By Susan Martin, Collection Services

In this post, I’d like to introduce you to a remarkable person from one of our manuscript collections: Frances Elizabeth Gray. Elizabeth, as she was called, was born on 2 July 1811, the oldest child of Henry and Frances (Pierce) Gray, and spent most of her life in Roxbury, Mass.

What makes Elizabeth so remarkable? Her story begins with the tragic and premature death of her mother. Frances Pierce had been just 16 years old when she married Elizabeth’s father Henry in 1810. Twenty years later, just three days after giving birth to a daughter Anna Ellen, she died. She had delivered sixteen children, three of whom died in infancy. With Frances gone and Henry working as a merchant far away in New York, their daughter Elizabeth found herself with twelve—that’s right, twelve—younger siblings to raise. She was 18 years old.

Her siblings were: William (17 years old), John (16), Henry, Jr. (14), Caroline (12), Charles (11), Lydia (10), Mary (8), Frederick (6), Arthur (5), Frances (4), Horatio (15 months), and Anna Ellen (3 days). The Grays received some support from uncles, but the day-to-day care of the family fell on young Elizabeth’s shoulders.

Her diaries begin with entries describing her mother’s death and the events that followed:

1830. On Monday, March 22d, my mother died; was buried on Saturday 27th, the funeral delayed in consequence of my father’s absence, who did not arrive till a few hours, after it had taken place; he had gone to New-York on Saturday, 20th, on business, but being informed of my mothers illness, immediately returned, but was not aware of her death, till he arrived home.

Sat. eve. 27. A scene of trouble. I will not attempt to describe it.

Sunday, April 11th. Horatio, aged 15. mos, & Anna Ellen, the baby, born March 19; were christened; all the children were present, making thirteen.

Anna Ellen put out to nurse, March 22d to Mrs Moncrief.

Henry Gray returned to business in New York and frequently wrote to Elizabeth with news and advice. I was prepared to dislike Henry for his absenteeism, but his letters demonstrate a respect for his daughter that impressed me. He almost always deferred to her in matters related to the children. He wrote with genuine affection and regard for her happiness, as well as confidence in her judgment. For example: “I approve your measures, not only what you have done, but what you may do.”

The rest of the correspondence consists primarily of letters to Elizabeth from her brothers William, John, and Henry, Jr. In the 1830s, the boys were living in various Massachusetts towns, where they were educated and trained for professions. My favorite correspondent, by far, is John. He often wrote to Elizabeth with desperate pleas for money, clothing, and other items, and when she sent them, he was effusive in his gratitude. Here’s part of letter dated 25 Oct. 1831:

I shall simply say I have received what you promised: viz bundle and moneys. A thousand thanks—best feelings—memorys of you—none wrecked. Indeed you have been a second mother. May the Father of Mercies, direct the early beginning of such charity, to terminate in your own personal happiness! I address him for you; for you especially, peculiarly, emphatically for you.

John’s life also ended prematurely, which adds to the pathos of his letters. He was studying law, but struggled with financial and emotional problems. After a failed effort to establish himself in the west, the 23-year-old John was found dead in a hotel in Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) on the morning of 21 Mar. 1837, almost seven years to the day after his mother’s death. He’d taken a fatal dose of opium.

Caption: The last letter in the collection from John Gray, written in Wheeling.

The collection includes many letters related to John’s death, as the family struggled to come to terms with it. Henry felt that John had been the most gifted of his children, and his death was an “irreparable loss.” An inquest established that John had not died by suicide, and Dr. Eoff of Wheeling provided more details on his state of mind in the last days. In a letter to Elizabeth, he explained that John had suffered from delusions and took the opium as a curative:

He believed that one or more living animals were within him & consuming his heart, liver, &c &c & imagined that he could hear them singing &c. These impressions produced great depression of spirits & kept him continually anxious to take some medicine to remove them.

