Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Visit Us at the Ohio Genealogical Society Conference!
The American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association will have a booth in the vendor hall of the upcoming Ohio Genealogical Society Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, April 12 through the 14th, 2012.
If you are chasing Pomeroys, we want to meet you! Stop by our booth to learn more about our organization, including the Pomeroy Anvil Trail, and enjoy some Pomeroy camaraderie. We will be happy to check our databases for your family . Existing members and new members will receive a special APHGA badge ribbon!
We are also seeking Coe, Pomeroy, Junkins and Powers descendants with connections to Huron and Erie County, Ohio in conjunction with our Mary Ann Coe book project.
The 2012 Ohio Genealogical Society Conference will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel and Conference Center at 9801 Carnegie Ave., in Cleveland. Visit the OGS website for more information about this great event at http://www.ogs.org/blog/.
To learn more about other events that the APHGA will be attending, please visit our new Upcoming Events page on our public website at: http://www.americanpomeroys.org/Events.html.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Descendents of Lydia Spaulding: A Legacy of Mental Health Activism
by Kate Corbett Pollack
Part Two: Mary, Peter, and Dr. Frederick L. Goddard
Mary, the only surviving daughter of Lydia Spaulding and Ezra Howes, was an independent and ambitious woman, especially for her era. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary under Mary Lyon, graduating in 1846, and went on to be a teacher. In 1849, she was a permanent assistant instructor at the Normal School in Westfield, Massachusetts. Between 1850 and 1860, Mary was teaching in Alabama and Philadelphia. By 1861, Mary Howes was aiding Dorothea Dix, caring for the sick and wounded during the Civil War. Dorothea was Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army.
Dorothea Dix was one of the most important crusaders for the cause of mental health the world has ever known. Her tireless efforts to better the conditions of the mentally ill dominated her life. She persevered through her own poor health (like Lydia Spaulding, she may have had tuberculosis) to work on behalf of those who could not fight for themselves. Dorothea was, like Mary, a dedicated teacher. It was her work as a teacher that led her to a Massachusetts prison in 1841. There she saw how mentally ill people were kept naked and chained in unbearable conditions. They were beaten and whipped. She was told that the insane did not feel hot or cold, which she did not believe. In the 19th century, the prevailing attitude about the mentally ill was that they were “lower than brutes”. Articles from the 1860s about Josiah Spaulding speak of him in this way. People with illnesses like depression, anxiety, and what we now call schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, were in those days thought completely unable to think or feel. There was no reason to treat them humanely. If they acted up, they were abused. The mentally ill were kept in prisons, poor houses, or, like Josiah, caged in a family’s home.
Dorothea’s mother suffered from depression when she was growing up and, like Mary Howes, she gained an understanding of mental illness as a result of seeing a family member who had it. She knew that mentally ill people were not “raging maniacs”, but real human beings who were sick. She lobbied on behalf of the mentally ill for better conditions, and established mental hospitals that were more humane. She believed mental illness could be cured; a belief very few people shared at the time. She also believed that humane treatment was a necessity for them to heal.
Did Dorothea and Mary talk about their similar experiences with the mentally ill? That remains to be seen. Around 1865, Mary returned to Buckland for a spell, and married Peter Goddard, who had been her neighbor growing up. She was 42; he was 29. Peter had been married previously to Climera Mallory, who sadly died young, in 1864. Peter was left with an infant son, Frederick. Mary Howes became his step-mother.
The Goddards moved to Brooklyn in 1880, where Peter was a cotton merchant. Mary and Peter were members of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was the minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the women’s rights activist. Peter and Mary adopted a child from Prussia, August Goddard. Their son Frederick attended Long Island Medical College, graduating in 1887, and also studied in Germany and England. The Goddard family then moved to Washington State, where Peter worked as a plumber and Dr. Frederick L. Goddard took a position at the Western Washington State Asylum for the Insane as superintendent in 1897. There he enacted serious reforms, improving the buildings and grounds, planting fruit trees, hiring new staff and releasing patients from straitjackets and solitary confinement. He also sent many patients home to their families. (Patients had been committed to the insane asylum for things like menopause, domestic trouble, “disappointed affection”, “brooding over trouble”, “menstrual and uterine disorders”, old age and masturbation).
Around this time, there was no care for the mentally ill in Alaska. They were being sent to Washington. Alaska governor John Brady wanted to start an institution for the mentally ill there and asked Dr. Goddard if he would help. Alaska appealed to doctors because of its gold and mining industries. Dr. Goddard invested in a mining company in Nizina in the St. Elias mountains and lived in the area for two years. He was able to purchase a medical practice and became the doctor for Treadwell Mine, the largest hard rock mine in the state. By this time, Dr. Goddard had married Scotland-born Mary Clunas (in 1890), and had two children: Erwin Mallory (1891) and Dorothy (1899). He moved his family to the town of Juneau, and his parents, Mary and Peter, joined him.
In 1905 Dr. Goddard, along with his partner, Dr. E.J. Brooks, purchased a deed to the Sitka Hot Springs on Baranof Island, and 800 acres of land surrounding it. The doctor and his family would work together to create a therapeutic sanitarium. Peter’s skills as a plumber must have been helpful in developing the center. In 1908, a hotel was established by the Goddard family called the Alaska Sanitarium Company, later known as the Goddard Hotel, or Goddard Hot Springs. Dr. Goddard’s goal was to make the hot springs available as a therapeutic asylum for the mentally ill in Alaska, who were being kept in jails, in the type of terrible conditions Dorothea Dix fought against in the 1850s. Dr. Goddard was not against restraints, (having invented his own, more humane system of restraining a patient using straps instead of chains), and realized that people could be dangerous. He also knew another way of treatment was possible. He hoped that his hot springs would be the official state asylum for the insane in Alaska, replacing the archaic institutions and jails that were the current model in the rest of the country.
Sadly, Dr. Goddard was unable to fight the old-fashioned laws regarding the treatment of the mentally ill in Alaska, and the hot springs became a resort that was enjoyed by people who could afford it; other doctors like Frederick, and vacationers. Treatment of the mentally ill continued to be awful, but Dr. Goddard’s Hot Springs served as an inspiration and reminder that humane treatment of the mentally ill was a possibility. Even in 1950 in Alaska (and many other areas), insane people were still confined to jails and treated like criminals. An editorial in the Daily Sitka Sentinel from 1950 states:
[Dr. Goddard] “believed the theraputic [sic] value of the waters was such that a great number of the mentally disturbed could be relieved. His venture was unsuccessful because of the archaic laws dealing with the insane in the territory. The last three commissioners in Sitka have objected strenuously to the method by which the insane, senile and feeble minded persons have had to be brought before their court and adjudged insane; then committed to jail and transported to the states in the same manner as a common criminal when they are merely mentally ill. It is time for the whole question of the insane to be reviewed.”
Mary Howes and Peter Goddard remained in Sitka until their deaths: Mary in 1910 and Peter in 1912. Dr. Frederick died in 1932 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Reform is extremely slow. Lois Warriner was the first person to treat caged Josiah Spaulding with care and respect, starting in 1837. In turn, her step-daughter, Mary Howes, learned to care about the mentally ill and see them as human beings in a time period when most people did not. Mary in turn, with her husband, raised a child with a keen awareness of the treatment of the mentally ill. She also worked with one of the most important human rights crusaders in history; Dorothea Dix, who helped enact change in legislation. Dr. Frederick Goddard, the next generation, enacted his own reform and change in improving conditions in Washington State for the mentally ill in the late 1800s. The ultimate change Dr. Goddard wanted to see was the therapeutic treatment of mentally ill people in a beautiful, pristine wilderness hot springs - a far cry from the cages and chains that had so long been their lot. He wanted this for all mentally ill people, not just those who could afford it. Even today these conditions do not exist, and patients are still kept in archaic circumstances in many areas of the United States and the world. There are more mentally ill people in United States prisons than there are being cared for in mental hospitals. Part of this is due to an extreme lack of available treatment centers for people who are severally mentally ill. Judges today still send people to prison, knowing that it may be the only way they will receive any psychiatric care. However, they know that this is not desirable. pbs.org reports:
Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number -- nearly 500,000 -- mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons…because these inmates have difficulty following prison rules, a disproportionate number are placed in solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement cells today often house mentally ill people like Josiah Spaulding, and the chains and inhumane treatment that Dr. Frederick Goddard and his family worked to eliminate still exist. Among the populace even in the United States, mental illness is still very often thought of as a moral failing, an embarrassment, a condition tainted by judgment and taboo, and not a medical condition to be treated like any other. Mary Howes turned what was a source of shame and embarrassment for her family in Buckland into an inspiration for better treatment and understanding of the mentally ill, proving that courage and compassion prevail throughout history, and it is what you will be remembered for. Mary was not famous, she worked behind the scenes. Nevertheless, Lydia Spaulding’s daughter has left a lasting legacy. It is up to us to continue it.
