I’ve been wanting for some time to write about the fascinating Civil War journal of Howard J. Ford, which the MHS acquired four years ago. Howard served as a private in the 43rd Massachusetts Infantry, otherwise known as the “Tiger Regiment.” His journal consists of loose pages written between 11 September 1862 and 2 May 1863 and sent at intervals to his family back home in Cambridgeport, Mass. The journal contains incredible details and vivid descriptions, not to mention sketches and maps, making it a unique and indispensable account of the war.
Howard was born in Boston on 10 July 1832, the oldest of six children of Nancy (Richardson) Ford and John Ford. I couldn’t find much information about Howard’s life prior to the war. I know he worked as a printer, as recorded in Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War. In fact, this profession ran in the family; his father John and uncle Daniel Sharp Ford also worked in publishing, and his father-in-law Andrew Reid was the founder of the Cambridge Chronicle.
In the summer of 1862, after over a year of heavy fighting, the Union needed fresh troops. President Lincoln issued the Militia Act, which called for the enlistment of 300,000 volunteers as “nine month men” and threatened conscription in any state that didn’t meet its quota. The 43rd was one of many northern regiments organized in response to this act. On 4 September 1862, at the age of 29, Howard joined up, leaving behind a wife and two young children (their son was 2 ½, and their daughter less than four weeks old). Enlisting alongside Howard was his 18-year-old brother George.
Howard’s journal begins on 11 September, just one week later. He and George would both be mustered into Company I and spend less than two months training at Camp Meigs in Readville, Mass., before their regiment shipped out for the south. In the coming weeks, I’ll be telling you more about Howard’s experiences as he described them.
In addition to journal pages, the collection includes one other document, a heartfelt letter written by Howard’s mother Nancy on 23 February 1863. In honor of the upcoming Mother’s Day, I’ll inaugurate this blog series by quoting from her letter.
We unexpectedly received a letter from you, and thank you for it. We have read your journal with a great deal of interest and pleasure. […] I have felt great anxiety during all this time, and shall continue to feel it for you and George. If I did not I should not have a Mothers nature. A Mother can never forget her children no never. […] When we have a snow or rain storm, I think of my Soldier Sons. When the Thermometer is 15 below zero, or the wind is blowing a gale, or the mud is ankle deep then again do I think of my Solder Sons. When I go to bed, I think of them on guard, or lying on the cold ground or on the soft side of a pine board. In the morning I think will my Sons be called into action today are they on the march […] You may call this weakness or by what name you please. I call it Mothers love.
Stay tuned for more on Howard J. Ford.
Letter from Nancy (Richardson) Ford to Howard J. Ford, 23 Feb. 1863
Trigger warning: use of outdated but period-typical language to describe disabled individuals.
The third and (for now) final installment of my series on Disability in the Archive is a hopeful one. Read Part 1 and Part 2. As I investigated the treatment of disabled veterans, I had my first opportunity to use the actual voices of disabled people in this blog post. I examined the letters and photographs of Samuel “Sammy” Barres, a WWII bilateral amputee who wrote faithfully to his “sweetheart” Bernice and his mother, giving us a window into his thoughts. I am not a veteran and being deaf/hard of hearing is a very different disability, but in his letters, I see echoes of my own experiences.
Three photographs of Sammy he sent to Bernice
The first things I noticed were how other people talk about him and his consistently overly positive attitude in response. After Sammy’s legs are amputated, one above the knee and one below, he receives letters from friends, all of whom clearly love him but who talk like his life is over and praise his cheerfulness. His friend Bill says, “reading the letter again, I began to notice your high morale and as I read more I couldn’t figure out how anyone under your circumstances could display such high spirits.” Sammy himself even says “how thankful I am for being spared my sight, and my hands, and my brain. Handicapped? Sure I am. But so very little, comparatively speaking.”
