LewinWestgateQuimby Family

The Nashes: The Story of an Indigent Family in South Kingstown, Rhode Island

by Gay Auerbach

Reprinted from Rhode Island Roots, Journal of the Rhode island Genealogical Society, Vol. 51:1 (March 2025)

The meager 1749 estate inventory of Littlefield Nash’s father, Ebenezer Nash

Plainfield, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, credits Littlefield Nash with being one of the first European people to spend a winter in the newly established town. He and his superior officer Josiah Russell canoed up the Connecticut River in 1764 as representatives of the proprietors of Plainfield, Windham County, Connecticut, having gained knowledge of the area while scouting during the French and Indian War.(1) Nash started clearing land for settlement and was granted one hundred acres.(2) Illiterate and probably rough- hewn, he blazed a trail to Charlestown, New Hampshire, hunted bear and received the ministrations of local Abenaki during a dire illness that first winter, at least according to legend.(3)

Littlefield Nash’s unusual first name indicates that the likely candidates to be his forebears are Dorothy Littlefield and Isaac Nash, who married in Braintree, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 6 December 1694.(4) Many records of the Nashes point to poverty, but the crucial link between Littlefield Nash, his father Ebenezer Nash, and his grandparents Isaac and Dorothy (Littlefield) Nash comes in the form of a small legacy from Littlefield’s maternal grandfather, Thomas Grinnell.

Isaac Nash and Dorothy Littlefield

The Nash/Littlefield couple were early transplants into Rhode Island. Dorothy Littlefield was born around 1674 in Wells, Maine, to Thomas Littlefield and his first wife Ruth, or perhaps to Sarah, his second wife.(5) Dorothy left Wells for Braintree shortly after her father Thomas drowned in the icy waters near Berwick, York County, Maine around 1689/90.(6) By accident or design, she married another Wells native living in Braintree, Isaac Nash.

Sometime after her 1694 marriage, Dorothy and Isaac Nash moved to Kingstown, Kings County, Rhode Island, perhaps along with several other families with whom the Littlefields had been and continued to be associated.(7) Possibly, they followed Reverend Samuel Niles, who preached in Kingstown from 1702–10 before moving back to the Braintree church.(8) They were likely at Kingstown as early as 1702 when the town council required that “Isaac Nash, John Allin are to Apear at” the next meeting “to Answere for there being in” [this town?] without “Leave of the Councell.” In a subsequent meeting Nash was given time to “bring sufficient bond” to indemnify the town against any requirement for support.(9) There is no evidence that Isaac Nash became a landowner in South Kingstown, but apparently he was able to satisfy the town with a bond or some other method because he was, to the end of his life, considered an official inhabitant of South Kingstown.

In later years, at least, the Nashes fell on hard times. Starting in January 1741, the South Kingstown town council regularly turned its attention to the case of Isaac Nash and his unnamed wife “who are among the poor of the town.”(10) They were provided from time to time with clothing and funds for their room and board which would go to their caretakers. While the town expected to provide some support to indigent residents, local leaders and constables carefully guarded the town from encroachment by residents who “belonged” to other towns, warning them out on a regular basis.(11)

Three Sons

The elderly and impoverished Isaac Nash had at least three living sons, Jonathan, Ebenezer, and Nathan, who took turns over the course of the next six years going to the Council to plead for funds to support their parents. Jonathan Nash was the first to make a request on 12 January 1741.(12) “Jonathan informed sd Council that his Father and Mother Viz Isaac & his Wife, of this Town, are reduced very poor & not capable to support and maintain themselves. And prays this Town Council to provide or order such things for their support as shall be by sd Council thought necessary. Upon due Consideration, This Town Council Agrees with sd Jonathan to Board his Father and Mother at 16/p Week …”

Jonathan returned to the town council again that year, when the officials granted him £16 9s “for Boarding his Father and Mother to this day.”(13)

In September 1741 the Council expressed skepticism about the subsidy and in October summoned Isaac, Jonathan, and Ruth Nash (almost certainly a daughter of Isaac and Dorothy) “to declare to said Town Council what they know about the Estate of Isaac Nash,” a report having reached them that the man actually possessed a “considerable estate.”(14) Presumably the poverty was verified because a year later Jonathan received £10 8s for boarding his father and mother.(15)

Sometime before 11 April 1743 Jonathan Nash and his wife left South Kingstown.(16) Jonathan’s brother Ebenezer Nash took over the support of his parents, and the subsidy of £16 was paid to him. Ebenezer also announced that he was taking care of his nephew, “one of the sons of Jonathan Nash,” a four-year-old boy, the parents “not being in this town to take care of said children.” Ebenezer asked for and got an allowance of 8 shillings per week to board his nephew until the next town meeting.

Ebenezer reported at the same meeting that Jonathan’s unnamed young son had two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, who was nine years old.(17) The Council immediately bound out Elizabeth Nash as apprentice to Lott Tripp of nearby Charlestown. As was typical he agreed to “learn her to read” and to provide a suit of clothes at the end of her indenture, when she turned twenty-one.

As a result of Ebenezer’s disclosures, the South Kingstown town council ordered Jonathan Nash and his wife to appear at the next meeting and answer to the council on the subject of their children becoming chargeable to the town.(18) The parents could “not be found,” and they did not appear at the July 1743 council meeting. Nine-year-old Mary Nash was also put into an apprenticeship, in her case with Ichabod Sheffield, a wealthy Narragansett planter.(19) Sheffield died soon after, and her period of service was priced out in the inventory of his estate. Sheffield’s (apparently) enslaved servant, “a Negro Man called Jack,” had a far greater value.(20)

Snippet from the inventory of the estate of Ichabod Sheffield, 14 Oct. 1743, South Kingstown Town Council and Probate Records, 4:21.

Jonathan Nash’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth acquired household skills and basic literacy during their indentures. Doubtless they acquired specialized skills in line with whatever was bringing money into the household, such as sewing, dairy, weaving, or similar pursuits. Mary’s term ended satisfactorily in the eyes of the Town Council; on 16 May 1752 the councilors noted that

“Whereas Mary Nash was Bound an Apprentice to Ichabod Sheffield the Indentures being now out and Truly Performed on both sides according to the True intent and meaning it is Therefore voted that sd. indentures be delivered up to her canceled.”(21)

After the disposition of Jonathan’s children, there followed a few years of regular subsidies to support Isaac Nash and his unnamed wife. Captain Robert Hazard, overseer of the poor in South Kingstown, procured shoes, blankets, flannel shirts and a jacket for Isaac and his spouse. Then on 11 June 1744 Ebenezer came to the town meeting to report that his mother, Isaac’s wife, had died on May 6.(22) Although he does not name her, this is almost certainly Dorothy (Littlefield) Nash, age about 70. The town refunded Ebenezer for sundries involved in burying his mother; in turn, he kept her blankets as part of his subsidy for boarding her.

In July 1745 the third son of Isaac Nash, Nathan Nash, reported to the councilors that his father “was not so well provided for as he might be” in the home of his brother, Ebenezer Nash.(23) A month later Ebenezer appeared before the Town Council and “refused to keep his father Isaac Nash one of the Poor of this Town any Longer. And said Isaac nash his Son Nathan Nash appeared before sd. Town Council and Would Board his Father the sd. Isaac Nash and provide for him sufficient meat drink Washing Lodging Attendance and summer clothing during his Natural life and would at his own charge bury his said father after his death on condition this Town Council allow him therefore fifteen shillings per week during his said father’s natural life.”(24)

Thus the care of Isaac was transferred a second time to another son. The Council ordered Ebenezer to transport Isaac’s bed and linens to Nathan Nash’s house.

The payments were increased and now went to Nathan, continuing until 21 January 1747, when Isaac Nash died; he was around 74 or older (based on his marriage date of 1694, when he was likely at least 21).(25) Nathan came to the council meeting carrying apparel and bedding that the town had provided for his father. Their value was calculated and deducted from the last payment the town had made, so the son would have trekked home on that wintry day carrying his father’s clothing and blanket.