As for the other Gray siblings, my research turned up only the barest outlines of their lives. Elizabeth herself lived to be 82, but never married, though she received offers. In later life, she lived with her youngest sister Anna Ellen and helped care for her nephew, William Gray Brooks. He remembered his aunt Elizabeth fondly, writing: “I owe to her unselfish devotion and love whatever I am or know.”

Another moving tribute appears in a letter to Elizabeth from her troubled brother John, written on 16 Sep. 1834:

You say little to me of Futurity; perhaps you speak the less, because you feel the more. You have acquired fame enough. To illustrate your virtues and tenderness I point to twelve brothers and sisters. Let me partake of your advice often, that my gratitude may be strengthened, if it be capable of it.

By by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we rejoin our anonymous female diarist as she journeys down the Nile in the winter of 1914-1915. You can read previous installments of this series here (introduction) here (Cairo to Aysut) and here (Aysut to Asswan).

What strikes me about the diary entries for 6-10 December 1914 is that while our American traveler is describing mural reliefs, shopping at outdoor markets, and visiting luxury resorts, Europe is settling in for the first winter of the Great War. During the first week of December, the Austrian army captured Belgrade and the British-Indian army was moving across Mesopotamia toward the Ottoman empire. The Great War YouTube series provides a nine-minute synopsis of the week’s events in newscast form.

Meanwhile, on the Nile:

Dec. 6. Arrived at Komumbu about 10  & walked to temple a few steps away. Temple dedicated to 2 deities, each deity had his own special worship & festivals so there are really 2 temples; the temple was divided & each side had its own gateways, doors & chapels. Crocodiles were worshipped here. Mural reliefs especially beautiful. Fine view of Nile country from temple. After lunch reached Asswan about 3. Took boats from ship & went first to Elephantine island to see the Nilometer & some ancient ruins; then sailed round island by Cataract Hotel to mainland & went through the Bazar with the [illegible word]. Got back to ship for late tea & had fine sunset coming back.

Dec 7. At 9.30 took boat to ships – visited shops & bought [illegible word], then went up to Cataract Hotel & looked at views. Got back just for lunch. Saw Eatons at hotel, who asked us to lunch P.M. At 2.30 went ashore with Miss Phelps took carriages & road out on desert to granite quarries & Bisharin camp where the natives danced for us on the sand. Saw horses raced [illegible] we had to get out and go in other carriages. Lunch in the [illegible word] . Got back for tea after 5. Then packed.

The entry of 7 December 1914 is the first time that local Egyptians, in this case the Beja people of southern Egypt and northern Sudan, have appeared in our narrator’s diary. The portrait of a group of anonymous Bisharin (a subgroup of the Beja people) which appears above, comes from the contemporaneous travel narrative Along the Nile with General Grant by Elbert E. Farman (1904). Farman’s description of the community which he and General Grant visited, like that of our diarist, situates the Bisharin as local color: “It is here that they are best seen in their real native character, habits and dress … Here was the simplicity of nature” (220-221). The brief appearance of the Bisharin in our diarist’s narrative underscores the overall absence of interaction with local Egyptians. Like many tourists today, our diarist’s focus on the ancient history and landscape of the places she passes through renders the inhabitants an often indistinguishable part of the backdrop.

Dec 8. Had early breakfast & left boat at 8.30. Took boat to train & then trains  to [illegible phrase] & there we left our party & went on board the Prince Albert sailing at 9.30 After lunch visited temple of Dendur a very small temple built by Augustus. Later, almost at sunset, landed in boats & visited temple of Gerf-Hosein. Had magnesium light to see inside. In the center some pillars [illegible phrase] burial figures of Ramses II. [illegible phrase] statues of King there [illegible phrase]. Quite dark going back to boat.

Dec. 9. Arrived soon after breakfast at Wadi Sabou & went ashore to visit temple. An [illegible word] of sphinxes leading to the temple. Soon after lunch went ashore again to see temple of Amadu – then at sunset reached Kaer-[illegible word] & climbed to top of ruined fort or castle for the view. Stopped here for the night.

