October 2016 – The Newburyport Blog

Wedding Dress Worn by Nathaniel Carter’s Bride, Mary Beck, Newburyport 1742

Wedding dress worn by Mary Beck at her marriage to Nathaniel Carter, Newburyport, Massachusetts, September 1, 1742, the Museum of Fine Arts, MFA, Boston

Detail of the wedding dress

Detail of the shoes and wedding dress

The formal wedding announcement of the marriage of Nathaniel Carter to Mary Beck

I found this wedding dress by chance, and I recognized the name. Nathaniel Carter was Rev. Thomas Cary’s father-in-law (see earlier post). Thomas Cary married Nathaniel Carter’s daughter Esther Carter in 1775.

After I wrote the post I discovered a deed from 1775 to Thomas Cary and his wife from Mr. Carter.

Here is a transcript of part of the 1775 deed (Page: 134 & Book: 148) from Nathaniel Carter “in consideration of the love and affection I bear to my son-in-law Thomas Cary and to Esther his wife my daughter land lying in Newbury-Port containing about two and a quarter acres with the dwelling house barn thereon on a highway called High Street” dated August 12, 1775.

Deed to Thomas and Esther Cary from Nathaniel Carter

Nathaniel Carter was born in 1715 and died in 1798. He was a wealthy Newburyport merchant* and a large landowner. He married Mary Beck in 1742 and had 9 children, Esther was one of his daughters.

Nathaniel was one of the people who urged Newburyport to become a separate town from Newbury in 1764. He was Newburyport’s first treasurer. Carter was interested in education — two writing schools and one Latin grammar school for boys. One schoolhouse was on the upper side of Winter Street (near where the Kelly School building is), and the other was on School Street (land where the Jackman School once stood). He was was one of nine people who petitioned for a bridge crossing the Merrimac River at Deer Island. He owned land in what was then referred to as the “old part of town” as well as large tracts of land in Newburyport near the Deer Island. He owned land on High Street between Broad and Carter Street which extended slightly past what is now Munroe Street (I would imagine that Carter Street is named after him) and between Carter and Buck Streets.**

In the Diary of John Quincy Adams (September 13, 1787) I found his account of dining with Nathaniel Carter:

“Dined with Dr. Kilham at Mr. Carter’s. This is a very friendly, obliging old gentleman, about 73 years of age, as I collected from his conversation: he is very sociable, and is a great genealogist. He gave me a much more circumstantial account of my ancestry, for four or five generations back, than I had ever known before, and I am told he can give the same kind of information to almost any body else. He has two sons with him, both I believe between 25 and 30 years old and one daughter: one of his daughters was married in the beginning of the summer, to Mr. W. Smith of Boston and his eldest son, proposes to be married in the spring to Miss Eppes Cutts, who has made her appearance heretofore in this journal. Her sister, Miss Nancy Cutts is now upon a visit at Mr. Carter’s, and dined with us. I think she is handsomer, and that her manners are easier than those of her Sister. How the comparison might be, in mental qualifications I am not able to decide.” *

Signature of John Quincy Adams

The actual page from John Quincy Adams Diary describing his account of dining with Nathaniel Carter ***

Unfortunately I could not find any portraits of either Nathaniel or his wife, and was not able to figure out where they lived in Newburyport. He was a contemporary of Patrick Tracy who built Tracy Mansion (the Newburyport Public Library).