Many Thanks to APHGA researcher Pat Whipple for her contribution to this article.
Sources:
“The Late Mrs. Mary Goddard”, (Mortuary Notice). Daily Alaska Dispatch, May 7, 1910. Juneau, Juneau County, Alaska
“P.M. Goddard Dead”. The Daily Alaska Dispatch, Juneau, Alaska, Tuesday, December 17, 1912, p.2, col. 4.
Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Tues. Apr. 4, 1950, p. 2, col. 1 and 2.
“Trip to Goddard a Cruise into History”, Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Friday April 1, 2005 p. 13.
“Sitka Names & Places” Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Friday, September 30, 2005, page 13.
“Normal Schools” Salem Register, Salem, Mass., October 11, 1849.
One Hundred and First Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Transmitted to Legislature January, 1888. The Troy Press Co., Printers. 1888. P. 458.
“Dorothea Lynde Dix: Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army”. http://americancivilwar.com/women/Dorothea_Dix.html
Ezra Howes household, 1850 U.S. census, Buckland, Franklin County, Massachusetts, p. 418 (penned), line 32, dwelling 837, family 867; National Archives microfilm publication M432_317.
Familysearch.org. Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915. Online [https://www.familysearch.org/].
First Biennial Report of the State Board of Audit and Control of Washington for the Two Years Ending September 30, 1898. Olympia, Washington. Gwin Hicks, State Printer. 1898.
Marjorie Clunas household, 1910 U.S. census, Sanitarium (Sitka Hot Springs), Division 1, Sitka County, Alaska Territory, Sheet 15A, line 1; National Archives microfilm publication T624_1748.
New York. Kings County. Brooklyn. 1880 U.S. census. Microfilm publication roll 855. Washington, D.C.: National Archives
PBS Frontline: The New Asylums: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/synopsis.html
Quinquennial Catalogue of Officers and Students of Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. 1837-1895. Mount Holyoke College, 1895. P. 35-6.
_____________________________________________________________
Part Two: Mary, Peter, and Dr. Frederick L. Goddard
Mary, the only surviving daughter of Lydia Spaulding and Ezra Howes, was an independent and ambitious woman, especially for her era. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary under Mary Lyon, graduating in 1846, and went on to be a teacher. In 1849, she was a permanent assistant instructor at the Normal School in Westfield, Massachusetts. Between 1850 and 1860, Mary was teaching in Alabama and Philadelphia. By 1861, Mary Howes was aiding Dorothea Dix, caring for the sick and wounded during the Civil War. Dorothea was Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army.
Dorothea Dix was one of the most important crusaders for the cause of mental health the world has ever known. Her tireless efforts to better the conditions of the mentally ill dominated her life. She persevered through her own poor health (like Lydia Spaulding, she may have had tuberculosis) to work on behalf of those who could not fight for themselves. Dorothea was, like Mary, a dedicated teacher. It was her work as a teacher that led her to a Massachusetts prison in 1841. There she saw how mentally ill people were kept naked and chained in unbearable conditions. They were beaten and whipped. She was told that the insane did not feel hot or cold, which she did not believe. In the 19th century, the prevailing attitude about the mentally ill was that they were “lower than brutes”. Articles from the 1860s about Josiah Spaulding speak of him in this way. People with illnesses like depression, anxiety, and what we now call schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, were in those days thought completely unable to think or feel. There was no reason to treat them humanely. If they acted up, they were abused. The mentally ill were kept in prisons, poor houses, or, like Josiah, caged in a family’s home.
Dorothea’s mother suffered from depression when she was growing up and, like Mary Howes, she gained an understanding of mental illness as a result of seeing a family member who had it. She knew that mentally ill people were not “raging maniacs”, but real human beings who were sick. She lobbied on behalf of the mentally ill for better conditions, and established mental hospitals that were more humane. She believed mental illness could be cured; a belief very few people shared at the time. She also believed that humane treatment was a necessity for them to heal.
Did Dorothea and Mary talk about their similar experiences with the mentally ill? That remains to be seen. Around 1865, Mary returned to Buckland for a spell, and married Peter Goddard, who had been her neighbor growing up. She was 42; he was 29. Peter had been married previously to Climera Mallory, who sadly died young, in 1864. Peter was left with an infant son, Frederick. Mary Howes became his step-mother.
The Goddards moved to Brooklyn in 1880, where Peter was a cotton merchant. Mary and Peter were members of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was the minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the women’s rights activist. Peter and Mary adopted a child from Prussia, August Goddard. Their son Frederick attended Long Island Medical College, graduating in 1887, and also studied in Germany and England. The Goddard family then moved to Washington State, where Peter worked as a plumber and Dr. Frederick L. Goddard took a position at the Western Washington State Asylum for the Insane as superintendent in 1897. There he enacted serious reforms, improving the buildings and grounds, planting fruit trees, hiring new staff and releasing patients from straitjackets and solitary confinement. He also sent many patients home to their families. (Patients had been committed to the insane asylum for things like menopause, domestic trouble, “disappointed affection”, “brooding over trouble”, “menstrual and uterine disorders”, old age and masturbation).
Around this time, there was no care for the mentally ill in Alaska. They were being sent to Washington. Alaska governor John Brady wanted to start an institution for the mentally ill there and asked Dr. Goddard if he would help. Alaska appealed to doctors because of its gold and mining industries. Dr. Goddard invested in a mining company in Nizina in the St. Elias mountains and lived in the area for two years. He was able to purchase a medical practice and became the doctor for Treadwell Mine, the largest hard rock mine in the state. By this time, Dr. Goddard had married Scotland-born Mary Clunas (in 1890), and had two children: Erwin Mallory (1891) and Dorothy (1899). He moved his family to the town of Juneau, and his parents, Mary and Peter, joined him.
In 1905 Dr. Goddard, along with his partner, Dr. E.J. Brooks, purchased a deed to the Sitka Hot Springs on Baranof Island, and 800 acres of land surrounding it. The doctor and his family would work together to create a therapeutic sanitarium. Peter’s skills as a plumber must have been helpful in developing the center. In 1908, a hotel was established by the Goddard family called the Alaska Sanitarium Company, later known as the Goddard Hotel, or Goddard Hot Springs. Dr. Goddard’s goal was to make the hot springs available as a therapeutic asylum for the mentally ill in Alaska, who were being kept in jails, in the type of terrible conditions Dorothea Dix fought against in the 1850s. Dr. Goddard was not against restraints, (having invented his own, more humane system of restraining a patient using straps instead of chains), and realized that people could be dangerous. He also knew another way of treatment was possible. He hoped that his hot springs would be the official state asylum for the insane in Alaska, replacing the archaic institutions and jails that were the current model in the rest of the country.
Sadly, Dr. Goddard was unable to fight the old-fashioned laws regarding the treatment of the mentally ill in Alaska, and the hot springs became a resort that was enjoyed by people who could afford it; other doctors like Frederick, and vacationers. Treatment of the mentally ill continued to be awful, but Dr. Goddard’s Hot Springs served as an inspiration and reminder that humane treatment of the mentally ill was a possibility. Even in 1950 in Alaska (and many other areas), insane people were still confined to jails and treated like criminals. An editorial in the Daily Sitka Sentinel from 1950 states:
[Dr. Goddard] “believed the theraputic [sic] value of the waters was such that a great number of the mentally disturbed could be relieved. His venture was unsuccessful because of the archaic laws dealing with the insane in the territory. The last three commissioners in Sitka have objected strenuously to the method by which the insane, senile and feeble minded persons have had to be brought before their court and adjudged insane; then committed to jail and transported to the states in the same manner as a common criminal when they are merely mentally ill. It is time for the whole question of the insane to be reviewed.”
