From a Daguerreotype taken about 1859
From a Daguerreotype taken about 1859
Over "t'other side," as we called it, in the house now owned by Mr. J. S. Curtis, lived Uncle "Jimmy" Woodbury. He must have been a "character." He was once very much troubled by rats in his barn. So he conceived a plan for getting rid of them at his neighbor's expense. Uncle David Preston's estate, where Miss Susan Amory's house now stands, was diagonally opposite.
Uncle "Jimmy" wrote a letter to the rats, in which he told them that in Uncle David's barn was more corn and better corn than theywere getting in his barn, and he strongly recommended that they move. Then Uncle Jimmy kept watch and on a beautiful moonlight night he had the satisfaction of beholding a long line of rodents with an old gray fellow as leader, crossing the road on their way to Uncle David's. (I tell the story as it was told to me). Uncle Jimmy's daughter, Mary, married Dr. Wyatt C. Boyden, for many years the skilful family physician of half the town. The fine public spirited Boydens of Beverly are her descendants.
By the way, the old vernacular of the village ought not to perish from the earth. It was unique. Our ancestors just hated to pronounce any word correctly, even when they were fairly good scholars and spellers. They called a marsh a "mash." Capt. Timothy Marshall, the rich man of the place, was called Capt. "Mashall"; Mr. Osborne was Mr. "Osman"; the Obers were "Overs", a lilac was a "laylock" a blue jay was a blue "gee," etc.
In closing these rambling papers of the old days at Beverly Farms, my conscience accuses me a little of not sufficiently emphasizingthevirtuesof the villagers. Truly, they were a good, interesting, law-abiding, religious people. Everybody went to church; a tramp was unknown; a drunken person was nearly as much an astonishment as a circus would have been. It would be unfair to class them as rude fishermen and shoemakers for they came of the old Puritan ancestry, who built their churches and schoolhouses on a convenient spot, before they attended to anything else, and they paid their debts so promptly that Mr. William Endicott, the good merchant of Beverly, said that he never had any hesitation in selling on credit to "Farms" people. As one got on to middle life, almost every householder had his horse, his cows and often a yoke of oxen. Our favorite conveyance to school, in deep snows, was an ox team with poles on the sides of the sled, where we held on with shouts and screams of laughter.
Nobody thought of hiring anursein cases of serious illness. Theneighborscame with willing hands and helped out. It was a peaceful little hamlet, with kind, straightforward, honest inhabitants, and the smallremnant of us who are left have reason to be proud of our ancestry.
Elsie repeated to us, the other day, the epitaph on her great-grandfather's grave stone, the Deacon David Larcom, who built my old house, who asked the town for a cemetery for this village and was laid to rest there in 1840, the first one to be buried in its peaceful shadows: "His life exhibited in rare combination and in an uncommon degree all the excellencies of the husband, the father, the citizen and the Christian."
The epitaph was written by Lucy Larcom, whose home here was on West Street. After she left Beverly for Lowell, and was a factory girl, she wrote for the "Lowell Offering," a little magazine published by the nice New England working girls. Copies of this little magazine were in the wonderful attic of my house when I came here. They were probably scented with Aunt Betsey'ssimplesthat hung from the roof.
How I wish I could have foreseen how very precious they would be to me now.
Head enlarged from a group taken about 1899
Head enlarged from a group taken about 1899
By Mary Larcom Dow
Extracts from the Beacon, published in Beverly for a charity November 1, 1913.
I am proud to be asked to record some of my pleasant days with my mother's cousin, Lucy Larcom. It will, of course, be natural to me to speak principally of the six or seven years during which she lived at Beverly Farms, the only time in which she had a real home of her own. It has always seemed strange to me that Doctor Addison in his biography of her, should have dismissed that part of her life with so few words. I know that it meant a great deal to her.
My very first recollection of her was as a child, when she, as a young lady, came to my house (then owned by "Aunt Betsey") spoken of so affectionately in "A New England Girlhood." Afterward, when I bought the old house, she expressed her great pleasure and when I told her I had spent all my moneyfor it, she said that was quite right; it was like the turtle with his shell, a retreat.
When she came here in 1866, she was in her early forties, a beautiful, gracious figure, with flowing abundant brown hair, and a most benignant face. She was then editor of "Our Young Folks." She took several sunny rooms near the railroad station, almost opposite "The witty Autocrat." He dated his letters from "Beverly Farms by the Depot," not to be outdone by his Manchester neighbors. The house was then owned by Captain Joseph Woodberry, a refined gentleman of the old school.
