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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01430 6135 E
- 1
SIXTY-ODD
A Personal History
by
RUTH HUNTINGTON SESSIONS
STEPHEN DAYE PRESS : Publishers BRATTLEBORO : VERMONT
037
79 7947 22
SIXTY-ODD A Personal History
-
COPYRIGHT, 1936, BY Ruth Huntington Sessions
2033929
666120 TO Try
Designed by John Hooper Director of Stephen Daye Press
PRINTED BY STEPHEN DAYE PRESS Brattleboro, Vermont, U.S.A.
DE . . 1 Inv. 7371.
To My Grandchildren Nigel Lyon Andrews, 1922- William Shankland Andrews 2nd, 1925- Jane Ann Byrne Sessions, 1929- Sarah Fisher Sessions, 1931-
£
CONTENTS
Boston in the Sixtics
CHAPTER PAGE
I Rich Man, Poor Man The Huntington House on Boylston Street- Three Worlds-The Runaway Child.
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II Forbears and Familiars . 8 The Sargents and the Porters-A Heretic-Fred- eric Huntington-Early Life in Cambridge- The Huntington Children.
III Ninety-eight Boylston Street 16 "Jerusalem Crickets"-The Boston Bag-For- eign Visitors-Boston Speech-The Young Vic- torian-Family Prayers-Basques and Peplums -Grandmother Sargent's House.
IV ABC'S and Dickens . 27 Oliver Twist-The Household Book of Poetry- The Children's Garland-Miss Gage's School.
V Child's View of the Civil War . 31
Ominous Gray-Cannonading on the Com- mon-John Brown's Body-"Richmond's Evac- uated"-Worse than Murder.
VI Music in Boston . 38 The Handel and Hayden Society-Italian Op- eras-Church Music-Te Deums in the Dark- Music Lessons with MHe. de la Motte-Har- monious Blacksmith.
VII Bishops and Broken Legs 46 Father Becomes a Bishop-Mitres and Robes- Hoppetty, Kicketty-Departure for Syracuse.
VII
.
Syracuse in the Seventies
I Old Syracuse . 57
"The Great West"-The Vanderbilt-The New House-Miss Mary Jackson's School-"Don't Wait for the Crutch."
II New People . 63 The Andrews and the Whites-The Pecks and the Sedgwicks-An Agriculturist of Parts- Child's Play.
Grant and Colfax 66
The Grapes of Wrath.
IV Music in Syracuse 69
Music Lessons for an Indian Girl-Harriet Waits on a Savage-Ernst Held-The Music Club-Prisoners' Base-Organ-playing.
V Relief and Welfare . 75
The Bishop's Experiments-Arria Huntington's Work-The Shelter-Diamond Nell-Branches of the Knowledge Tree-The Hospital-Dr. Van Duyn.
VI Invitation to the Waltz . 82 Maggie the Mantua-maker-The Light Fantas- tic-Jovial Wall-flower.
VII Educational Facilities 88
Research in Father's Study-Miss Jackson's Curriculum-"In Our Day We Studied Latin" -Father's Amanuensis-Mission Work in the German Neighborhood.
VIII Realities 94
Marriage of George Huntington-James Hun- tington's Mission Work.
IX Congress of Women . 98 Louisa Alcott-Dr. Mary Walker-Mrs. Mary Livermore-Miss Maria Mitchell-Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Catherine Beecher-Mrs. Julia
VIII
Ward Howe-Mrs. Jennie Croly-"Chemistry in the Kitchen"-"The Aesthetics of Dress"- "Superfluous Women"-Spring in Syracuse.
Forty Acres
I The Farm 109
Aunt Bethia's Supper-Rediscovery of the House-The Prophet's Chamber -- The Barn- Old Max-"Who Sells the Bog Hay?"-The Stoop.
1I Sun to Sun 116 A Prelate Becomes Farmer-A Boat on the Con- necticut-George-Harnessing the Horses-The Young Inventor-Books at the Farm-The Chimney Swallows-A Visit from Harriet Beecher Stowe.