It is reminiscent of modern-day inspiration porn, which is when people create content around disabled people doing things that are only inspiring because they are disabled. For an excellent introduction, read this article and this article. In a more direct example, Sammy’s picture is shared to raise funds for amputees, which is one reason that inspiration porn gets made. Abled people feel grateful that they are not disabled and are more willing to participate. Inspiration porn asks: how can someone who is disabled continue to exist and even succeed? That is certainly a question I have been asked- directly and indirectly.
Letter from Bill to Sammy where he tells Sammy that no matter how cheerful his letters to his mother are, Bill believes that he must be somewhat sad about his accident
The differences between his letters to his mother and to Bernice are striking, and not just because he is lovesick for Bernice. Letters that were mailed around the same time and talk about the same things are far less cheerful and inspiring when he writes to his nurse “sweetheart” than when he writes to his mother. I have done similar things, kept the full truth from someone, either because they would overreact (as Sammy’s mother does), because I don’t want to be pitied, or even because I don’t want to explain all the background. Sometimes “fine” is the best answer! I’m sure that Sammy felt similarly. In fact, years later Bernice writes that “almost everything he wrote her [his mother] was the opposite of what he was experiencing.”
Letter from Bernice to Donald Murray about his article on how soldiers lied in their letters back homeFirst two letters from Sammy to his mother after he lost his legs
Another thing I noticed while reading is the extraordinary frustration of bureaucracy that was present then and is still present now. Sammy talks about how difficult it is to get help from the limb shop. He tells Bernice that he “went to the limb shop this morning to remind them that [he] was still alive” and then the very next day he “spent a very upsetting afternoon in the limb shop. And [he] still got nowhere.” That frustration is so common for chronically ill or disabled people. While in Boston his leg has a significant issue, and he struggles to find a place that can fix it for him. Similar things have certainly happened to me where getting my assistive device fixed was much more challenging than others think. Like Sammy, I am very good at troubleshooting and finding ways around things that break or around the limits my body has placed on me.
Photograph of Sammy and Bernice on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City
Hearing a disabled person’s own perspective was valuable. While Sammy Barres is only one man and his experience is not universal, it is a story worth telling as part of understanding disability and the presence of disability in the archives. In his case, he and Bernice married— over the objections of her family, who never spoke to Bernice again because she married her “legless love—” and had five children. They generally seem to have lived a happy and loving life, one where they were not separated long enough to write the stacks of letters telling their story, like they did during their engagement. This story has a happy ending! Not an easy one, but a happy one nonetheless.
Psst! Do you like gossip? Well, what about historical gossip?
Okay, don’t tell anyone you heard this from me, and I don’t know what exactly, but something very dramatic happened between Hannah Quincy and Richard Cranch in the 1750s. Just read this letter she wrote him!
Hannah Quincy’s letter to Richard Cranch.
Sr.
I receiv’d this morning your unexpected Epistle, but Wish that you had oblig’d me by comeing yourself, that I might have acknowledged my ingratitude and beg’d your pardon, which I am but too sensible I ought to have done before I parted wth you; your goodness in forgiving my past Offence, is what I have not merited by any Confession of my fault, (but sincerely desire that I may.) as to your wishing, that I may have pleasureable sensations arise in my mind, when ever I think of it, I dont immagine [sic.] that you really think I can, No believe me I cannot, but on the Contrray [sic.], when ever I reflect on it, it will be with the utmost regret.—
Why will you Damon, make me unhappy by terming me your destroyer? for tis with the greatest sincerity, that I wish it were possible for me to make you happy by returning your affection in specie, and how often have [inserted: you] said that without such a return there could be no prospect at happiness.—
Then why will you teize me, in vain,
When I told you before and I tell you again,
I can never be yours.
But if you will favour me with your Friendship I shall allways Glory in it; but Let me beg you to place your Tenderest affections on a more worthy object, on one who will be sensible of: and return you that affection which is not in my power.
I know, it seems fairly straightforward at first—he liked her, she didn’t like him—but wait, it gets juicier.