She brought with her at first, to these pleasant rooms, a favorite niece who resembled her in looks and in temperament, and she at once proceeded, with her exquisite taste, to make a real home for them. The bright fire on the hearth where we sat and talked and watched the logs fall apart and the sparks go out, was a great delight to her, and I have always thought that that beautiful poem "By the Fireside" must have been written "in those days."
The woods and fields of Beverly Farms were then accessible to all of us, and she knew just where to find the first hepaticas and the rare spots where the linnea grew, and the rhodora and the arethusa, and that last pathetic blossom of the year, the witch hazel, and she could paint them too.
To this home by the sea, came noted people; Mary Livermore, Celia Thaxter, whose sea-swept poems were our great delight, and many others. I recall one great event when Mr. Whittier came and took tea. He was so gentle and simple. The conversation turned on the softening of religious creeds, and he gave us some of his own experiences. He told us that when Charles Kingsley came to America, he went to see him at the Parker House, and as they walked down School Street, Mr. Whittier expressed his appreciation to Mr. Kingsley for his work in that direction. Mr. Kingsley laughed and said,—"Why, when I first went to preach at Eversley, I had great difficulty in making my parishioners believe that God is as good as the average church member."
There was a comfortable lounge in the living room at Beverly Farms, by an east window, and by that window was written "A Strip of Blue."
I do not think that Lucy Larcom had a very keen sense of humor, but she enjoyed fun in others, and was always amused at my absurd exaggerations and at my brother David's comical sea yarns. This brother of mine strongly resembled her in face and build, and also in his determination not to be poor. They would be rich, and they were rich to the end of the chapter. Her income must have been always slender, but I do not think I ever heard her say she could not afford anything. If she wanted her good neighbor, Mr. Josiah Obear, to harness up his red horse and rock-away and take her about the countryside, she said so, and we would go joyfully off, coming home, perhaps from the Essex fields, with a box of strawberries for her simple supper. Always the simple life with nature was her wish.
She was decidedly old-fashioned, and though I do not suppose she thought plays and cardsand dancing wicked, she had still a little shrinking from them. I remember that now and then we played a game called rounce, a game as innocent and inane as "Dumb Muggins" but she always had a little fear that Captain Woodberry would discover it, which pleased me immensely.
Those pleasant days at Beverly Farms came too soon to an end, and for the last part of her life I did not see so much of her. She remains to me a loving and helpful memory of a serene and child-like nature, and "a glad heart without reproach or blot," and I am glad to lay this witch hazel flower of memory upon the grave of that daughter of the Puritans, Lucy Larcom.
Beverly Farms,April 25, 1893.
My dear Miss Baker:
I get such pleasant letters from you that I quite love you, though I dare say I should not know you if I met you in my porridge dish being such a short sighted old party. And liking you, when you joined those other despots and lie awake o' nights, thinking how you can pile up more work and make life a burden to school ma'ams, means a good deal!!
Here is Miss Fanny Morse, now, whom I have always considered a Christian and a philanthropist, commissioning me to count and destroy belts of caterpillars' eggs for which thechildrenare to have prizes!
The children indeed! The prizes are at the wrong end! Miss Wilkins and I come home nights—"meeching" along—our arms full of the twigs—from which the nasty worms are beginning to crawl!
And now come you, asking for a tree! Yes, yes, dear body, we will do our possible, only if you hear of my raiding somebody's barn yard for the necessary nourishment of saidtree, or stealing a wheelbarrow or a pick and shovel, please think of me at my best.
Now as to Mr. Dow, I must write his part seriously, I suppose, as he is a grave old Scotchman.
He says he will use a part of the money—after proper consultation with the selectmen, etc. And he suggests that a part of the money be used to take care of the triangle and the trees already planted. He will write you when he has decided where to put additional trees. And if I live through the week I will write you whether we got a '92 tree in anywhere.
Yours very much,Mary L Dow.
Miss Baker was Secretary of the Beverly Improvement Society; these letters refer to her work.—(Editor.)
Beverly Farms, March 21, 1899My Dear Miss Baker:
I want very much to go to Mrs. Gidding's high tea but I do not get out of school till 3.30 and the train leaves at 3.34.
