Picturesque Travels Monday, Mar 18 2013 

Historical Events , , acairfearann 10:21

From , a letter by Edward Beecher Hooker, in Hartford, to Helen Yale Ellsworth, travelling in Europe, 1873:

“Miss Nellie Stanley gave a little party last Wednesday night. I drove over, with Sam, in the carriage carrying Belle Spence, Hattie Coit, and Bob Andrews. We had barely started, when in briskly going over a crosswalk, the carriage bounced and a spring broke. Luckily it was not the main leaf spring, but a minor one, so we went on though the carriage rattled and tipped considerably. It was lovely moonlight. Arrived at Miss Stanley’s about eight. The evening was passed in dancing and conversation, not forgetting the refreshments, oysters, coffee, cake, nuts, candy, and grapes. I danced the Boston, but did not find anyone with whom I could dance quite as easily as Lucy and you.

Left Miss Stanley’s some after eleven. The horse had not been put under a shed and a frost had fallen so the seats were icy and cold. The bridge and causeway on the other side of the river is often dangerous on account of robbers etc. but we were not molested. I was prepared for there was a revolver and slung-shot under the front cushion ready for emergencies. If anything had happened I, with great presence of mind, probably would have shot someone in the carriage and pitched the slung-shot in the river. I really wonder what I would do if I should be attacked. I am afraid I would run or surrender all my valuables and beg for quarter. No one can tell how he would act till he has been tried. I wonder what you will do if you happen to travel in Italy and fall in with brigands. Something heroic and grand without doubt.”

I think it is a sling-shot he is talking about here.  Hartford seems to have had a plague of highway-men in the late 1800’s; at least once a robbery was fought off by the girls.  Hooker’s letters, of which there are about 3o are truly entertaining.  They have a huge amount of information about the social life, culture and education of college age men and women in Hartford at the time.  They also tend to be at once dramatic and understated.  Having finished discussing highway-men, this letter goes back to discussing literature without any histronics.

 

On Reading Letters Thursday, Feb 28 2013 

Historical Events , , acairfearann 11:12

Reading old letters is one of those guilty pleasures, we know we aren’t the intended audience.  It is, of course, that which makes the information in the letters both more useful and more misleading.  We don’t have the full story, but the story that is there isn’t written with an eye towards our reaction.  Our offense or our delight are not being deliberately provoked by the original author.

I tend to pay less attention to the snarls of the personal relationships in the older letters, though they intrigue me greatly.  My particular delight comes from the passages which more fully describe the time and setting.  Sometimes, these passages can capture a philosophy far better than a dry bit of argument.  Below is a piece written in 1873, by William Gillette (then in Houston, Texas) to Helen Ellsworth (then in Europe).  The confidence in the Manifest Destiny philosophy is clearly in full flower here:

“Texas is extraordinary. To say it is the best part of the great United States would hardly do, out of consideration to old New England. But Texas will sometime be a wonderful place. When the Mississippi is lined with great and handsome cities every few miles of its course, and the Territories are divided into innumerable states, and cultivated like gardens; when Chicago shall have outstripped in size and splendor London or Paris, and Boston become the literary center of the world, then Texas will be one of the wonders of this mundane sphere.”

Whatever one thinks of the philosophy, how well that seems to capture the youthful confidence and passion of the time!

 

Concerning letters Sunday, Jan 27 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 15:28

One of the most entertaining aspects of the letters between Julie and Morris is the odd aside.  I suspect that it is in part the writing style of the era; but more that because they were apart so much of the time these asides added the visual, day-to-day touches that created an immediacy of connection.  For example, a long letter mostly discussing business, the future prospects of their daughters, plans for Esperanza and the employment of a farmer is abruptly broken:

“There is an organ grinder under the window in the driving snow, and my Kitchen Goddess has just bestowed upon him a quart paper of something and great handful of cookies.”

and then the letter returns to business.  An otherwise dry letter suddenly has a visual element in it and is forcibly brought into time.  Morris, sitting at his desk in New Orleans, has an image of a street scene and a well known view from a desk in Hartford.  Skype for nineteenth century.

 

Not quite on the anniversary Thursday, Jan 24 2013 

Esperanza and Historical Events acairfearann 14:45

A letter written by Julie to her friend Mattie Yale on January 21, 1872:

“Satis Bene lies in ruins, but I have become the happy possesor of the Lyman place, to which Morris and I have given the name ‘Esperanza’ -‘Anchor of Hope’.