Hannah Quincy was the daughter of Col. Josiah Quincy and the sister of Josiah Quincy II, who would go on to be Mayor of Boston. Richard Cranch was a close friend of John Adams. The letter is not dated, but it is cataloged as originating from 1754. If this attribution is correct, Cranch still hadn’t quite gotten over Quincy two years later. John Adams tried to comfort his cousin in a letter dated October 18, 1756: “I know it must be hard to conquer a Passion for a Lady so greatly accomplished as Miss H—— Q. But consider my friend that the more engaging the charms of her person and the more distinguished the Refinements of her Mind, the more noble your Resolution will appear if you subdue the inclination that such qualities naturally excite.”[2]
Hannah Quincy was quite popular among the bachelors of Braintree. Only a few years later, Adams himself would fall for Quincy, whom he sometimes called “Orlinda” in his diaries. By his description, Quincy was well-read, witty, charming, and beautiful. She was also clever and shrewd, with a good poker face: “She is apparently frank, but really reserved, seemingly pleased, and almost charmed, when she is really laughing with Contempt. Her face and Hart have no Correspondence.”[3] The two of them shared stimulating conversation and the occasional romantic stroll throughout the winter and spring of 1759.
Adams even came close to proposing to Quincy that spring, but they were interrupted in conversation, giving a doctor named Bela Lincoln the opportunity to sweep in and propose to her instead. Quincy and Lincoln were married in 1760. At the time, Adams evidently assumed the proposal was sudden and unexpected on Quincy’s part. He called this twist of fate “a great sacrifice to Reason”—he knew he wasn’t quite ready for marriage and needed to focus on his law career.[4]
Adams later developed a relationship with Quincy’s cousin, Abigail Smith, who of course would go on to be his wife and trusted friend and advisor. But first, in the summer of 1759, Adams drafted a very curious letter to Hannah’s father, Col. Josiah Quincy:
H. was very imprudent, to endeavour to exasperate Mr. Cranch, for she is sensible, that he knows a story to her Disadvantage, and she should remember that Love turned to Hatred, is like the best Wine turned to Vinegar, the most acrid in the World. He will seek Revenge. Arise black Vengeance from the hollow Hell is the language of Othello. I expect to hear very soon that he has divulged that story.
By saying you have corresponded with Dr. Lincoln so long and by saying I can tell you how J. Brackett carries your Letters to Captn. Hews’s, and leaves them there, and takes Lincolns Letters to you, she judged, that J. Brackett had told me she held a correspondence with Lincoln, and went to clearing herself. She declared and protested, she never wrote a Line to him in her Life, excepting one Billet, relating to those Reflections on Courtship and Marriage which she sent with that Book. So I got satisfied.
H. I dont know who has been plagued most, Mr. Cranch or I. I think I have as much Reason to complain of being plagued as he.[5]
By the summer, Adams had discovered that Hannah had played the field a bit, allowing Bela Lincoln to court her at the same time she entertained a relationship with Adams. But what exactly happened between Hannah Quincy and Richard Cranch that “plagued” him so—that Cranch could have chosen to damage her reputation by telling it? Perhaps it was simply the revelation about Quincy and Lincoln, but why would that be Cranch’s secret to tell? Could it be something even more shocking?
I suppose we may never know. But doesn’t that make the gossip even more intriguing?
For more juicy tidbits, see the Boston 1775 series on the Quincy/Cranch/Adams/Lincoln drama:
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a plethora of innovations in photographic development. As photographic reproduction technology became more widely distributed, both professional and amateur photographers had the opportunity to experiment with different ways of capturing images. While it may be hard to imagine today, when most photographs are taken with a single tap on a smartphone screen, early photographs widely varied in their methods of documenting the world around them.
One early photographic technique I find particularly interesting is the cyanotype method. By bathing paper in a mixture of iron salts and potassium ferricyanide, and then exposing the treated paper to light, a photographer can capture images in distinctive shades of Prussian blue—a rich near-indigo color that gives cyanotypes an immediately identifiable aesthetic.