This wonderful wedding dress was, by happy circumstance, what I discovered.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

* Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 2, September 13, 1787, Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2016. http://www.masshist.org/apde2/

** “North End Papers 1618-1880, Newburyport, Massachusetts: Development of the North End of the City” by Oliver B. Merrill, Originally published in the Newburyport Daily News 1906 &1908, transcribed by Margaret Peckham Motes 2007

*** John Quincy Adams diary 11, 1 July 1786 – 31 October 1787, page 337 [electronic edition]. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Boston, Mass. : Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004. http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries

Original manuscript: Adams, John Quincy. John Quincy Adams diary 11, 1 July 1786 – 31 October 1787. 2 + 377 pages (2 unnumbered pages, including handwritten title page, preceed numbered pages; pages 1-134, and 137-376 are numbered, pages 135-136 are blank and unnumbered, page 377 is unnumbered). Page dimensions: 17.2 cm x 12.1 cm (6-3/4 x in. 4-3/4 in.). Original manuscript from the Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

A 2003 grant from Save America’s Treasures, “Conservation of the Diary of President John Quincy Adams,” enabled the Massachusetts Historical Society to clean and deacidify soiled and brittle pages of the original manuscript volumes and to repair pages with paper loss, tears, or holes. Loose sheets of paper were hinged and tipped-in, and loose signatures were resewn. A conservation bookbinder repaired broken and damaged spines and covers on twenty-five of the fifty-one volumes. Because all of the bindings are original to John Quincy Adams, the conservation treatment was minimally invasive, because the diaries are artifacts worthy of study in their own right. The diary volumes now are stored in microchamber cases.

Tamsen Donner, 50 Milk Street, a Pioneer Woman, and the Wheelwrights were Actually Carpetbaggers

A couple of people asked me to look into Tamsen Donner, I had never ever heard of her. And along the way I found out a few things about “the Wheelwrights” of Newburyport.

Tamsen was related to the Wheelwrights. Please bear with me.

Jeremiah Wheelwright (born 1732) married Mary Davis (born 1737) (of Gloucester) .

They had a bunch of children including:

Abraham (born 1757) (who is a very big deal in Newburyport, he built 77 High Street.)
Ebenezer (born 1763) (father of William Wheelwright , who is a very big deal in Newburyport, he owned 75 High Street.)
Tamsen (born 1801)

75 and 77 High Street, Courtesy of Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey, Frank O. Branzetti, Photographer, Nov. 19, 1940

Jeremiah is first a school teacher and then an explorer, he died in 1778 in Gloucester or died of exposure in a campaign in Canada (there are conflicting accounts).* His widow, Mary, “removed, with her family” from Gloucester to Newburyport. **3* “The Wheelwrights” who have enhanced our city in so many ways, moved from Gloucester — and they, in today’s Newburyport terms, were carpetbaggers. Mary died in 1822 at the age of 85.

The daughter, Tamsen, married William Eustis in 1785 and they lived in Newburyport. They had a daughter also named Tamsen born in 1801, who eventually married George Donner in 1839. So Tamsen Eustis Donner is the niece of Abraham Wheelwright and the cousin of William Wheelwright.

There has been some question as to where Tamsen Donner was born. I was told by a friend that she was born on Milk Street. And yup, my friend was right. I was able to trace the deed of 50 Milk Street back to Tamsen’s father, Willimam Eustis. And in the book, “Searching for Tamsen Donner,”** the author Gabrielle Burton mentions that Betsy Woodman had also told her that Tamsen was born at 50 Milk Street. So 50 Milk Street is a pretty significant place.

50 Milk Street, Newburyport

Tamsen Donner

Who is Tamsen Donner? Tamsen Donner is a heroine in the infamous “Donner Party,” a group of 87 pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train in 1846 and became trapped in the winter of 1846-1847 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, what is now known as the Donner Pass, and 39 people died. Some of the pioneers resorted to cannibalism to survive in what has been described as “one of the most bizarre and spectacular tragedies in Californian history and western-US migration.” ***

“In 1836 she (Tamsen) journeyed to the home of her brother in Illinois (after she had lost her first husband and and child in North Carolina to influenza in 1831) to teach his motherless children, remaining with his family for one winter before obtaining a teaching position in a school in Auburn, Ill. The following year she moved to the school at Sugar Creek where she met George Donner, whose home was near Springfield. Donner, a native of Rowan County, N.C., was a wealthy and respected man, twice widowed with young children still in the home. They were married on 24 May 1839, and in the following years Tamsen Donner bore three daughters, Frances (4 July 1840), Georgia (3 Dec. 1841), and Eliza (8 Mar. 1843).