So you see, my dear, we are to be neighbours after all. I could not consent to see all our fine plans blown away like the mountain mist before a north wind.”

A bit of background.  Satis Bene had been bought by Julie and Morris in late 1870, a former farm with about 65 acres.  Following the summer of 1871, work was being done on it in November, 1871 when a fire started, burning it to the ground.  Julie then bought the neighbouring Lyman farm on the other side of the road, with another 18 acres.  This became Esperanza.  Satis Bene was rebuilt as a farm house; in the 1960’s Satis Bene and ten acres of the original purchase was sold off.  It is now a winery.

Mattie Yale lived in the house next to the Esperanza lot.  She had been instrumental in causing Julie to fall in love with the idea of creating a summer home in New Hartford, having invited Julie and family out several times.  If one is facing the houses: L to R is Satis Bene, a dirt road, Esperanza, and then the Yale house (then known as the Parsonage or Eaglesnest).

It says nothing good about the state of farming in the area that it was cheaper to buy up another farm rather than rebuild…  By that time the top of the hill, once a bustling town center, was virtually abandoned.

 

Letters: reflections on mortality Sunday, Dec 16 2012 

Historical Events acairfearann 21:40

From Julie to Morris, 1846.  Morris had written that he had an attack of some sort of family illness (not clear from the writing) in his previous letter and the doctor gave him ten years (he was twenty at the time), he wrote that he would spend it wildly.

Julie’s reply:

“Dear Morris, I am alone and the fire burns cheerfully before me, and there is a basket of fine grapes on the table before me. The clock has told the hour for retiring, but I am wakeful. I choose to talk to thee. The truth is my Friend, you have lived Not wisely, since we parted. And now you are but reaping the fruits. Bitter! are they not? and hardly worth the pains and toils you have bestowed to garner them up. We need to live two lives to learn how to live well. So; you tell yourself you will be satisfied with ten little portions of time, and do you think when those years have all flown, when the last sand has run you will be ready, to try what the next life will bring of pleasure or pain? Can you lay down your burdens and say to yourself that you have fulfilled all your tasks? You have lived out the precepts which your Father taught you? And heeded carefully all the warnings which your Mother breathed softly in your ear, ‘before your heart had grown familiar with the paths of sin,” and which now steal upon your memory? In the silence of midnight when you are alone save the prayers which that Mother whom you love, which float about you, like guardian spirits and hallow the place and hour? This letter will reach them.”

Julie was not one to go for sweet nothings…

 

letter excerpts Wednesday, Dec 5 2012 

Historical Events , acairfearann 16:35

Before magazines were common and well before the internet was even a fictional fantasy, letters were the form of communication.  We’d often like these to discuss the ‘great’ events of the day, those important to history.  The people writing them, however, were as human as we….  Fashion, weather, jobs, conversations, chance meetings, the little important events of lives.

Here Julie writing to her mother in 1845 gives her some information on NYC fashions:

“Dresses stand out as much as ever, stiff skirts are worn and very full indeed. Don’t have your silk made, wait till next year and then come down to New York, and we will go together to Connecticut.* Tight sleeves seem to be the reigning mode with all sorts of caps set into the armhole. Black straw hats are a good deal, trimmed with velvet scarves, mostly crimson. All sorts of fanciful head dresses, made of ribbon, lace, feathers, flowers, and everything else put in all imaginable forms. Hair is worn low and high and between. I have seen all this at the concerts and so on where I have been.”

*Hartford, Ct actually was a fairly important town at the time.  They could probably get clothes cut there in fashions close to that of NYC, but more reasonably priced.

 

Getting the Post Sunday, Nov 18 2012 

Historical Events , acairfearann 16:36

In this day and age of the internet, Skype, apples of the month, and phones, we don’t think much of the post.  However, it was the form of communication in the late 1800’s.  Telegrams were expensive and not always reasonable, if you didn’t know where the person might be.  Letters, however, were addressed so that they could chase the person via ship or company quite nicely.  ‘Care of’ is almost archaic today, very useful then.  In the last letter excerpt this was encountered: a package was entrusted to either a messenger or a station agent, having already passed through another individual’s hands on the way to its final agent.