This process was invented by English photographer John Frederick William Herschel in the 1840s—but perhaps its most iconic images were created by his acquaintance Anna Atkins, a botanist who used the cyanotype process to create photograms of seaweed, algae, and ferns. Now considered the first female photographer, Atkins had a keen eye for artistic detail and composition that ensured her images are celebrated everywhere from the Getty Museum to the MOMA.
I’ve long been interested in cyanotypes for their vivid monochromes and fascinating history, and have occasionally gone out of my way to find exhibits on them, such as the Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s Out of the Blue show from last fall. So I was happy to recently discover that ABIGAIL, our online catalog, has a subject heading under which our cyanotype holdings are cataloged! This made it easy for me to explore what kinds of cyanotypes we have here at the MHS—and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.
Many of our cyanotypes depict domestic scenes and personal, poignant snapshots. In the below photograph, a grandfatherly man reclines in a garden, the textures of his clothing and the trees surrounding him picked out in stunning pacific blues. The monochrome coloring mimics the cool shade of the trees, making the scene’s careful composition and use of light a snapshot of private peace.
Taken by S.D. Hiller. Wigglesworth family photographs II.
Perhaps because we’re used to seeing old photographs in black and white, the cyanotypes feel particularly alive—details jump out at me more in blue, and make moments that break the serious propriety so often (and wrongly) associated with old photographs feel even more vivid. The presence of a dog (maybe a pitbull?) in the lower right hand of the below photograph is especially delightful in the below image: blurry and wide-eyed, its startled stare into the camera feels like an ancestor of the many pet photographs stored on my phone.
Mrs. Seabury and Leonora. Bemis family photograph album.
Sometimes, though, the blued lens of a cyanotype can lend a melancholy cast to an otherwise neutral tableau. In the below photograph, the lit window of an empty room appears almost ghostly to me, blotting out the details of the scene with periwinkle sheen.
Wigglesworth family photographs II.
Similarly, the careful, minimalist composition in the following images of flowers feels a little lonely when rendered in blue—what might have merely been pretty in color appears wistful in monochrome.
Trillium. Wigglesworth family photographs II.Jasminum sambac. Wigglesworth family photographs II.
Artistic interpretations aside, cyanotypes were an easy and cheap method of photographic reproduction, commonly used before the advent of other, later methods of film reproduction. Their low barrier to access meant that their use is more generally one of convenience than intentional artistic statement. Still, with the distance of time, it’s hard not to gaze into the blue and see something more than pure color staring back.
Relief Printing: to carve away at a block of medium– often wood, linoleum, or metal–leaving behind a raised image that will be inked and printed onto paper. This type of printing is often referred to as letterpress printing and was the primary form of printing from Gutenberg to the 20th century.[i]
Although women have always been a part of industry, their work has been undervalued and underrepresented in the historical record. The contributions of women have regularly been portrayed as somehow deficient or unequal to the work of their male counterparts. Women are often not even considered in many historical writings but are rather resigned to the background–carved away, to leave the relief-print of men at work.
In the Colonial period, printing was hard, but vital work. Women often filled these vital roles in printing, working alongside men as printer’s devils and compositors, for example. Yet their names were often not recorded and thus they are not easily seen in history.
Today we will explore the MHS collections to find the imprints of the women who were part of the Early American Printing Industry: Ann Franklin, Sarah Goddard, and Mary Katherine Goddard.
Ann Franklin: 1734-1763
Like many women in the early printing industry, Ann Franklin came into the business through the death of a male relative; her husband, James. Franklin had previously taken over the press while James was in prison, and at a time when her brother-in-law, Benjamin (yes, that Benjamin Franklin) had fled to Philadelphia.[ii] Following the death of James in 1735, Franklin took on the family printing business in Newport, RI. In 1736 she became the Colony Printer,[iii] which meant that she printed all of the new legislative and official documents. In addition to printing books and pamphlets, Franklin also edited, printed, and published a newspaper titled The Newport Mercury.[iv] At a time when women had little legal standing, Franklin, as a businesswoman and widow, was able to run the business like any man: forming and dissolving partnerships, pursuing contracts, and expanding the business. Franklin would run the shop until her death in 1763.[v]
To find other materials in Abigail published by Franklin, perform a keyword search for “Widow Franklin” and “Ann Franklin”.