The Death of Ebenezer Nash

Two years later, Ebenezer Nash, “labourer,” died, as reported in December 1749 by Thomas Grinnell to the Town Council.(26) But “whereas the widow and nearest of kin to Ebenezer Nash have heretofore refused to administer on the personal estate of Ebenezer Nash,” Thomas Grinnell took on the task, “being the largest creditor” on Ebenezer’s estate. No kinship with Ebenezer was recorded after the town meeting, but Thomas’ daughter was probably Ebenezer’s widow.(27)

Grinnell completed his task as administrator in a few weeks. Oliver Hazard and Peleg Peckham, two men who were frequently called upon to value the more modest estates in town, appraised Ebenezer’s belongings. The Council accepted their inventory on 18 January 1750.(28) It was worth less than his brother Isaac Jr.’s had been at £48 and 9 shillings. He left one cow, one old gun, three old pewter platters, three old pewter basins, three old pewter plates, six old pewter spoons, two old iron trammels, two old chairs, and £18 in debts.

Three years after Ebenezer’s death, on 13 November 1752, the Town Council voted that

“Ann Nash Daughter of Ebenezer Nash deceased be bound an apprentice to Joseph Northrup until she be eighteen years of age, She being Nine years old the 19th day of May 1752. Said Northrup to learn hir to Read and Write a Leagable hand and also to larn his taylor’s trade…, and to dismiss hir at the age of Eighteen with a New Suit of apparel Fitting hir Body throughout besides hir Every Day wearing apparel.”(29)

Evidence that Ebenezer Nash’s wife, whose name has not been found, was the daughter of Thomas Grinnell of South Kingstown comes after the 1758 death of Thomas Grinnell. In 1758 the will of Thomas Greenal/Grinnell of South Kingstown gave and bequeathed certain amounts to daughters Mary Ladd and Elizabeth B[ea?]man and then provided relatively small items for his Nash grandchildren, a good indication that a married Nash daughter had passed away. Combined with his administration of Ebenezer Nash’s estate, a solid case can be made that Littlefield Nash’s mother was born a Greenal/Grinnell.

Naming sequence suggests a birth order: “unto my beloved grandson Littlefield Nash when he shall arrive to the Age of Twenty one Year[s] Three pounds in money old Tenor of said Colony And my Large Gun,” a weapon that Littlefield may well have already carried in the Campaign of 1755 and 1756, participating as a scout under Captain Israel Putnam in and around Fort Ticonderoga. Grinnell gave grandson Jonathan Nash “three pounds in money… and the gun that belonged to his father.” He bequeathed an iron pot and a trammel that had belonged to her mother to his granddaughter Ann Nash, along with 40 shillings. He bequeathed six pounds to his grandson Isaac Nash. All four children were minors in 1758 when Thomas wrote this will; the gifts of their parents’ belongings reveal that they were orphans.(30)

Given that Ann was known to be nine years old in 1752, so born 1743, the two oldest, Littlefield and Jonathan, were born late enough to be under twenty-one at the time of the will-writing in 1758, so say after 1737, but before 1743. Because Littlefield had a sister Ann Nash, documented in both his grandfather’s will and in the indenture records of the town, the evidence that Ebenezer Nash was Littlefield Nash’s father is quite compelling.

Littlefield Nash

Because Littlefield Nash was not yet twenty-one in January 1758 when his grandfather wrote his will, he was likely born between 1737 and 1739. So at the time of his enlistment in military service on 9 September 1755, he was probably sixteen or seventeen years old, not an unusual age for such service. Why he made his way from South Kingstown to Plainfield, Connecticut, and enlisted in service when he might just as easily have enlisted at home, is unclear. Could service with the legendary Israel Putnam have attracted him? It’s easy to imagine tales of Putnam, the eastern Connecticut wolf-slayer, permeating rural Rhode Island .(31) Littlefield served with several units in the French and Indian War, honing his own scouting and survival skills.(32)

Midcentury was a time of expansion throughout New England. Littlefield and dozens of other Plainfield, Connecticut residents formed a plan to establish a new town of Plainfield along the Connecticut River in New Hampshire in the 1760s.(33) So Littlefield kept wandering and built a new life in New Hampshire.

There are occasional payments to Littlefield Nash in Plainfield, New Hampshire town records for road work; as a landowner (108) acres he was assessed a poll tax regularly until 1799.(34). Along with other Plainfield citizens, he signed a protest and boycott against the British occupation of Boston on 28 July 1774.(35) He served in the Revolutionary War as Corporal in Captain Josiah Russell’s Company of Rangers, under General Jonathan Chase, for approximately 144 days.(36)

In summary, Ebenezer Nash and his wife, probable surname Grinnell, of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, were very likely the parents of Littlefield Nash of Plainfield, New Hampshire. Littlefield’s father died in 1749. Had Ebenezer Nash been a difficult man, based on the fact that his brother Nathan told the Town Council in 1745 that Ebenezer was neglecting their father? Was Littlefield’s mother also deceased or somehow incapacitated by the time Littlefield left town, since she was definitely deceased by 1758? One thing is clear: caring for indigent family members was a problem for the 18th century Nashes and for the South Kingstown community. Littlefield Nash may have had good reasons for setting off as a young man and seeking another life.

1. Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1755-1762, Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 9 (Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford: 1903) vol. 1(1755-1757):37, 79, 101, 128. Littlefield Nash not found in volume 2.
2. Philip Zea, “The Settlement of Plainfield ‘Upon Ye New Hampshire Grants,’” in Philip Zea and Nancy Norwalk, eds., Choice White Pines and Good Land: A History of Plainfield and Meriden, New Hampshire (Portsmouth, N.H., Peter E. Randall: 1991), 23–24, citing Proprietors’ Book (1761–1802), entry for 12 December 1763, town clerk’s office, Plainfield.
3. Edward Everts Jackson, comp., “Records of the First Church at Braintree, Mass.,” citing Rev. William P. Lunte’s copy of Records of the First Church at Braintree, Mass., in possession of Quincy, Mass. City Clerk [hereafter, “Records of the First Church at Braintree”], NEHG Register 59 (1905):154.
4. Donna Beaupre, compiler, Founders of Plainfield, 2011, p. 5; an unsourced pamphlet in the possession of Gay Auerbach.
5. Pricilla Eaton, The Littlefield Genealogy: Descendants of Edmund Littlefield of Wells, Maine Through Six Generations, MGS Special Publication no. 97 [hereafter, Priscilla Eaton, The Littlefield Genealogy] (Waterville, Maine, Maine Genealogical Society: 2024), vol. 1, pp. 25, 73–75. The author also contributed details of the Nash family to this publication (72, footnote 516).
6. Thomas Littlefield of Wells died before 5 March 1689/90, when an inquest was conducted at Wells Court of Pleas into his “untimely death.” His demise was likely related to the Berwick drownings of “Samuell Lord of Berwick” and “Robert Houston of Dover” which the Jury of Inquest returned a verdict on at the same session: Robert E. Moody, Province and Court Records of Maine, 3 (1680–1692) (Portland: Maine Hist. Soc, 1947), 290.
7. On 5 November 1718, Isaac and Dorothy (“Daughter of Thomas Littlefield, decd”) Nash “of Kings Town in the Collony of Rhode Island” sold the uplands and marshland in Wells that Dorothy had inherited from her father: York County, Maine, Land Records 9 (1714– 1719):146–147.
8. The association of Littlefields with the Niles family started at least as far back as Braintree. Reverend Samuel Niles preached in Kings Town from 1702–10 (J. R. Cole, History of Washington and Kent Counties, R.I., pp. 283 and 490–491). Samuel’s brother Nathaniel Niles left a will in South Kingstown in the winter of 1727/28, leaving his “Mantion house” and land to various sons and mentioning both son and grandson named Nathaniel Nash (South Kingstown, R.I., Town Council & Probate 2:95) and Gerald James Parsons, “The Children of Nathaniel Niles,” The American Genealogist 51(1975):118– 119). Isaac Nash Jr.’s wife Elizabeth (Tucker) Nash married as her second husband Ebenezer Niles (Anne McKee Niles, “Elizabeth (Tucker) (Nash) (Niles) Kenyon of Westerly, South Kingstown, and Charlestown, Rhode Island, and Stonington, Connecticut,” The American Genealogist 76(2001):248, 250 for an analysis of the original record and James Arnold’s misreading).
9. Both meetings transcribed in George Loxton, Early Records of Kings Towne, Rhode Island, including the towns of North and South Kingstown, Exeter, and Narragansett, Rhode Island prior to 1723, currently in preparation, unpaginated, entry for “Probate Records 1692–1719 (currently bound as volume 5),” 5:14. Any follow-up to the request for sufficient bond has not been found among the confused record books of early Kings Towne, held among the damaged records at North Kingstown town hall.
10. For evidence that this is the older Isaac Nash: Prior researchers may have assumed Dorothy (Littlefield) Nash had died long before 1741, because on 13 May 1723, Isaac Nash Jr. married Elizabeth Tucker. Elizabeth (Tucker) Nash’s husband died in 1726, when she appeared before the South Kingstown town council with an inventory of his estate. (South Kingstown Probate & Town Council Records, 2:56–7). The Isaac Nash Junior who married Elizabeth Tucker was Dorothy’s son, not her widowed husband, so that Isaac and Dorothy may have still been alive in 1741. Isaac Jr.’s marriage date of 1723 suggests he was born around 1700, which fits well given the parents’ 1694 marriage.
11. For warning out practices in South Kingstown: Cherry F. Bamberg, “A Word of Introduction” in Linda L. Mathew, Gleanings from Rhode Island Town Records: South Kingstown Town Council Records, 1743-1772 (Hope, R.I.: R.I. Genealogical Society, 2024), pp. i–ii.
12. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 3:117, (second set of page numbers, FamilySearch film #007650044, image 778 of 882), entry for 12 January 1740/41.
13. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 3:162, entry for 8 March 1740/41.
14. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 3:138–139 and 141–142, entries for 14 Sept. 1741 and 12 Oct. 1741. Most likely, Ruth was a daughter, named after Dorothy Littlefield Nash’s mother Ruth.
15. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 3:178, entry for 11 Oct. 1742.
16. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:4–5 (second occurrence of the page numbers, FamilySearch film 007650045, image 240 of 717), entry for 11 April 1743.
17. Based on Mary’s stated age of nine, and assuming she was Jonathan’s oldest living child, Jonathan could have been between ages 41 and 45 in 1741 when he first showed up before the Town Council. This makes a birthday between 1695 and 1700 possible for Jonathan, which fits with his parents’ marriage date of 1694 and easily accommodates the birth of his deceased brother Isaac Jr. who married in 1723. Of course, the birth order is uncertain.
18. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records 4:10, 13 June 1743.
19. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:73, 12 July. A few weeks later Ichabod Sheffield also sought to bind Elizabeth, who by then was in the care of Lott Tripp.
20. South Kingstown Town Council and Probate Records, 4:16–22, inventory of the estate of Ichabod Sheffield, 14 Oct. 1743. On 10 June 1745 John Babcock sought to take over Mary’s apprenticeship; it appears that she stayed with the Sheffield widow for the term of her indenture (South Kingstown Town Council and Probate Records, vol. 4:72.) However Mary Nash served as witness to John Babcock’s will written on 13 October 1763 (South Kingstown Council and Probate Records, 5:265.)
21. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:215, 16 May 1752.
22. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:42, 11 June 1744.
23. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:76, 8 July 1745.
24. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:78, 19 Aug. 1745.
25. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, Town council meeting, 4:115-6, 9 Feb 1747.
26. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:182, 11 Dec. 1749 (note the volume is paginated twice; this is the second appearance of p. 182; FamilySearch Film # 007650045, image 336 of 717).
27. Thomas Grinnell was declared a freeman of Rhode Island in May 1696: Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 3(1696):311. Evidence of relationship follows in details, upcoming, of Thomas Grinnell’s will.
28. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:312-13, inventory of the estate of Ebenezer Nash, recorded 6 Jan. 1750.
29. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Probate & Town Council Records, 4:219, 13 Nov. 1752.
30. South Kingstown, Kings Co., R.I., Town Council & Probate Records, 5(1743–1772):131- 33, will of Thomas Greenal, signed 26 Jan. 1758. The will was proved after the death of Thomas Grinnell on 14 July 1760. Also, 5:138–39, inventory of Thomas Greenal, submitted 29 May 1760, totaled £1161.2.3, about half in cash and notes. The remainder of his estate went to his son and executor, Benjamin Greenal; Benjamin was instructed to support his widowed mother for the remainder of her life.
31. For Israel Putnam’s early exploits, “Israel Putnam,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Putnam).
32. Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1755–1762, in Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, (Hartford: CHS, 1903), v. 1 (1755–1757):37, 79, 101, 128. His service included Third Company, Major Payson’s unit, 9 Sep–25 Nov 1755; Col. Bagley’s Regiment, Capt. Putnam’s Company, 25 Nov–30 May 1756; First Regiment, Capt. Putnam’s Company, expedition against Crown Point, half-pay list for service ending 31 May 1756; also Third Regiment, 2nd Co., Lieut-Col. Payson, half-pay, discharged 14 June 1756. “Littlefield Nash” was captured on Lake George, imprisoned by the French, and exchanged back to the British forces on 15 November 1759 according to a modern and not specifically sourced accounting: But Garfield Loescher, “Rogers Rangers Pvts. Rosster, 1755-1761,” typewscrpt, p. 203; New York Heritage Digital Collections, citing Ticonderoga Historical Society, Ticonderoga, N.Y. No other mention of this imprisonment has been found.
33. Christopher P. Bickford, Plainfield Transformed: Three Centuries of Life in a Connecticut Town 1699–1999 (Plainfield, Connecticut: Plainfield Historical Society, 1999), 42.
34. Kay MacLeay, Plainfield Genealogies May 2012 Edition (Plainfield, N.H., Plainfield Historical Society: 2012), 323.
35. New Hampshire, State’s Copy of Records of Plainfield, citing Plainfield Proprietors’ Records, Book 1, pp. 68 and 73; “Town Records 1761–1802,” vol. 3, pp. 40–42, FamilySearch (film 005510999, images 169–170).
36. FamilySearch “United States Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775–1783” holds six New Hampshire entries for Littlefield Nash, for instance, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-994M-9CHS.

Thanksgiving… I will be eating quesadillas and sea bass in Cabo San Lucas this year, along with all my descendants.  But this holiday will always raise memories of roast turkey and corn kernels stationed on empty plates by Aunt Carol, so that we could spend a few minutes remembering how the Wampanoag provided most of the food for those Europeans shivering on the Massachusetts shore in 1620-21. 

Every Thanksgiving I also think about Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and the most influential female magazine editor up to that point in history.  Her campaign to spread the holiday that New Englanders already observed eventually convinced President Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a legal holiday.  It was a cause she promoted in the name of national unity, arguing that sitting down to eat a meal together always deepens bonds.  (She was thinking of mending the chasm between north and south.[1])

We always heard that SJH was a relative of some kind.  Clearly Lucy and Flora Clough were admirers of her advocacy of education for girls.  When Flora Clough died, she passed on a hard-bound copy of the 1866 issues of Godey’s, which GaGa passed on to me, mostly so I could choose some of the fashion plates to cut out and frame.  Every once in a while I revisit the recipes, patterns for embroidery, “hints for health” (keep your rooms at 60 degrees, like the French hospitals do), and romantic stories about handsome men attracted to spunky girls, although the book is now falling apart.

I have been a bit vague on just how we were related to SJH, so in her honor I took another look today.  The connection comes through the Buell family, who came north to Newport, New Hampshire from Killingworth, Connecticut around 1776 in the person of Deacon Daniel Buell (4)[2] and his wife Elizabeth Post.  Sarah Joseph Hale described our ancestors’ move to New Hampshire this way: “[They] they brought with them into the wilderness of the North that love of learning and those strict religious observances which distinguish the inhabitants of the Charter state.” She added that, in the absence of schools, she owed “my early predilection for literary pursuits to the teachings and example of my mother.”[3] 

One of Deacon Buell’s sons, Nathan Buell, married Thankful Griffin; they begat Gordon Buell, who begat SJH.[4]  Another of Deacon Buell’s sons, Daniel(5), husband of Ruth Towner, began Abraham Buell; he begat Florinda (Buell) Clough, who married Willard Clough of Grantham.  (Abraham and most of his other children went “west” to Crown Point, New York.) Florinda Buell and Willard Clough were the parents of my great great grandfather Charles S. Clough.