Mary Howes and Peter Goddard remained in Sitka until their deaths: Mary in 1910 and Peter in 1912. Dr. Frederick died in 1932 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Reform is extremely slow. Lois Warriner was the first person to treat caged Josiah Spaulding with care and respect, starting in 1837. In turn, her step-daughter, Mary Howes, learned to care about the mentally ill and see them as human beings in a time period when most people did not. Mary in turn, with her husband, raised a child with a keen awareness of the treatment of the mentally ill. She also worked with one of the most important human rights crusaders in history; Dorothea Dix, who helped enact change in legislation. Dr. Frederick Goddard, the next generation, enacted his own reform and change in improving conditions in Washington State for the mentally ill in the late 1800s. The ultimate change Dr. Goddard wanted to see was the therapeutic treatment of mentally ill people in a beautiful, pristine wilderness hot springs - a far cry from the cages and chains that had so long been their lot. He wanted this for all mentally ill people, not just those who could afford it. Even today these conditions do not exist, and patients are still kept in archaic circumstances in many areas of the United States and the world. There are more mentally ill people in United States prisons than there are being cared for in mental hospitals. Part of this is due to an extreme lack of available treatment centers for people who are severally mentally ill. Judges today still send people to prison, knowing that it may be the only way they will receive any psychiatric care. However, they know that this is not desirable. pbs.org reports:
Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number -- nearly 500,000 -- mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons…because these inmates have difficulty following prison rules, a disproportionate number are placed in solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement cells today often house mentally ill people like Josiah Spaulding, and the chains and inhumane treatment that Dr. Frederick Goddard and his family worked to eliminate still exist. Among the populace even in the United States, mental illness is still very often thought of as a moral failing, an embarrassment, a condition tainted by judgment and taboo, and not a medical condition to be treated like any other. Mary Howes turned what was a source of shame and embarrassment for her family in Buckland into an inspiration for better treatment and understanding of the mentally ill, proving that courage and compassion prevail throughout history, and it is what you will be remembered for. Mary was not famous, she worked behind the scenes. Nevertheless, Lydia Spaulding’s daughter has left a lasting legacy. It is up to us to continue it.
Many Thanks to APHGA researcher Pat Whipple for her contribution to this article.
Sources:
“The Late Mrs. Mary Goddard”, (Mortuary Notice). Daily Alaska Dispatch, May 7, 1910. Juneau, Juneau County, Alaska
“P.M. Goddard Dead”. The Daily Alaska Dispatch, Juneau, Alaska, Tuesday, December 17, 1912, p.2, col. 4.
Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Tues. Apr. 4, 1950, p. 2, col. 1 and 2.
“Trip to Goddard a Cruise into History”, Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Friday April 1, 2005 p. 13.
“Sitka Names & Places” Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Friday, September 30, 2005, page 13.
“Normal Schools” Salem Register, Salem, Mass., October 11, 1849.
One Hundred and First Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Transmitted to Legislature January, 1888. The Troy Press Co., Printers. 1888. P. 458.
“Dorothea Lynde Dix: Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army”. http://americancivilwar.com/women/Dorothea_Dix.html
Ezra Howes household, 1850 U.S. census, Buckland, Franklin County, Massachusetts, p. 418 (penned), line 32, dwelling 837, family 867; National Archives microfilm publication M432_317.
Familysearch.org. Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915. Online [https://www.familysearch.org/].
First Biennial Report of the State Board of Audit and Control of Washington for the Two Years Ending September 30, 1898. Olympia, Washington. Gwin Hicks, State Printer. 1898.
Marjorie Clunas household, 1910 U.S. census, Sanitarium (Sitka Hot Springs), Division 1, Sitka County, Alaska Territory, Sheet 15A, line 1; National Archives microfilm publication T624_1748.
New York. Kings County. Brooklyn. 1880 U.S. census. Microfilm publication roll 855. Washington, D.C.: National Archives
PBS Frontline: The New Asylums: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/synopsis.html
Quinquennial Catalogue of Officers and Students of Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. 1837-1895. Mount Holyoke College, 1895. P. 35-6.
_____________________________________________________________
[1] PBS Frontline: The New Asylums: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/synopsis.html
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Descendents of Lydia Spaulding: A Legacy of Mental Health Activism
Part One: Lydia Spaulding of Buckland
By Kate Corbett Pollack
Lydia Spaulding, the youngest of the Spaulding sisters, may not have been as prolific a letter-writer as her siblings, but she is a strong presence in the Spaulding letters collection of the APHGA. She undoubtedly was a part of their continuing correspondence, and we do have letters from her, if only a few. She is mentioned frequently in the letters of her sisters, and occasionally a line appears where Lydia is instructing a family member to write something on her behalf. The sisters kept each other apprised of Lydia’s life and health, and she certainly read the letters sent to Buckland, Mass. by her older sister Mary from Southampton. Lydia, Deborah and Nancy Spaulding remained in the Buckland area after Mary left, following her 1810 marriage to Isaac Pomeroy. Isaac’s sister, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, moved from Southampton to Buckland, and was also close with the family. (See December 14th’s APHGA blog post The Spaulding Sisters for background information.) In the early 1800s, letters were a celebrated event, and often the only source of material about a relative who lived in another town. Unless told to keep something a secret, the sisters would share letters amongst themselves. We have already seen from previous articles on this family how connected they were.
Lydia is mentioned often enough in the letters to gain a picture, albeit small, of her life. Otherwise, today we would know very little about her. Lydia was born in 1797, in Buckland, Franklin County, Massachusetts, the youngest daughter of Reverend Josiah Spaulding and Mary Williams. On May 8, 1822, she was married to Ezra Howes when she was 25, and he 26. Ezra was a farmer, landowner, and later a U.S. representative. Lydia seems to have been well-loved by her family and Ezra. The year after her marriage, Lydia’s parents died within months of each other; Mary Williams dying on February 11, and Reverend Spaulding on May 8th, both in 1823. Lydia was pregnant with her first child at the time of her fathers’ death. Her daughter, Mary W. Howes, would be born on November 30, 1823. Another significant development in Lydia’s life occurred this year as well: her brother Josiah, thought to be insane and kept in a cage in her parents’ home for the last 11 years, would be transferred to Lydia’s house and care. For the next 13 years, Lydia would care for him the best she could, but her short life was marred by tragedy and ill health.
Lydia’s second daughter, Lydia S., named for her mother, was born August 5, 1825. Nancy Spaulding Coleman writes to her sister, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy on February 6, 1826:
I think that Sister Lydia health is better than it was last winter they have a fine babe and the family are all well.
Sadly, the child would only live to be 7 years old. Family letters indicate that Lydia was in ill health for many years. Not all of the letters are dated, so it is difficult to say when Lydia’s health began to decline. A letter that is possibly from 1814, from Deborah Spaulding to Mary Spaulding Pomeroy says regarding Lydia:
You wanted to know about L health she has not come down yet, she is as well as We could expect her health is not sound and probably never will be.
If 1814 is an accurate year for this letter, Lydia would have been 17 at the time. It seems that she had some type of recurring illness that affected her lungs; possibly tuberculosis. The letters indicate that her illness returned every few years. By 1828, Lydia is 31 and her daughters are 3 and 5. Deborah Spaulding (the Spaulding sister who did not marry) writes to Mary Spaulding Pomeroy in Southampton on August 28th, 1828, to tell her of Lydia’s health [punctuation added]:
She sits up to eat her meal tho she has not streangth to walk a step hardly. Her cough is very troublesome. There is one thing for which we had ought to be very grateful for-her mind I believe is in a happy state; she appears very tranquil…Lydia says she should like to have you come to see her this fall for she will not probably ever see you if you do not.
Deborah adds a line for Mary’s 14-year-old daughter, Mary Ann, as she must have been directed to by her sister:
Maryann your Aunt Lydia says you must not let the trifling things of time take up your mind so as not to be prepared for death, for a sick bed is no place for repentance.
Clearly Lydia came very close to death that August, but she lived another eight years. Three days before Lydia’s death in 1836, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge writes to her sister-in-law, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy on July 26:
Dear Sister, Open moments I take to write you a line respecting your sister Howes as she (if living) is very low not able to speak loud on Sabbath last. I have not heard from her since, they then thought it would not surprize them if she did not live out the day…but they have seen her as low before.
Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge saw the Spaulding sisters in church (when she was able to - bad roads and her own poor health often prevented it), and that is where she got her information on how they were doing. She must have had a feeling that Lydia was going to die soon, and thought she should write to Mary to tell her. This time Lydia would not recover. She was 39 years old. On August 7, 1836, Deborah Spaulding writes to her sister, Mary:
Dear Sister, It is with a trembling hand and an ailing heart that I now address you - and I can hardly write it. Lydia is no more on earth.
Lydia’s surviving daughter, Mary W. Howes, was 13 when her mother died. Letters indicate that Lydia was unwell throughout Mary’s life, and the little girl must have seen her mother struggle with health quite a bit. When things got very bad, Mary went to stay with her Aunt Deborah. During Lydia’s last thirteen years of life, and Mary’s first, Lydia was taking care of her caged brother, Josiah, who had been placed under her care following the death of their parents.
Josiah suffered from some kind of mental illness. In the early 1800s, there was not much psychiatric medicine available, and nothing of the sort in Buckland. It is difficult to say exactly what was truly wrong with him. Lydia was about ten years old when Josiah was first put in a cage by their father, and sources indicate that she was afraid of him. It is unclear if this is accurate. Since Lydia married Ezra Howes, who had wealth and influence, their house was thought the best place for Josiah and his cage to go after Reverend Spaulding’s death. Ezra was able to make arrangements with the town of Buckland to avoid paying certain taxes in exchange for keeping Josiah in his home. In the early 1800s, a disabled or impoverished person would be cared for in the homes of local citizens, who in return would be paid by the town. This often meant that the person was shuffled from one place to the next, as there was no permanent home available.
A year after Lydia’s death, Ezra remarried. He was very distraught when she died, but needed someone to help raise Mary and care for Josiah. Lois Warriner, spoken of in her family’s genealogy books as a warm, caring woman, would become Ezra’s second wife. Lois was also known to be an intelligent person, and was from a respected family.
Mary W. Howes spent her entire childhood and adolescence growing up with her Uncle being kept in a cage in her family home. She was born the year he arrived, and he was still living there when she left to go to college. Her new step-mother was not afraid of Uncle Josiah. She was reportedly very kind to him, and the closest thing to a friend he had. Lois looked after Josiah until her death in 1864. (Ezra died in 1855). Josiah was then brought to the poorhouse to live out his remaining years, still in the cage. He would die in 1867, at 81 years of age. (For more on Josiah, see APGHA November blog post Only a Being of Senseless Existence). It seems that Lois taught her step-daughter Mary not to be afraid of her Uncle, and to care about and respect people like him.
Mary Howes took a very different life path than her aunts, her cousins and her mother, and was able to escape the cycle of tragic lives and early deaths that befell most of them. Determined to escape the destiny of her women relatives, Mary forged ahead with her education, attending Mt. Holyoke seminary. The horror and despair of her early life fueled Mary to great heights of accomplishment and inspired a lasting legacy of activism, which she passed down to her own children. Mary W. Howes ended up very far from Buckland, indeed.
Friday, February 10, 2012
An Interesting Letter in the Susanna C. Collection
We just received another batch of letters from Susanna C., which includes an interesting letter I thought I would share with our Pomeroy and Southampton, MA researchers. This letter was written by a Phebe Pomeroy of Southampton to Miss Mary Pomeroy of Buckland, and is dated “22th, 1821”. Here’s a transcription of the letter:
“Southampton 22th. 1821
Miss M. Pomeroy. I have taken my pen with, an intention of writing to you a few lines which must be in a hurry. Father is almost ready to start to go to your house, as for news none excepting that Argulas has got A fine son which weighed ten pounds also Moses P has got A son to and Theodore Strong Theodore Bascome has got A daughter. I must tell you a little more, There has been A Gentleman, he enquireing about you and how far it is where you live. he is verry anxious for A wife, he cant live without one. he is verry respectable man, and clever as the days are long, if you had been here this winter I make no doubt but that you both would struck up A match. And now he is visiting Miss Polly Stearns which we think will be a match, but there is enough more that stands with their mouth wide open to receive you, dont be discouredg yet There is time enogh yet. I have no time to write any more, you must write to me and send it by Father probable he will stay all knight Irene & Loes also Mother sends their love to you I shall tell you more when I see you which I hope will not be long.
my pen is poor if you cant read it
my ink is black send it back
I had almost forgoten Mary ann give my [love? – hole in paper] to her and to Lydia but I do not know that she lives with you. We should be glad to receive a visit from y If I had time I would fill this page so good by.
Phebe Pomeroy”
From the names mentioned in the letter, I believe that Phebe was the daughter of Gideon Pomeroy and Irene Brown, born 14 Jun 1797 in Southampton, who would later marry John Hull on 5 Oct 1829 in Westfield, MA. Phebe had sisters Irene and Lois (whom she mentions in the letter). Argalus Pomeroy was the son of Isaac Pomeroy and Deborah Torrey. He was born 13 Jan 1796 in Southampton, and was married to Sarah Thorp at the time this letter was written. They had a son, Isaac E. Pomeroy who was born in 1821 in Southampton. The couple later had a son Jeremas Judson Pomeroy, born 22 Sep 1826 in Southampton. When my husband and I visited the Center Cemetery last fall (as part of our trip to Southampton regarding the Anvil Monument we will be placing this summer), we saw the gravestone of Jeremas and his wife Mary Jane (Avery) Pomeroy. I believe that the Moses P. with a son, (who was also mentioned in the letter) was Moses Pomeroy, brother of Argalus, born 22 Oct 1791 in Southampton, who would have been married to Sophia Harrison at the time that the letter was written. There is a listing of a child born to Moses who died 7 Apr 1821 in Southampton. Could this be the son of which Phebe wrote?
In the letter, Phebe sends her love to Mary Ann, so it is likely that she was writing the letter to Mrs. Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy, who in 1821 was the widow of Isaac Pomeroy, but it seems interesting that the letter is addressed to “Miss Mary Pomeroy” of Buckland. Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy was of Buckland when she married, but she moved to Southampton with her husband, where he died on 30 Jun 1815. Most of the letters written to her by her sisters, etc., are addressed to her in Southampton. Perhaps she was visiting her parents?
This is the first we have seen any reference to the possibility of Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy considering remarriage. Perhaps she was, or perhaps this was more of Phebe’s idea. It would be interesting to know who this mysterious clever gentleman was. Did he marry Polly Stearns? It also brings up the question of how Phebe Pomeroy and Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy became friends. Did they know each other before Mary’s marriage to Isaac, or did they know each other through Phebe’s family’s close relationship with Mary’s husband Isaac’s family? Mary, born 17 Apr 1785 to parents Josiah and Mary (Williams) Spaulding, was twelve years Phebe’s senior, so it may be more likely that their relationship started as a familial one.
Another interesting turn of events relating all of these people is the fact that Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy’s daughter, Mary Ann Pomeroy, would marry Phebe Pomeroy’s brother David on 19 May 1831 in Southampton. David was 9 years Mary Ann’s senior. It appears now that David and Mary Ann knew each other because of his sister Phebe’s friendship with Mary Ann’s mother.
To put some perspective into the relationships between all of these Pomeroys, I’m submitting some relationship calculations for your consideration:
Phebe Pomeroy (Gideon, Joseph, Samuel, Caleb, Eltweed) was the third cousin of Isaac Pomeroy (Isaac, Elisha, Eldad, Caleb, Eltweed), Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy’s husband
Phebe Pomeroy was the third cousin of Argalus Pomeroy (Isaac, Elisha, Eldad, Caleb, Eltweed)
Phebe Pomeroy was the third cousin of Moses Pomeroy (Isaac, Elisha, Eldad, Caleb, Eltweed)
Moses, Argalus and Isaac were all brothers! Their sister Deborah married Rufus Trowbridge, and was a close friend (and sister-in-law) to Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy. Their brother Rufus Pomeroy was a Congregational Minister, and kept up a correspondence with his sister –in-law Mary (Spaulding) Pomeroy. Another brother, Luther, married Abigail Glazier and lived in what is now known as Easthampton. We haven’t seen any correspondence that we have been able to associate with Luther and his family, yet, but you never know!
This really makes me think that familial relationships were much stronger back in the 1800s than they are today. I would have to consult my genealogy database to even identify my third cousins!
Stay tuned for more insightful articles about this family and the wonderful collection of letters, from our researcher Kate Corbett Pollack.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Kate Corbett Pollack article to be published in the Landmarks Preservationist!
I'm very excited to announce that our researcher, Kate Corbett Pollack, will be published in the upcoming Landmarks Preservationist newsletter! The Landmarks Preservationist is the newsletter of the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica. Kate's article "Rutger Park: A New American Aristocracy" traces the history of many of the early families of Utica, New York, and has surprising connections to the Pomeroy family, and Berry Pomeroy Castle!
As readers of this blog, I'm sure you're aware of Kate's research and writing skills. We are very proud to have her on our team!
To learn more about the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica, visit their website at www.uticalandmarks.org and "Like" them on Facebook!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Spaulding Sisters
By Kate Corbett Pollack
As the events between Reverend Spaulding and Josiah unfolded and culminated in the severe outcome written about in November’s article, the lives of Josiah’s four sisters was also developing with a fair amount of tragedy. Their experiences were not uncommon for women of this time. The APHGA is very fortunate to have copies of these amazing letters written by Josiah’s sisters and their descendents over the course of the 19th century, starting in 1801 and going to the 1850s. Information on individual women in this time period is severally lacking. Often, a woman is referred to in records as simply wife or daughter, and a researcher cannot learn anything about her, not even a maiden name, let alone her thoughts and feelings. Primary source material written by women themselves to their closest friends and family is a valuable look into their emotional lives, and to the hardship experienced in this era.
Mary Spaulding, the oldest of the Spaulding siblings, was born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, in 1785. She married Isaac Pomeroy on March 8, 1810, in Buckland, a small village in western Massachusetts, when she was 24 years old. She then moved with him to Southampton, leaving her family and her sisters, with whom she was very close. Nancy Spaulding, then aged 21, wrote to Mary on March 27th, 1810, shortly after Mary left to start her new life with Isaac [punctuation added]:
But though I retire to my chamber to converse with a sister yet I find her not there, but silence reigns through the whole apartment. How then shall [I] be able to converse with her? My thoughts must take their flight on eagles’ wings over distant hills and vales to thy abode my sister and by the kind assistance of my pen and ink endeavor to converse a little with thee there. The absence and loss of thy company I sensibly feel.
Nancy would be married the next year, to John Coleman of nearby Shelburne Falls. Sadly, reports indicate that he was a severe alcoholic and later caused them to lose everything they owned. Together they had three children: Thankful (1816), Josiah (1823), and Deborah (1827). Josiah Coleman was born the same year as youngest Spaulding sister Lydia’s first child, Mary Howes. 1823 was also the year Reverend and Mrs. Spaulding passed, and the caged Josiah Spaulding was transferred to Lydia’s house where she was forced to care for him.
Mary Spaulding and Isaac Pomeroy had their first child in 1811, and named her Mary Ann. Mary’s younger sister Deborah happily writes at the time of Mary Ann’s birth to her sister:
I want verry much to hear from you and your sweet babe. I wish I could see her- that lovely girl once more you must kiss her for me. Lydia wants you should write her a letter…and write if Mary Ann talks yet.
By 1814, Mary was pregnant with her second child. Her first child, Mary Ann, died during Mary’s second pregnancy and she named the new infant Mary Ann as well. This was common in early America, when children often died. Mary Ann survived to adulthood and had her own children, naming a daughter after herself, and continuing the tradition of the name. On June 30th, 1815, Isaac Pomeroy passed away at age 33 in Southampton, leaving Mary Ann fatherless and Mary a widow. Isaac’s sister, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, had developed a friendship with Mary Spaulding and wrote her many letters over the course of their lives, continuing to do so long after Isaac’s death. Deborah married Rufus Trowbridge, a minister, and moved to Buckland from Southampton, the opposite of Mary. There she became friends with Mary’s sisters, and joined them in writing to her. Deborah responds to seemingly every tragedy in Mary’s life, and it is clear that she understands and shares her pain and loss.
On June 29th, 1815, the day before her brother Isaac died, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge writes to the couple. She comments about departed friends and the death of their first child:
The loss of friends I very well know. I can easily call to mind the heart rending wounds at giving the parting hand to my deceased friends, every Son & Daughter of Adam must experience adversity…I hope that will call to mind your pleasant child with all its attracting charms and lovliness, its sickness and hour of Death-to have it torn from your arms by the king of terrors, and laid in the cold grave…
The language and grim style of writing may strike the reader as harsh, but death was commonplace for this family. They lived during a time before vaccinations, public health, and better doctors put an end to many of the diseases that frequently took people’s lives. It seems clear from this letter that Deborah did not even know that her brother was sick, let alone close to death. The illnesses common in those days often hit hard and killed quickly, with little warning. Cholera, for example, could kill a healthy person in twelve hours. It really did appear that God was striking people dead.
Buckland and Southampton by modern standards are not very far apart, about 30 miles. In the early 1800s, travel between rural villages thick with woods and impassable dirt roads made visits and communication difficult and infrequent. The only way a letter could be delivered was if the writer knew someone who was traveling to the town where the person lived. There was no such thing, in those days, as putting a letter out for the mail carrier, or in a mailbox. Mary had no way to communicate with Isaac’s sister to tell her that he was dying.
Death colored the women’s experience, and is mentioned in almost every one of their letters written in over a fifty-year period. It is not a subject that they gloss over. Sisters Mary, Nancy, Lydia and Deborah Spaulding, and Mary’s sister-in-law Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, wrote to each other quite candidly about their feelings. Death seemed to connect them and bring them closer. The sisters did not, unlike their brother Josiah, who had more access to education, question male authority or religious belief. Deborah’s husband Rufus Trowbridge was studying to become a reverend, and he wrote many letters to Isaac about religion. The men in the family were all as religious as Reverend Spaulding. Their letters, in contrast, are primarily about their thoughts on Christianity, wars and battles (the war of 1812 was a topic), and their careers and education. The explanation that epidemic disease and the deaths of their children were part of God’s plan was clearly accepted by the women. They do wonder at parts of this doctrine, but, like the men in their lives, they believe they have offended God and should not question anything for very long, lest they further offend him.
Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge’s May 20th letter (undated but before 1823, possibly 1814-16) to Mary Spaulding Pomeroy further details death and sickness, and addresses another fact of the women’s lives - the brutal physical hardship and labor required of housewives at this time. Deborah was about 29 or 30 at this time.
I feel myself to be getting old and allmost worn out with hard work. What does it avail to us to labor so much for the Body when it must soon moulder in the grave to be food for the worms, we have this day been called to attend the funeral of Orlando Colman. He died Saturday night…Your sister has trouble enough to kill one-there is some sick in town now. Mr Forbes is dead, Mr Brackets have buried an infant today, William Farnam’s wife is dead…
Amazingly, Deborah lived to be 90! This was very unusual, and she far outlived the Spaulding women. Lydia only lived to be 39. Mary was 53 when she died, and Nancy 51. Forty was considered “old age” in these days, especially for women. (Josiah lived to be 79). The Spaulding and Pomeroy women were the wives of farmers and ministers, and they were poor. Lydia married wealthy Ezra Howes, but even he started out as a farmer. Every rural household in this area was a small farm of sorts, and the labor for women was back-breaking. The 1876 History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County), Massachusetts tells us about domestic life in the years 1790-1810 for this region:
There were few appliances and inventions to relieve the labor of the housewife. The work of cooking, washing, sewing, and the like, was done by main strength. The cook must lift the huge iron pot, which hung on the crane out-swung before the blazing fire; and deposit and withdraw the baking in the deep, brick oven…The Laundress performed her task by pounding the soiled clothes in a barrel of water with a heavy pestle…Water was to be drawn by the cistern or well…And when all this was done, came the spinning, weaving, the brewing, the candle and soap-making. With all this, and the large families of children, which were almost the rule, it is no wonder that the percentage of mortality among women was large, and that those who sustained themselves were accounted marvels of capability.[1]
By 1816, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy had suffered so much loss and hardship that she had all but lost the will to live. 1816 was a year of pandemic typhoid fever. By the accounts in the women’s letters, death was widespread. They had no effective medicine to help with this sickness. Mary’s 1816 letter to her parents implored them to send medicine for little Mary Ann, who was seriously ill:
My little girl is some better today, how long it will last I do not know, but I should be glad if you would send her some of that cordial in a vial or something that will strengthen her…oh that wee might be prepared to go and meet our departed friends in a better world is what I hope and wish, for sickness and trouble seem to be my lot.
Mary Ann was two years old in 1816. The medicine Mary is asking for (a “cordial”) was just about worthless. There really was not much else available. It does not seem that Mary returned to Buckland after the death of her husband, but was taken in by the Pomeroys. Mary was, if letters are an indication, someone whom others were very fond of. It appears that after the deaths of Isaac and the first Mary Ann, Reverend Spaulding was not helpful to Mary, who was alone in Southampton, and did not invite her back home to Buckland after this tragedy. The Pomeroys of Southampton seem to have adopted her.
As we have seen, little Mary Ann thankfully survived this illness. Whether Mary’s parents sent her the cordial is unknown.
Mary Spaulding’s letter to her parents from May 1816 is a far cry from an earlier, November 1801 letter to her brother Josiah Spaulding, Jr. From this letter, written when Mary was 16, we gain insight into her personality. Her penmanship is measured and beautiful[2] and she seems calm.
My Dear Brother,
It is with pleasure that I now retire from all other employments to write a few lines to you…
She comments on what she sees as extravagant behavior of other young people in the area enjoying Thanksgiving festivities instead of attending a religious conference. She admonishes herself quickly, however:
…but I must stop have I not neglected the same am I any better I am not. I have spent many years in the pleasures of sin…sickness and sorrow and trouble may attend us the rest of our days. It will be nothing more than what we deserve for we have provoked God to strip us of all the mercys we now enjoy and consign us over to everlasting misery.
Mary closes the letter saying they ought to repent their sins before it is too late and may they be prepared for heaven. She adds a mischievous PS, perhaps unable to help herself, and asks her brother if he has heard the latest gossip:
PS I will inform you of the death of Betsy Stinn, she died not long before Thanksgiving & it is expected that Lydia, her sister, is or will soon be married to the gentleman that courted Betsy. & what do you think of that, it has occasioned considerable talk here…
Of course, about nine years after this letter, when Mary is about 25, Josiah would be put in a cage by their father, around the same time as Mary and Isaac’s wedding. Glimpses into Mary’s personality are rare, as the intense tragedy of her life overshadows everything else that she might write about. In the years 1810-1812, the sister’s letters are more lighthearted; they talk about deaths in the villages, but also about dress patterns, seeds and gossip. It is possible that Josiah was caged in or around 1812. The sisters do not write about this, however.
Despite their hardship, life for this family continues. By 1836, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy’s daughter, Mary Ann, is married to her cousin David Pomeroy and has her own daughter, also named Mary Ann. Her firstborn, David Alonzo Pomeroy, only lived to be 4 years old, and died in 1839, the same year as Mary Spaulding. They died a month apart. Deborah Trowbridge writes to Mary Ann and David Pomeroy to extend sympathies for the death of Mary’s mother and their young son. Deborah has become close with Mary Ann, the daughter of her beloved friend, and keeps up a correspondence with her. Deborah Trowbridge, who lived until 1876, witnessed quite a bit of the Spaulding and Pomeroy family’s trials. She knows, at this time, that Mary Ann must need more than a little comfort, and assures her that things will be better in heaven. She writes on April 17th, 1839:
We shall soon pass this vale of tears and meet our dear friends in the world of spirits, this is not our rest... I feel glad [that] you have the Company of your dear Aunt Deborah in your trials…
She is referring to Deborah Spaulding, the late Mary’s sister, who has come to care for her niece and nephew. The strength and bond of these women continues to tie each other together in the hardest of times. On January 19th, 1840 both Aunt Deborah Spaulding and Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge wrote a letter to Mary Ann and David Pomeroy; each writing on the same page. Aunt Deborah had returned to Buckland by this time, and both she and her friend were wondering how Mary Ann and David were doing almost a year later:
We have commenced now a year, while many of our dear friends the last year was called to bid adieu to all things below the sun; it is one year since Death began to werke in our family circle.
Aunt Deborah adds,
Kiss little Mary for me, I want to see her much.
Mary Ann Pomeroy, like her mother, Mary Spaulding, experienced the death of her children. David Alonzo, as we have seen, died in 1839 at age 4. Mary Ann Jr., born in 1836, only lived to be 24 years old. Leora Caroline, born 1841, died when she is 15. Deborah Jane (Jennie), born 1845, was the only child who lived a full life, living to be 71. Mary Ann Pomeroy, daughter of Mary Ann and David Pomeroy, left behind a diary that she kept in 1850, when she was fourteen years old. Her life was not much different than her grandmother Mary Spaulding’s, and her writing echoes the 1801 letter that Mary Spaulding wrote when she was 16. Mary Ann Pomeroy, writing 49 years later, also does not expect to live very long and believes, like her grandmother did, that God was taking the villagers because he is angry. Her daily accounts center around going to revivals and prayer meetings.
Her entry for April 1st, 1850 reads:
...what reason have I to hope in the mercy of God, what reason to hope that I have been born again, surely I am nothing in myself when I look unto my own heart I find it is deceitful about all things and desperately wicked…
She writes an entry for her birthday:
Sabbath Day
May 5th
This day is my birth-day. Fourteen years old, before another birthday may arrive I may be numbered with the dead. Fourteen years of my life are fled. I shall never live fourteen years longer.
Mary Ann did not live another fourteen years, as she predicted. Epidemic disease was still a huge problem in 1850. By the late 1800s, medical science began to make advancements enough to put an end to this type of strife that was, for so many years, a common experience for Americans.
There is one branch of this family that managed to escape Buckland and its terrors- the descendents of Lydia Spaulding. That story will be another post.
Sources
“Cholera Epidemics in the 19th Century” Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics. Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362723/?page=3
“Changing Medical Practices in Early America,” by Laurie Trask Mann. Updated 12/03/2008. http://dpsinfo.com/wb/medhistory.html
Baldwin, Thomas W, compiler, Vital Records of Uxbridge Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, Mass.: Wright & Potter Printing Company, 1916) 62, 144,
David Pomeroy Household, 1850 U.S. Census, Southampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, P 65, Dwelling 73, Family 82; National Archives microfilm publication M432_320.
Marriages article, Salem Gazette, Salem, Massachusetts, 19 Jul 1831, Page 3
Vital Records of Worthington Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1911)
O’Donnell, George T. “Causes of Typhoid Fever in Massachusetts,” American Journal of Public Health 10(6) (1920): 517–520. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362723
Pomeroy, Albert A., History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family Collateral Lines in Family Groups ; Reprinted Higginson Book Company, 1912, Salem, Massachusetts p 267, 381, 397
As the events between Reverend Spaulding and Josiah unfolded and culminated in the severe outcome written about in November’s article, the lives of Josiah’s four sisters was also developing with a fair amount of tragedy. Their experiences were not uncommon for women of this time. The APHGA is very fortunate to have copies of these amazing letters written by Josiah’s sisters and their descendents over the course of the 19th century, starting in 1801 and going to the 1850s. Information on individual women in this time period is severally lacking. Often, a woman is referred to in records as simply wife or daughter, and a researcher cannot learn anything about her, not even a maiden name, let alone her thoughts and feelings. Primary source material written by women themselves to their closest friends and family is a valuable look into their emotional lives, and to the hardship experienced in this era.
Mary Spaulding, the oldest of the Spaulding siblings, was born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, in 1785. She married Isaac Pomeroy on March 8, 1810, in Buckland, a small village in western Massachusetts, when she was 24 years old. She then moved with him to Southampton, leaving her family and her sisters, with whom she was very close. Nancy Spaulding, then aged 21, wrote to Mary on March 27th, 1810, shortly after Mary left to start her new life with Isaac [punctuation added]:
But though I retire to my chamber to converse with a sister yet I find her not there, but silence reigns through the whole apartment. How then shall [I] be able to converse with her? My thoughts must take their flight on eagles’ wings over distant hills and vales to thy abode my sister and by the kind assistance of my pen and ink endeavor to converse a little with thee there. The absence and loss of thy company I sensibly feel.
Nancy would be married the next year, to John Coleman of nearby Shelburne Falls. Sadly, reports indicate that he was a severe alcoholic and later caused them to lose everything they owned. Together they had three children: Thankful (1816), Josiah (1823), and Deborah (1827). Josiah Coleman was born the same year as youngest Spaulding sister Lydia’s first child, Mary Howes. 1823 was also the year Reverend and Mrs. Spaulding passed, and the caged Josiah Spaulding was transferred to Lydia’s house where she was forced to care for him.
Mary Spaulding and Isaac Pomeroy had their first child in 1811, and named her Mary Ann. Mary’s younger sister Deborah happily writes at the time of Mary Ann’s birth to her sister:
I want verry much to hear from you and your sweet babe. I wish I could see her- that lovely girl once more you must kiss her for me. Lydia wants you should write her a letter…and write if Mary Ann talks yet.
By 1814, Mary was pregnant with her second child. Her first child, Mary Ann, died during Mary’s second pregnancy and she named the new infant Mary Ann as well. This was common in early America, when children often died. Mary Ann survived to adulthood and had her own children, naming a daughter after herself, and continuing the tradition of the name. On June 30th, 1815, Isaac Pomeroy passed away at age 33 in Southampton, leaving Mary Ann fatherless and Mary a widow. Isaac’s sister, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, had developed a friendship with Mary Spaulding and wrote her many letters over the course of their lives, continuing to do so long after Isaac’s death. Deborah married Rufus Trowbridge, a minister, and moved to Buckland from Southampton, the opposite of Mary. There she became friends with Mary’s sisters, and joined them in writing to her. Deborah responds to seemingly every tragedy in Mary’s life, and it is clear that she understands and shares her pain and loss.
On June 29th, 1815, the day before her brother Isaac died, Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge writes to the couple. She comments about departed friends and the death of their first child:
The loss of friends I very well know. I can easily call to mind the heart rending wounds at giving the parting hand to my deceased friends, every Son & Daughter of Adam must experience adversity…I hope that will call to mind your pleasant child with all its attracting charms and lovliness, its sickness and hour of Death-to have it torn from your arms by the king of terrors, and laid in the cold grave…
The language and grim style of writing may strike the reader as harsh, but death was commonplace for this family. They lived during a time before vaccinations, public health, and better doctors put an end to many of the diseases that frequently took people’s lives. It seems clear from this letter that Deborah did not even know that her brother was sick, let alone close to death. The illnesses common in those days often hit hard and killed quickly, with little warning. Cholera, for example, could kill a healthy person in twelve hours. It really did appear that God was striking people dead.
Buckland and Southampton by modern standards are not very far apart, about 30 miles. In the early 1800s, travel between rural villages thick with woods and impassable dirt roads made visits and communication difficult and infrequent. The only way a letter could be delivered was if the writer knew someone who was traveling to the town where the person lived. There was no such thing, in those days, as putting a letter out for the mail carrier, or in a mailbox. Mary had no way to communicate with Isaac’s sister to tell her that he was dying.
Death colored the women’s experience, and is mentioned in almost every one of their letters written in over a fifty-year period. It is not a subject that they gloss over. Sisters Mary, Nancy, Lydia and Deborah Spaulding, and Mary’s sister-in-law Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, wrote to each other quite candidly about their feelings. Death seemed to connect them and bring them closer. The sisters did not, unlike their brother Josiah, who had more access to education, question male authority or religious belief. Deborah’s husband Rufus Trowbridge was studying to become a reverend, and he wrote many letters to Isaac about religion. The men in the family were all as religious as Reverend Spaulding. Their letters, in contrast, are primarily about their thoughts on Christianity, wars and battles (the war of 1812 was a topic), and their careers and education. The explanation that epidemic disease and the deaths of their children were part of God’s plan was clearly accepted by the women. They do wonder at parts of this doctrine, but, like the men in their lives, they believe they have offended God and should not question anything for very long, lest they further offend him.
Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge’s May 20th letter (undated but before 1823, possibly 1814-16) to Mary Spaulding Pomeroy further details death and sickness, and addresses another fact of the women’s lives - the brutal physical hardship and labor required of housewives at this time. Deborah was about 29 or 30 at this time.
I feel myself to be getting old and allmost worn out with hard work. What does it avail to us to labor so much for the Body when it must soon moulder in the grave to be food for the worms, we have this day been called to attend the funeral of Orlando Colman. He died Saturday night…Your sister has trouble enough to kill one-there is some sick in town now. Mr Forbes is dead, Mr Brackets have buried an infant today, William Farnam’s wife is dead…
Amazingly, Deborah lived to be 90! This was very unusual, and she far outlived the Spaulding women. Lydia only lived to be 39. Mary was 53 when she died, and Nancy 51. Forty was considered “old age” in these days, especially for women. (Josiah lived to be 79). The Spaulding and Pomeroy women were the wives of farmers and ministers, and they were poor. Lydia married wealthy Ezra Howes, but even he started out as a farmer. Every rural household in this area was a small farm of sorts, and the labor for women was back-breaking. The 1876 History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County), Massachusetts tells us about domestic life in the years 1790-1810 for this region:
There were few appliances and inventions to relieve the labor of the housewife. The work of cooking, washing, sewing, and the like, was done by main strength. The cook must lift the huge iron pot, which hung on the crane out-swung before the blazing fire; and deposit and withdraw the baking in the deep, brick oven…The Laundress performed her task by pounding the soiled clothes in a barrel of water with a heavy pestle…Water was to be drawn by the cistern or well…And when all this was done, came the spinning, weaving, the brewing, the candle and soap-making. With all this, and the large families of children, which were almost the rule, it is no wonder that the percentage of mortality among women was large, and that those who sustained themselves were accounted marvels of capability.[1]
By 1816, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy had suffered so much loss and hardship that she had all but lost the will to live. 1816 was a year of pandemic typhoid fever. By the accounts in the women’s letters, death was widespread. They had no effective medicine to help with this sickness. Mary’s 1816 letter to her parents implored them to send medicine for little Mary Ann, who was seriously ill:
My little girl is some better today, how long it will last I do not know, but I should be glad if you would send her some of that cordial in a vial or something that will strengthen her…oh that wee might be prepared to go and meet our departed friends in a better world is what I hope and wish, for sickness and trouble seem to be my lot.
Mary Ann was two years old in 1816. The medicine Mary is asking for (a “cordial”) was just about worthless. There really was not much else available. It does not seem that Mary returned to Buckland after the death of her husband, but was taken in by the Pomeroys. Mary was, if letters are an indication, someone whom others were very fond of. It appears that after the deaths of Isaac and the first Mary Ann, Reverend Spaulding was not helpful to Mary, who was alone in Southampton, and did not invite her back home to Buckland after this tragedy. The Pomeroys of Southampton seem to have adopted her.
As we have seen, little Mary Ann thankfully survived this illness. Whether Mary’s parents sent her the cordial is unknown.
Mary Spaulding’s letter to her parents from May 1816 is a far cry from an earlier, November 1801 letter to her brother Josiah Spaulding, Jr. From this letter, written when Mary was 16, we gain insight into her personality. Her penmanship is measured and beautiful[2] and she seems calm.
My Dear Brother,
It is with pleasure that I now retire from all other employments to write a few lines to you…
She comments on what she sees as extravagant behavior of other young people in the area enjoying Thanksgiving festivities instead of attending a religious conference. She admonishes herself quickly, however:
…but I must stop have I not neglected the same am I any better I am not. I have spent many years in the pleasures of sin…sickness and sorrow and trouble may attend us the rest of our days. It will be nothing more than what we deserve for we have provoked God to strip us of all the mercys we now enjoy and consign us over to everlasting misery.
Mary closes the letter saying they ought to repent their sins before it is too late and may they be prepared for heaven. She adds a mischievous PS, perhaps unable to help herself, and asks her brother if he has heard the latest gossip:
PS I will inform you of the death of Betsy Stinn, she died not long before Thanksgiving & it is expected that Lydia, her sister, is or will soon be married to the gentleman that courted Betsy. & what do you think of that, it has occasioned considerable talk here…
Of course, about nine years after this letter, when Mary is about 25, Josiah would be put in a cage by their father, around the same time as Mary and Isaac’s wedding. Glimpses into Mary’s personality are rare, as the intense tragedy of her life overshadows everything else that she might write about. In the years 1810-1812, the sister’s letters are more lighthearted; they talk about deaths in the villages, but also about dress patterns, seeds and gossip. It is possible that Josiah was caged in or around 1812. The sisters do not write about this, however.