Dec. 10. Reached Abu Simbel just before lunch & after it went ashore & saw the temple – with 4 statues of Ramses II outside 66 ft high – then at the right temple dedicated to his wife. Hathor & his wife. The front ornamented with statues of the king, his wife & some of his children. After dinner went back to see it by moonlight.  Were called at 4.30 A.M. to see [illegible phrase] temple hewn in rocks, to 185 ft deep.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in our diarist’s travels, to be posted mid-June. And, as always, you are welcome to access the diaries for yourself here in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s library reading room. 

By Dan Hinchen

The Brontosaurus is one of the most easily identified dinosaurs in popular culture. Just think about Little Foot, the main character in the animated movie, The Land Before Time, or about Fred Flintstone chowing down on a brontosaurus burger.

Despite this popularity, since 1903 this animal has officially been considered a non-entity. Rather than representing a singular genus of dinosaur, it was believed that the available fossils were actually those of a species of Apatosaurus, that archaeologists misidentified the bones. Thus, the lone species of the genus, Brontosaurus excelsus, was reassigned as A. excelsus.

Earlier this month, though, some members of the scientific community turned an about-face and accepted that the two genera of dinosaur, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus, are distinct enough from one another to receive individual classification. Once again, Brontosaurus is a valid term. You can read more about the debate in nomenclature and cladistics in the articles listed at the end of this post.

So what does this have to do with the MHS?

Within our holdings is a publication created by Othniel Charles Marsh, the man credited with original identification and description of both the Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus, among many others. The Dinosaurs of North America (1896) is an extract from the 16^th annual report of the U.S. Geological Survey.

In this report, Marsh looks at three main time periods in turn, beginning with the Triassic period, then Jurassic, then Cretaceous. In each period he splits his descriptions among three distinct orders of dinosaurs: theropods, sauropods, and predentata. The first part of the book is devoted to narrative description. As he begins a new order of animal he gives brief and broad descriptions of typical characteristics and geographic dispersal. Then he gets more specific, identifying major families and genera within each order.

Theropods were typically bipedal and carnivorous. The most famous of all the theropod dinosaurs must be Tyrannosaurus rex. Marsh, however, looks at some of its smaller cousins that were located in North America, like the Allosaurs and Ceratosaurs.

Sauropods were large four-legged herbivores (mostly), characterized very generally by huge, barrel-shaped bodies with long slender tails and necks, and relatively small heads. It is into this order that the genera Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus fall. Other fairly well-known names in this type are the brachiosaurs and diplodocidae.

The third and most varied order handled by Marsh in this book are the predentata, now known more widely as ornithischia. This order contains the armored stegosaurs and ankylosaurs, the horned ceratopsians, and the duck-billed hadrosaurs.

Following all of this narrative information are dozens of plates featuring detailed drawings of skeletons and individual bones. All of the images in this post come from this volume and are a small sampling of those present.

Unfortunately, when searching our online catalog, ABIGAIL, this item is the only one that comes up under the subject Dinosaurs. Still this volume is wonderful look at the work which laid the foundation for our modern understanding of these long-extinct creatures. Do you have any favorites that appear here? What do you think of the potential resurrection of the Brontosaurus?

For further reading

– Choi, Charles. “The Brontosaurus is Back.” Scientific American (2015). Accessed April 25, 2015. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/

– Naish, Darren. “That Brontosaurus Thing.” Scientific American (2015). Accessed April 25, 2015. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2015/04/24/that-brontosaurus-thing/

– Switek, Brian. “Back to Brontosaurus? The Dinosaur Might Deserve Its Own Genus After All.” Smithsonian (2015). Accessed April 25, 2015.  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/back-brontosaurus-dinosaur-just-might-deserve-its-own-genus-species-science-180954892/?no-ist

By Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Image: Watercolor from A Nile Journal by Emily Horby (1908)

In the previous installment of An American Woman in Egypt, we left our narrator journeying south from Aysut by steamer. During the first week of December, the travelers continue down the Nile stopping at a number of archeological sites and luxury tourist resorts along the way. In this post, I have interleaved our anonymous diarist’s narrative with excerpts from a contemporary travel guide and published memoir describing the same locations.