So, that makes Florinda and SJH second cousins, a fact the granddaughters of Florinda Clough were aware and proud of.  Flora Clough and Lucy (Clough) Lewin were both resourceful, independent women who advocated mightily for girls’ education – Flora pursued her dream of going to college and became dean of women at Fairmont College in Kansas. Lucy got her daughters through hours of musical training, elocution lessons and Shakespearean dialogue, as well as Smith College, supporting herself and her daughters by running a boardinghouse in Northampton.[5]  

Exploring the Buell family revealed another interesting connection.  Arthur and Marguerite (Lewin) Quimby were very, very distant cousins through the Buell line: both were descended from Samuel Buell, Deacon Daniel’s grandfather.  Samuel Buell was a “pioneer settler of Killingworth, Connecticut in 1664.”[6]

To end this circuitous genealogical story, here are some of the essentials of the Thanksgiving menu, as described in Northwood, or life North and South, the book about slavery that got Hale the job as Editress (her term) of Godey’s. (The book contains a whole chapter about Thanksgiving in New England.)  One should serve stuffed and basted roast turkey, leg of pork, loin of mutton, sirloin of beef, vegetables, gravy, a goose, ducklings, pickles, preserves, a chicken pie – and pumpkin pie, an “indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving.” Every place had a wine glass and two tumblers, with a slice of wheat bread on top of an inverted tumbler. For dessert they had plum pudding, custards, pie, cake, sweetmeats and fruits.[7]  No grains of maize in sight.

---

[1] Although an abolitionist, SJH favored sending all former slaves back to Africa.

[2] Daniel Buell(4) was preceded by Samuel(3), Samuel (2), William (1), all of Killingworth, CT.

[3] Edmund Wheeler, The History of Newport, New Hampshire from 1766 to 1878, (Concord:1879) p. 126.

[4] Gordon Buell’s gravestone in Newport conveniently includes his genealogy.

[5] See The Clough Sisters, available on Amazon, for everything I know about Charles Clough’s daughters.

[6] The lineage is Arthur [Elwin Quimby, Wilbur Quimby, Benjamin Quimby, Persis Gee Quimby, Rhoda (Otis) Gee, Mary (Hinckley) Otis, Ebenezer Hinckley, Mary (Buell)l Hinckley, Samuel (2) Buell. 

[7] List from New England Historical Society, “Sarah Josepha Hale, the little lady from NH who started Thanksgiving.”  SJH is viewed ambiguously by the feminist community today, since she focused on women’s role in the home, as a well-educated teacher of her own children and bringer of music, culture and religion to the household.  SJH helped found Vassar College and wrote often about the need for more women doctors, and saw no reason women couldn’t serve as bankers. 

One name on the family tree that thrilled Arthur and Marguerite Quimbys’ granddaughters was “Freelove Lovejoy” (1720-after 1790). It was a one-of-a-kind name, redolent of possibility to us, children of the Age of Aquarius.  If you stood on our grandparents’ couch and followed Freelove’s line, you found that she gave birth to Isaac Cory, who begat Eunice Cory, who married Jonathan Nash, the son of Littlefield Nash, who was one of the first white men to winter over in Plainfield, New Hampshire.  (Littlefield was my 5 greats grandfather.)

When I went to Colby College in 1973, the first thing President Strider mentioned to me, as the daughter of a newspaperman, was that the famous martyr to the First Amendment, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, had attended Colby.  He had founded a newspaper in St. Louis in which he wrote scathing attacks on the institution of slavery.  Defending his beliefs and his right to express them in front of the presses that printed his words, Elijah was killed by a bullet fired from an angry mob.  His fiery brother Owen became friends with Abraham Lincoln and was elected as a Congressman from Illinois; Owen devoted his political career to overturning slavery and was considered the most aggressive abolitionist in public office.

I’ve always wondered whether Freelove was connected in any way to the famous Elijah Lovejoy and his brother Owen.

So, first, here is what I now know about Freelove.  Born in 1720, she was of the fourth generation of the Lovejoys in America.  Beginning with John Lovejoy the immigrant, the family lived in Andover, Massachusetts for more than 100 years.  The Magistrates’ Court at Haverhill records that Freelove’s grandmother Naomi (Hoyt) Lovejoy was taken to court in 1683 to answer charges of fornication.  Naomi’s husband John (2) Lovejoy had died a few short years after his marriage, in 1680.  Naomi subsequently accused Benjamin Abbot of making her “grow big with child.”  Widow Lovejoy seems to have escaped punishment, and a man named Lieutenant Thomas Chandler paid Benjamin’s fine of 40 shillings after the court put up a “hue and cry” for the recreant, who most likely ran away to avoid prosecution (typically whipping and a fine). Naomi left Andover shortly thereafter to marry Richard Stratton of Charlestown, MA.

The slight stain on her grandmother’s reputation would not have touched Freelove, who was born 40 years after her grandmother’s scandal.* Sadly, I know very little of Freelove’s life in Plainfield, Connecticut, where she and her husband Joseph Cory moved and lived out their lives.

Now for the more famous Lovejoys.  By the time the brothers Elijah and Owen were born, in Albion, Maine, Freelove’s grandchildren were busy populating Plainfield, New Hampshire.  But like Owen and Elijah, these grandchildren were all descended from John Lovejoy, who had migrated to New England in 1638.  (Freelove’s great-grandfather and Elijah’s great-great grandfather were brothers.) We can wonder whether Freelove’s grandchildren knew that the famous brothers were distant relatives.  My guess is that they did not, since everyone born in New England at that time was related to everyone else.  Are YOU aware of the names of your great grandfather’s brothers? 

So, one of the questions of my genealogical research is answered. I still love the name Freelove.

---

* Freelove’s great-granddaughter had a similar mishap in Plainfield, New Hampshire (i.e., Huldah Nash apparently bore Fannie Nash Lewin out of wedlock).

Great grandmother Martha Westgate Quimby started this log cabin quilt on Tuesday, February 17, 1885.  The temperature that day in Cornish, N.H. was 6 degrees above zero (which Martha called “pleasant” in her diary).  Her handiwork is what first got me interested in both quilting and genealogy. 

“Grammy Great” was long gone by the time I took the quilt down from my mother’s living room wall in order to see how severely the sun and smoke from the nearby fireplace had damaged it.  The crimson squares in the center of each block, which are supposed to represent the hearth at the center of a home, had faded to the color of pencil erasers.  The red silk ribbons that tied each block to the batting and backing were frizzled threads.  But the overall pattern of dark/light diamonds remained, as did the wonderful white-dotted plus-sign in the center. 

Mattie was 15 years old when she began her log cabin quilt – teaching in district schools and spending as many evenings as possible attending “sociables.” Like other needlework that has been passed down to us, it seems to bring us into contact with the hands that made it – touching the strips that Mattie sewed by hand is like being in the warm spot by the woodstove where she may have worked, hearing the wind in the chimney.  The scraps, many of which had disintegrated when I inherited it, are from family clothing or a fabric exchange with friends.

Mattie didn’t make many quilts, although she was adept at sewing clothing for her family.  But when it came to her wedding dress, I believe her mother called on one of the seamstresses in the family. Peggy still treasures the silk

skirt that Mattie wore when she married Elwin Quimby, with its fall colors and frills, suitable to the mid-December ceremony that preceded the birth of Mattie’s first baby a few months later.

Men were not excluded from the fiber arts in the Quimby family.   Great great grandfather William Westgate, who spent most of his time chopping wood, breeding cattle and overseeing the local poor farm, recorded in his diary that he “worked on his afghan” one winter evening. 

Erwin Quimby (our great grandfather’s twin brother) liked to embroider; cousin Ron gets a kick out of looking at one of Erwin’s pieces every day. 

