Читать книгу Village Life in America 1852-1872, Including the Period of the American Civil War - Caroline Cowles Richards - Страница 3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Caroline Cowles Richards	Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Grandfather Beals	8
Grandmother Beals	8
Mr. Noah T. Clarke	30
Miss Upham	30
First Congregational Church	38
Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D.	54
Judge Henry W. Taylor	54
Miss Zilpha Clark	54
“Frankie Richardson”	54
Horace Finley	54
Tom Eddy and Eugene Stone	66
“Uncle David Dudley Field”	66
Grandmother’s Rocking Chair	88
The Grandfather Clock	88
Hon. Francis Granger	100
Mr. Gideon Granger	100
The Old Canandaicua Academy	124
The Ontario Female Seminary	132
“Old Friend Burling”	138
Madame Anna Bishop	138
“Abbie Clark and I Had Our Ambrotypes Taken To-day”	152
“Mr. Noah T. Clarke’s Brother and I”	152

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

After this book was in type, on March 29, 1913, the author, Mrs. Caroline Richards Clarke, died at Naples, New York.

INTRODUCTION

The Diary of Caroline Cowles Richards fell into my hands, so to speak, out of space. I had no previous acquaintance with the author, and I sat down to read the book one evening in no especial mood of anticipation. From the first page to the last my attention was riveted. To call it fascinating barely expresses the quality of the charm. Caroline Richards and her sister Anna, having early lost their mother, were sent to the home of her parents in Canandaigua, New York, where they were brought up in the simplicity and sweetness of a refined household, amid Puritan traditions. The children were allowed to grow as plants do, absorbing vitality from the atmosphere around them. Whatever there was of gracious formality in the manners of aristocratic people of the period, came to them as their birthright, while the spirit of the truest democracy pervaded their home. Of this Diary it is not too much to say that it is a revelation of childhood in ideal conditions.

The Diary begins in 1852, and is continued until 1872. Those of us who lived in the latter half of the nineteenth century recall the swift transitions, the rapid march of science and various changes in social customs, and as we meet allusions to these in the leaves of the girl’s Diary we live our past over again with peculiar pleasure.

Far more has been told us concerning the South during the Civil War than concerning the North. Fiction has found the North a less romantic field, and the South has been chosen as the background of many a stirring novel, while only here and there has an author been found who has known the deep-hearted loyalty of the Northern States and woven the story into narrative form. The girl who grew up in Canandaigua was intensely patriotic, and from day to day vividly chronicled what she saw, felt, and heard. Her Diary is a faithful record of impressions of that stormy time in which the nation underwent a baptism of fire. The realism of her paragraphs is unsurpassed.

Beyond the personal claim of the Diary and the certainty to give pleasure to a host of readers, the author appeals to Americans in general because of her family and her friends. Her father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers. Her Grandfather Richards was for twenty years President of Auburn Theological Seminary. Her brother, John Morgan Richards of London, has recently given to the world the Life and Letters of his gifted and lamented daughter, Pearl Mary-Terèse Craigie, known best as John Oliver Hobbes. The famous Field brothers and their father, Rev. David Dudley Field, and their nephew, Justice David J. Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, were her kinsmen. Miss Hannah Upham, a distinguished teacher mentioned in the Diary, belongs to the group of American women to whom we owe the initiative of what we now choose to call the higher education of the sex. She, in common with Mary Lyon, Emma Willard, and Eliza Bayliss Wheaton, gave a forward impulse to the liberal education of women, and our privilege is to keep their memory green. They are to be remembered by what they have done and by the tender reminiscences found here and there like pressed flowers in a herbarium, in such pages as these.

Miss Richards’ marriage to Mr. Edmund C. Clarke occurred in 1866. Mr. Clarke is a veteran of the Civil War and a Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic. His brother, Noah T. Clarke, was the Principal of Canandaigua Academy for the long term of forty years. The dignified, amusing and remarkable personages who were Mrs. Clarke’s contemporaries, teachers, or friends are pictured in her Diary just as they were, so that we meet them on the street, in the drawing-room, in church, at prayer-meeting, anywhere and everywhere, and grasp their hands as if we, too, were in their presence.