Tamsen Donner was an intelligent woman, proficient in mathematics, geometry, and philosophy; she was fluent in French, an avid botanist, a competent painter, and a writer of prose and poetry. She is described as a small woman, five feet in height with a usual weight of ninety-six pounds, richly but quietly dressed, gracious, and charming. She and her husband were members of the German Prairie Christian Church near Springfield

It is somewhat surprising that the Donner family chose to leave their wealth in Sangamon County, Ill., to undertake a hazardous journey by wagon to California in 1846. George was sixty-two years old; Tamsen was forty-four with three small children and two stepdaughters. In early May George, his brother, Jacob, and their families left Independence, Mo., with a sizable train and traveled west during the summer with little difficulty. Nearing the end of their journey, they were beset by bad judgment and weather and were snowed in near what is now called the Donner Pass. Nearly half of the travelers died from exposure and starvation during the winter of 1846–47. Those who survived resorted to cannibalism.

Although small in stature, Mrs. Donner remained in good health and able to care for her family. Her daughters were rescued by search parties, but she refused to leave her husband who was dying from an infected wound. She was last seen by members of the third rescue party. The fourth and last group found only one person alive in the camps. There was no trace of Tamsen Donner’s body. She is presumed to have died between 26 March and 17 April 1847, approximately one year after leaving her home in Illinois.” ****

Tamsen Donner is the heroine of this story because she chose to send her children on with the last rescue party, and stayed with her husband while he was dying, a choice that meant certain death for Tamsen. **2*

A portrait of Georgia A. Donner, one of the surviving children from “History of the Donner Party: a Tragedy of the Sierra” by Charles Fayette McGlashan, 1880

The Donner Memorial State Park, the site of the Donner Camp where the Donner Party was trapped has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, commemorating the greatest mass migration in American history in the 1840s and 1850s, enticed by the California Gold Rush, where over 250,000 gold-seekers and farmers traveled overland for the gold fields and rich farmlands of California — the Emigrant Trail. The park contains the Emigrant Trail Museum.

The plaque for Tamsen and Elizabeth Donner

The plaque for Tamsen and Elizabeth Donner in part reads, “Near this site, in the winter of 1846, two pioneer woman gave up their lives for their families. however most of their children survived to carry their mother’s dreams of a new life and new beginning to the valleys of California.

An inspiration to all who followed their footsteps across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we herein honor the memory and the sacrifices of these two women in opening California to its destiny.“

Wagon Train on the Emigrant Trail

* “The Wheelwright Family Story, by Steve J. Plummer” 2010

** “Searching for Tamsen Donner” by Gabrielle Burton, 2009

*** “History of the Donner Party: a Tragedy of the Sierra” by Charles Fayette McGlashan, 1880

**** “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography” by Martha Nel Hardy, University of North Carolina Press

**2* Tamsen Donner Letters: From dream to Legacy
http://www.thestormking.com/Donner_Party/Tamsen_Donner_Letters/tamsen_donner_letters.html

**3* “Ould Newbury: Historical and Biographical Sketches” by John James Currier

Ethel Reed, 53 Kent Street, A Rediscovered Artist of the 1890s and a Great Beauty

This has got to be another one of my favorite stories. Ethel Reed, born in Newburyport, I had never heard of her, and what an intriguing story.

Ethel was born in Newburyport in 1874, her father was Edgar Eugene Reed who married Mary Elizabeth Mahoney. Edgar is listed in the Newburyport City Directory as living at 41 Kent Street which today is 53 Kent Street (a big thank you to the Newburyport Assessors Office for helping me figure out the exact location of where Ethel lived).

