 |
| The Emery Homestead in Buxton, Maine |
Every
once in a while I get email from someone who finds a “cousin connection” to my
family tree via my blog. Sometimes they
send me interesting stories, but this time it was so fascinating that I wanted
to post it on my blog. Emery Schweig of
Danbury, Connecticut connected to me through our common ancestor Anthony Emery (1601
– 1680) of Newbury, Dover, Kittery and Portsmouth. Her grandmother Annie Eliza Jose was born in
Buxton, Maine which was settled by Emery descendants. Emery
introduced herself in her email as my “one millionth cousin”, but if I figured
out the kinship correctly we are eighth cousins.
This
memoir was written in 1930 by Annie Eliza (Jose) Crane when she was 74 years
old. It was a letter to her son Walter
Sanger Crane, who was Emery’s great uncle.
Annie was born in Buxton on 28 February 1846 and died in Brookline,
Massachusetts on 29 January 1941. Emery
was especially proud to share Annie Eliza’s proto-feminist attitudes and
abolitionist beliefs. She was also
amused by the Annie Eliza's views on religious differences.
If you
also find a “cousin connection” to this lineage, please leave a comment for
Emery on this blog post. I’ll make sure
she sees all the messages.
Here is
Emery Schweig’s lineage:
Anthony
Emery m. Frances (our common 9th
great grandparents)
James Emery
m. Elizabeth (our common 8th great grandparents)
James
Emery m. Margaret Hitchcock (I descend
from James Emery’s sister, Sarah Thompson)
Thomas
Emery m. Susannah Hill
Thomas
Emery m. Hannah Harmon (lived in the
house pictured above)
Sally
Emery m. Alexander Jose
Mark
Emery Jose
Annie
Eliza Jose m. Joshua Crane
Mary
Crane
Louis
McClennen
Emery
McClennen Schweig
------------------------------
The year
of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Thirty
Dear
Walter:
I was
born in the town of Buxton, Maine, a small village fifteen miles from
Portland. I well remember the house, as
it stood for many years after I was married.
It was on the road to Saco, a modest little home.
I think
I must have a good memory, as I do remember sleeping in a trundle bed which was
pulled out from under the high bed where my parents slept.
My
father ran a stagecoach from the town of Limington to Portland. This was the only means of transportation in
those days.
I was
born on the twenty-eighth of February 1846, and I think I must have been about
three years old when my parents moved to Portland, as being more convenient for
his occupation. I must have been knowing
what happened in the next three years, as I remember about the house we lived
in on Brown Street off Congress, the main thoroughfare of Portland. It had a yard and shed which I used to play
in. I remember perfectly one night when
my mother undressed me for bed, of her leaving only my little chimmy on me and
of dancing and singing for the amusement of my mother’s sisters who were
visiting her.
My
father was taken seriously ill with an attack of cholera Morbus and was always
a delicate man after that, and died when I was twelve years old. But in spite of the drawbacks of weakness he
was evidently a man of ambition, and so he was obliged to give up the stage
driving he went into the hotel business, as he knew many people who had
traveled with him on the stagecoach.
The
first house was called the Casco House (Indian name of that vicinity) a small
hotel back of where is now (or was the last time I went on Middle Street) a
main business street of Portland, the Casco Bank.
There
was a path or road, which led up to the Hotel, and there my father began his
hotel life.
We had a
number of regular boarders who used to pet me a good deal. I had a little bank they used to put pennies
into. My mother was very helpful in the
business, looking after the kitchen and care of the building. A very capable woman.
We must
have been there only a year or so, as Pa (we always said Pa and Mother) moved
into a larger house on Congress Street on a corner of Elm Street. I think his former boarders must have gone
with him, as well as having transients, and he was apparently, from what Mother
told me, doing a lucrative business.
This was called the American House.