III New England Portrait Gallery . 122 The Rye Is Ripe-Matty-the-conqueror-The King of Builders-Henderson Tailer-Mar- chons !- Billy Phelps.
IV Behind a Horse . . 132 The Hadley Mill-Village Store-The Black- smith-Riding for the Mail-Northampton-A Formal Call.
V Thunder and Lightning 137 The Voice of God-The Haymakers-"The Wind Is in the Northwest"-The Ferry-Into the Hills-Blueberry Pie-The Valley.
VI An Altar in the Haymow 146 Childish Petitions-The Unerring Eye-Candy for the Bishops.
VII Victorian Sunday 150
The Amherst Church-Infant Baptism-The Bishop Preaches in a Hill Village-Antioch- Collation at the Parsonage-Seats of Culture- God of the Gentians.
IX
155
VIII Experiments in Education . ·
The Will of Sophia Smith-Robert Peabody- Child's View of Smith College-Summer School at Forty Acres-Letters to Turnip.
IX Year by Year . 160 Birds Fly South-Barmecide Feasts-October Holiday-The Dickinsons in Amherst-"Next Summer We Shall Come Back Again."
End of Childhood
I A Visit to Hingham . 167 Uncle Epes and Spiritualism-Advice to a West- erner-The Boarding-house-The Bryants-Re- turn to the Farm.
II A Mark and a Meaning 174 Mount Warner-New Conclusions-The Fourth Child Grows Older.
III The Young Victorian 177 Chameleons-Disillusionment at Cornell-Vic- torian Courtship.
IV Enchanted Week 183
Descendant of Moses Porter-Secret Signals- The Grammar of Assent-A Supernatural Seal.
V Decision To Go to Germany
190 End of Church Work-A Visit in Roxbury-Dr. Zakrzewska- Prospects of Germany-"Good- bye."
Music in Germany
I Eastward . · 201
The City of Brussels-Boat Journey-A Naval Knight.
II London · 206 The Yardleys-Celia Thaxter-Opera-Wind- sor.
In The Channel 214
Royal Encounter.
IV Leipzig 216
Fräulein Hernnsdorf-Plagwitz-Lessons in Ger- man-Music.
V Nihilists in Leipzig . 224 Royal Gossip-Fugitive Droschken-The Bomb.
VI Music in Leipzig
. 229 The Choir - Belfry Family - Opera - Hohe Messe.
VII German Easter
233 Bach Passion Music-Dresden Easter-Faust- Letters Abroad-Brass Bands. .
VIII Reassurance . 238 Garfield-A Visit from Dr. Zakrzewska-Chap- eron in Thuringia-Back To Work-James Be- comes a Monk.
IX Six Together 243 Cafés and Concerts-Winter Dancing-Rubin- stein-Hans Von Bulow and the Late-comers- Clara Schumann.
X Gaiety 248 We Give a Ball - Dresden Again - The Jo- hannesgarten-Heidelberg-A Prince at Pontre- sina-Doubt and Dogma-Country of Saints- Organ-"Barnby in E."
XI Country of Saints 252 Lessons-Return of a Book-Flowers and Green Garlands.
XI
New York
1 Engagement . 261 Probation-Mrs. Piatt's Seminary-Contempo- rary Affairs.
11 Mrs. Sessions . · 270 The Wedding-Forty Acres.
III Exciting Months 273 Apartment - New York Hospitality - Diver- sions-The Blizzard of '88-Englewood.
IV Hannah
279 Spring Visits-The Nurse.
V The Butcher, the Baker 281 Family Code-"Bill Rendered"-Mary Calligan.
VI Christianity and Anarchy 287 Brooklyn Heights-Leonora O'Reilly-Note on Labor-Double Life-Influenza.
VII Loss and Hope . 294 Mary-Dr. Mosher-Mourning-The Phelps Farm-Life Again.
VIII The Eighteen Nineties 301 Tammany-The Young Men's Democratic Club-Theodore Roosevelt-Knights of Labor- The Cail-Henry George-"Jacob Armitage."