Sarah Goddard, 1765-1768
Sarah Goddard was introduced to the world of printing in 1762, when her son William chose to open a printing shop in Providence, RI. Sarah and her daughter, Mary Katherine, moved to Providence to support him in his business. Instead, William’s attention would soon be drawn to other lines of business, leaving Sarah and Mary Katherine to manage the press in his absence: Sarah, who owned a share in William’s press, managing the business, with Mary Katherine as a compositor.[vi] In 1766, Goddard took public ownership of the press, as the imprint became “Sarah Goddard and Company.” Like Franklin, Goddard was legally able to form partnerships and pursue contracts. One such partnership, formed in 1767, was with John Carter, who had been apprenticed to Ann Franklin’s brother-in-law. Goddard and Mary Katherine ran the business in Providence for many years, until William decided to set up another printing shop in Philadelphia. The Goddards sold the Providence shop to Carter and followed William to Philadelphia, where Sarah Goddard died in 1768, shortly after the move.[vii]
Mary Katherine Goddard came into the printing industry with her mother, Sarah Goddard, first as a compositor in Providence, RI and then in Philadelphia. Upon her mother’s death in 1768, she assumed ownership of her mother’s share in her brother William’s business, and management of the print shop as a whole.[viii] Four years later, in 1772, William again moved the print shop, this time to Baltimore. Once more, Mary Katherine followed her brother to manage the operation.[ix]
Mary Katherine eventually left her brother’s shop and began her own, competing press, publishing under the imprint “M.K. Goddard.”[x] While managing her own press, Goddard also served as the Baltimore Postmaster from 1775-1789. She was forced to relinquish that title in 1789 when the postal system was consolidated; at that time, over 200 Baltimore businessmen attested that she was well deserving of the title and position.[xi] In 1777, Goddard‘s press was the first to print the official Declaration of Independence with the signatures attached 7.[xii] Eight copies of Goddard’s printing of the Declaration of Independence still exist; you can see one here, held by the New York Public Library.
“Baltimore, Dec. 31, 1776. This morning Congress received the following…”
These women made, and quite literally, recorded early American history. Franklin, as one of the first female printers in the British Colonies, Sarah Goddard as she ran multiple printing shops, and Mary Katherine Goddard as she printed the first signed edition of the Declaration of Independence, all played a vital role in the transition of the colonies to a nation. There are, of course, more such women whose lives were not recorded in the same way as Franklin and the Goddards. These three women are among the many whose work has been undervalued and underrepresented in the historical record.
I hope you enjoyed a quick look into the history of women in Early American Printing history!
[i] Sidney E. Berger. “Relief Printing,” The Dictionary of the Book : A Glossary for Book Collectors, Booksellers,
Delving into the stacks of the Massachusetts Historical Society collections, one might happen upon a series of sprawling and intricate blueprints for the “Residence of George S. Parker” in Peterborough, New Hampshire. A majestic home with gleaming white walls and several stalwart chimneys, the New Hampshire “Clue House” has impacted lives worldwide through the most unexpected of sources: the board game Clue.