We were
there only a short time as the house and stable were burned down. I remember perfectly that night. My sisters Mary and Sarah had a party of
young people in our rooms, which were on the corner of the house. I was allowed to stay up, and after the young
people had left (hours must have been earlier then) I went down to the office
to get a drink of water. The clerk,
named John Crocker (I always called him Johnny Trotter, and remember him
perfectly, as he always petted me) was just helping me when he looked out of
the window which was overlooking the stable on Elm Street, and cried “My God,
the stable is on fire”. I remember it
perfectly. I ran upstairs and told
Mother, and she at once began to gather belongings. I remember perfectly well she had just had a
tippet muff of Fitch fur, which she was bound should be saved. I remember of seeking her throwing things out
of the windows on the sidewalk, and think people must have been very honest in
those days, as I do not remember that we lost things. The house must have been of wooden construction,
as most of the city was built of wood, as it burned quickly, and many houses
were burned. Our good neighbors and
friends of the United States Hotel on the corner diagonally opposite, took us
in but my Father at once began to plan, and we went down for a few months to a
small hotel opposite the original Station House of the Boston and Maine R. R.
on Fore Street. I don’t seem to remember
anything of our sojourn there, but Pa got a chance to go to Bath, Maine and
take charge of a hotel there, called Sagadahoe House, an Indian name.
I
remember perfectly well that hotel and our rooms. And it was there that Pa had our crayon
portraits done by a Boston artist named Alfred Ordway. I can remember perfectly well sitting in a
high chair for him, and when he thought I would be tired keeping so still,
would tell me to get down and run about in the hall. I was then about six years old.
I
remember that Tom Thumb, the famous dwarf, was then going about the country,
and that I sat beside him on the sofa, as he was staying there with his
manager; and of seeing his little pair
of Shetland ponies drawing about a gay carriage, with him driving. An advertisement of course.
I think
we only stayed there about a year or a little over, as Pa wanted to get back to
Portland, and we went to the Elm House when he was, as he always seemed to be,
successful. He evidently had a faculty
of making friends, and kept a good hotel.
I think
we must have been there about two years when his health gave out, and he, with
three other men whom we knew, built a block of four wooden houses on Congress
Square. We had the corner house on
Congress and High Streets. They were
built on leased land, which was to run for 99 years, and belonged to the Preble
family. The block is still there, in a
very dilapidated condition. Pa always
kept a horse and carriage, and I used to go out with him near Portland to see
Madam Preble on business. Our horse was
white and named “Romeo”, - a beauty.
Just
before the Civil War Jefferson Davis came to Portland visiting a family who
were Democrats. I can see him now as he
passed our house - a tall, thin man, wearing a tall hat and a frock coat. It was said afterwards that he came North to
find out about the forts in our harbor.
One
episode before my Father died was rather interesting. I was about eleven years old. Mother was a strong Abolitionist and Pa a
Democrat. When Buchanan was elected,
there was a great torchlight procession, and Pa had the whole front of the
house lighted up with small candles in little tin frames stuck i every pane of
glass. But Mother stayed in a dark room
at the back of the house, refusing to see the procession. Pa stood on the sidewalk, setting off Roman
candles, and almost ruined a new overcoat with the sparks. Mother was so provoked.
Pa was
never able to do much, but he had the reputation of being the smartest of the
three brothers, and though only forty-six years old when he died, in spite of
having moved so many times, he had managed to accumulate enough to leave his
family a home and modest income. Mother
was a helpful and most prudent wife, and much of their success was due to her,
an untiring worker.
As girls
did not go out to work, as they do now, Mother, recognizing that we three girls
had musical ability, had us all take lessons.
Mary sang alto in the Unitarian Church quartette. Sarah with a fine soprano voice, married, and
at sixteen I sang alto in a quartette choir in the Park Street Church, and got
$1.00 a Sunday, which looked big to me, as girls could not earn money except as
teachers - the only vocation open to them.
Mother
always said she moved about fifteen times in as many years, and we three girls
were born in different places.
Sarah
married unhappily and got a divorce from an unworthy man, and went to Boston
and got a position in church with a good salary. We left Portland and went to Boston, where
Mary married Oliver Hooper.
Then we
sang in a quartette choir in Boston.
