Concord in 1850, and Mrs. Sanborn attended the public schools in that city. In 1861 she entered the sophomore class of Antioch College, Ohio, of which her uncle, the late Thomas Hill, D.D., was president. Under his instruction she 'went through the course of study, and made up the work of four terms in one, and graduated in 1863. In 1872 she was married to Hon. Chas. P. Sanborn, a brilliant lawyer, once Speaker of the House of Representatives, and identified with the political interests of the State. Mr. Sanborn died in 1888, leaving three children. With an indomi- table will, with wide learning, and an extraordinary gift of inspiring the love of learning in others, and a happy faculty of imparting knowledge from her own abundant stores, Mrs. Sanborn has for fifteen years con- ducted a private school in Concord, given instruction to private pupils, and carried on classes for ladies in history, literature, and art. Her classes have represented the best culture in the city, and her personal influence has been far-reaching for good. In 1894 she began giving talks on subjects of literary, historical, and social interest in Concord, Keene, Franklin, Manchester, and other places. These talks grew out of a demand consequent on her success with her classes for ladies, and now meet with steadily increasing appreciation."
Mrs. Sanborn has been incapacitated to some extent from con- tinuing her active career as a lecturer and educator in recent years, and is making her present home at Walpole, which has for nearly one hundred and fifty years been regarded as the principal seat of the Bellows family.1
One of the most noted of the younger generation is Ida Farr Miller, the daughter of Major Evarts Worcester and Ellen (Burpee) Farr. She was born in Littleton in 1863, while her father was in the service at the seat of war. She married Edwin Child Miller, and resides in Massachusetts, where she is a noted society and club woman. Women's clubs are a peculiar product of this age and generation, and have become a special field for women's activities. Mrs. Miller is president of the Melrose Woman's Club, and Regent of the Faneuil Hall Chapter of the
1 See also a recent history of the Bellows family by Thomas Bellows Peck.
MRS. ELIZABETH MARIA BONNEY WALTON.
MRS. ELIZABETH C. COLE. MISS MELINDA RANKIN. . MRS. FRANCES B. SANBORN.
MRS. MARTHA W. RICHARDSON.
WRITERS AND MISSIONARIES.
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Daughters of the American Revolution. Other associations of which she is a member are the Mary Washington Memorial Association, the Daughters of New Hampshire, Woman's Relief Corps, Wakefield Horticultural and Agricultural Society, Wake- field Cosmos Club, Wellesley Record Association, and Massachu- setts Emblem Society. Through her efforts fifty books, written by New Hampshire women, were collected and sent to the Atlanta Exposition. Mrs. Miller's efforts are all for the elevation of her sex and for the credit of the State of her nativity, as well as for Massachusetts, where she now resides.
Hannah Gooodall Peabody, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Goodall) Peabody, was born in the house near the Rankin Mills, built by the Rev. David Goodall in 1798 and now owned by Frank C. Albee, on the last day of October, 1820. She is the only" person now living who was a member of the same household with " Priest" Goodall. She attended the school in No. 3, more commonly known in her girlhood by her father's name as the Peabody district. She then went to Newbury and afterward to St. Johnsbury, where she took the usual course in the academies in those towns. Having graduated at St. Johnsbury, she passed a year at St. Gregoire on the St. Lawrence, opposite Three Rivers, in the Province of Quebec, residing in a private family for the purpose of mastering the French language. Returning to her home, she was for a time employed as a teacher in our schools, but soon went to Illinois to accept a responsible position in her chosen profession, which she followed with distinguished success for nearly half a century. It is not necessary to follow her life as a teacher. She was employed in institutions of high character, and gave to them no inconsiderable share of the fame they en- joyed. She is a woman of many accomplishments, and to these she owes something of the success she has attained, but the basis of that success is to be found in her character. As a teacher, she was sincere, earnest, and devoted. She did not seek popularity, but gained the love, respect, and confidence of her pupils by a . manifestation of noble qualities of head and heart that were above the reach of art or pretence, and which left an abiding im- pression in the formation of the character of the young people whose good fortune it was to receive instruction under her benign influence.