Here we have Edward Hooker writing to Helen in 1875; both were travelling in Europe at the time.

To: Mademoiselle Helen Y. Smith

Passengere a bord du paquebot “Klopstock”*

partant au Havre pour New York, samedi 26 Juin, 1875

“I have been to the office of the Hamburg Co and so have the name of your ship. Will writes me that he has written you at Havre aboard the ‘Goethe’*- you may possibly get his letter by inquiries at the Post office or the office of the Steamer. From the circulars, I see you will be a whole day or more at Havre….

…Once again adieu. May we soon meet. I hope you won’t drown on the way home, that would be SO disagreeable.”

*The ‘Klopstock’ http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=klops

*The ‘Goethe’ http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=goeth

*William Gillette was then travelling as well, on board the ‘Goethe’; he presumably had left his letter to Helen at the Havre port offices.

 

Letter excerpt Sunday, Nov 11 2012 

Historical Events acairfearann 09:52

The majority of known letters* in the house are primarily between Julie and Morris, or between Julie and her daughters.  However, a few letters written to Helen by her friends during her trip to Europe in 1873-74 exist and are particularly interesting as they are generally of the same age (late teens to early twenties).

This is an excerpt from one by Barrett Wendell,** having just returned from Europe and about to start his studies at Harvard.  His few (too few!) letters are remarkably vivid and engaging, describing his travels, New York City and then Harvard and Boston.

“New York was reached last Wednesday morning. The Custom House officials barked furiously and frightened me dreadfully, but they didn’t bite a bit. The baggage-mashers were unusually considerate and my numerous boxes and bundles reached the paternal mansion in a pleasingly uninjured condition. Your photographs and your packet are unharmed, and as I pop through Hartford in a day or two, I have sent a line to your sister telling her that I will deliver them to any messenger whom she may send to meet the train, or if that should prove inconvenient, I will leave them in charge of the ticket agent to be called for. Personal experience of Express and mails renders me rather chary of intrusting fragile articles to their care.”

The letter continues on to a delightful, several page description of NYC in 1874.  Some other time perhaps.  However, it is clear that some things regarding travel, customs, and the mail don’t change…

*known letters.  I know quite well indeed that there are Boxes of letters sitting in the attic, entirely unedited and untranscribed.  It happens that Julie’s letters, and Helen’s trip, were transcribed in the 1950’s.  It makes them much easier to work with.

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Wendell

“

 

Random letter Tuesday, Oct 23 2012 

Historical Events acairfearann 16:43

When Helen (Yale Smith Ellsworth) was travelling in Europe in 1873, she wrote to and received letters from her friends as well as family.  One of the larger and more entertaining collections, 43 in total, is from Edward B. Hooker*, a close friend. 

Here he describes a dancing lesson:

“I have become a dancing teacher! Who would have thought! In the first place who would have imagined I could do such a thing, and in the next place that I would. The members of the noble class of ’74 do not all know how to dance, so we go up to the hall on Friday afternoons and practice. I have the honor to be the instructor, and have begun Polka and Lanciers*….The polka boys are making fine progress and will soon be able to make miserable any girl of ordinary ability, by stepping on her toes and ramming their knees against her…I did not learn the polka of Mr. Reilly* and only know how he teaches it from observation. It created considerable amusement to see those fine boys, with coats off, standing on one foot and hopping.”

*from the Hooker family, prominent at the time on the Connecticut literary/theatre scene.

*a type of quadrille, I think!

*a former instructor judging by the rest of the context.

 

Letters Tuesday, Oct 16 2012 

Historical Events acairfearann 15:51

Julie writing to her daughter Helen (Yale Ellsworth).  Helen was travelling in Europe, Julie was going in between Hartford and Esperanza on a regular basis at the end of this second full summer at the house.  October, 1873:

“The leaves are falling from the Magnolia tree before the window. The two iron chairs stand in the little nook, tomorrow I shall take down the faded greens from the mantle and I am going to hang your picture there with Esperanza leaves all around it where I can see it every time I sit and rock before the fire. Darling, how I love you. You will never know till you have a Nell of your own to torment you and comfort you and occupy your thoughts and time, and fill up all the little nooks in your heart. Ned and Lucy went to a Beethoven concert last night, they quarrel a good deal but I believe are quite good friends after all. Mrs. Hooker has come out with a queer book about women. Your Mama, Julie.

 

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