After that Sarah had an offer to go to Brooklyn at a salary of
$1,000.00, big for those days. She
wanted me to come on and spend a winter in New York, and we both took lessons
of an Italian teacher. Then I came back
to Boston, and got a position as alto in a quartette choir at $400, a fine
salary for those days. Then, when I
married, I gave it up, and we moved to Brookline, where you two boys were born,
a small house nearly opposite the one which your father bought, which you will
always remember as your home in Brookline, when you went to school, and after
that, to college. I think Sybil was born
in the same house.
I
remember my father taking me to a circus, which was on just about the spot
where Richard (Dr.) Small now lives.
There was only a big pasture there, extending down to the Oaks, now a
city park. The pasture was called
“Dernings” and was owned by that family.
When
Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, came over here about 1858, with Lord
Melbourne, he made a tour of many of our States, and, on its conclusion, went
aboard a ship for England, at Portland.
With other young girls, I chased the procession all over the city to see
a real Prince. I had a small photo of
him, and when I sold my house in Dedham in 1927, I came across it. It was so like the present Prince, and I
brought it to Washington, went to the Embassy and asked to see an
official. A very pleasant attache’ came,
and looked at it, and said he was sure the Prince would be glad to see it. So I wrote a proper description and it was
forwarded. I was much pleased to receive
a note from his secretary Lacelles, saying the prince was very glad to have it,
thanking me most sincerely.
BUXTON,
MAINE
My relatives on my Father’s side.
Alexander
Jose-------------------married-----------------------Sally Emery
Children:
Mark Emery Charles Edwin Sally Emery
Horatio Nelson Hannah Emily Motley
Abigail
Hannah
first married a Small and had two daughters.
Hannah afterwards married Henry McKenny of Lewiston, who had four
daughters. They had one daughter (or
two). John Perkins was the son of Martha
McKenney
Abigail
married Richard Small, and had two sons and two daughters, Horatio, John, Sally
and Abby.
Sarah
married Samuel T. Hooper.
My
Grandfather was a tall handsome man showing distinctly some Indian blood. Mother always said his Mother was a half
breed. She knew her.
Carleton
Small, who has been quite interested in genealogy, says this is not true that
she was of Scottish descent. But I feel
quite sure she had some Indian blood in her as two of Alexander’s children
Hannah and Horatio were distinctly of Indian type: tall, dark hair and eyes. The others being typical of Emery looks: fair, blue eyes, etc. Mark, Charles, Abigail, Emily, & Sarah.
Mother
says Grandfather and the other children and their children were terribly afraid
of her, and as she was confined to her chair, were very careful not to go near
her as she kept a cane by her side, and could use it, too. I really am quite proud of the story of part
Indian, and that I may claim some native American blood. It is not unlikely that one of her ancestors
marries an Indian or half-breed, as it was common enough in those days. At any rate Mother felt it was so, and that
there was some foundation for the assertion.
The two distinct types in Alexander’s children seemed good evidence to
me.
Grandfather
had a brother Richard who went to sea and Emily Porter has in Lancaster an
English pitcher which he brought home to Aunt Abby Small with her name on
it: Abigale Jose, quite a common thing
for sailors to do in those days. Merrill
Shurtleff told me he saw a similar one in the Salem Museum marked Jose that
could be easily seen there at any time.
I
remember my Grandfather Jose very well, as he paid us a visit to Portland every
year. I do not know what he did, but
suppose when he was young he was a farmer.
His house in the south part of Buxton was standing a few years ago, but
in a dilapidated condition. Sally Lu and
I went to Buxton a few years ago (also Priscilla, who drove us up). We went to this house and also to the Emery
house at Buxton lower corner, where Grandfather wooed and won Sally Emery. I used to go there when a child and young
woman. It was then occupied by Peter
Emery, Uncle of my Father and his wife Eliza Sands. She was also a niece of my Grandmother
Hanson. She was quite a favorite of
mine, being doubly related, was very voluble, and told me a good deal of the
Emery history. I wish I could remember
more of it, but she told me that Hannah Dustin of pre-revolution fame and who
was carried off by the Indians, but escaped from them, was a direct
ancestress. If true this would be very
interesting.
The
Emery cradle which Sybil Crane now has, I got from this house. Also the two banister-back chairs, one of
which I gave to Emery Crane in Westwood.