IX A Part in Politics 308 Frederick Hinrichs-Election Days-Apollyon Laid Low.
x The Consumers' League 313
The White List-Investigation of Working Con- ditions-Public Speech-Achievement.
XI The Social Reform Club 321 Discussion of Unions-Charles M. Spahr-Fa- bians.
XII Counterpoint 386 "The Bird House"-Proofs for the Printer- "That Child's Going To Be Musical"-Trial by Jury-Ainslee's and Munsey's Magazines.
XIII Sorrowful Events 336 Death of a Common Ancestor-Noblesse Oblige- The Death of Henry George-"Oh Lord! Van Wyck."
XIV Weary Patriotism 339 A Small Forum-The Old Rhythm of Capital- ism-The Singing Baby.
XV Season's Mutations 344 Editorial Work-John-Concert for Roger- Turn of the Century-The Bishop Interviews President Seelye-Departure from the "Bird House."
Northampton
New England Again 355 Forty Acres-Northampton-"Quite, Quite An- other Thing"-Smith College -- The First Group -Monday Club-Irving Wood and Plain Speak- ing-President Seelye.
II Henshaw House 363
Alterations-Mary Brown-Solicitous Parents- Reading Aloud-Senda Berenson-The College Girl of 1904-A Memorable Mountain Day.
E
The Inevitable 373 The Bishop-George-The Bells Toll-A Hand in Farming-Death of Mother-Milk Route.
IV Departures 381
President Seelye Retires-Nan in Europe- Roger at Harvard-Miniature Opera-Archie- Sabbath at Smith.
V Inherent Pacificism 387 The War-Roger at Smith- Jolin-Madam Breshkowsky-Leonora O'Reilly Again.
VI New Order 392 President Neilson-Military Wedding-The Star Spangled-1918-Adelynrood-Arria- "Paul's Brigade Left Last Night."
VII "Cook and Houseworker" 397 Occasional Reflections-Influenza-Armistice- The Ninth Symphony-Interview with a Gov- ernment Official.
VIII Woman Suffrage 406 Pompadours - Plain Justice - Salesmanship - Max Eastman-Chocolate Cigarettes.
IX Nineteen-Twenty 411 Marriage of Roger-Forty Acres-O. Henry- Play-writing.
X "They Tell Me You're Going Away" . 415 A Growing College-The Final Transaction.
ON THE STOOP AT FORTY ACRES, JULY, 1936 419
Family Tree . · 422
Index . 423 .
XIV
Boston in the Sixties
1
RICH MAN, POOR MAN
In the eighteen-sixties on Boylston Street, facing the Public Gardens in Boston, there was a row of prim brick dwellings, with granite steps and dark green doors on which brass numbers gleamed hospitably. Small iron balconies jutted out above the area-windows and the square-yard-allowances of grass. Frederic Huntington, the Rector of Emmanuel Church, lived in number ninety-eight, next door to Judge Putnam. Farther along came the Bowditches. Tidens, Revetes. Lincolns. S .: who thought more or less alike. were interested in dav and state. and friendly among themselves.
The houses were mostly of one design. Front entrances opened into narrow halls with staircases mounting rather steeply on the left. About three-quarters of the way up there were niches in the wall to hold busts; ours had a rather stark representation of my grandfather's head and shoulders in plaster. Opposite the foot of the stairs on the right was a long parlor with French windows open- ing on the balcony, and a fireplace with a small grate and chilly marble mantel. The room was carpeted with a sprawling Victorian pattern, and held plenty of good comfortable furniture; rockers were having their day, and sofas were short and bulgy. A square Chickering piano stood against the wall, good engravings decorated the space above, and the prevalent what-not stood in its corner. A center-table with a green cover completed the make-up of this liv- ing-room. It might have been commonplace if its atmosphere had depended on such furnishings. But while larger establishments boasted formal drawing-rooms, splendidly upholstered and scrupu- lously shaded, we of the rectory lived in our one parlor, and were
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SIXTY-ODD
privileged to use our "best things" all the time, with respectful handling of that which was frail or fadeable.