Dec. 1. Had early breakfast, reached Denderah & went ashore there at 8.30. Took donkies [sic] & rode to Denderah Temple in 2 hours. Temple of Hathor.  Great vestibule of Pharaohs 24 columns with heads of Hathor. Went up on the roof for view. Got back for lunch. Just at tea time reached Luxor. Miss Goeller & we two went ashore with Dr. Hodson who took us over the Winter Palace Hotel & gardens. Then we walked out to Luxor temple & looked at ships.

Dec. 2. Started on donkies at 9.30 & rode to Karnak. Very hot day. Saw temple of Kurnah then rode dromedaries little way to temple of Ammon. Finally went on top for view and got home just before one p.m. Very warm & slept after lunch; had tea at 4 & then went out to see Luxor temple. A beautiful sunset & we stayed behind to see the color on the water then went to Winter Palace & P.O.

 A short distance from the river, on the west bank, a little to the north of the village of Denderah, stands the Temple of Denderah, which marks the site of the classical Tentyra or Tentyris … where the goddess Hathor was worshipped. … The wonderfully preserved Temple now standing there is probably not older than the beginning of our era; …hence it must be considered as the architectural product of a time when the ancient Egyptian traditions of sculpture were already dead and nearly forgotten. It is, however, a majestic monument worthy of careful examination.
—The Nile: Notes for Travellers in Egypt, 9th edition (London: Thos. Cook & Son, 1905).

Dec. 3. Breakfast at 7.30, left at 8.30 & sailed across to W. bank where we took donkies & road to mortuary chapel of Sethos I. Then rode on to tombs of Kings & reached 4 — Ramses IX – Ramses VI – Sethor I – Amenophis II – then walked up over hill for view & down to rest-house for lunch. At 2 walked to temple of Darr El-Bahre of Queen Hatsh[epsut]. Then rode back to river & took boats home in time for tea. After it went to buy cards.

Dec. 4 – Early breakfast at 7.30. Left at 8 & rode first to ruins of Rames great temple of Ramses Srenk II, then road to temples of Derr-El-Medenah, judgement halls of Osiris, & temple of Ramses III. … finest in Egypt. Passed Colosses of Memmon (Amenophsis III) on way back to boat. Got back to steamer just for lunch. P.M. took pad[dle] on Nile for 1 hr with Miss Phelps & Miss Marell, mailed my Christmas cards after tea went to Hotel [illegible phrase] walked along shore to see sunset, then went into shops.

Came to a lovely grove of palm trees, where we lunched. Donkeys arrived…and we had a very pleasant ride on to Karnak, a good way further. Pigeons flying in clouds over fields. Must be very destructive, but picturesque. Soon the obelisk was seen in the distance, and at last we came to the avenue of the sphinxes, which has only been lately thoroughly uncovered. Enormous creatures, each with a little figure on their knees.
—A Nile Journal by E. H. [Emily Hornby] (Liverpool: J.A. Thompson, 1908)

Dec. 5. Sailed very early from Luxor & about 10 arrived at Esna after going thro’ a lock. Walked to the temple, as it was very near. Temple of Khnum goat-headed local deity. Pronave 24 columns in 6 rows with different floral capitals – similar to  of temple Hathor at Denderah. From there sailed on & reached Edfou about 3, took donkeys & some walked to the temple of Horus, best preserved ancient temple in the world. A great [?] & we went to top up a dark stairway for view 242 steps. Crest surrounded on 3 sides by colonnade of 32 columns in the different floral (^ & palm) capitals [illegible phrase] wall also decorated. In evening we had a lecture on the Nile by the doctor. Got back from temple for tea.

Side-by-side it is possible to see how the genre of travel writing, published and unpublished, often contains strikingly similar observations, despite differences in tone (the Cook’s authoritative, the Hornby self-consciously poetic in her descriptions). It is likely that our diarist would have read one or more commercially-published travel guide before or during her tour, and it is clear that Dr. Hodson, mentioned in the December 5 entry above, mediates her interpretation of the archeological sites the group encounters. 