But after I am graduated from a school, for good and all, I mean to go to some of the rest of these "feasts of reason and flow of soul." We are making fine progress with thewurrumsand Miss Wilkins is prospering with her enterprise in Wenham.
Yours trulyMary L. Dow.
P.S. My regards to your father. I am sorry he has been ill. I told my sub-committee that I thought, if Mr. Baker had been present when my resignation was accepted, they would have sent me some little pleasant message to remember. It seemed to me that after teaching about a century in the town they might have at least told me to go to the d——, or something of that sort.
M.L.D.
"Beverly Farms-by-the-Depot" 1918.
Dearly Beloved G.P.:
"Pink" has just brought me this little squigley piece of paper, so that my letter to you may be of the same size as hers—some people are so fussy. You sent me nine or ten bushels of love, and I have used them all up, and am hungry for more, for that kind of diet my appetite is always unappeased.
How I do wish we had you within touching distance as well as within loving distance; I have always had a great desire to see more of you since first my eyes fell upon you. I do just hate to get so old that perhaps I shall never see you again in the flesh. But I'll be sure to look for you, and now and then, when you get a particularly good piece of good luck,—I shall have had something to do with it. That does not mean that the undertaker has been called and to hear James and Sarah Elizabeth talk, you would suppose that nothing could kill me—I only mean that 84 years is serious; but, for the life of me, I never do get very serious for long at a time.
Jimmy and I have been out to Northfieldfor five days, went to meeting and sang psalms for seven hours a day. Jimmy takes to meetings, being as Huxley said of somebody "incurably religious"—and really I did not talk much.
The country was so sweet and beautiful, the spirit of the place was like the New Jerusalem come down again. We slept in the dormitory in the little iron beds side by side, "Each in his narrow bed forever laid", only we did not stay forever.
We meant to come home by way of the Monadnock region, and we had a few drives along the Contacook River, but we ran into a Northeaster, and came ingloriously home.
Have not you been in lovely places, and in great good fortune in your vacation? I am glad of it.
I love you—so does Jimmy—and Sambo, and so would Billy, the neighbors' dog, who hangs about me for rice and kidneys, if he knew you. As to Pink, she flourishes like a green bay horse, teaches French and is in good spirits. Molly goes away on a vacation tomorrow. Poor Jim! With us for cooks!
Remember him in your prayers.
Thine, thine,Molly Polly.
Beverly Farms.Jan. 25, 1919.
My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
I didn't know till the other day, when I accidentally met Mr. Hakanson, that you had had an anxious and worried time this winter, with Mr. Goddard in the hospital. I am glad to know that he is able to be at home now. Tell him with my love, that our old neighbor, Mrs. Goodwin, once broke her leg, and she told me that though she expected to be always lame, that in a year she could not remember which leg was broken.
I hope you and the boys have been well, in this winter of worries. As to ice, I am scared to death of it, nothing else ever keeps me in the house.
My old assistant at school, declares that one winter she dragged me up and down Everett St., every school day! Nothing like the quietness of this winter at Beverly Farms was ever seen. I think I must suggest to the Beacon St. people to come down. We havehad a good many dark days, but now and then, I lie in my bed and watch the sun come up and glorify the oaks on your hill.
And then I quote to "Jim" Emerson's lines:
"Oh! tenderly the haughty dayFills his blue urn with fire."
"Oh! tenderly the haughty dayFills his blue urn with fire."
"Oh! tenderly the haughty dayFills his blue urn with fire."
"Oh! tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire."
And he likes that about as well as he likes the stars in the middle of the night!
By the way, we are thinking of going to Colorado and Florida next month for a few weeks. We have got the bits in our teeth, though we may have to go to the City Home when we get back. We mean to try the month of March in warmer climes. We haven't anything to wear—but that does not matter.
Miss Miller comes down now and then, always serene, though what she finds in the inlook or the outlook is difficult to see. Serenity in her case, does not depend on outward circumstances.
God bless you all, and we shall be glad to see our kind sensible neighbors back.
Affectionately,Mary L. Dow.
My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
I told the nice young person at your door, that I hoped I should some day soon see your dear face, and so I do hope. But I understand all your busy moments, and you understand my limitations, my having been born so many years ago; and we both know what fine women we both be, and that's all about it!