Behind the parlor was the Rector's study, full of books and tributes. His large desk in the center of the room was always in order, and never gave signs of hurried or disorganized work. He wrote his sermons with a quill pen which squeaked as it travelled over the square sheets. Sometimes he spoke in whispers the words he wrote, hissing the s's, letting his eyebrows draw together and his face twist into funny grimaces, at which he did not mind our laughing. When he went out the desk bore evidence of a finished task, his pen laid across the pedestal of a great brass inkstand, the sermon-paper in a neat pile, the row of devotional books ranged between two book-ends of ebony studded with mother-of-pearl discs which were fascinating to the tips of childish fingers. We might not often linger to count them, however, or do more than deliver a message, unless the big horsehair arm-chair was pushed back and the intruder lifted to a place of dignity upon the pastoral knee.
Dining-room and kitchen were in the basement. Above the parlor our mother's room looked out on Boylston Street; we had a nursery behind it, where Nurse Harriet presided, and there was much sunshine on that east side of the house. Our view, however, was limited by the high walls of the Providence Railroad station, across a narrow alley where grocery carts and loads of freight passed monotonousły. There was a deep closet between the two rooms, for bedding, our mother's piece-bag, and the family's best hats on high shelves. Two more stories, above, furnished rooms for the older children and maids, with an unused dormer-windowed room at the front, which was to have served as a sort of study-retreat for the Rector, but had finally come to be a repository for discarded furni- ture and the overflow of his library.
From our front windows we could look across at the Public Gardens. Brilliant flower-beds and blossoming shrubs adorned them the season through, winding paths led to secluded benches or opened out on sunny malls. The pond was dotted with pleasure- boats. Noble statues stood out against backgrounds of clustered foliage. We spent most of our afternoons there among maids and
3
RICHI MAN, POOR MAN
perambulators, trotting hand in hand, or now and then dodging the policeman, that bogy so often invoked by exasperated nurses, dashing across a bit of lawn to hide behind a bush, in defiance of KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs.
Behind these Elysian fields stretched Beacon Street, the highway of the aristocracy. We could see from our house its rows of curtained windows, with tall blue glass bulb-jars of daffodils and hyacinths in bloom. It was a world of which we children had little comprehen- sion. Our parents sometimes stepped out of their sphere, and went across to dine at sumptuous tables, and our pretty grown-up sister, in evening clothes which made her look like one's image of fairy- land, would be driven now and then to a dance given by some wealthy parishioner.
Our own particular joy consisted in watching, with round faces pressed between the iron palings of the Gardens, processions of carriages, admiring the finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, envy- ing the coachmen, and coveting the long graceful whips with which they flicked the necks of their prancing steeds. It must be bliss, we felt, to guide those super-horses; no wonder the coachmen were distinguished by rich liveries and brass buttons. There was a rhythm in the trotting hoofs, bearing one's fancy along in dreamy delight as one watched the carriages move majestically past the Gardens, up the slope of Beacon Hill, with the Boston Common to the right and the State House crowning the Hill on the left. In the opposite direction they drove more briskly toward the Back Bay, which was then very near: a broad body of shallow water with toss- ing waves when breezes blew, crossed by the Mill-Dam, a causeway to the lovely suburb of Brookline.
Once or twice we were driven across the Mill-Dam, and found charming houses and gardens, close-clipped hedges and magnificent cultivated trees under which children played on their own grounds, not walking primly beside guardians over prescribed paths with menacing KEEP OFF signs. We were interested in having at last crossed the horizon-line, as it were, but it was not the realization of a dream nor the fabric of romance. It led only to comparison. We decided that there was more variety in city life: the risk and thrill
SIXTY-ODD
4 of crossing Boylston Street by skilful dashes after waiting for the thinning of a line of vehicles; of eluding the policeman in the Gardens, and pulling down a lilac-branch to the level of one's nose; of throwing bread to the great swans in the pond, and watching them swim away with ragged pieces, their long necks twisting and their yellow bills opening now and then to emit harsh squawks that turned the magic birds into greedy animals. No, our own world was worth living in, and we were willing to remain in it.