In two weeks we will continue our journey down the Nile. In the meantime, I encourage you to explore the lavish watercolor illustrations and personable narration of Emily Hornby’s Nile Journal at Internet Archive.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

With all the coverage of the Tsarnaev trial here in Boston, I’m reminded of another case that rocked the city 165 years ago: the murder of George Parkman in Nov. 1849. Harvard Medical College lecturer John White Webster, who owed Parkman a significant sum of money, was accused of killing him and attempting to destroy his body by burning it in a furnace. Webster was convicted on 30 Mar. 1850 and sentenced to execution by hanging. The gruesome nature of the crime and the high social standing of both men meant that not just all of Boston, but the entire country, was riveted.

The story has been covered so well and so thoroughly by others that I won’t go into the details of the case, but I was curious about contemporary reactions to the crime and the trial. Manuscript collections at the MHS give us a nice cross-section of opinions. For example, the day after the verdict came down, a young woman named Harriet Hayward wrote in her diary:

Has been a dismal day. Poor Dr Webster is pronounced guilty; the verdict was brought in last night, and we heard of it this morning. I have felt fairly sick today, and totally unfit to take charge of a class at Sunday school. What a barbarous and wicked law! A man taken from his wife and children to be put in prison for a short time, and afterwards hung [sic], while the family is made wretched. When a poor man is once fairly shut up in prison, and not able to say a word for himself, all kinds of stories are circulated about him, that have no foundation. If I were a person of some importance and could say or do any thing to save his life I would do it, but I feel my own insignificance now more than ever. I hope mercy will be shown him in another world.

It’s unclear to me what Hayward thought of Webster’s guilt or innocence, but she certainly objected to the sentence of death, and her reaction was not atypical. Letters started pouring into Massachusetts Governor George N. Briggs’ office from all over the country petitioning for clemency for Webster. Some argued he was innocent, that he had not received a fair trial, or that the evidence against him was circumstantial. (One anonymous letter claims Webster couldn’t possibly have committed the crime because the writer did it himself!) Others accepted his guilt but opposed capital punishment on religious or moral grounds. Many called the murder unpremeditated and believed Webster was sincerely penitent.

The prosecutor in the case, John H. Clifford, was exhausted after the trial. He wrote in a letter on 2 Apr. 1850, “The long agony is over, and I am once more by my own hearth stone, trying to restore the equilibrium which two weeks straining of my entire being has deranged & disturbed. […] I cannot help feeling this trial to have been a great crisis in my life.” He called Webster “almost soulless” and was satisfied with the outcome, but pitied the man’s family.

Webster’s wife Harriet and their four daughters steadfastly maintained his innocence and banished any who doubted it from their Cambridge home, but some extended family members were unconvinced. Harriet’s sister Amelia (Hickling) Chambers Nye had no trouble believing Webster guilty. In letters written between June 1850 and Feb. 1851, Nye made her case against her brother-in-law. In fact, she had suspected him all along:

Is it not strange that when Eliza and I saw the first advertisement about Dr. P’s disappearance and Dr. Webster being the last person who saw him the thought struck us both that he knew more of his disappearance. The same thing struck both sister Prescott and Susan and Emma so that every one who knew him best, suspected him first. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving he went to Mrs. Cunningham’s to a party, a lady said to him so Dr. you were the last person who saw Dr. Parkman what if you should be suspected. He immediately replied, “what do you think I look like a murderer?” and went on talking about something else.

In her long, somewhat rambling letters, Nye described the Websters’ financial problems, her brother-in-law’s “bad qualities,” and other heinous crimes she believed he’d committed years before. She thought Harriet and the children were deluded. Since they refused to read the papers, they were unaware that “one half the people in Boston believe it was a premeditated act.” Much of what Nye wrote was hearsay and rumor, but her animosity toward Webster is unmistakable. His penitence was feigned, she claimed. His family would be better off without him, and even execution would be preferable to the shame of life imprisonment, a fate she described as “a living death to all of them.”