53 Kent Street, Newburyport, Google Maps

Her father’s obituary describes him as a “Well Known and Popular Photographer.” Ethel and her family either lived with her father’s family on Kent Street or rented the house.

Very recently Ethel Reed has been “rediscovered.” There is a biography of her now by William Peterson.* I would disagree with Mr. Peterson’s description of the bleakness of Ethel’s early life in Newburyport and the desolation that he describes of Newburyport in general. I ended up with the opinion that Mr. Peterson understands very little about Newburyport, not much about artists (I am one) and very little about women (I am one of those too).

(One of the things that I have discovered looking into all these Newburyport stories is that people often rented houses. In another hunt, in 1836 I found two advertisements for fancy houses on High Street “To be Let,” i.e. rented, with a mention of the people who were currently renting them. One of the other things that I’ve found in all this research is that multi-generations of families, with their children’s spouses and their children lived in the same house. Lots of people lived in one house, unlike today. “Boarders” who are often listed in the Newburyport City Directories were often family members — Abbie Foster, her husband Daniel, and her sister Helen all lived with her mother at 14 Spring Street, and there are just tons of examples.)

Ethel’s life on Kent Street might not have been quite as horrible as Mr. Peterson speculates. There is a glorious sketch of Ethel by none other than Laura Coombs Hill in 1880 when Ethel was 6 years old. The drawing is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston — the MFA, really!

Ethel Reed, by Laura Coombs Hill, 1880, 10 x 7 3/4 inches
Wash and chalk on paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In 1890 Ethel and her mother apparently went to Boston (her father died in 1892). The Smithsonian Art Museum has this description of Ethel Reed (yup, the Smithsonian–the Smithsonian, I’m not kidding!).

Ethel Reed, Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 1897

“(Ethel) Reed briefly attended art school in Boston but was largely self-trained. Her circle included artists and writers in both Boston and London. She posed for photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston and F. Holland Day, and she provided illustrations forThe Yellow Book, an avant-garde British periodical. One of the most talented and prolific artists of the 1890s, she made her name during the poster craze of the period. She produced book illustrations, cover designs, and more than 25 posters, mostly in just two years, 1895 and 1896. Her creative burst earned her international recognition and she traveled to Europe and completed a few commissions for British publications through about 1898. Then she disappeared from the historical record.” **

A poster by Ethel Reed, The house of the trees and other poems by Ethelwyn Wetherald
Boston : Lamson, Wolffe, 1895, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C

There was an art show in Washington DC in 1896 mostly containing Ethel’s art work. The Washington Post describes Ethel Reed as “the foremost woman poster maker in America” and “one of the most beautiful women Washington has seen in ages.” *

“The Gainsborough hat”
Photograph showing a woman (Ethel Reed), head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, wearing a plumed hat, by F. Holland Day, 1895, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C

Helena Wright, the curator of the Graphic Arts Division at the Smithsonian Art Museum says that the Smithsonian Art Museum has a significant collection of Ethel Reed’s art work, including some of her earliest posters and a few unpublished designs. They were donated by Commander Charlotte Hume, U.S. Navy. The collection descended through Hume’s great-aunts, the Smith sisters of Newburyport, who knew Reed in the 1890s, but they lost touch when she moved to London. Reed presented the Smiths with her first posters soon after they were issued. Many are signed and dated in Reed’s distinctive, bold hand, “Compliments of Ethel Reed.” **

A poster by Ethel Reed, The Boston Sunday Herald, Ladies Want It, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
(This was Ethel Reed’s first poster.**)

Ethel ended up getting engaged to Philip Leslie Hale who was from a prominent, very stuffy Boston family. It appears that the family did not approve of the engagement which was broken off. Philip and Ethel apparently had been planning to go to Paris for their honeymoon and Ethel took off to Paris without him. She ended up living in London, and nothing much is known about her from that time. Apparently she died in 1912 at the age of 36. Her biographer speculates that opium, alcohol and sleeping medication contributed to her death.*

