THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES






^*r^ f >-



\ 50



PERSONAL



SKETCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS



IN A SERIES OF



FAMILIAR LETTERS TO A FRIEND.



AND



MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS



BY

MRS. ELOISE MILES ABBOTT.



BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY ABEL TOMPKINS,

38 & 40 Cornhill.
1861.



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by

ELOISE MILES ABBOTT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.



Printed by

BAZIN & CHANDLER,

37 Corahill.



ioot>



'(61}



PREFACE.



In presenting this unpretending volume to that great and
discerning family, the public, the author does not come to
them beneatn the covert of an apology, or with an excuse
for intruding on their notice a book, for she has not a doubt
but it will be appreciated by her personal friends and rela
tives, beyond its real merits ; and to others, it does not pre
tend to possess any great value or interest, or be any consid
erable accession to the literary world. Those friends who
have flatteringly encouraged me to embody, in book form,
some of my newspaper articles, and essays of former years,
have my most hearty thanks. The incidents are such as
might be expected to occur in the everyday life of one who
engages in business which necessitates an exchange of thought
and opinion with the multitude.

There is, therefore, nothing remarkable or startling claimed
for them. Hoping that these pages may not be wholly useless,
or uninteresting to my numerous acquaintances, and others
who may chance to read them, I humbly submit them to their



IV PREFACE.

kind indulgence, knowing they will not abide the test of se
vere criticism.

If there are any good and noble principles inculcated here,
they will survive when she who penned them, will be beyond
the reach of praise or censure.

ELOISE M. ABBOTT.
Hopkinton, St. Lawrence Co., N. T., Feb. 18G1.



INTRODUCTION.



To Miss FIDELIA HADLEY, Milwaukie, Wis.

MY DEAR FIDELIA : Many thanks for your last letter,
which came to me with a hearty welcome, as all previous
ones have, indited by the same kind heart. Your continued
assurances of a deep and abiding interest in my personal
recollections are truly flattering, and bear the pleasing im
press of genuine regard. To affect an indifference to the in
terest our friends manifest in our feeble efforts would betray a
vanity of greater magnitude than to admit the fact, that an
occasional smile of approval from loved ones smooth the
rough edge of adversity, and sweetens all the toils of life.
The memory of such friends is everlastingly enshrined with
the heart's most endearing remembrances. But for you to
imagine that others would read, with any considerable de
gree of interest, what your friend and ' ' most obedient ser
vant" has written for your eye alone, is to me but another
proof that you are blind to the faults of my indifferent com
position.

Hence, your request to have my letters and essays pub
lished in book form, came to me with a surprise which, I
1*



VI INTRODUCTION.

have already acknowledged, was a pleasant one ; and you
will need no other assurance of the truth of it, when I tell
you that I have concluded to comply with your request

Being a distant relative, perhaps, accounts somewhat for
your interest in the story of my family history ; and presum
ing on your good nature, as formerly, for a veil of charity to
be thrown over what will be written hereafter, I wait for time
to determine whether it would have been better for all con
cerned, had my rehearsals met with a rebuff at your hands.

The authors of books generally see the necessity of just
such a book as theirs, " to fill a vacancy long felt in the pub
lic mind," and their solicitude is more in behalf of the dear
public, whose servant they have reluctantly consented to be
come, than in their own.

In one respect, my book is like nearly every other one
published in these self-sacrificing times ; the object of it is,
to fill a "vacancy," but that vacancy is in my own purse,
and not in the public mind, for that would probably never
have suffered a great loss had it not appeared before them.
If any books are especially needed by the public in these
days, when a " mob of books," as some one has expressed it
before me, is being driven by steam from the doors of our
presses, Autobiographies of living persons are not of that
class, certainly of none but those who have attained a celeb
rity.

" What is writ is writ," and if the reader should be led to
mistrust by it, that the dollar he has paid me has had more
bearing on my motives for writing for his benefit, than feel
ings for him, perhaps he has good reason for it.

I have been somewhat amused by reading recently, a criti
cism on a book written by a woman in London, entitled,



INTRODUCTION. Vll

" Fruits of Character. Being Twenty-five years Literary
and Personal Recollections. By a Contemporary. London :
Hurst & Baackett. 1860." The criticism appeared in the
" British Saturday Review," of Oct. 13, under the head of
" Reviews," in the Editorial department. The article is a
lengthy one, and every line cuts like a razor. I have
only space for a few extracts, which I give below, that you
may see the fate some books meet with from the lions of the
press. After all, there is a kind of exultant pleasure to us
pigmies, on this side of the water, in the fact that there are
silly women so called in the great metropolis of Great Brit
ain. It would frighten me into a, resolve never to put pen
to paper again, to have my meagre laurels withered and torn
with a single blast of such a mighty trumpet.

" The authoress of this work is evidently a well-meaning
woman in her way, but she has written a detestably bad book.
That she is a well-meaning woman, and has written a bad
book, is not much against her, for three well-meaning women
out of four write books, and nine out of ten books written by
well-meaning women are bad. ****** g ne has evidently
had a strong desire for many years to know something, how
ever little, of persons eminent for different degrees of good
ness and merit. She has picked up a kind of intimacy, or
managed to bring herself in contact, with persons whose ac
quaintance might fairly be an object of ambition to generous
and enthusiastic minds. But she has used her acquaintance
with them for the worst of all possible purposes. Eminence
has no worse penalty attached to it in these days, than that
well-meaning women should hook themselves on to its skirts,
and then bring all the little gossip they can collect about it in
to the light of day. It is a terrible curse on excellence that
it should attract to it persons who like to have the excitement



Vlll INTRODUCTION.

of coming in contact with notoriety, and who take advantage of
the openness with which their advances are received, to sell
their reminiscences, and to distribute their petty measure of
praise or blame on characters equally above both. These har
pies of private life are always hateful ; but sometimes a book
is written in which one of the tribe accumulates all the faults
peculiar to the class. The worst qualities which a collection of
" Literary and Personal Recollections " can have, are, that it
should be empty, fulsome, malevolent, and egotistical ; and
these are the precise characteristics that mark these volumes.

" The emptiness of these " Recollections " rises to the level
of audacity. There is honor among thieves, and there are
recognized limits even of book-making. But the book-making
in these volumes is beyond all bounds. Of at least two-thirds
of the persons of whose character she pretends to give traits,
the authoress has simply nothing to say. She met them in so
ciety on one or more occasions, but that was all. Irrelevant
remarks, depreciatory of others, and laudatory of herself, car
ry her through many difficulties, but sometimes she goes fur
ther a-field. She takes the name of a man she has met, and
after one or two desultory observations on his personal appear
ance, she wanders into descriptions of anything she has ever
done or seen, that she may happen to recollect, and which she
can pretend to connect by the faintest tie with the person of
whom she is speaking."

" Sometimes the authoress praises freely and lengthily, and
it is then that her fulsomeness is displayed. The two of her
contemporaries, whom she chiefly idolizes, are Mr. Bellew and
Mr. Spurgeon. ******** As to Mr. Spurgeon, the au
thoress has confidence equally valuable to pour out. This
popular preacher is ' unquestionably a short man,' and it is
< somewhat singular ' that ' all our popular preachers are short,
except Dr. Gumming and Mr. Bellew.' She then, after an ac
count of Mr. Spurgeon's career, informs us that his moral
character is of unimpeachable purity, that he is happily mar-



INTRODUCTION. IX

ried, and that he has two very fine children twin-boys one
the miniature resemblance of himself, the other of his wife.
We further learn, that these children were born when Mr. Spur-
geon was away from home ; and that ordinarily, when he comes
home after his day's work, he ' becomes almost exuberant in
his gaiety,' rushes up to his wife with ' Come, Susy, give me a
kiss ' and tosses the twin babes, one by one, in the air.' There
is plenty more in the same style ; and it is a style which, for
anything we know, may be acceptable to popular preachers ;
but what could be more intolerable to any person of decent
taste, than that a woman should go and tell all the world in
print, what he does when he comes home to the society of his
wife and children ? This offensive pandering to a vulgar curi
osity is one of the most flagrant wrongs which can be commit
ted on its victims. A lady is asked to a house where a public
man lives in private, and she is noting down every action, and
every trifling word he does and says, in order to sell her notes
to the crowd. Such persons ought to be branded by society,
and rigidly excluded from every house where all self-respect is
not utterly lost. A guest has no more right to go and print
statements about the way her host kisses his wife, than she has
to make off with a silver spoon from the dining-table. In both
cases she commits a breach of confidence in order to get
money. ***** Lastly, the book is one mass of egot
ism. The authoress is always giving us to understand how de
lightful she is, and how delighted every one is to see her, &c."



TABLE OF CONTENTS.



LETTER I.

Place of nativity ; Death of a sister ; . The old home 19

LETTER II.
My parents ; Sketch of the life of Jonathan E. Miles 23

LETTER III.

School-days; Our foremothers; Mrs. Sanford's letter; Pioneer
life in Jeflerson County; My father's library; Periodicals;
Parley's Magazine ; Death of Peter Parley 29

LETTER IV.

My father's general character ; Love of books ; of order ; His
farm ; His garden ; Love of flowers ; Religious feelings ;
View of death; Marriages; My mother's maiden name;
Their burial place; Death of my second sister; Extract from
Dr. Franklin's letter to his neice; Eccentricities; Joking
propensity; Extracts from his letters, illustrative of it;
Extracts from letters of travel; Obituary notice by Rev.
E. W.Reynolds 37

LETTER V.

My mother; The Sheldon family; Rev. Henry Olcott Sheldon;
Silas Wright; Life on the farm 50

LETTER VI.

Childhood and youth; Remembrance of associates; Schools;
School-books; Miss Henderson; Ignorance of teachers of
physical laws; Reform in these respects; Organic laws 55



Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LETTER VII.

Schools and school days ; Tyranny of school masters ; a descrip
tion of one ; My writing book ; Natural happy life of chil
dren; Playing by the way; The general current of my life;
The death of au infant; funeral 60

LETTER VIII.

A great event; Marriage of my eldest sister; Her present place
cf residence; Accident; The charms of nature; New teacher
for three summers; An advanced maiden lady; Four o'clock
school; Her prayer; Not according to St. Paul's directions. 65

LETTER IX.

Youthful follies; A foolish exhibition: Rebuke; Fable of the
lost axe 70

LETTER X.

Character of the inhabitants in my native town ; The school dis
trict ; The school house ; Sandy Creek ; Scenery in its vicin
ity; Captain Richardson's orchard; Mr. Mantle's tan-
yard; Gliding and hand-sleds; Peculiar charms of Winter;
Play-grounds ; Our little seminary of learning destroyed by
fire ; Number of families and teachers in that time-honored
district; Temperance principles; Gambling; Amusements;
Dancing; School exhibitions; Industrious habits: Music;
Change of the world in that respect 74

LETTER XI.

Sent away from home to an Academy ; Studies multiply beyond
my capacity; Compositions; My first one; A description of
Burville ; Labor of getting lessons ; Inefficiency of teacher ;
Anecdote of a clergyman 81

LETTER XH.

Hugh Miller; His schools and school-masters ; My last school
teacher; The last term; Certificates of recommendation;
School-mates separate, never to meet again on earth ; Brook-
side Cemetery " 87

LETTER Xin.

Teaching school ; Boarding around; Examinations by the school
^committee; Home once in two weeks; My mother's cook
ing; Connecticut habits; Saturday night; A series of meet
ings ; Ignorant ministers ; Dangerous heresy ; Persecution ;
Mr. French ; His style of preaching 91



TABLE OF CONTENTS. *iii

LETTER XIV.

A Winter spent in Watertown; Cotillon parties; Black Band;
Frivolous amusements; More enjoyment at church; Sewing
society ; A day spent solicitating funds to start with ; Con
versation with my companion on our return ; Correspon
dence embracing a period of twenty years 97

LETTER XV.

How our sewing society prospered, and what it has accomplished ;
Church burned and a new one erected on its site; Family
school at Mr. Woodruff's; Extract from a letter from my
brother; The Woodruff house; Riches and poverty; Hap
py families ; Reminiscence of a poor widow ; Faith in the
promises of God; The most enduring riches lil

LETTER XVI.

Extracts from my diary ; Reflections on the new year ; Woman's
rights ; The fable of the monkey ; Theological Seminary at
Andover; Men engaged in the woman's rights movement;
Henry Ward Beecher and others ; The employment of tak
ing care of children; Another view of the subject; Not a
fancy picture ; Ignorance of financial affairs and mechanical
trades ; what women have done in the face of these discour
aging circumstances; Their meager compensation; Idleness
and ignorance of a part of the feminine race, and slavery
of the balance ; The gospel sent to the heathen , when there
is so much barbarism at home ; The scandal that has been
heaped upon those who open their mouths in defence of the
truth; St. Paul's advice; Drunkards' wives; Widows and
others separated from their husbands not the legal guar
dians of their own children ; A man can will his children
away from their mother: A case in point in Pennsylvania;
Voluntary slavery ; The sister of Kossuth ; Tyrannical laws
with regard to women ; Laws in Germany ; Extract from
Miss Sedgwick's letters; The war with Great Britain, of
1776 ; Its cause ; Justice Pratt ; Inconsistency of the present
system of taxation ; Case of theft ; Improvement with respect
to the position of women in society; Legislation of the
different States in her behalf; Extract from a statute law of
the State of Ohio ; A change from such heathenish laws ;
Grateful for small favors ; The State of Vermont with re
gard to childless widows' property ; New York State Legis
lature; Their drunken frolic at Blackwell's Island; An
extract from Miss Catharine Beecher's "true remedy for
the wrongs of women ' ' ; Reasons why women ought to vote ;
All employments ought to be open for women and men in
discriminately ; Miss Helena Maria Weber 118

2



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LETTER XVII.

A few more "last words" on woman's rights; Dr. Franklin's
discussion; First advocate of woman's rights; Woman's
Education ; The fable of the cat and the bat ; Extracts from
my diary: Pedagogues; Extract from Johnson; Anecdote
of Dr. Johnson; A ball at Massey's hotel in honor of Jack
son's victory at New Orleans; Valentine's day; Vacation
in which I visit Ogdensburgh, Canton and Potsdam ; Dutch
party; Washington Irving's description of one; Dr. John
son's opinion of courtship; Lecture on the social destiny of
man; Fourierism; Elocution; Birth-day; School in Pa-
inelia 137



LETTER

Village School: My patrons; Boarding around; Conflicting
advice; General remarks with regard to teaching 1 ; Nature
of children not naturally depraved ; One case of perverse-
ness; Speech to scholars; Perplexities of the business of
teaching 146

LETTER XIX.

School in Champion; Copy of my call to go there; Extracts
from my diary; City of the dead; Deer River Falls, Copen
hagen, Lewis County; Rev. Mr. Dutton's family of silk
worms; Habits of this insect; Study of the French language;
Marriage of Mr. M. ; Poor preaching; Nature's book
always open; Dedication; Mt. Auburn Cemetery ; Hannah
Adams' Slonument; Clouds in the west at sunset; Thanks
giving sermon and supper; Fire alarm; Baptist and Catho
lic churches ; Death of President Harrison ; A tea-party
and visit to Watertown jail; Temperance meeting; One of
my scholars drowned in Black River; Fourth of July cele
bration; Temperance lecture; Leave Esq. S.'s; Slavery;
Anecdote of Brainard, the poet; Point Salubrious ; Cherry
Island; A few weeks at home; The last 151

LETTER XX.

Marriage; Description of Dexter; School-teaching again and
boarders ; Dexter and Sackett's Harbor 170

LETTER XXI.

Western New York; Wyoming County; Portageville Falls,
Buffalo; Tonawanda and Cay uga creeks; Fruit and grazing;
Cowlesville; Rev. J. S. Flagler; Dr. Stoddard; Rev. N.
Stacy ; Rev. C. G. Persons; Correspondence 175



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV

LETTER XXL.

History of a family; Modera Spiritualism; Correspondence;
General reflections on Spiritualism ; Extract from Edmond
H. Sears' ' ' Foregleams of im mortality. " 181

LETTER XXIII.

Genesee County; Its fruit; Orange County butter; General ap
pearance of this State from Rouse's Point to DunkirK;
Every-body's own country the uest, Skaneateles; Coopers-
town ; Rochester ; Mount Hope Cemetery; Mount Hope Nur
sery 193

LETTER XXIV.

Boston, Erie Co.; Our children; Aland flowing with milk and
honey ; Yankee anecdote of dairying ; Western New York
as it is and as it was, in an extract from Turner's Pioneeer
history ; The inhabitants of 860 contrasted with those of
1800; Ignorance of the poo, er class in the cities, with re
gard to the superior advantages of the country; Extracts
from Miss Sedgwick's lettei-s 198

LETTER XXV.

Parting with friends ; Farm life in Watertown; Good farming;
Castles in the air; Bookselling; Parents obligation to chil
dren 206

LETTER XXVI.

Commence travelling and selling books ; First field in Parish-
ville; Incidents in the trade ; Jefferson County, Parishville,
and Watertown; Printing offices turned into cigar factories 211

LETTER XXVII.

Progress in my business ; Too much labor for strength ; All my
labor in a small compass; Absurdity of the idea of the book
trade ever being exhausted ; Importance of parents keeping
suitable books on hand for children 217

LETTER XXVni.

Gratitude for favors; Kind treatment and liberal patronage:
Forbearance of creditors ; Means of success in selling val
uable books; American portrait gallery; Livingston's
Travels ; Extracts from other books ; Recollections of a life
time, byS. G. Goodrich; Horace Greeley's opinion of bio
graphies 222



XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LETTER XXIX.

Journey to Malone, Hopkinton, Nicholsville and Bangor;

Franklin county fair; Sketch of the life of Sam Houston. 229

LFTTER XXX.

Journey to Westville ; The place and its inhabitants ; Death of
Mrs. Oberia Mann 236

LETTER XXXI.