The Alexander Jose arm-chair and a box to hold papers which Grandfather
inherited, was given by Sally Ray to Alexander Crane, for his name. If I had known as much as I do now, and the
interest in preserving these recollections, I could have learned a great deal
more about the whole family from Aunt Eliza.
This she told me: the after the
Colonial Wars that an Emery, named Thomas, was paid off, no money being
available, with a lot of land in what was then Massachusetts and migrated there
from Newbury with his wife and children.
Buxton was divided into lots named Naragansett No’s 1, 2, etc. and his
was one of these. There he built a log
hut and Aunt Eliza took me out to see it, degenerated into a pig-sty. In the Autumn after housing his family, he
walked back to Dover through the woods over an Indian trail, and brought back
on his back two bags of corn, one to grind for food for his family, the other
for seed in the coming Spring.
The
house built by a later Emery is still in good condition, and is really quite a
good house, roomy and attractive. It has
passed on to other hands, but before that I got a tray there which I had
restored and gave to Katherine Kimball for a wedding present. There was a lovely knocker on the door, but
they would not part with it. This was
the house where Sally Emery was wooed by Grandfather. Evidently the family had grown more
prosperous by that time.
One of
Aunt Eliza’s daughters was Nancy, about my age.
She married a Libby of Moderation and lived until a few years ago. I always kept in touch with her and went to
see her when in Buxton. She left sons
and a daughter, Eliza, whom I also keep in touch with and send messages through
Alice Perry. She has been a school
teacher for many years, and took care of her Mother, and lives on the same road
as the Jose house. There are some very
good pieces of furniture there. I’ve
never known or seen the boys as they live elsewhere, but Eliza and I are quite
friendly cousins.
Aunt
Eliza told me that Isaac Emery, a brother of Sally, who lived in Boston, and
whom I used to go and see when I lived there had a chest which came over in the
Mayflower with the first Emery. When
Uncle Isaac and his first wife died, there was an auction of their belongings,
and in the advertisement in the paper this chest was mentioned. I wanted your Father (Joshua) to try and get
it but he was rather skeptical as to its authenticity, and took no
interest. I don’t know what became of
it. They had two sons, and I knew their
families at one time, but they have now passed out of my ken.
Eleanor
Reed, who married Royden Loring, went abroad with me in 1908. She was the daughter of Stephen Emery, a
cousin of William and George. She lives
in Harley Street, Dorchester, but I have not seen her for some time. Her married name is Loring. She has an Emery Aunt, who the last I knew,
lived in Hyannis.
To go
back to Alexander Jose, Sally Emery died and he afterwards married the widow of
a Dr. Bradbury, who had previously been married twice. One of her daughters by her first husband,
was Kate Douglass Wiggin, the writer of some note, and she and your Aunt Sarah
Hooper (Stevens?) always kept up a friendship, and in Buxton she is remembered
by her books in which many of the old families and residents are
mentioned. What made the widow Bradbury
marry Grandfather, I cannot imagine.
Perhaps his looks, as he was a handsome man. Anyhow it didn’t last long as they were
divorced. I think he must have married
her for a home, as the house at Salmon Falls on the Saco River is a fine old
Colonial type, and was kept by Kate Wiggin, now passed on. She named it “Quillcote”.
There
are many things worth remembering about the Emerys. I think some are in a little booklet I have
given you, written by Mrs. Samuel Hall of Brookline. One story was that in the time of persecution
of the Quakers in Massachusetts, two came to the town of Newbury, and no one
would give them a lodging. Our Emery
ancestor was liberal and fearless enough to give them food and a place to
sleep. The town officials were so
indignant that they fined Emery ten shillings for harboring Quakers. When the Quaker persecution passed over, the
town voted to give back the ten shillings.
Another Emery was made representative to the general court in
Boston. He was enormously stout and had
to wait till snow came when he was put in his big chair onto an ox sled and
taken to the court.
BUXTON
Going
back to Alexander Jose, after he was divorced from Mrs. Bradbury, he left
Buxton. My father had come into
possession of the farm in Guildhall in Vermont on the Connecticut River, and he
proposed to Grandfather and Richard Small, who had married my Aunt Abby, and
had four children: Horatio, Sally, John,
and Abby, should go up there. They moved
from Buxton in the winter, it being easier to move their belongings on an ox
sled. The family rode a sleigh. When they got about two miles, Horatio put
his head out from under the robes, and asked “Are we almost there?” They went up through Fryburg, Conway, and the
Notch. It was a lovely place, and I
spent many happy days there. I remember
how one day Abby and I went down to the river and went in bathing as there was
a nice sandbank at the lower end of the farm.
I think we must have gone in without much covering, as some boys came
down on the opposite bank and shouted they were coming over, which frightened
us terribly. We got out, seized our
clothes, and ran for our lives. Abby had
a hoop skirt, and being hard to carry through the cornfields, stopped and put
it on. I can see her now, running
through the corn, a narrow space, the hoop hitting the side every step. It of course bobbed up behind and it was too
funny to see her bare legs, however the boys did not come across, and Aunt Abby
put an end to our going down there anymore.
They had a flock of sheep, and Aunt Abby gave me a handful of salt and
told me I could have a lamb for my own if I could put salt on his tail. I chased one for a long time but couldn’t
succeed in doing it. What good times I
had there. The glorious White Mountain
Range could be seen across the meadows.
Aunt Abby was a dear. I can’t
remember that Grandfather ever did any work.
He used to come down to Portland and Buxton every year. Mother was always kind to him, but the
daughters-in-law didn’t like him enough to have a visit from him, but Grandpa,
although a devoted reader of the Bible, was what is now called a Universalist,
and believed that no one was damned after death. He was considered somewhat of a heretic, much
to Grandmother’s sorrow, as she was a devoted Baptist. I can remember seeing her on her knees
praying for the lost souls. Some of the
children followed Grandpa.
My
mother was the oldest of ten children.
She was named Dorcas Rebecca. You
have the sampler Mother made. The names
are: Dorcus Rebecca, Samuel Dunnell,
Ansel, Charles, Ann, Eliza, Almira, Emily, Zenas, and Alice. Grandpa Hanson was named Stephen.
Great-grandfather
Hanson was born in Buxton, October 4, 1871.
His name was Phineas. Mother
never said much about him or Great-Grandmother.
But they always came to visit every year from the lower part of
Buxton. Grandpa was a tailor by
trade. A that time they used to go
around to houses, and made the cloth up for men and boys, that was from their
own raising of sheep, and spun and woven into material. When Sam was about seventeen, his father sent
him to Boston to learn the trade; but
the family was poor of course. Zenus was
the only one who really had any education, graduated from Bowdoin, but that was
done by Sam, who was the Father of the family after Grandpa died. Sam came back from Boston with new ideas, and
opened a store with a tailor shop connected, in which, by an arrangement with a
Boston firm, he carried on a large business.
The women from all over the town came for the garments (cut in Boston)
to finish and return buying all their goods from the store. It was a boon to the farmer’s wives and
daughters who had never been able to earn money, so it was a benefit to the
whole town. When the Civil War broke
out, they did a big business in army clothing.
Uncle Sam, who never married, was devoted to his family, and all the
other children except Zenus, worked in some way for the shop. Uncle Ansel ran the store. He was a very fine looking man, taking after
Grandmother, the others smaller in build.
Grandmother
Hanson was the daughter of Joseph Dunnell.
He married Anna Woodman, a family of some position in the town. The name Anna comes down to me. It was corrupted into Anne and Annie, and I
have always regretted that I was Christened Annie, as I think Anna is so much
more dignified. The name Dunnell was
evidently Donald or even McDonald, but the town records in those days were
badly spelled, and so pronounced. They
were a tall fine-looking family, and Great-Grandfather had what was called the
finest farm in York County, now utterly gone to rack and ruin. My Great-Grandmother Anna, I, of course, do
not remember, but Mother was very proud of the connection with the Woodman
family who have made names for themselves in various ways.