Despite their hardship, life for this family continues. By 1836, Mary Spaulding Pomeroy’s daughter, Mary Ann, is married to her cousin David Pomeroy and has her own daughter, also named Mary Ann. Her firstborn, David Alonzo Pomeroy, only lived to be 4 years old, and died in 1839, the same year as Mary Spaulding. They died a month apart. Deborah Trowbridge writes to Mary Ann and David Pomeroy to extend sympathies for the death of Mary’s mother and their young son. Deborah has become close with Mary Ann, the daughter of her beloved friend, and keeps up a correspondence with her. Deborah Trowbridge, who lived until 1876, witnessed quite a bit of the Spaulding and Pomeroy family’s trials. She knows, at this time, that Mary Ann must need more than a little comfort, and assures her that things will be better in heaven. She writes on April 17th, 1839:
We shall soon pass this vale of tears and meet our dear friends in the world of spirits, this is not our rest... I feel glad [that] you have the Company of your dear Aunt Deborah in your trials…
She is referring to Deborah Spaulding, the late Mary’s sister, who has come to care for her niece and nephew. The strength and bond of these women continues to tie each other together in the hardest of times. On January 19th, 1840 both Aunt Deborah Spaulding and Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge wrote a letter to Mary Ann and David Pomeroy; each writing on the same page. Aunt Deborah had returned to Buckland by this time, and both she and her friend were wondering how Mary Ann and David were doing almost a year later:
We have commenced now a year, while many of our dear friends the last year was called to bid adieu to all things below the sun; it is one year since Death began to werke in our family circle.
Aunt Deborah adds,
Kiss little Mary for me, I want to see her much.
Mary Ann Pomeroy, like her mother, Mary Spaulding, experienced the death of her children. David Alonzo, as we have seen, died in 1839 at age 4. Mary Ann Jr., born in 1836, only lived to be 24 years old. Leora Caroline, born 1841, died when she is 15. Deborah Jane (Jennie), born 1845, was the only child who lived a full life, living to be 71. Mary Ann Pomeroy, daughter of Mary Ann and David Pomeroy, left behind a diary that she kept in 1850, when she was fourteen years old. Her life was not much different than her grandmother Mary Spaulding’s, and her writing echoes the 1801 letter that Mary Spaulding wrote when she was 16. Mary Ann Pomeroy, writing 49 years later, also does not expect to live very long and believes, like her grandmother did, that God was taking the villagers because he is angry. Her daily accounts center around going to revivals and prayer meetings.
Her entry for April 1st, 1850 reads:
...what reason have I to hope in the mercy of God, what reason to hope that I have been born again, surely I am nothing in myself when I look unto my own heart I find it is deceitful about all things and desperately wicked…
She writes an entry for her birthday:
Sabbath Day
May 5th
This day is my birth-day. Fourteen years old, before another birthday may arrive I may be numbered with the dead. Fourteen years of my life are fled. I shall never live fourteen years longer.
Mary Ann did not live another fourteen years, as she predicted. Epidemic disease was still a huge problem in 1850. By the late 1800s, medical science began to make advancements enough to put an end to this type of strife that was, for so many years, a common experience for Americans.
There is one branch of this family that managed to escape Buckland and its terrors- the descendents of Lydia Spaulding. That story will be another post.
Sources
“Cholera Epidemics in the 19th Century” Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics. Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362723/?page=3
“Changing Medical Practices in Early America,” by Laurie Trask Mann. Updated 12/03/2008. http://dpsinfo.com/wb/medhistory.html
Baldwin, Thomas W, compiler, Vital Records of Uxbridge Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, Mass.: Wright & Potter Printing Company, 1916) 62, 144,
David Pomeroy Household, 1850 U.S. Census, Southampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, P 65, Dwelling 73, Family 82; National Archives microfilm publication M432_320.
Marriages article, Salem Gazette, Salem, Massachusetts, 19 Jul 1831, Page 3
Vital Records of Worthington Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1911)
O’Donnell, George T. “Causes of Typhoid Fever in Massachusetts,” American Journal of Public Health 10(6) (1920): 517–520. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362723
Pomeroy, Albert A., History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family Collateral Lines in Family Groups ; Reprinted Higginson Book Company, 1912, Salem, Massachusetts p 267, 381, 397
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
A Pomeroy at the American Museum of Natural History
I need a break from cleaning my desk. So many fascinating things land on it, and if you’re a genealogist you know that you never actually finish researching. So things tend to pile up. I’ve been working on the pile for almost three hours now, so it was a pleasant surprise to receive an e-mail from Mai Q., a Research Services Librarian in the Department of Library Services at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I had sent them an e-mail just yesterday and am quite impressed at the how quickly I got a response.
So why, you ask, did I e-mail the Museum? Well, let me tell you! Bill’s wife Sandra had e-mailed me a digital photo that her daughter-in-law had taken at the museum on a recent visit. The photo was a plaque that read “A Gift from Daniel E. Pomeroy”. Only part of the item that Daniel gifted was visible on the photo, and it read “PLAINS”. From the looks of the image, I guessed it was one of the Museum’s famous dioramas. I went out to the Museum’s website and browsed the diorama images, but I couldn’t pull up all the images. I did see one entitled “Serengeti Plains”, but without the image, couldn’t be sure this was it. I also checked our database for a Daniel E. Pomeroy and found a Daniel E. Pomeroy, born May 1868 in PA, son of Newton Merrick and Annis A. Pomeroy who lived in Englewood, NJ in between 1900 and 1928 and who was the Vice President of the Bankers Trust Company in New York City, and who, on 29 Jun 1928, was appointed to a committee at the Republican National Campaign meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. Was this the same Daniel E. Pomeroy who donated funds (or items) for the Serengeti Plains diorama at the American Museum of Natural History? I knew I didn’t know, and I hoped that the Museum would know, so I contacted the Department of Library Services.
Thank goodness for librarians! In one day I had my answer. Mai Q., not only sent me information about Daniel’s support of the Museum, but also his obituary! According to the Roy Chapman Andrews Papers, Daniel E. Pomeroy was elected a Life Member of the Museum for “contributing funds for carrying on an ornithological survey of Ecuador. On November 9, 1925, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Pomeroy was elected an Associate Founder for his generous contribution for the collecting and preparing of a group for the African hall of the museum, and, in recognition of his generosity and especially of his genuine interest in the development of the Museum.” In 1926 he was elected a Trustee of the Museum. In 1931 he was elected a Benefactor of the Museum. The report goes on to say that “In 1926 through the generosity of Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. George Eastman and Colonel Daniel B. Wentz, Mr. Carl Akeley of the Museum staff left for Africa in search of additional specimens for the African Hall. He was accompanied by Mrs. Akeley and joined later by Messrs. Pomeroy, Eastman and Wentz. They secured a splendid series of specimens for the Africa Hall groups which far surpassed expectations.” The report also states that “Mr. Pomeroy has served as First Vice-President and as a Member of the Executive Committee of The American Museum of Natural History Planetarium Authority since its foundation in 1933.”
The obituary confirmed that this generous Daniel E. Pomeroy, was indeed the son of Newton Merrick and Annis A. Pomeroy. The following obituary ran in the New York Times on Friday, March 26, 1965:
“DANIEL POMEROY, BANKER, 96, DIES
Was Jersey G.O.P. Official – Naturalist and Sportsman.
Special to The New York Times.
Daniel E. Pomeroy, a New York financier and naturalist who twice served as the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, died at his home in Sea Island, Ga., yesterday. He was 96 years old.
Mr. Pomeroy, who lived in Englewood, N.J., at 47 Beech Road, was a former vice president of the Bankers Trust Company and a member of its board of directors at his death. He had been active in New Jersey politics, serving for 21 years as a member of the state’s Republican committee.
An avid naturalist and big-game hunter, Mr. Pomeroy also served as a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History of New York for 11 years and was a member of the Eastman Expedition to British East Africa in 1926.
On that expedition, he worked closely with George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, and Carl F. Akeley, the sculptor and mananologist, in collecting data and specimens for the African Hall of the museum...”
I would like to personally thank Daniel E. Pomeroy for his generous support of this wonderful museum. I have fond childhood memories of days spent at the museum. I wasn’t hunting Pomeroys back then, though!
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