But as a matter of fact there were three worlds in our universe, one of which we inhabited; from this we looked out at the other two. There was the World of the Rich, as we saw it through the iron palings of the Garden; the people who owned the fine horses and carriages, kept greenhouses, and had music-boxes and long mirrors in their parlors; wore costly clothes and furs, and dressed their children in white with Roman sashes and openwork stockings. Some of them had beautiful little dogs with bells on their collars. The nurses and babies perambulated on the sidewalks of Beacon Street more often than in the sunshine of the malls. The glimpses of their glory were like watching a pageant enacted for our benefit, very entertaining but not exactly real. Even their wonderful dolls- and the French dolls of the day were exquisite, with kid figures made in perfect proportion to imitate the human form, and Pari- sian faces with lifelike complexions-did not seem to us so friendly as our own battered companions in the nursery. And the visits of our family among the aristocracy-even the relatives who moved in its midst and came out to us from its background-did not bring us any nearer to that world. It was like another planet. The sphere in which we ourselves moved was made up of everyday folk who lived in plain houses, and did some work about them, and whose children wore sensible clothes, and perhaps attended public schools. The expression "old families" was quite incomprehensible to us. We had an idea too that our sort was especially privileged in having books and loving them, but I don't know just how it got into our heads; it is merely an association which comes to the fore in recall- ing our youthful outlook.
Beacon and Arlington and Charles Streets represented the
1
5
RICH MAN, POOR MAN
boundaries of these zones, even though we sometimes ventured into unclassified regions. It was about as much of a horizon, that quad- rangle, as infant perceptions could grasp. And the third world, the World of the Poor, was a distant, strange country from which na- tives came now and then to the areas of Boylston Street to beg for "cold pieces," which the cooks meted out in the shape of dried crusts and even potato-parings. These creatures wore ragged shawls over their heads, and carried baskets on their arms, sometimes bringing wan babies. Of that world we knew little more, but we heard about its filthy houses, drunken husbands, and blind or lame old women to whom kind ladies carried food, and read the Bible, and preached submission and content. God took care of them, we learned; in fact was apparently responsible for the World of the Poor, and its status was considered as unchangeable as that of the Rich. We were reminded of it when a drunkard reeled across our path in front of the baby-carriage, steered out of his way by the competent Harriet; and there was some curiosity in our minds with regard to its denizens in the tenement regions, which we had been told were not far from Boylston Street.
As the fourth child of the family, I watched with some fascina- tion a band of rubbish-gatherers who could be seen from Berkeley Street bridge (then on the outskirts of civilization) to which we were sometimes taken for a walk. An embankment above the rail- road-yard was their gathering-place in the afternoon, as the Public Gardens were for us. God was supposed to have ordered it so. Dirty and tattered children accompanied their mothers, and now and then when some particular track was unused they descended upon it, and the little ones helped push out bits of coal from between the rails with sticks, or collected them in baskets. The misfortunes of the many and privileges of the few were taken for granted. There were some signs of an awakening, with charity doing its best, but the actual social conscience of Boston, in ignorance of any possible cure, remained dormant.
The child looked and wondered, gazing down over the railing of the bridge at what seemed to her a rather jolly company. She longed to join those children, and help with the rubbish-collecting
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SIXTY-ODD
and sorting, among the heaps of refuse on the embankment. Would they let her play too, she wondered, and could she take off her stockings, and cling with curving soles and toes to the warm rails, balancing as the children did, or jumping from one tie to another? It became so absorbing to watch them that she wanted to be taken over the new land to Berkeley bridge every afternoon. She turned impulsively back one day while following nurse Harriet and the perambulator as they headed for the Garden, and ran along Boyl- ston Street with all the vigor of her short legs, reaching the goal quickly. She clambered down the narrow, unguarded stone steps, and strolled along at the foot of the embankment, between the mov- ing engines. She was timid about sudden explosive sounds, but the rush of a locomotive did not alarm her, nor even the whistles, though they made her jump. The faces of the rag-pickers looked dark and wild, near to; they were Italians, and they did not notice her in their care for their own toddlers. She felt just a little afraid to go near them. It began to be a bit bewildering there with so much clanging and so many wheels revolving near one's eyes. A man with a shaggy beard and an oil-can in his hand came hurrying toward her; would he pick her up and carry her off? Then she heard her name, and turned to find her father's disturbed face looking down at her. He was panting; Harriet had rushed into his study with news of her flight, and they had thought at once of the bridge and the tracks. He swung her up to his broad shoulder, and strode away, past the foreign people, who waved and smiled at her now.