On the occasion of her seventy-ninth birthday, in 1900, she pre- pared and read before the West End Reading Circle in Carroll- ton, Ill., a sketch descriptive of her life in Littleton before she had assumed the stern duties of life. It has the charm of style
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and vividness of description of one who has held intimate com- munion with nature, and through a life verging on fourscore years has preserved the spirit of her young girlhood, softened, perhaps, by the responsibilities of her later years. It has a reference to scenes that in part are still familiar to many of the present gen- eration, and is given in this connection. "The most delightful of all my memories," she writes, "are the strolls with my brother through field and wood, and by the riverside. We loved nature, and found object-lessons on every hand ; and all the while drink- ing in health and pure enjoyment. How much we saw of interest and beauty in a ride of a few miles, over winding roads, with ever varying scenery; and what a happy day followed, with the
relatives we visited. We could easily reach our favorite aunt's by ' crossing lots' through the orchard and over the hills, and thus pass a beautiful sheet of water a mile in diameter, where delicious fish had their home, and the loon and other large water- fowls found a safe retreat. I seem to hear now the loud, sad cry of the loon, as it went sailing through the air, high above us. The place is now called ' Partridge Lake' and is a summer resort. But I cannot think of it as more beautiful than in its natural settings of green trees and pasture lands."
The " favorite aunt " was Persis Goodall, wife of Nathaniel Partridge ; she was the grandmother of William B. Hurd. Though the cut "across lots " may not have been the same ground as that followed by the present highway past Frank Lewis' farm, it must have been parallel with the present road.
Miss Peabody is now an invalid, but preserves in a remarkable degree the calm serenity which has marked her journey through this life.
Mrs. Martha Wallace Richardson is a native of Littleton, who received her education in our public schools and at Tilton Sem- inary. She has earned a name as a writer, having done some- thing in the way of original work, but she has given her energies to editing and compiling works of a religious character. In this class of publications those best known are " Royal Helps for Loyal Living," and a " History of the Revival at Lisbon." Both of these have had a wide circulation, and have made her name well known in religious and literary circles of the State.
Eleanor Hodgman Porter, daughter of Francis F. and Louella Woolson Hodgman, is a new name in literature, but one that is evidently destined to attract wide attention as a writer of short stories. In early life she amused herself by weaving stories to
5
IDA FARR MILLER.
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the delight of her youthful companions. This tendency in later years was developed, and she has become famous as a writer of short stories, which have appeared in the leading magazines, and show that the writer is mistress of a crisp, direct style, and endowed with a vivid imagination.
VOL. II .- 26
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XLII. TEMPERANCE.
TN early times "hot and rebellious liquor" was a common beverage, used by all without distinction of race, profession, or position. The custom prevalent in this town has been referred to in the chapters covering its early history.
Not long ago Judge Batchellor had occasion to consider the question of the drinking habit of a century ago and in more recent years, and from his paper we extract the following observations : -
" The use of liquors as a beverage, especially at festivals and other public occasions a hundred years ago, should be judged by no severer standards than such as were set up by the moral sense of their contemn- poraries. Previous to the Revolution and for some time after liquors seem to have had as respectable a standing in society as do teas, coffee, and domestic wines to-day.
" A few citations to authentic records will verify this assertion.
" At a meeting held Aug. 26, 1771, the town of Amherst voted that a committee procure New England rum for raising the meeting-house and not exceeding eight barrels, also one barrel of sugar (brown sugar).1
" Among the items charged for raising the court house and jail at Haverhill were about 45 gallons of rum at 6s. per gallon, and one and one-half gallons of molasses at 6s. per gallon, this bearing some sug- gestion of that primitive beverage called blackstrap.2
"' When the Revolutionary War was in progress taxes were laid to supply the continental army with rum, and the proportion of this town in the levy of 1781 was 7 and } gallons of West India rum in a total of ten thousand gallons for the entire State.' 3
." The church at Thornton was built in 1789, and paid for with wheat, rye, corn, and flax; and at its dedication the following expenses were incurred : -
Amount for victualling 54 persons $9.00
For Brandy and West India Rum $5.00
For sugar $1.00 ±
1 Secomb's History of Amherst, p. 239.
Gazetteer of Grafton County, p. 112, 26.
3 Littleton Centennial, p. 43.
4 Osgood's White Mountains, ed. 5, p. 291.
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"'The Presbyterian Pioneer of Littleton is named as a contributor of one gallon to the supply for this occasion.' 1
" The Bethlehem Town Records giving the proceedings at town meeting on March 13, 1810, have these interesting items, -' Art. 15, Voted to vendue the Collector's berth.' 'Collector's berth was struck off to Willis Wilder at four gallons of toddy.' He was 'sworn.'
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