My
Great-Grandfather, Thomas Emery, married Hannah Harmon - the mother of
Grandmother Sally Emery Jose. A brother
of Great-Grandma Hannah Hamon, also connected with the Dunnell’s on my Mother’s
side, a boy of seventeen when the Revolution broke out, walked all the way from
Buxton to Cambridge, where General Washington had his headquarters. He told the guards about the house, that he
wanted to see the General, but naturally they laughed at him, but he persisted,
saying he had come all that distance to see the General. Finally one of the men went in and told the
General who said, “Bring him in.” He was
pleased with the boy’s looks and courage and made him orderly for his
horses. He came out of the war
Major. Wasn’t that fine? There are descendants of the Woodman’s who
have made names for themselves in various ways.
One Cirus always kept a cousinly friendship with Mother, and also Aunt
Abby, whom he knew when they were young.
He lived in Cambridge the latter part of his life, and had one daughter,
Mary, who died there not long ago, over eighty years of age. Sorry I did not look her up, but her Father
(Cyrus Woodman) wrote the Woodman book, probably published in Portland. Of the Dunnell’s, one was a member of
Congress about twenty years ago, and when Alice Hanson was here in Washington
one winter we called on his wife. I
think they came from Minnesota.
Grandfather
Hanson had a sister Deborah, who married a Decker. We always called her Aunt Debby Decker. She lived on a farm in Hollis, which is
across the river from the town of Moderation.
When you were a little boy I took you down to Grandmother’s. I wonder if you have any recollection of
it. She died at the age of
seventy-six. I also took you up to Aunt
Deborah’s, and we stayed to supper. She
did all the cooking by the open fire. I
told you to remember that, as you might never have a chance to see it
again. (The biscuits were the toughest
ones outside of Middlesex School that could be imagined.) There were two spinning wheels in the room,
one large and one small, and there was an old crone sitting in the corner in
her rocking chair, smoking a pipe.
Shortly before Aunt Debbie died, she was baptized in the Saco River near
where she lived. Evidently “got
religion” late in life.
Mother
being the oldest was a worker (had to be a worker) and not only had to help
with the younger children, but with Uncle Sam used to go around to the farms
with Grandpa when he worked at his trade even when only six years old. Their part was pulling out the bastings, and
other simple work. She was always clever
with her needle and I think I have the same faculty. Only last summer when in Boston, I cut and
made for myself a dress for myself at eighty five years of age, simply to feel
I could do it, and have not lost my ability to work.
The life
at Grandmother’s must have been a very hard one with such a large family to
feed and clothe. I can remember
Mother’s telling me that when the hearth fire was banked up for the night
sometimes the coals did not last, and in the morning she would have to take a
tin box, kept for the purpose and run to neighbors to get some live coals. I can remember perfectly Grandmother cooking
by the open fire and the tin baker were the bread and meat was roasted. Also the brick oven where every Saturday
enough food to last the day following was cooked, as it was sinful to cook on
the Sabbath day. Pots of beans, pies,
brownbread, a wood fire, was started early Saturday morning in the oven, and
when things were ready to go in, the ashes were quickly swept out and the food
put in. I can see the long handled
shovel now, but they did taste good then.
Grandmother always favored me when I went out in the summer time, for
she let me cut the doughnuts, and would clean and cook for me the little fish
which I used to catch in the nearby brook when I went fishing with Uncle Zene,
when he was home from college in the summer.
No matter how small the fish were, she always did them. I can remember when the hogs were killed in
the first cold days of the Autumn, a butcher coming around to stick them (hung
up), and how I ran away not to see the deed done, but even now I can remember
the squeals. Then the butcher and Steve,
man of all work, cut up the hog, and Grandmother and the younger daughters,
Emily and Alice, and the helper, tried out the lard, made sausage meat, etc.,
etc. It was a job, I can tell you, to
salt down the fat pork. The loins were
eaten for some time, as fresh meat was a luxury, but what a job to take care of
all the parts. The pig’s feet were a
great treat and the hog’s head cheese made from the meat in the head. But everyone took hold and helped. I can see Grandmother now in the evening
reading her Bible by the light of the tallow candle which she made
herself. But her later days were more
comfortable for the hard labor was over, Uncle Sam doing everything possible to
reliever her, and for many years she had a woman to the work, that is the hard
part, as she never wholly gave up. I can
remember when she came into Portland to visit, of seeing her leave the house
for church, a tall, rather good-looking woman, wearing a handsome black satin
coat, for Uncle Sam saw to it that she was well clothed. Sometimes Mother would let me go out to
Buxton in the winter time, and how I did love sliding down hills, as there were
good coasting hills. They looked big to
me then, but now not so much. I love the
country and the simple pleasures, the fishing, picking wild strawberries, ivory
plums, as we called them, climbing the apple trees, and eating the apples. I guess I ran wild, always liking to play
with the boys, flying kites, and helping to make them.
Mother
I might
have put into my early married life about people of note who have passed on a
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the West Church where James Russell
Lowell gave the address, as his Father preached there. It was most interesting as relating to noted
members of that church. He pointed to a
front pew where as a little boy he would stand on a cricket and look about, and
the happy way in which he spoke of his Father, in summer starting off with him
in his horse and chaise to visit the churches in the Western part of the State,
taking with him a little boy, as he expressed it, through the shady lanes of
New England.
Also I
heard Oliver Wendell Holmes at a meeting to raise money to preserve the old
South Church as a museum. He recited his
poem “Dorothy Q”, and afterwards retired to a very large armchair on the
platform and being a very old man probably used to retiring early, curled up in
the chair, he was very small, and went to sleep. It was too funny.
I
remember a wonderful Eulogy on Wendell Phillips by George William Curtis, in
Tremont Temple. It was nearly two hours,
but I was spellbound and did not realize the time.
Mother
Written
by Annie Eliza Crane (formerly Annie Eliza Jose) to her son, Walter Sanger
Crane. He is Grandfather to Kenneth
Crane Haselden and Meraud Berti Haselden, and Father to Sarah Lucy Crane
(Haselden, then Dane).
Digital transcription by Emery
McClennen Schweig
emeryschweig@gmail.com
Great-granddaughter of
Annie Eliza Jose
--------------------------------
To the
Editor of the Transcript:
On
Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1941, Mrs. Joshua crane died in her ninety-fifth year.
Annie Eliza Jose, the daughter of Mark E. and Dorcas Hanson Jose, was born in
Buxton, Me., Feb. 28, 1846. After spending her early life in Portland, Me.,when
came to Boston, where she married Joshua Crane, a name in Boston for the past
one hundred and fifty years. Her life with Mr. Crane was for many years in
Brookline, and there she and her husband were citizens of great influence. Mrs.
Crane was a faithful member of the First Parish Church of Brookline, keenly in
every activity of that influential church. In the social, philanthropic and
educational life of Brookline, Mrs. Crane was long a fellow and colleague with
all those who strove to uphold the ancient of New England history and were
eager for every effort to promote the highest interests of social before the
changing life of that community. In
1901, Mr. and Mrs. Crane made their residence in Dedham. After the death of her
husband in 1905, Mrs. Crane spent many years in Washington; and in Boston,
where she was a devoted member of King's Chapel. A woman of marked energy, a
lover of music, a promoter of public education, a leader in every effort to
advance the rights and responsibilities of women, Mrs. Crane had part in the
many pioneer movements to improve the cultural life of her community. Mrs. Crane's oldest son, Walter Sanger Crane,
died in 1940. She is survived by a son, Joshua Crane, and a daughter, Mary,
wife of Edward F. Mclennen of Cambridge and by eleven grandchildren and
twenty-two great-grandchildren. - Boston JOHN CARROLL PERKINS
[a note
from Emery Schweig: “Her daughter, Mary,
is my grandmother. In this notice, my
grandparent's name is misspelled. It is
McClennen, not "Mclennen." “]
---------------------------------
Heather Wilkinson Rojo and Emery McClennen Schweig, "Annie Eliza (Jose) Crane (1846 - 1941) Memoir", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 16, 2016, ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/annie-eliza-jose-crane-1846-1941-memoir.html: accessed [access date]).