After his conviction, John White Webster confessed to killing George Parkman in a fit of rage over the debt. He also wrote to Francis Parkman, George’s brother, asking for forgiveness. Gov. Briggs, however, did not commute his sentence, and Webster was hanged on 30 Aug. 1850. Boston merchant Frederic Cunningham read a description of the execution in the newspaper and wrote about it in his diary, commending Webster’s self-possession: “He walked firmly to the scaffold & fell 8 feet.” According to Cunningham, the people of Boston were “better disposed towards him” after his death.

Though opinions were sharply divided, the case held an undeniable fascination. Three weeks after the trial, in spite of her horror at the verdict, young Harriet Hayward and some friends visited the Harvard Medical College laboratory where the crime had taken place. Amelia Nye’s friend Miss Jennison told her that “she never saw so many carriages in Cambridge before. They rode round the square purposely to look at the [Websters’] house.” As for Nye, she wrote of John White Webster, “I cannot help shuddering when I think of him.”

By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers

Over the last few weeks the Logan Act, a bill passed by Congress and signed by President John Adams in late January 1799 has been widely discussed in the national news. Here at the Adams Papers, work has just begun on Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13, in which Dr. George Logan, whose actions provoked this legislation, is a major topic of conversation for the Adamses on both sides of the Atlantic.

In September 1798, tensions between France and the United States were running high. The specter of war loomed large as the revelation of France’s bribery attempt in the XYZ Affair and continued attacks on American vessels led to a buildup of American armed and naval forces with growing chants of “millions for defense, but not a sixpence for tribute.” It was in this climate that from their place in Berlin, John Quincy and Thomas Boylston Adams reported on the arrival of Logan in Europe. John Quincy detailed that Logan was claiming to be an envoy representing the Democratic-Republican Party, which opposed John Adams’s administration. At first refused a passport into France, Logan continued to represent himself as officially representing the United States while waiting in the Netherlands, and was eventually granted permission to enter France and given audiences with members of the French government to discuss the differences between the two nations. Thomas summarized his views on Logan—“a villain & a traitor to his Country.”

After Logan returned to the United States in November, he met with President Adams to discuss what he had learned from his meetings with the French government and to convince Adams that the French had peaceful intentions. Abigail’s nephew, William Smith Shaw, serving as John’s secretary, reported to the First Lady, who had remained in Quincy: “[Logan] then said, that he had just come from France and that he had the pleasure to inform the president that the directory had altered their conduct respecting America and had become more pacifick. Why then, said the president, have they not repealed their decrees against our commerce? here Logan stammered and said they were making preparations to do it.” John next asked if Logan believed that France would faithfully maintain a new treaty with the US, and he answered affirmatively claiming “the firm and united conduct of the Americans had proved to the directory the impolicy of their conduct.” Shaw reported that this response made John “burst into a broad laugh.” Adams continued his questioning, as Logan became increasingly uncomfortable until he “seemed to want some lurking place like the Turtle to draw in his head and to hide his face.” From this report, Abigail ultimately concluded in a letter to her husband that Logan was “more fool than Knave.”

Whether fool or knave, hero or villain, the Federalist controlled Congress had no patience with his meddling and passed the act prohibiting unauthorized private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States. The law has been in force ever since.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

As a manuscript processor here at the MHS, I have the opportunity to meet new people every day. Well, okay, most of them died a long time ago, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting! One of the best parts of processing and cataloging a new collection is getting to know the personal stories behind the letters, diaries, and other papers. I almost always uncover something unexpected.

Case in point: a small collection recently donated to the MHS consists primarily of letters written by Sarah Louisa “Louly” (Hickman) Smith to her sister Anna Maria. Now, I knew that Louly had become a published poet in her teens before her untimely death at the age of 20, and her letters reveal a remarkable young woman. But I was also curious about Anna Maria. The collection contains letters written to her, but none by her, so she seemed more elusive.