A photograph of Ethel Reed by Frances Benjamin Johnston, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 1896

* “The Beautiful Poster Lady, A Life of Ethel Reed” by William S. Peterson, Oak Knoll Press, 2013

** Biography on the Smithsonian website by Helena E. Wright, the Curator of Graphic Arts in the Division of Culture and the Arts at the Smithsonian Art Museum

Clarence Fogg, Mayor of Newburyport 1915-1916

The portrait of Clarence Fogg, hanging in Newburyport City Hall

In my hunt for forgotten folks in Newburyport and where they lived, I came across Clarence Fogg. Mr. Fogg was born in 1853 (that would make him slightly younger, 7 years, than Abbie Foster, see earlier post, who was born in 1846) and died in 1936 at the age of 83. As a young man he was a sailor “at which time he visited most of the principal seaports of the world.” * When he came back home he worked as a shoe cutter in the Dodge shoe factory.

And in 1896 there is this lovely account of in the Newburyport Daily News about a birthday party given for Clarence’s son.

“Raiised A Flag. Clarence Fogg Celebrated Birthday Anniversary in Patriotic Manner

There was a flag raising on Milk street Saturday afternoon when the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Fogg celebrated his 10th birthday. There were about 50 people present and Capt. William Reed was master of ceremonies.

Miss Tula, daughter of Prentiss Reed, spoke several appropriate selections. Mr. Fogg had erected a large flag pole in his yard while the party sang the “Star Spangled Banner,” a beautiful American flag was unfurled from the top mast. After the flag raising a lunch was served and a merry time was enjoyed.” **

Clipping from the Newburyport Daily News June 22, 1896

The Newburyport City Directory shows that Clarence Fogg lived in what was then numbered as 33 Milk Street, it is numbered 43 Milk Street today (a big thank you to our Newburyport Assessors Office for helping me figure that out).

43 Milk Street, Newburyport

Clarence became involved in Newburyport city and Massachusetts state government. He was elected to the old common council in 1900 and served the next year on the board of alderman.* He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (then called the Massachusetts General Court) from 1902 to 1908. And in 1915 and 1916 he was elected as the Mayor of Newburyport.

The Newburyport City Directory has Clarence Fogg living at 110 State Street during the time that he was mayor.

110 State Street, Newburyport

Clarence Fogg, courtesy of the Newburyport Archival Center

* The Newburyport Daily News, September 28, 1936
** The Newburyport Daily News, June 22, 1896

And a big “thank you” to Ghlee Woodworth for helping me locate Clarence Fogg’s portrait at Newburyport City Hall

An Old Photo of Abbie Foster’s House, 74 High Street, looking towards Horton Street

An old photo of 74 High Street Courtesy of the Newburyport Archival Center

Sharon Spieldenner from the Archival Center at the Newburyport Library (I love, love, love the Archival Center) found an old photo of Abbie Foster’s house and sent it to me. There are two posts on Abbie Foster one all about her and that she built this fancy mansion at 74 High Street in 1895, and a second one on how she came up with the money to pay for her glorious Queen Anne fancy mansion.

Sharon didn’t know the exact date of the old photo of 74 High, but it looks like it’s early. I love it, I think it’s so cool, so wonderful and so thoughtful of Sharon and the Archival Center to keep their eyes open for Abbie’s house.

And this is what 74 High Street looks like today.

What 74 High Street looks like today

There is a little street behind 74 High called Foster Court, named after Abbie Foster, that looks towards Horton Street (and there is a post all about Horton Street on The Newburyport Blog). In the old photo there is a field, a beautiful field. Here is the detail of the photo.

A detail of the field behind 74 HIgh Street

This is what that field, now Foster Court, looks like today. It looks a little different. And you can see the same house at the very end that is in the old photo, which is 9 Horton Street. (It is possible to make out two other houses that look the same as well.)