As a dean of women and professor of English literature at the turn of the 20th century, Flora Clough (Marguerite Quimby’s aunt) eschewed the womanly arts, but she did leave a collection of exquisite lace that she may have purchased during her trip to northern Europe to study Scottish lays.  Cousin Barbara shared pictures of some stunning samples with me: 

Needlecraft passed from one generation to the next:  Marguerite Lewin Quimby produced a folksy rug depicting “Seven Acres” that will surely withstand thousands of muddy boots for generations to come.  My sister Beth drew the picture that GaGa used to create the rug on a loom in the mid-70s, probably at the Mothers and Daughters Club on land that Curt Lewin (Marguerite’s father) donated to the town of Plainfield.  For a viewing of the rug, visit the Quimby cabin in Cornish, uphill from the farm where the Westgate/Quimbys lived.

And, finally, Carol Heath faithfully copied the “famous” needlepoint that advised us all from the kitchen wall of Seven Acres in the 1950s and beyond:

My favorite piece of ancestral fiber art is something no living person has ever seen, as far as I know.  For 10 years I’d been trying to learn more about Fredus Austin.  He was my mother’s great great grandfather, who showed up in Sag Harbor on Long Island as a soldier in the War of 1812.  I knew only that Fredus was born in Connecticut at the end of the 18th century, but nothing more about his origins – there were thousands of Austins in New England at the time, and I think I’ve sifted through them all. 

Recently, the National Archives sent me a copy of a pension request that was made by Fredus’ daughter Harriet Austin.   A minor living in New London after the death of her father, Harriet went to the county court in 1853 to ask the Pension Office to double the grant of Wisconsin land given to Fredus posthumously for his service during the war.  [She argued that the portion of bounty land granted to her father was too little, based on his length of service (three months).] Here is what she said in that courtroom, 

“Deponent… says that no public record of the marriage of said Fredus A. Austin… exists to hir [sic] knowledge or to the knowledge of any of the other surviving members of the family of said Austin – but that a private family record exists and is contained in a “Sampler” which has long been kept by the family as a specimen of needlework of one of their children.  That on said record is the marriage of said Fredus A. Austin and Sarah his wife…. and of which the following is certified to be a true and correct copy viz.,

Fredus A. Austin was born Oct. 31, 1794; Sarah L. Woodward born March 18, 1793.  They were united in marriage Jan. 5, 1817.” 

Eureka!   Dear, darling Harriet… she won her suit before the pension committee, sold all 80 acres, and went on to marry a man 14 years her senior.  Wish I had that sampler…

My street on the west coast of the United States is one block long.  As I strolled along it this morning, I heard five languages as families got in and out of their cars – Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Chinese and French (that’s Philippe who lives right across the street from us).  Our block has one African American family – Shirley welcomed me with a potted plant when we moved in 30 years ago – and several gay couples. 

            This is of course nothing like St. Gaudens Road when Charlotte and William Westgate lived there in the last half of the nineteenth century, with the likely exception of a few gay people.  A typical 19th century farmer liked to see to it that at least one of his children lived nearby. (Who knows when he or his wife would need a caretaker?)  That is how William Westgate acquired the farm he operated: his future parents-in-law Daniel and Chloe Bryant (with their son Edward) sold it to him in 1862, a few months before William married Daniel’s daughter Charlotte.[1] 

            The Westgates’ nearby neighbors were the Bryants, Hildreths, Chases, Johnsons, Coles and Comings, many of whom had settled in the Cornish, N.H. area more than 100 years earlier and married with one another ever since.[2]  As a result, Charlotte (Bryant) Westgate was related to almost everyone in her social circle and her geographic area.  There were cousins everywhere.  Charlotte’s grandparents Israel and Mehitable (Wyman) Bryant had 13 children, most of whom made it to adulthood, and those 13 children produced 49 Bryant cousins.  On her mother’s Hildreth side, there were 10 cousins.[3] 

            This is all to suggest that it was a challenge to figure out who is in this picture of Charlotte Westgate and her cousins:[4]

            My own cousins and I can recognize Charlotte Westgate right away: she sits with her hands crossed in the middle of the front row.  Based on her apparent age (she died in March 1918, a week shy of her 77th birthday), I first guessed the picture was taken around 1910, when Charlotte was 69 years old.   Then I read William Westgate’s Diaries of the period, starting in 1909.  Bingo.  On May 13, 1909, William noted that “Lott had 5 cousins come to see her: Mrs. Pinney, Mrs. Fitch, Mrs. Melendy, Mrs. Reed and Abbie Gates.”  (It was William’s job to drive the wagon down to the train station in Windsor to pick up the ladies, which he did after he had “sowed oats and rolled the ground.”)  The cousins stayed overnight, leaving the next day in most cases.   

            So, who are these cousins? 

            We have another picture of one person in the picture who is identified, the lady wearing the light-colored dress. She is Elvira (Bryant) Reed (1838-1917), and was the daughter of Joseph Bryant, one of Israel Bryant’s six sons.[5] 

            Elvira had been a teacher in Cornish and Vermont schools before her marriage in 1865 to Edwin L. Reed (1839-1882), a bookbinder who lived in Claremont.  A long-time widow when Charlotte had her 1909 cousin party, Elvira lived in town rather than on a farm. She raised her only child, Clarence E. Reed (1868-1947), by herself.  He reciprocated by providing a home for Elvira and several boarders (including some of these very cousins from time to time).[6]  Clarence worked as a machinist at the Sullivan Machinery Company when the picture was taken, with his mother and small family on 30 Walnut Street in Claremont.  Elvira reported to the Census taker in 1910 that she had her “own income.”[7]  Elvira’s grandson Arthur Reed, born in 1894, was the first of Israel Bryant’s great-grandsons to be named Arthur.  (There were three.)

            The next problem was figuring out who “Mrs. Pinney” was.  William Westgate’s Diary gave me no first names to work with, and as a possible daughter of one of Israel Bryant’s daughters, she might be several surnames away from Bryant.  At this point I drew a family tree of Israel Bryant and his 13 children and their children, seeking any female first cousins of Charlotte Bryant who were born within ten years of her.  There were many candidates, and to complicate matters, several people favored the name “Mary” in either their wives or their daughters. 

                  Mrs. Pinney turned out to be one of the Mary Bryants, but was called by friends and family “Minnie Pinney” (1864-1913).  She was a daughter of Joshua Wyman Bryant, Israel’s fourth child.   I identified her partly by comparing the 1909 photo to another one in Peggy’s archive:

This picture commemorates a second gathering that took place at the Westgate farm in September 1912, three years after the first one.  Again, William Westgate enabled me to date it with a Diary entry: 

Thurs. 26 Sept. 1912. Lott’s Cousin Party today.  Mrs. Mary Hilliard and daughter and Angie Westgate here besides what came yesterday [Mr. and Mrs. Pinney, Mrs. Elvira Read, Mrs. [Susan] Melindy [sic], Mrs. Rowell, Mrs. Louisa Fitch and Abbie Gates]. 

            Mr. and Mrs. Pinney are in this photo, meaning that one of women in both pictures is Minnie Pinney.  (We can also identify Mattie Westgate Quimby and Angie Westgate,[8] the two younger women standing next to William Westgate.)  I came to the tentative conclusion that Minnie must be the one to the right of the man in the back row (the man on the left side of the picture is our great, great grandfather William Westgate). 

    The Pinneys, I think

            To make Minnie’s identification, I used a third picture, the sunniest one of all:

Here are the cousins again, with a rather priggish Arthur Quimby wearing his watchchain in the upper right corner, which dates the photo to around 1910.  (Arthur Quimby was born in 1898).  The little boy on the wall is Benton Pinney, Arthur’s second cousin, who was born in 1904 and grew up to be an orthodontist practicing in Woodstock as well as in several other cities in Vermont.  I haven’t yet determined who the little girl is – probably another second cousin of our grandfather Arthur.

            The stone house is the clue that helped me identify Minnie and her husband Benton Harte Pinney: it still stands at 12 Golf Avenue (near the corner of Maple) in Woodstock, Vermont.  This is what it looks like today:

            Benton and Minnie lived in the Golf Avenue house with their sons Arthur (1865-1919) and Burt for many years, worshipping at the Universalist Church in Windsor.  Burt Pinney (1868-1947) and Elvira’s grandson, Dr. Benton Pinney (1904-1972) kept the house while pursuing peripatetic lives.[9]

            It’s easy to identify “Mr. Pinney,” of course.  He is Benton Harte Pinney of Woodstock, Vermont, husband of Minnie Pinney.  I can well imagine that William Westgate enjoyed talking to Pinney when he visited – Benton and his construction firm built the Old Lincoln Bridge (wooden) in West Woodstock in 1868 across the Ottauquechee River.  The bridge is still standing and is still admired for its engineering.[10]

Picture by Jerrye and Roy Klotz MD

            To finish my goal of identifying the five cousins at the beginning of this piece, it remains to figure out who Abbie Gates, Mrs. Melendy and Mrs. Fitch were.  In the cases of Abbie Gates and Susan Melendy, I know some facts about them, but can’t be sure who is who in the picture.

            Abbie Gates attended both cousin parties in Cornish, so we know that she is one of the women who appears in all three pictures.  Abbie often visited the Westgate farm around 1910, according to William’s Diaries.  She lived in Plainfield when the picture was taken, working as housekeeper to Homer T. Cole (a male cousin).[11]  Abbie’s mother was another Mary Bryant (one of Israel Bryant’s seven daughters), who married a man named John Towbridge Gates of Claremont. 

            One of two unmarried women in the pictures, Abbie supported herself for much of her life as a dressmaker in Claremont, where she was born and where she is buried next to her parents.  (This makes the third known dressmaker among our paternal ancestors.) Only because I know what you need if you sew by hand or machine, I would guess Abbie is one of the two women wearing glasses.

            Mrs. Melendy also attended both cousin parties.  She was the daughter of Abigail (Bryant) Comings, one of Israel Bryant’s daughters.   Susan (Comings) Melendy also lived in Claremont, and was a widow with no children.  Could she be the severe-looking woman with the pulled back hair? 

            That leaves one unknown guest, Mrs. Fitch.  Elsewhere in his Diaries, William Westgate mentions a Louisa Fitch, but I can’t find any cousin by that name.  I leave it to some helpful reader to help me with this one!

            For the record, all of the five cousins and Charlotte died by 1919, all in their mid to late 70s.  Minnie Pinney went first in 1913 with “colitis,” Susan Melendy died a year later of “apoplexy” (a stroke), Abbie Gates expired in 1919 of “senile exhaustion” (I have that!), and Elvira Reed died in 1917.  Our Charlotte Westgate lived until March 1918 (and died of a “carbuncle,” which sounds like a tumor), leaving a widower who lived to be 88 (William died in 1929). 

---

[1] N.H. Deeds, Book 77, page 15, deed recorded 1 February 1862; NH VR, Cornish.  In Daniel Bryant’s case, it was his son Edward Bryant, not Charlotte Westgate, who took in Chloe (Hildreth) Bryant in her old age. 

[2] The union of Marguerite Lewin and Arthur Quimby in 1921 was the last time anyone in my direct paternal line married a near-neighbor.

[3] For these names and numbers I relied on William Henry Child’s History of the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, Volume II (The Rumford Press, Concord, N.H., 1911).

[4] Uncle Tony was wrong when he suggested in his marginalia that two of the women were Charlotte’s sisters: she had no sister.

[5] The picture of Elvira (Bryant) Reed is in Peggy’s archive.

[6] See, for example, the 1880 Census records for Claremont, N.H..

[7] As I researched these cousins, it became clear that they moved naturally into one another’s homes as they aged, sometimes bringing some income with them, more often bringing a willingness to pitch in.  For example, Elvira’s son Clarence Reed boarded Minnie Pinney for a while (while Benton was still alive, curiously).  Earlier in her life while Edwin Reed was still alive (in 1880) Elvira had provided a home for her cousin Abbie Gates, who never married.

[8] Angie (Chadbourne) was the wife of William and Charlotte’s son Earle, a man I knew as “Uncle Earle.”  William had set up his son Earle as manager of the “Creamery” on the River Road in Cornish, to which he or Elwin Quimby carted milk three or four days a week.  Angie (Chadbourne) Westgate had no children.

[9] The Pinney family was very mobile by my paternal family’s usual standards: Minnie’s son Burt, for example, worked in the hotel business in Pasadena, California, Bermuda and the White Mountains for 20 years.  He also pursued several careers – printer, hotelier and salesman – and hunted and fished avidly.  His son the dentist, who practiced orthodonture in Woodstock for years, had at least as many interests as his father, appearing in plays throughout his life, running for school board, competing in bowling and golf leagues.  He even took part in a ping-pong tournament in 1942 (before serving in the second World War).

[10] See Wikipedia, “Old Lincoln Bridge, Woodstock, Vermont” and Vermont Standard

[11] Homer’s mother was Lucinda Bryant, one of the daughters of the prolific Israel Bryant.

            Four or more generations of all the people on my father’s side lived in peace, prosperity and little (but some!) scandal for over 200 years in the Connecticut River Valley around Windsor (and Caledonia County), Vermont and Sullivan County, New Hampshire.  Today I will consider Wilbur and Lucinda (Marshall) Quimby, who were Arthur Quimby’s paternal grandparents.  They lived over the hill from the Westgate farm close to Cornish Flat in what started as a brick house, the so-called Milton Wyman farm. As a child, my grandfather Arthur was taken to their ill-heated house (according to Martha Quimby’s Diary) for dinner on many Sunday evenings. 

            The Quimbys bought the Milton Wyman place in 1880 at auction for $1,718.  It comprised 140 acres and the homestead.[1]  The original house burned down, according to Myron Quimby, a grandson (son of Ernest Quimby) who was raised there by his grandmother Lucinda after his mother died.  “The chimney had burnt out, and the fire began in the attic.  Back then they had the bucket brigade so we couldn’t do anything.”[2]  His grandfather Wilbur rebuilt, making sure to include an ample front door on the house so that there would be room for him to exit in his coffin when the time came, which it did not long after the reconstruction.[3]

            Wilbur (1834-1908) had been brought up in Unity, N.H. by Benjamin Quimby and Persis (Gee) Quimby (along with his two brothers and a sister).  Lucinda Marshall (1839-1930) was also raised in Unity, by her mother Maria (Abbot) Marshall, along her younger sister Lavina. John Marshall, Lucinda’s father, had died when she was seven, after the other four children had left home.  The Marshalls were renting a room to a boarder in 1860.

            In their late teens, Wilbur and his future wife went to work in a mill in Marlborough, New Hampshire, according to Myron Quimby.[4]  (The mill most likely manufactured woolen goods, since Lucinda would probably not have been good at fashioning pail handles or bucket staves, some of the other products produced in Marlborough’s mills at that time.)  Wilbur left to work in Wisconsin in his early twenties.[5]  Lucinda travelled there to marry him around 1857 or 58, although I haven’t found a marriage record.  Their first son, Frederick, was born in November 1858.  

            Wilbur’s father Benjamin Quimby died in 1859 (at age 59), which is probably what brought Wilbur and Lucinda home to New Hampshire.  Using money from selling their rights in the land that Wilbur inherited from his father to his brother Milan/Meland, the couple put out tentative roots in Charlestown, N.H.[6]  They purchased a number of small lots in that town, and had three more sons while living in Charlestown: the twins Elwin and Erwin born in 1863

and Ernest, born in 1868.[7]

            Although my father didn’t remember Lucinda well – she died when he was five – Grandma Quimby appears to have been an affectionate woman who was especially attached to her grandchildren.   In most pictures I have of her, Lucinda is holding a baby. (She wrote to Arthur Quimby in 1925 that she wanted “to see the baby [Conrad] so bad dear darling how Granma loves him”). At around five feet tall, she was lovely as a young woman and stayed trim all her life.    During the 22 years of her widowhood – she lived to be 91 – Lucinda Quimby continued to run her farm with the help of Myron, who lived with her until her death. 

---

[1] N.H. Deeds, Sullivan County, Book 113, p. 97).  The Quimbys sold the farm a few months later to Hiram A. Day for nearly the amount they had purchased it for, $1,700; my guess is they were short of cash and opted to rent from Day until they could afford to buy the place back in 1891, which they did (Book 149, p. 223). 

[2] Susan Gilman, “Myron Quimby Gives Up Politics, But Not His Farm,” Valley News, March 1, 1984, p. 14.

[3] This according to Myron’s daughter, who still lives in the house. Wilbur suffered a stroke about 18 months before he died; his death certificate states that the cause of death was “senile debility.”

[4] Letter from Arthur Quimby to Conrad, Carol and Tony Quimby, January 1, 1981: “[Myron] reports that the family did live in Marlboro, that Grandpa Q. worked in a mill there & Grandma also briefly.  Seems that Uncle Erwin took Grammy, father, Hoyt [Erwin’s son] & Myron to an Old Home Day there and were shown the mill where the parents had worked.  Another bit of family history uncovered.”

[5] Henry Cole Quinby’s Genealogical history of the Quinby (Quimby) family in England and America, Part 2, (New York City, 1915), pp. 405-6.  So far I’ve found no records of their time in Wisconsin.

[6] Another brother, Francis Levi, became a leading light in Unity, N.H.  (The Manchester Union Leader wrote this about Francis when he was 82 years old:  “Glorious, invigorating New Hampshire!  There’s Francis L. Quimby of Claremont, for example, who fells trees, loads them upon sleds, teams them home, and cuts them up into firewood in winter and tills the soil at a good profit in summer.”  (Henry Cole Quinby, Genealogical history of the Quinby (Quimby) family in England and America, Part 2, (New York City, 1915), p. 404.)

[7] Persis shared her house in Unity with Wilbur [mistakenly recorded as William B.] and Lucinda in 1860 (1860 Census, Charlestown, N.H.).  By 1870, Wilbur and Lucinda lived in Unity.  They moved to Cornish in their mid-forties, in 1880. 

How did a fifteen-year-old farm girl in New Hampshire spend her days?  Recently I got an idea by reading Martha (Mattie) Westgate’s Diary, written on her parents’ farm in Cornish, N.H. in 1885.

In Mattie’s case, every day was a chance to visit someone and every winter evening was an opportunity to attend a “sociable” or at least visit with friends and relatives who dropped by the Westgates’ house on Dingleton Hill.  On the evening of Tuesday, January 6, 1885, for example, when the temperature was 6 above zero, “There were 56 people here” at her house talking, singing and playing games.  Mattie surely tickled the ivory keys.

Five days out of seven, Mattie or one of her parents “went to Windsor.”  In Mattie’s case, it was often to visit friends she had met at Windsor High (from which she graduated the year before).  She also spent many days visiting schools where friends of hers taught.  She often visited Grandpa (William Westgate’s father Earle) and Uncle Ed and Aunt Julia Bryant, her mother’s brother and his wife, who all lived nearby.

During the winter Mattie often went to one of several skating rinks in Windsor, although on Saturday, February 28, she “[de]termined never to skate again” after an excursion there with her mother and brother Earle, presumably because she had trouble staying upright.  She returned to the rink a week later and many times thereafter that winter.

Mattie weighed herself twice in 1885, reporting to her Diary that she was 132 1/4 lbs, net weight 126 1/4 lbs (by August she had put on 1/2 lb.) Try to imagine how she measured her net weight, given that she probably weighed herself by putting a penny in a drugstore scale…  

Mattie had two suitors: George (Fairman or Harlow, I’m not sure which) and Elwin Quimby.  George sent her books and letters and gave her oranges.  On May 18, she “had a letter from… George,” who “sent my rings to me.”  The next day she went walking with him.  In the early months of the year, she disguised her boyfriend’s name in her Diary by calling him “Gugeorurguge.” 

Elwin, who was working in a mill in Watertown, Massachusetts that year (along with his twin brother), also sent Mattie letters.  (The Quimby boys returned to Cornish in December.)  On most Sundays, Mattie attended church alone or with her parents, sitting with friends and borrowing from the church’s lending library.  Mattie read at least 15 novels in 1885, including Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa, part of a wildly popular series about a mischievous boy who loved to play pranks on his father for the pleasure of creating mayhem. “Peck’s Bad Boy” was a popular term for any incorrigible rule-breaker. 

Once she turned 16 (on March 8), Mattie regularly “kept school” in District No. 10 in Cornish Flat, which was so far from Dingleton Hill that she had to stay with other families.  Although she never complained in her diary about boarding around, one evening at Mr. Bugbee’s house she was “awful lonesome.” She clearly preferred teaching in District No. 2, which was so close to her house that she didn’t have to board.

When she wasn’t at work (each session was about six weeks long, year-round, with long breaks between sessions) Mattie helped with laundry on Mondays and occasionally washed a floor, raked hay or went berrying with her mother.  In August she and her mother Charlotte picked 11 quarts of raspberries. 

In late September Mattie took a trip to Boston, where she viewed a painting of the Battle of Gettysburg and shopped at Jordan Marsh & Co.  She went to Nantasket Beach… no mention of splashing in the waves.  She also toured Mt. Auburn Cemetery to view the graves of distinguished New Englanders in the dappled shadows of that lovely place.  Back at home, Mattie went to the circus one July day, and attended the theater five days straight, evening and matinee, in November.

Like other diarists of her era, Mattie kept a record of her expenditures at the back, along with the addresses of her pen pals.  On the inside cover of her diary Mattie inscribed two verses.  The first goes like this:

How sad to think if this be so/How few have sisters here below/It matters not;-get if you can/The sister of some other man!

And the second, as I interpret the faded, hasty script, looks like this:

A bubrurotuthasherursus lulovere ‘tutisus susaidud/mumayer fufailch/A mumotuthashherur’sus/susmisilean/gug suronon dudimus anundud/pinpalules./Babutut nunang ughasheret?/onun earurtuthashvuvailulsus tutu?/mumovuve.  Tuthashe/fufonundud…/ofuf a susisustutterterursus luloverso.

What?!! Using Mattie’s code for “George” (Gugeorurguge), I think I see what she is saying. Here is a hint: I think the first line means, “A brother’s love ’tis said may fail.”

As we contemplated the drama of Damar Hamlin’s arrested heartbeat and subsequent revival last week, I thought of my great uncle Rob Lewin, who died of heart failure on the football field in 1903. A tall, large-limbed country boy, slightly spoiled and confident of his charms, Rob took a circuitous but fateful route to that football field.  

During the long hot summer of 1901, Rob Lewin spent time exercising the charm that bewitched his younger sister Marguerite on his distant cousin Alice, who was visiting the Upper Connecticut River Valley with her family to escape the heat in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where she lived.[1] After Alice missed her monthly period, somehow the mothers got Rob to marry Alice in her parlor in Pawtucket in late autumn.

Strangely, Rob’s father Curt died the day after the small wedding ceremony.  Doctors autopsied Curt Lewin’s body, as reported in a local newspaper:

“[Lewin’s] condition has been something of a mystery to his physicians and he himself left a request that a post mortem examination be had that humanity might possibly be benefited. It was held by Drs. Brewster and Richmond, and the result showed the cause of death to have been enlargement of the heart, a blood clot being the cause of instantaneous death. The heart weighed 48 ounces, being two and one half times the weight of the normal human heart.”

Meanwhile, Alice grew sicker and sicker.  Her lack of menses was attributed to tuberculosis (and Rob presumably cleared).  She died several months later in the same house in Pawtucket where she had married, of kidney failure and lung infection, not t.b., according to the death certificate. 

Chastened by his experience, Rob raced through a few courses at Fairmont College in Wichita, where his aunt was dean of women, and set out to attend medical school.  After his father’s death and expenditure of his inheritance on Alice’s care, money was very short in the Lewin household.  And Rob needed money: in the summer of 1902 he asked Maud Richardson to marry him. She was a former secretary to Winston Churchill the novelist (who lived in Plainfield). Maude was then working as a stenographer near her home in Concord, Massachusetts.

Rob stumbled on a solution to his financial problems during his second year at Baltimore Medical School [Johns Hopkins]. He found out that men who made the varsity football team did not have to pay tuition ($95). Learning of the scholarship, he reported to his mother that he “immediately went out for practice.”

Rob did make the team, and thereby earned the tuition to attend medical school.

On October 1, 1903, Flora Clough wrote to her nephew to praise him: “I am so glad you have left off [smoking]. My dear boy I believe there are good times in the future for you.”  On October 18, Lucy Lewin scolded her son in a letter, “Say, are you aware of the fact that you do not write me as often as you ought?”

Less than a week later, Rob played on the varsity team against Annapolis. When the coach sent him back onto the field at the end of halftime, he said, “Just a minute, please,” and collapsed. He died immediately, from heart failure.  (The death certificate calls it “heart syncope.”)

Lucy learned of her loss by telegraph, according to family legend. We know that Rob’s body was brought to Lucy’s home for the funeral and internment, and that eight delegates attended from Baltimore Medical College.  Far away in Damoh, India, Aunt Kate Clough Rambo filed yet another newspaper clipping in her little red diary:

“The body of Robert Eric Lewin, who died suddenly last week, on the foot-ball field at Annapolis, Md., was brought to his mother’s home here, Thursday night, and funeral services were held Sunday afternoon, Rev. G. C. Trow officiating, assisted by Rev. Mr. Adams of Meriden. The funeral was largely attended, among those present being a delegation of eight, representing the different departments and classes and the football association of the Baltimore medical college, of which the deceased was a second year classman.”

Today, we can celebrate with other Americans that Damar Hamlin received excellent and swift medical care that helped him to survive a horrific medical event.  At the same time we can worry about all the other football injuries to remarkable professional athletes that go unremarked.  And, I think I can honestly report that no Lewin, Quimby, Auerbach, Heath, Hanin, Schmiedel, Ogilvy, Douskey, or other male or female connection of Great Uncle Rob has ever joined a football team since his tragic death. 

---

[1] Alice’s grandmother was “Aunt Sue Gilfillan,” sister of Lucy Lewin’s mother. 

In the “recent” history of our family, there have been many teachers, continuing to today.  Two of the women who taught primary school during the last half of the 19th century left us words that give us some insight into their attitudes toward their students and toward children in general.

   Lucy (Clough) Lewin was one of my four great-grandmothers.  She was born in 1856 on Grantham Mountain in New Hampshire, where she was famously – at least in Lewin family lore – courted by the handsome Curt Lewin of Plainfield, who spent two long years traveling up and down the mountain by horse and cart in order to keep Lucy interested while he was busy establishing a solid financial footing as a butcher.  Lucy had spent one term in high school (1872-3, according to records at Kimball Union Academy, where she is listed as a “non-graduate”) and had gone to work in a classroom by the time she was 14, according to my grandmother.[1]  During the years of Curt’s courtship, Lucy taught in the Plainfield schools, boarding around with her pupils’ families.[2] 

            We have Lucy’s Diary from 1875, beginning on January 1, where she writes lovingly of her students and hopes for a good year. 

“Friday, January 1, 1875 – A beautiful day.   Have been in the schoolhouse all day. The scholars have been good as they usually are.  This diary was a Christmas present from one of my scholars, Emma Sanborn.  I commence this new year with good resolutions which I hope will not be broken. “

            It appears that Lucy was staying with the Sanborn family, who spent most evenings singing together, to their boarder’s delight, sometimes until 2 in the morning.  As the winter term drew to a close in late January, she kept track of attendance, happy when it was high.  She grew increasingly anxious about “examination day,” when members of the school board would visit the class, plying them with questions and hearing recitations. 

“Monday, Jan. 11 – Got back to school [after the weekend], am glad to see these darling scholars again.  I do not see why I like these scholars more than any others.  I froze my ear this morning it was terrible cold.  Hope examinations will go well.

Tuesday, Jan. 12 – At school.  School did not go very well.  Hope things will go better tomorrow.

Wednesday, Jan. 13 – At school.  Terrible cold.  Burtie and Logan (?) froze their ears this morning.

Friday, Jan. 15 – At school.  O dear me how I dread examination.  Hope they will do well.”

Finally, the big day arrived:

“Saturday, Jan. 16 – Today has been examination. There were twenty-one in.  The scholars did splendid.  They were praised enough to do them good… I think of staying here another term…”

I think we can conclude that Lucy (Clough) Lewin had a warm relationship with her “scholars.”  This is in keeping with the great affection she inspired in her two daughters, Marguerite and Ruth, who spent their teenage years helping her run a boardinghouse for girls in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Marguerite attended Northampton High School while Ruth went to Smith College. 

            The other teacher who left us diaries and letters is Martha (Mattie) (Westgate) Quimby, who spent 15 terms in a Cornish classroom as a “popular and very successful teacher” before she married Elwin Quimby in 1892.[3]  Mattie herself had proudly graduated from Windsor High School in 1884, where she stayed on as alumni advisor to Windsor Wide-Awake, a student newspaper.  She also taught Sunday School, and there the news is not so good.  We have inherited, for better or worse, the reader that she assigned to her pupils at the Congregational Church in Cornish – the book was no doubt prescribed by church authorities.  Bessie’s New Heart, published by the Sunday School Union, features a little girl who listens attentively to the lectures of a sweet-talking visiting pastor whose lessons all involve the wickedness of little children, evil that can only be overcome by their accepting Jesus (and receiving confirmation in the church).

            Let’s hope that Mattie spent more time singing with the children at church than reading about Bessie… she often served as the organist there and was undoubtedly her son Arthur’s first piano teacher.  (Arthur Quimby became a professor of music at Case-Western and Connecticut College.)

            Mattie left us at least one comment about children, written in a letter to Mrs. Bower, mother of Marguerite’s supervisor at Connecticut College, where our grandmother taught math during the war. 

“August 4, 1954 – It has been ‘bedlam’ here, as all the children, grands and great grands, have been here, and to my mind none have been bro’t up to obey.  If they want anything that they shouldn’t have, they know that tears will bring it.  The two little girls couldn’t play together without yelling their heads off [that’s you and me, Sarah]…. The tiny babies behaved the best [that’s Lucy and Beth, no doubt].

P.S.  It’s unfair to leave you with the impression that Mattie Quimby was severe, however.  She was a much-loved second mother to my father, Conrad Quimby (1925-1997), who preferred his grandparents’ farm to city life in Cleveland, Ohio when he was growing up.  In fact, Dad spent all his summers on Dingleton Hill in Plainfield, helping his grandfather pitch hay and “dig stone.”  He was so fond of his grandmother’s cooking that he got Mattie to bring her cast-iron skillet across the dirt road from her farm to the honeymoon cabin where my parents stayed during the first days of their married lives to give Mom some cooking lessons. 

            Here’s what Dad wrote in 1982, when Mattie had been dead for 26 years:

“Can she bake a cherry pie?  That’s the first question you’ve got to ask… if she can’t she’s probably too young to leave her mother and become a daughter-in-law.  There probably are other qualities that count towards making a successful marriage (such as a deep appreciation for homemade shortcakes), but I can’t think of any right now. 

Before grandmother went to her deserved rest, she passed on some of her best recipes to her new grand-daughter-in-law.  They came complete with a cast-iron muffin pan and several glass pie plates.  Each card was handwritten with cryptic notes on the margins, like ‘a smattering of cinnamon,’ ‘a fistful of berries,’ and ‘cook ’til the fire burns out.’”[4]

It appears that Mattie was a teacher far beyond the classroom.

---

[1] Marguerite (Lewin) Quimby, Our Mother, p. 1.

[2] For more on Lucy, see The Clough Sisters, by Gay Quimby Auerbach, reissued in 2022.  Lucy’s widowed mother Harriet (Gilfillan) Clough was also working as a teacher in 1875, trying to support her five daughters.  Lucy reports on Friday, January 8, 1875 that “Mother is tired – getting along well with her school.” 

[3] Biographical Review; containing life sketches of leading citizens of Merrimack and Sullivan counties, New Hampshire  (Biographical Review Publishing Company, Boston: 1897) under “William E. Westgate,” available on accessgenealogy.com.

[4] Conrad Quimby in “Off the Cuff,” Derry News, 5 August 1982.