Franklin County; Rivers, roads, and farming; Lack of fruit;
Villages; Moira; The northern part; Westville; Fort Covin-
ton and Bombay; Indian reservation; Hogansburghi St.
Regis Village; Allen Lincoln; Salmon River; Bangor; An
Incident; Clinton County, &c 239

LETTER XXXII.

Correspondence of the Miles family; Letter first, Mrs. Richard-
eon; Second, Mrs. Lamon; Third, Mrs. Waggoner; Fourth,
B. Miles; Fifth, J. Miles; Sixth, P. Miles; Seventh, Mrs.
Blount; Eighth, B. S. Miles; Ninth, Wm. Pitt Miles;
Tenth, 0. E. Miles; Eleventh, Mrs. Lord 247



MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.

Tfce Death Penalty, 283

Spiritual Experiences 291

Essay on Temperance and Tobacco, 297

Friendship, 314

Ingratitude, 316

Solitude, 319

Charity to the Poor, 322

Letter to Geo. V. Hoyle, Esq., Superintendent of Northern N.

T. Railroad, 325

Dr. Thomas Dick's Letter 337

Church Organization, 345

Christianity, 348

The Beauties of Nature, 352

Nature's Book 358



SKETCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS.



SKETCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS,



LETTEK I.

Place of Nativity Death of a Sister The Old Home.

MY DEAR F:

As the particular Geography and locality of a
place where the scene of the narrative is laid, are
considered by most people as essential to its interest*,
I will briefly describe to you the place of my na
tivity. In the State of New York, Jefferson County,
there are two ranges of hills, which pass obliquely
through the three towns, Rodman, Rutland, and
Watertown. In the southern portion of the last
named town, between these two ranges of hills, is the
beautiful valley of Sandy Creek. On a slight eleva
tion, near where this stream winds its way to Lake
Ontario, still stands the antiquated house which my
father built about fifty years ago on a farm of but little
over one hundred acres, purchased by him in 1801.



20 PERSONAL SKETCHES

Here he lived and reared a family of twelve chil
dren, who all arrived at mature age. Your humble
correspondent, dear F., was the seventh in this
family catalogue, born March 29th, 1821. The
brown, time-worn dwelling, now stands in nestling
loneliness among moss-garlanded trees and flowering
shrubs, a heart-stirring memorial of decay, deser
tion, and death, a death so recent, that the fresh
ness and beauty of life still lingers within the walls,
in the thousand little mementos of handiwork, affec
tion suggested, for the comfort of those around her ;
in her favorite volumes of books, so often read for
herself and others ; in her flower garden, where
violets, tulips, asters, and a nameless variety of roses
have been planted with her own hands ; in her
favorite walks and haunts on "Poplar Hill," the
name she gave the farm ; and above all, in the nur
sery with her three motherless children, one, a smil
ing little infant, all unconscious of its sad bereave
ment. The beloved and favorite sister, of whom I
write, two years younger than myself, died sudden
ly, June 1st, 1860. Her husband, Asher Blount,
Esq., owns and occupies the old homestead. His
good taste and industry are in constant requisition,
planning and putting in execution improvements on
the premises. To a stranger's eye, there may not
be anything remarkable in the beauty of the land
scape, in that particular locality, but to me, no place



AXD RECOLLECTIONS. 21

I have ever been in, is half so beautiful. The view
to the northeast, is lengthways of the valley, and
up the creek. Here, nature, always charming, must
have been in one of her happiest moods, when, with
consummate skill, she molded those exquisitely
formed slopes, on either side of the valley, and
dressed them with the gayest hues a blending of
all beauties. The woodman's axe has been too busy
marring the wild shrubbery that formerly skirted
the banks of the creek, and now the whole surface
of the ground, even to the summits of the elevations,
is laid out in meadows, fields of grain, and orchards,
interspersed with sweet pastures, where flocks and
herds graze. An occasional drooping elm, the most
beautiful tree in this country, still stands in stately
grandeur on the lowlands. Fair dwellings, built in
the modern style of architecture, half hidden with
foliage, spot the landscape here and there, giving
the whole a picturesque beauty, inspiring to the
poetical imagination. To the west, the magnificent
old hills lift their haughty heads, bounding the
horizon with their dark outlines.

" Far, to the east and south there lay,
Extended in succession gay,
Deep waving fields and pastures green
With gentle slopes and groves between."

You will, perhaps, smile, dear F., at my attach
ment to this little nook of earth where I first awoke



22 PERSONAL SKETCHES.

to consciousness, but the magic charm that there is