She still remembers the quick homeward stride, and how tightly she held to him. Then the going from the hot September sun- shine into his cool study, and his explaining to her quite gently, so as not to quench her four-year-old valor, that little girls did not go alone to railroad tracks, and that one could have a much better time on such excursions if one took a companion. She quite agreed with him, and having accomplished her own private bit of research was entirely ready to promise anything; but he did not ask that, and concealed his perturbation. She was still buoyed up by the elation of high adventure. She little knew that all life, for her, was to be that; that nothing would really be commonplace, even the least
7
RICH MAN, POOR MAN
eventful of days; that looking back after seventy years there would be a thrill which would be comparable only to the ardor of look- ing forward in childhood, to those same ever-new experiences; and that this was the first vivid chapter of a long, interesting story. At supper-time, between mouthfuls of bread and milk, her tongue ran on, describing the breathless scamper to Berkeley Street, the steep stone steps, the blaring whistles, the whirling, pounding wheels, the man in the blue jeans with dirty hands and face and the smell of oil.
The Rector and his wife did not at all want for their children that destiny which Gerald Stanley Lee describes as "a petrified life, imbedded in Grandma and Grandpa." But they found themselves confronted with an immediate problem. The Runaway Child had not yet been tabulated by psychologists. They could not turn to science for aid. So plain common sense came to the fore. If a certain child was likely to attempt further flights from the parental roof, she must be taught how to do it properly. They began to send her on little errands about the house and to near neighbors, stim- ulating a sense of responsibility which cultivated a cooperative obedience, not a tense adherence to laws. Whether it came from a recalcitrant ancestor in a northern borderland, or an English maid who had crossed the ocean in disguise a century before to marry the man she loved in defiance of paternal obduracy, there was a sug- gestion of resistance in the child's round, brown face, different in its contour from those of her brothers and sisters. It might be the Phelps great-grandfather after all. In the confidence born of sub- conscious freedom, however, she slept and waked, played and climbed, and ran and grew. But there were no more walks to Berkeley Bridge. The Natural History Museum, with its mastodon and monkeys, its stuffed birds and models, took the place of that. For five years, her glimpse at the World of the Poor lasted as a clouded memory.
2
FORBEARS AND FAMILIARS
We had only one grandmother, Grandmother Sargent, who lived in Roxbury. She had told us stories of her young days, and we knew that our Grandfather Sargent had been a sea-captain, who sailed his own merchant-ships, and had travelled in Russia and other countries. Grandmother herself was the daughter of Abner Lincoln, a son of General Lincoln, Washington's aide-de-camp. We heard about "Grandfather General" very often, of course. Abner Lincoln, our great-grandfather, had been a Harvard man and an outstanding educator of his time, and kept a school at Hingham in which his daughter Mary taught. Epes Sargent, the young cap- tain, was a widower with five children, who left his boys and girls at the school while he went sailing. And they loved Mary so dearly that when Captain Sargent came back from his voyages and found them clinging to her, he came to love her too, so the story went, and married her, after which they had five more children. He gave up his scafaring life, and when our mother and father became engaged the Sargents were living in a big hospitable Boston house.
Our father's ancestors were Puritans, and had settled in the Connecticut Valley, at Hadley. There Captain Moses Porter built a fine house which later became our summer home. We children were interested in hearing about his little girl Betsey, who grew up to be our great-grandmother. She was only eight years old when her father went to the French and Indian War and was killed by the Indians at the Battle of the Morning Scout, near Lake George. The details were not made very clear to us, but we had seen our great- great grandfather's sword, and knew that Betsey and her mother were left all alone at Forty Acres when it happened; that as a result
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