Parker House blueprint
Clue, or Cluedo as it was called originally, came about during the Second World War and the air-raid blackouts of 1943-1945. Its inventor–British musician Anthony Pratt–greatly enjoyed murder mystery parties. Facing the isolation of nighttime raids, Pratt decided to transform this experience into a playable board game. By 1947, Pratt and his wife had finished designing the game and patented it to the U.K. board game manufacturer Waddington’s and its American counterpart, Parker Brothers.[1]
Parker House second floor blueprint
George Swinnerton Parker was born in 1867 in Salem, Mass. An avid lover of games, Parker invented his first game–a card-based game called Banking–as a teenager. This passion pushed Parker to establish his game publishing company in 1883. The addition of George’s brothers Charles and Edward in 1888 and 1898 would create the company formally known as Parker Brothers. From these roots, Parker Brothers grew to exert massive influence on the world of board games, with the company producing or publishing classics like Monopoly, Risk, and Sorry.[2]
Drawings and plans of the Parker house
The George S. Parker house entered the picture over one hundred years before the Parker Brothers even existed. Situated among the picturesque Monadnock mountains, the Peterborough property was constructed in 1790, a cape house built with wood from a sea captain’s home in Salem, Mass. When George S. Parker purchased the house in 1925, he expanded upon the existing structure with wood from his own ancestral home in Salem.
Parker house stair detail
Parker and his wife lived in the house for three decades, during which Parker Brothers acquired the rights to produce Clue in 1947. The floor plan of the Parker estate, including the decorative furniture, the first floor rooms, and even the secret passages, all inspired the changes that George S. Parker made to the North American version of Clue. By the time of its release in 1949, the layouts of the Clue board and the Parker house were inextricably linked.[3]
In previous Beehive posts, a few of our contributors have introduced you to the terrific DeGrasse-Howard papers here at the MHS. Crystal Lynn Webster discussed themes in the diary of Dr. Edwin Clarence Howard, and Mia Levenson wrote about the account book of Edwin’s uncle, Dr. John Van Surley DeGrasse. I’d like to revisit the collection, particularly because of the great work our digital team has done to digitize it in its entirety.
The MHS collection of DeGrasse-Howard papers is small but fascinating. Several members of the related DeGrasse, Howard, Downing, and Asbury families are represented, and each probably deserves a post of their own. Isaiah George DeGrasse and Howard DeGrasse Asbury were clergymen, John Van Surley DeGrasse and Edwin Clarence Howard were physicians, and George T. Downing was a civil rights leader. John also served as a medical officer during the Civil War.
Like Webster, I found myself particularly drawn to the diary of Dr. Edwin Clarence Howard (1846-1912), kept in 1865 while he was a student at Liberia College in Monrovia, Liberia. Edwin went on to become, in 1869, the first African American to graduate from Harvard Medical School. He practiced in Charleston, S.C. before settling in Philadelphia, and several biographical sketches I found note his impressive service during the 1870 smallpox epidemic there. He also played a part in the establishment of both the Frederick Douglass Hospital (1895) and the Mercy Hospital (1905) in Philadelphia.
This diary reveals Edwin at the beginning of his career, struggling with all the uncertainties of a young man far away from home. One of the things that makes the volume intriguing is that Edwin wrote about half of it in code. Much of this code consists of simple letter substitution (each letter represented by the one just before it in the alphabet), but he also incorporated French and Latin words and phrases and even what appear to be Greek symbols. Certain people are represented by initials, such as “O,” who was a woman with whom he apparently had a relationship. For example, in this entry from 1 April 1865, he switched in and out of code within a single sentence.
I am now almost always harrassed [sic] with unpleasant feelings, and were it not for a certain gnod que I gaud hm [hope that I have in] O I think I wd. use my utmost endeavours to return home.
This unhappy passage was written after a scolding from a doctor Edwin described as “pthsd shfgs,” or “quite tight”!
I hope someday to be able to spend more time with this interesting diary. While most of the entries are of a personal nature, Edwin also described the treatment of patients and his other daily activities, including long walks, social calls, a liberal amount of pipe smoking, and the occasional performance on his concertina.
Unfortunately, the DeGrasse-Howard papers contain only a few passing references to Edwin’s sisters, who were both accomplished educators. His older sister, Adeline Turpin Howard (1844-1922), became the principal of the Wormley School in Washington, D.C. His younger sister, Joan Imogen Howard (1848-1937), was the first Black graduate of the Girls’ High and Normal School in Boston. None of the siblings ever married or had children, and all three are buried in Eden Cemetery outside Philadelphia.