The first clue I had about her life was her name. She was born Anna Maria Campbell Hickman on 23 July 1809. Simple enough so far, but it gets trickier. She married three times (and outlived all her husbands): first a Mr. Otis, then Mr. Mead, and finally Mr. Chalmers. For those of you at home keeping score, that would make her Anna Maria Campbell Hickman Otis Mead Chalmers. (She’s generally referred to as Anna Maria Mead Chalmers.)

The more I learned about Anna Maria’s life, the more interesting it became. Originally from Newton, Mass., she studied under some of the best teachers in the Boston area and spent a year with an aunt and uncle in Savannah, Ga. before marrying a young Boston lawyer named George Alexander Otis, Jr. in Feb. 1830. Unfortunately her husband died of consumption the following year when their son was only seven months old. George’s death was followed closely by that of her beloved sister Louly on 12 Feb. 1832.

In the mid-1830s, Anna Maria lived in Newton with her mother and young son (her father had died in 1824) and wrote several children’s books for the American Sunday-School Union. She met and married the Rev. Zachariah Mead, a Virginian, moving with him to Richmond in 1837. The couple had two sons and a daughter: Edward C., William Z., and Anna Louisa Mead. Zachariah died (also of consumption) on 27 Nov. 1840, and Anna Maria, still just 31 years old, was now twice widowed and the mother of four young children.

For about a year, she took over Zachariah’s editorship of the Southern Churchman, to which she had often contributed, before selling the paper and embarking on arguably the most significant chapter of her life. On 4 Oct. 1841, she opened a boarding school for girls in Richmond, which she would run for 12 years to great acclaim. During her tenure, hundreds of girls were educated in subjects as wide-ranging as history, literature, theology, the sciences, mathematics, languages, music, art, etc., all in accordance with Christian principles. An 1842 advertisement in the Southern Literary Messenger described the school’s mission this way: “to form the female character for its high duties here and its still higher destination hereafter.” Anna Maria also continued to write devotional fiction and articles.

Tragedy struck again when her youngest child and only daughter, three-year-old Anna Louisa Mead, died on 4 Dec. 1843. Her mother followed four years later. So, by the 1850s, Anna Maria had buried her parents, her sister, two husbands, and a daughter. She retired as schoolmistress of “Mrs. Mead’s School” and, on 3 Jan. 1856, at the age of 46, married her third husband, David Chalmers. He was a widower and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and he owned a large Halifax County plantation.

As a wealthy planter, David Chalmers was, unsurprisingly, an enslaver, and Anna Maria became “a true Virginia matron.” How did she feel about the South’s so-called “peculiar institution”? According to her son Edward in his comprehensive 1893 biography, she opposed slavery and often spoke out against it, but took no active part in the fight for abolition. She preferred to leave the matter to God. And while her husband advocated secession, she dreaded the coming war between the states. With very good reason, it turned out: the Civil War would find her with one son serving in the Union army, another in the Confederate army, and all of her northern property under threat of confiscation.

Her oldest son, George Alexander Otis (1830-1881), was a surgeon with the 27th Massachusetts Volunteers and the U.S. Volunteers. Her third and youngest son, William Zachariah Mead (1838-1864), fought for the Confederacy and was killed on 14 May 1864 in the Battle of Resaca, Ga.

Anna Maria traveled north in 1863 to protect her property there and stayed in New York until the end of the war. In 1865, she returned to Virginia, where she would spend years helping the poor, educating formerly enslaved people, and writing. She died on 8 Dec. 1891, outliving her third husband by 16 years and her oldest son George by ten, and survived by only one of her children, Edward Campbell Mead (1837-1908).

In her 82 years of life, Anna Maria Mead Chalmers was many things: a writer, an editor, a teacher, a philanthropist; a sister, a mother, and the wife (and widow) of a lawyer, a minister, and a farmer; a Northerner and a Southerner. It’s remarkable to find so much of American history all rolled up into one person!