Then there never was such a salad as we had for our fourth of July dinner. And I did have a little real oil, too good for any hawked about stuff. I put it right on to those dear little onions, and that happy looking lettuce! And that isn't all about that, for there are still carrots—gentle and sweet—for our tomorrow's lunch. I told "Jim" they were good for the disposition and he said he didn't need carrots for his! Men are awfully conceited. And I am so pleased to see Mr. Goddard a'walking right off, without a limp to his name. James and Miss Miller send love, and so do I, while the beautiful hill holds you and always.
Mary Larcom Dow.
Monday, July 7, 1919.
Mrs. Dow wrote to a California friend, Mrs. Gertrude Payne Bridgeford, a short time before her death:
"I'd give my chance of a satin gown to see you, and I hope I shall live to do that, but if I don't, remember that I love you always, here or there, and I quote here my favorite verse from Weir Mitchell,
'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,When, at thy call, I have the night,Brief be the twilight as I passFrom light to dark, from dark to light.'"
'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,When, at thy call, I have the night,Brief be the twilight as I passFrom light to dark, from dark to light.'"
'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,When, at thy call, I have the night,Brief be the twilight as I passFrom light to dark, from dark to light.'"
'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,
When, at thy call, I have the night,
Brief be the twilight as I pass
From light to dark, from dark to light.'"
Her prayer was answered for the twilight was brief.
Dear Elsie:
As soon as Mary said "E. Sill"—I found the Fool's Prayer directly.
It was in my mind and would not stay out. How well it expresses that our sins are often not so bad as our blunders! A splendid prayer for an untactful person. Perhaps I should not go so far as to say that want of tact is as bad as want of virtue—but it is pretty bad! From that defect, you will go scot free! But I often blunder.
YourTATis here, I am keeping it as a hostage.
Thine,Your Old Schoolma'am.
Friday, April 9, 1920.
"Wouldn't it be lovely if one could fall—like a leaf from a tree?"
"Longevity is the hardest disease in the world to cure, you are beat from the start, and get worse daily!"
"Ah, dear, sometimes I wish—almost wish—I did not love life so well! But I try to think that if it is not a long dreamless sleep bye and bye, that I shall take right hold of that other existence and love it too!"
And speaking of Mr. Dow's serious illness she wrote:
"I try to believe that God will not take him first—and leave me with no sun in the sky—nor bird in the bush—no flower in the grass."
BY
SARAH E. MILLER
It was in the autumn of 1872 that I first met my friend, Mary Larcom Ober, at Wilmington, North Carolina, where we were teaching in the same school.
In the spring of 1873, she invited me to her home in Beverly Farms.
How well I remember that first happy visit to beautiful Beverly Farms, and the first walk in its woods. We went through the grounds of the Haven estate and then to Dalton's hill which has such a fine outlook.
From that time my friend's home held a welcome for me whenever I chose to come, and the welcome lasted till the close of her life.
What a hospitality, rest and peace there was in the dear "house by the side of the road," and a never-failing kindness and love. What cheer at Thanksgiving and Christmas festivals when friends and neighbors came in to bring greetings, and stayed for friendly chat or a game of cards.
In the first years of our friendship, I made close acquaintance with the woods of Beverly Farms, for we lived our summer afternoons mostly out of doors in those days. We had two favorite places under the trees, one, on a little hill deep in the pines, the other, with glimpses of the sea, and we took our choice of these from day to day.
Here in the company of books, birds and squirrels we used to sit, read and sew till the last beams of sunlight crept up to the tops of the pines, then gathered up books and work and went home.
I learned much of book-lore in those days from my friend, much also of wood-lore. She knew the places where the spring flowers were hidden, hepeticas, violets, blood-root, the nodding columbines, and all the others, and we searched them out together.
The memory of those first years at Beverly Farms, and of all the following years are among the most precious possessions that I hold.
S. E. M.
From Mrs. Cora Haynes Crosby:
"I have known and loved her, our dear wonderful friend who has left us, ever since I can remember, and what a friend she has been.
Not only was she dear to father and mother, but just as precious with her great, noble, beautiful spirit to all of us younger ones, for she was no older than we.
That happy outlook on life, her love of everything beautiful and fine in nature, books and people, made her an inspiration to all who knew her."
From a letter by Mrs. Margaret Haynes Pratt:
"Ever since I was a little girl, Molly has been almost a member of our household. As a child, her visits were as much a joy to me as to mother and father.
I never thought of her as old, even then—and a child generally marks off the years in relentless fashion, for Molly was always young to me, as she must have been to everyone who knew her.
It is wonderful to have had a nature that so helps all who knew her to believe that life is immortal."