As I mentioned above, the entire DeGrasse-Howard collection has been digitized by the MHS digital team, so you can browse the papers at your leisure. The MHS also holds a collection of 24 DeGrasse-Howard photographs, which have also been digitized. My favorite is probably this Civil War-era photograph of a young Georgenia Cordelia DeGrasse, Edwin’s cousin.
In my previous post, I introduced Annie Adams Fields, a talented woman who wrote descriptions of contemporary authors in her diaries. She was a socialite married to James T. Fields, an author and publisher. Their circle of friends included American and European authors.
The truth was of course very decidedly that the seed I speak of, the seed that has flowered into legend, and with the thick growth of which her domestic scene was quite embowered, had been sown in soil peculiarly grateful and favored by pleasing accidents. The personal beauty of her younger years, long retained and not even at the end of such a stretch of life quite lost; the exquisite native tone and mode of appeal, which anciently we perhaps thought a little “precious,” but from which the distinctive and the preservative were in time to be snatched, a greater extravagance supervening; the signal sweetness of temper and lightness of tact, in fine, were things that prepared together the easy and infallible exercise of what I have called her references. It adds greatly to one’s own measure of the accumulated years to have seen her reach the age at which she could appear to the younger world about her to “go back” wonderfully far, to be almost the only person extant who did, and to owe much of her value to this delicate aroma of antiquity.
Annie’s husband James died in 1881, after which she retired for a while from public life, and her friend, author Sarah Orne Jewett, moved in with her. Once Annie began returning to public life, hosting friends and family at her salon in Boston, Sarah moved out. However, the two women began a “Boston Marriage,” living and traveling together six months of the year, until Sarah died in 1909. The term Boston Marriage referred to two usually independently wealthy women living together, who were not seeking marriage to a man. Some Boston Marriages are now thought to have been romantic, some are not.
As a widow living part of the year with Sarah, Annie continued writing her diaries, especially about her travels. Her descriptions of the places she visited and the people she observed or met there are just as riveting as her earlier writings about her literary friends. On a trip to the Bahamas with Sarah in 1896, she wrote a few lines about a beautiful girl who must have lived near to their hotel.
A young girl in a white muslin dress with two or three gentlemen of varying hues of complexion especially attracted me. The soft olive tint of her skin and the real charm she possessed of manner as well as of face compelled me to turn an instant in her direction whenever the least chance offered itself. She made the whole place instinct with native comeliness of expression to which we were only led up by the soft air, the hibiscus blossoms, the almond trees and the delicate stains of color on the walls and the gates and towers where they were seen peeping out between or above the foliage.
And the next day:
There was a little table there and coffee after dinner, and a mandolin and a Celtic singer—while we strolled about not too near, fascinated by the pretty scene—the tinkling of the strings and above all by the pretty girl. Later she bade farewell to a gentleman in the hall below. The manner was incomparable. I am sure Juliet did no better for her Romeo in public!
Annie Adams Fields, 1890, John Singer Sargent
In his Atlantic Monthly piece on Annie, Henry James also wrote this about her later years:
I have but to recall the dawn of those associations that seemed then to promise everything, and the last declining ray of which rests, just long enough to be caught, on the benign figure of Mrs. Fields, of the latter city, recently deceased and leaving behind her much of the material out of which legend obligingly grows. She herself had the good fortune to assist, during all her later years, at an excellent case of such growth, for which nature not less than circumstance had perfectly fitted her—she was so intrinsically charming a link with the past and abounded so in the pleasure of reference and the grace of fidelity. She helped the present, that of her own actuality, to think well of her producing conditions, to think better of them than of many of those that open for our wonderment to-day: what a note of distinction they were able to contribute, she moved us to remark, what a quality of refinement they appeared to have encouraged, what a minor form of the monstrous modern noise they seemed to have been consistent with!