Wherever this little book shall go it will carry good cheer. Fun and humor sparkle through the story of this childhood and girlhood so that the reader will be cheated of ennui, and the sallies of the little sister will provoke mirth and laughter to brighten dull days. I have read thousands of books. I have never read one which has given me more delight than this.

Margaret E. Sangster.

Glen Ridge, New Jersey,

June, 1911.

THE VILLAGES

CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK.—A beautiful village, the county seat of Ontario County, situated at the foot of Canandaigua Lake, which is called “the gem of the inland lakes” of Western New York, about 325 miles from New York city.

NAPLES, NEW YORK.—A small village at the head of Canandaigua Lake, famous for its vine-clad hills and unrivaled scenery.

GENEVA, NEW YORK.—A beautiful town about 16 miles from Canandaigua.

EAST BLOOMFIELD, NEW YORK.—An ideal farming region and suburban village about 8 miles from Canandaigua.

PENN YAN, NEW YORK.—The county seat of Yates County, a grape center upon beautiful Lake Keuka.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.—A nourishing manufacturing city, growing rapidly, less than 30 miles from Canandaigua, and 120 miles from Niagara Falls.

AUBURN, NEW YORK.—Noted for its Theological Seminary, nearly one hundred years old, and for being the home of William H. Seward and other American Statesmen.

THE VILLAGERS

Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS BEALS,	Grandfather and Grandmother
CAROLINE and ANNA	Grandchildren of Mr. and
JAMES and JOHN RICHARDS	Mrs. Beals
“AUNT ANN”
“AUNT MARY” CARR	Sons and daughters of
“AUNT GLORIANNA”	Mr. and Mrs. Beals
“UNCLE HENRY”
“UNCLE THOMAS”
Rev. O. E. DAGGETT, D.D.	Pastor of Canandaigua
	Congregational Church
NOAH T. CLARKE	Principal Canandaigua
	Academy for Boys
Hon. FRANCIS GRANGER	Postmaster-General, U.S.A.
General JOHN A. GRANGER	Of New York State Militia
GIDEON GRANGER	Son of Hon. Francis
ALBERT GRANGER	Son of General Granger
JOHN GREIG	Wealthy Scotsman long time
	resident of Canandaigua
MYRON H. CLARK	Governor, State of New York
JUDGE H. W. TAYLOR	Prominent lawyer and jurist
E. M. MORSE	A leading lawyer in Canandaigua
Miss ZILPHA CLARKE	School teacher of note
Miss CAROLINE CHESEBRO	Well-known writers
Mrs. GEORGE WILLSON
Miss HANNAH UPHAM	Eminent instructress and
	lady principal of Ontario
	Female Seminary
Mr. FRED THOMPSON	Prominent resident, married
	Miss Mary Clark, daughter
	of Governor Myron H.
	Clark.

School Boys

WILLIAM T. SCHLEY
HORACE M. FINLEY
ALBERT MURRAY
S. GURNEY LAPHAM	Residing with parents in
CHARLES COY	Canandaigua
ELLSWORTH DAGGETT
CHARLIE PADDOCK
MERRITT C. WILLCOX
WILLIAM H. ADAMS	Law Students
GEORGE N. WILLIAMS
WILLIS P. FISKE	Teachers in Academy
EDMUND C. CLARKE

School Girls

LOUISA FIELD
MARY WHEELER
EMMA WHEELER
LAURA CHAPIN
JULIA PHELPS
MARY PAUL
BESSIE SEYMOUR
LUCILLA FIELD
MARY FIELD
ABBIE CLARK
SUSIE DAGGETT	Residing with parents in
FRANKIE RICHARDSON	Canandaigua
FANNY GAYLORD
MARY COY
HELEN COY
HATTIE PADDOCK
SARAH ANTES
LOTTIE LAPHAM
CLARA WILSON
FANNIE PALMER
RITIE TYLER

VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA