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Berkshire Hills; noted persons born there; Anthony and Read genealogy; military record; religious beliefs; education; marriage of father and mother of Susan B. Anthony; her birth and childhood; characteristics of mother; first factory built.

Among the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts is a very beautiful place in which to be born. It is famed in song and story for the loveliness of its scenery and the purity of its air. It has no lofty peaks, no great canyons, no mighty rivers, but it is diversified in the most picturesque manner by the long line of Green Mountains, whose lower ranges bear the musical name of "Berkshire Hills;" by rushing streams tumbling through rocky gorges and making up in impetuosity what they lack in size; by noble forests, gently undulating meadows, quaint farmhouses, old bridges and bits of roadway which are a never-ending delight to the artist. Writers, too, have found inspiration here and many exquisite descriptions in prose and verse commemorate the beauties of this region.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, the first woman in America to make a literary reputation on two continents, was born at Stockbridge, and her stories and sketches were located here. That old seat of learning, Williams College, is situated among these foothills. In his summer home at Pittsfield, Longfellow wrote "The Old Clock on the Stairs"; at Stockbridge, Hawthorne builded his "House of the Seven Gables"; and Lydia Sigourney poetically told of "Stockbridge Bowl" with "Its foot of stone and rim of green." It was at Lenox that Henry Ward Beecher created "Norwood" and "Star Papers." Here Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Kemble came for many summers to rest and find new life. Harriet Hosmer had her first dreams of fame at the Sedgwick school. The Goodale sisters, Elaine and Dora, were born upon one of these mountainsides and both embalmed its memory in their poems. Dora lovingly sings:

Dear Berkshire, dear birthplace, the hills are thy towers,

Those lofty fringed summits of granite and pine;

No valley's green lap is so spangled with flowers,

No stream of the wildwood so crystal as thine.

Say where do the March winds such treasures uncover,

Such maple and arrowwood burn in the fall,

As up the blue peaks where the thunder-gods hover

In cloud-curtained Berkshire who cradled us all?

Henry Ward Beecher said:

This county of valleys, lakes and mountains is yet to be as celebrated as the lake district of England and the hill country of Palestine.... Here is such a valley as the ocean would be if, when its waves were running tumultuous and high, it were suddenly transformed and solidified.... The endless variety never ceases to astonish and please.... It is indeed like some choice companion, of rich heart and genial imagination, never twice alike in mood, in conversation, in radiant sobriety or half-bright sadness; bold, tender, deep, various.

One has but to come into the midst of these hills to fall a victim to their fascination, while to those who were born among them there is no spot on earth so beautiful or so beloved. They have sent forth generations of men and women, whose fame is as imperishable as the marble and granite which form their everlasting foundations. Among the noted men who have gone out from the Berkshire region are William Cullen Bryant, Cyrus W. Field and brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Mark and Albert Hopkins, Senator Henry L. Dawes, Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, George F. Root, the musical composer, Governor George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts, Governor and Senator Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, the Deweys, the Barnards, a list too long for quoting. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose grandfather was a Berkshire man, wrote:

Berkshire has produced a race which, for independent thought, daring schemes and achievements that have had world-wide consequences, has not been surpassed. We claim, also, that more of those first things that draw the chariot of progress forward so that people can see that it has moved, have been planned and executed by the inhabitants of the 950 square miles that constitute the territory of Berkshire than can be credited to any other tract of equal extent in the United States.

Of late years the world of wealth and fashion has invaded the Berkshire country and there are no more magnificent summer homes than those of Lenox, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and the neighboring towns.

The first of the Anthony family of whom there is any record was William, born in Cologne, Germany, who came to England during the reign of Edward the Sixth and was made Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and Master of the Scales, holding this office through the reigns of Edward and Mary and part of that of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are entered in the royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the father of Dr. Francis Anthony, born in London, 1550. According to the Biographia Britannica, he was graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master of Arts and became a learned physician and chemist. Although a man of high character and generous impulses, he was intolerant of restraint and in continual conflict with the College of Physicians. He died in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, where his handsome monument still remains. He left a daughter and two sons, both of the latter distinguished physicians. From John, the elder, sprung the American branch of the family. His son, John, Jr., born in Hempstead, England, sailed to America in the ship Hercules, from that port, April 16, 1634, when he was twenty-seven years old. He settled in Portsmouth, R.I., and became a land-owner, an innkeeper and an office-holder. His five children who survived infancy left forty-three children. One of these forty-three, Abraham, had thirteen children, and his son William fourteen, his son, William, Jr., four, his son David nine.

It was just before the beginning of the Revolution that this David Anthony, with his wife, Judith Hicks, moved from Dartmouth, Mass., to Berkshire and settled near Adams at the foot of Greylock, the highest peak in the mountain range. This was considered the extreme West, as little was known of all that lay beyond. They brought two children with them and seven more were born here in the shadow of the mountains. Humphrey, the second son, born at Dartmouth, February 2, 1770, married Hannah Lapham, who was born near Adams (then called East Hoosac), November 11, 1773; and here, also, January 27, 1794, was born the first of their nine children, Daniel, father of Susan B. Anthony.

On the maternal side the grandfather, Daniel Read, was born at Rehobeth, Mass., and said to be a lineal descendant and entitled to the coat of arms of Sir Brianus de Rede, A.D. 1075; but he had too much of the sturdy New England spirit to feel any special interest in the pomp and pride of heraldry, and the family tree he prized most was found in the grand old grove which shaded his own dooryard. Susannah Richardson, his wife, was born at Scituate, Mass., and her family were among the most wealthy and respected of that locality during the eighteenth century. Both Reads and Richardsons removed to Cheshire, Mass., before 1770, and Daniel and Susannah were married there. It was but a few months after this marriage when the first gun was fired at Lexington and the whole country was ablaze with excitement. At the close of the sermon, on a bright spring morning, the old minister, his voice trembling with patriotic fervor, asked every man who was ready to enlist in the Continental army to stand forth, and Daniel Read was the first to step out into the aisle of the little meeting-house. Leaving the girl-bride he entered the service and soon became conspicuous for his bravery. He was one of the memorable expedition against Quebec under Arnold, in 1775, and of the party commanded by Ethan Allen at the capture of Ticonderoga. He was among that brave band from Cheshire (Stafford's Hill) who fought under Colonel Stafford at Bennington. On the 19th of October, 1780, he took part in the fatal fight of Stone Arabia, under Col. John Brown, and served with honor throughout the war. It was several years after peace had been declared and he had returned home and settled down to the quiet life of a New England farmer that, December 2, 1793, was born Lucy, the mother of Susan B. Anthony.

Daniel Read was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1814 and was elected to various public offices. He was a Whig in politics and adhered always to staunch republican principles, but rose above partisanship and was universally respected. Daniel and Susannah were thrifty New England Puritans, leading members of the Baptist denomination and parishioners of the widely known Elder Leland. The cooking for Sunday always was done on Saturday, and the greater part of every Sunday, regardless of weather, was spent at church. They and their children sat through a service of two hours in the morning, ate a generous lunch at the noon intermission, and were ready for another two hours' sermon in the afternoon, through all the heat of summer and the terrible cold of New England winter.

Susannah Read remained always a devout and consistent Baptist, but Daniel became, in later years, a thorough Universalist. Murray, the founder of this church in England, had come to the Colonies before the Revolutionary War, and by the close of the century the Universalists were organized as a sect, holding general conventions and sending itinerants among the people in the villages and country. Some of these doubtless had penetrated to Adams and converted Daniel Read, who was always liberal in his belief. He was an inveterate reader and pored over a vast amount of theological discussion which attracted so much attention in his day. The family moved from Cheshire to a suburb of Adams called Bowen's Corners. Near their house was the tavern, its proprietor known to all the people roundabout as "Uncle Sam" Bowen. He and Daniel Read never wearied in setting forth the merits of "free salvation." They were the only two persons in all that section of the country who did not believe in a literal hell. It was the common sentiment then that only those disbelieved in endless punishment who had reason to be afraid of it, and, since both these men were exemplary in every other respect, it was impossible for their friends to understand their aberration. Susannah Read, in the language of that time, "wore the skin off her knees," praying night and day that God would bring her husband back into the fold, but her prayers never were answered. Every Sunday regularly he accompanied her to church, and faithfully contributed to the support of the preacher, but he died, at the ripe old age of eighty-four, firm in his Universalist faith.

Susannah was the care-taker of the family and looked after the farm, inheriting the Richardson energy and thrift. Daniel was genial, good-natured and very intelligent, but his health being impaired from army service, he was willing she should take the lead in business matters. The farm was one of only a hundred acres, but was carefully and economically managed and, at their death, the Reads left about $10,000, which was then considered a snug little fortune. Lucy, one of seven children, was born into a home of peace and comfort and had a happy and uneventful childhood. She attended the district school, was a fair writer and speller and, like her father very fond of reading. She learned to cook and sew, make butter and cheese, spin and weave, and was very domestic in all her tastes. The Reads and Anthonys were near neighbors, and although differing widely in religious belief, a subject of much prominence in those days, they were on terms of intimate friendship even before the ties were made still closer by marriage between the two families.

Both Anthonys and Laphams were Quakers as far back as the sect was in existence. Both were families of wealth and influence, and when Humphrey and Hannah were married she received from her parents a house and thirty acres of land, which were entailed on her children. Silver spoons are still in the family, which were part of her dowry more than a century ago. Hannah Lapham Anthony was a most saintly woman and, because of her beautiful religious character was made an elder and given an exalted position on the "high seat."1

She was a very handsome brunette and was noted for the beauty and elegance of her Quaker attire, her bonnets always being made in New York. Humphrey never attained the "high seat;" he was too worldly. His ambition was constantly to add more to his broad acres, to take a bigger drove of cattle to Boston than any of his neighbors, and to get a higher price for his own than any other Berkshire cheese would bring. He had a number of farms and a hundred cows, while his wife made the best cheese and was the finest housekeeper in all that part of the country. The fame of her coffee and biscuits, apple dumplings and chicken dinners, spread far and wide. Their kitchen was forty feet long. One end was used for the dining-room, with the table seating twenty persons, and in the other were the sink and the "penstock," which brought water from a clear, cold spring high up in the mountains. Here also were the huge fire-place, the big brick oven and the large pantry. Then there were the spacious "keeping" or sitting-room, with the mother's bedroom opening out of it, the great weaving-room with its wheels and loom, and two bed-rooms for the "help" down stairs, while above were the children's sleeping-rooms. Opening out of the kitchen was a room containing the cheese press and the big "arch" kettle, and near by was a two-story building where the cheese was stored. Up in the grove was the saw-mill, and at the foot of the hill was the blacksmith shop, where nails were made, horses shod, wagons and farm implements mended and, later, scythes manufactured. On all the farms were fine orchards of apples, plums, pears, cherries and quinces, among which stood long rows of beehives with their wealth of honey.

Here Daniel, father of Susan B. Anthony, grew to manhood in the midst of comfort and abundance and in an atmosphere of harmony and love. The Anthonys were broad and liberal in religious ideas, and in 1826, when bitter dissensions regarding the divinity of Christ arose among the Quakers, they followed Elias Hicks and were henceforth known as "Hicksite Friends." This controversy divided many families, and on account of it the orthodox brother, Elihu Anthony, insisted on removing their aged father to his home in Saratoga, N.Y., to the great grief of Humphrey, who claimed that the old gentleman was too childish to know whether he was orthodox or Hicksite and ought not to be taken to "a new country" in his declining years Hannah Anthony was ambitious for her children and insisted that they should be placed where they might have better educational facilities than in the little school at home. Humphrey thought the boys could manage a farm and the girls weave good cloth and make fine cheese without a boarding-school education. He finally yielded, however, and Daniel and two daughters were sent to the "Nine Partners," that famous Quaker boarding-school in Dutchess county, N.Y. At the end of a year, Daniel, who was about nineteen, had made such rapid progress that he was appointed teacher. The quaint certificate given him by his associate teachers is still in existence and reads:

This may apprize the friends & relatives of D. Anthony, that, during his residence with us, he has been an affectionate consort, excellent, consistant in the School, of steady deportment and conversation, being an example for us to follow when we are separated. We sincerely wish his preservation in all things laudable and believe we can with propriety hereunto set our names.

Elihu Marshall, Charles Clement, John Taber, Stephen Willitz, Henry Cox, Frederick A. Underhill, William Seamen.

There is a still more highly valued testimonial from the principal, the noble and dignified Richard F. Mott, who was held in loving reverence by all the distinguished Quaker families that confided their sons and daughters to his wise and tender care:

Daniel Anthony has been an assistant here & we can aprise his friends that he has faithfully discharged his duty in that particular, has been a very agreeable companion & his conduct remarkably correct & exemplary, which, joined to his pleasant & obliging disposition, has gained him our esteem & affection.

We sincerely wish his prosperity, spiritually & temporally, & shall gratefully remember him and his services.

On behalf of the sitting-room circle, R.F. MOTT.

Boarding School, 4 M., 1 D., 1814.

The profession of teacher did not appeal to hard-headed Humphrey Anthony, and when Daniel came back with his brain full of ambitious projects and with a thorough distaste for farming, and his sisters, with many airs and graces and a feeling of superiority over the girls in the neighborhood, Father Anthony declared that no more children of his should go away to boarding-school. The fact that young Daniel was skilled in mechanics and mathematics, able to superintend intelligently all the work on the farm and to make a finer scythe than any man in the shop, did not modify the father's opinion. When John, the next boy, was old enough and the mother began to urge that he be sent to school, the father offered him his choice to go or to stay at home and work that year for $100. This was a large sum for those days, it out-weighed the mother's arguments, John remained at home and regretted it all the rest of his life.

The Anthony and Read farms were adjoining a mile east of Adams, and lay upon the first level or "bench" of the Green mountains. From their door-yards the ascent of the mountains began, and only the Hoosac in a deep ravine separated them from the base of "Old Greylock." The crops were raised on the "intervale" and the cattle pastured on the mountain side. Adams was then a sleepy New England village, and the Hoosac was a lovely stream, whose waters were used for the flocks and for the grist and saw-mills; but in later years the village became a manufacturing center and the banks of the pretty river were lined for miles with great factories.

In early times wealthy Quakers had a school in their home or door-yard for their own children. Those of the neighborhood were allowed to attend at a certain price, and in this way undesirable pupils could be kept out. At the Anthony residence this little school-house stood beneath a great weeping willow beside the front gate, and among the pupils was Lucy Read. She was the playmate of the sisters, and young Dan was the torment of their lives, jumping out at them from unexpected corners, eavesdropping to learn their little secrets and harassing them in ways common to boys of all generations, and she never hesitated to inform him that he was "the hatefullest fellow she ever knew." When Daniel returned from boarding-school with all the prestige of several years' absence, and was made master of the little home-school, one of his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl with glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of the neighborhood. The inevitable happened, childish feuds were forgotten, and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife. Then arose a formidable difficulty. The Anthonys were Quakers, the Reads were Baptists, and a Quaker was not permitted to "marry out of meeting." Love laughed at rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just as it does to-day, and Daniel refused to let the Society come between him and the woman of his choice, but Lucy had many misgivings. Thanks to her father's ideas she had been brought up in a most liberal manner, allowed to attend parties, dance and wear pretty clothes to her heart's content, and it was a serious question with her whether she could give up all these and adopt the plain and severe habits of the Quakers. She had a marvelous voice, and, as she sang over her spinning-wheel, often wished that she might "go into a ten-acre lot with the bars down" so that she could let her voice out to its full capacity. The Quakers did not approve of singing, and that pleasure also would have to be relinquished. That the husband could give up his religious forms and accept those of the wife never had been imagined.

Love finally triumphed, and the young couple were married July 13, 1817. A few nights before the wedding Lucy went to a party and danced till four o'clock in the morning, while Friend Daniel sat bolt upright against the wall and counted the days which should usher in a new dispensation. A committee was sent at once to deal with Daniel, and Lucy always declared he told them he "was sorry he married her," but he would say, "No, my dear, I said I was sorry that in order to marry the woman I loved best, I had to violate a rule of the religious society I revered most." The matter was carefully talked over by the elders, and as he had said he was sorry he had to violate the rule, and as the family was one of much influence, and as he was their most highly educated and cultivated member, it was unanimously decided not to turn him out of meeting.2 Lucy learned to love the Friends' religion and often said she was a much more consistent Quaker than her husband, but she never became a member of the Society, declaring she was "not good enough." She did not use the "plain language," though she always insisted that her husband should do so in addressing her; nor did she adopt the Quaker costume, but she dressed simply and wore little "cottage" straw bonnets with strings tied demurely under her chin and later had them made of handsome shirred silk, the full white cap-ruche showing inside. She sang no more except lullabies to the babies when they came, and then the Quaker relatives would laugh and ask her why she did it. Her long married life was very happy, notwithstanding its many hardships, and she never regretted accepting her Quaker lover.

The previous summer Daniel had helped his father prepare the lumber and build a large two-story addition to his house, and in return he gave to his son the lumber for a new home, on a beautiful tract of ground presented to the young couple by Father Read adjoining his own. While this was being built they lived at the Read homestead, and the loom was kept busy preparing the housekeeping outfit. In those days this was made of linen, bleached and spun and woven by the women of the household. Cotton was just coming into use, and Lucy Anthony was considered very fortunate because she could have a few sheets and pillow-cases which were half cotton.

The manufacture of cotton becoming a prominent industry in New England at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid little stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and proved a success from the beginning. A document is still in existence by which "D. Read agrees to let D. Anthony have as much water from the brook on his farm as will run through a hole six inches in diameter." This was conveyed by an aqueduct, made from hollow logs, to the factory where it turned the over-shot wheel and furnished power to the twenty-six looms. The factory hands for the most part came down from the Green mountain regions, glad of an opportunity never before enjoyed of earning wages and supporting themselves. They were girls of respectability, and, as was the custom then, boarded with the families of the mill-owners. Those of the Anthony factory were divided between the wife and Hannah Anthony Hoxie, a married sister. Lucy Anthony soon became acquainted with the stern realities of life. Her third baby was born when the first was three years and two months old. That summer she boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house, and she did all the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that of a thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth in front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel Anthony was a generous man, loved his wife and was well able to hire help, but such a thing was not thought of at that time. No matter how heavy the work, the woman of the household was expected to do it, and probably would have been the first to resent the idea that assistance was needed.

During the first seventeen years of this marriage eight children were born. One died at birth and one at the age of two years. The eldest, born July 1, 1818, was named for the wife of William Penn, who married a member of the Anthony family, Gulielma Penn, which was contracted to Guelma. Susan was the second child, born February 15, 1820, and named for an aunt, Susan Anthony Brownell. She herself adopted the initial "B" when older, but never claimed or liked the full name.3

Lucy Read Anthony was of a very timid and reticent disposition and painfully modest and shrinking. Before the birth of every child she was overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation, secluded herself from the outside world and would not speak of the expected little one even to her mother. That mother would assist her overburdened daughter by making the necessary garments, take them to her home and lay them carefully away in a drawer, but no word of acknowledgment ever passed between them. This was characteristic of those olden times, when there were seldom any confidences between mothers and daughters in regard to the deepest and most sacred concerns of life, which were looked upon as subjects to be rigidly tabooed. Susan came into the world in a cold, dreary season. The event was looked forward to with dread by the mother, but when the little one arrived she received a warm and loving welcome. She was born into a staid and quiet but very comfortable home, where great respect and affection existed between father and mother.

William Cullen Bryant, whose birth-place was but twenty miles distant, wrote of this immediate locality:

I stand upon my native hills again,

Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky,

With garniture of waving grass and grain,

Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;

While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,

Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

Each night in early childhood she watched the sun set behind the great dome of "Old Greylock," that noble mountain-peak so famed in the literature of Berkshire, from whose lofty summit one looks across four States. "It lifts its head like a glorified martyr," said Beecher, and Julia Taft Bayne wrote:

Come here where Greylock rolls

Itself toward heaven; in these deep silences,

World-worn and fretted souls,

Bathe and be clean.

To the child's idea its top was very close against the sky, and its memory and inspiration remained with her through life.

Susan was very intelligent and precocious. At the age of three she was sent to the grandmother's to remain during the advent of the fourth baby at home, and while there was taught to spell and read. Her memory was phenomenal, and she had an insatiable ambition, especially for learning the things considered beyond a girl's capacity.

The mother was most charitable, always finding time amidst her own family cares to go among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. One of Susan's childish grievances, which she always remembered, was that the "Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded just as much happiness as children nowadays get from a roomful of imported playthings.

To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they were always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh cheese curd and a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and Indian bread, pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple sugar. Then in the evening they would stop again for some of the left-over, cold boiled dinner, which was served on a great pewter platter, a big piece of pork or beef in the center and, piled all round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc. The story runs that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for bothering the grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied, "Why, grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions, but very few families could afford such luxuries.

One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the little closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple sugar, and, while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs, the children would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast. Always when they left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts, caraway cakes and other toothsome things which little ones love. Along the edges of the pantry shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers, and the pride of the children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of them. This was made by toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the fire, peeling off the outside, toasting it again, and finally pouring over these crusts hot sweetened water and cider. The dish, however, which was relished above all others was "hasty pudding," cooked slowly for hours, then heaped upon a platter in a great cone, the center scooped out and filled with sweet, fresh butter and honey or maple syrup.

In those days every sideboard was liberally supplied with rum, brandy and gin, and every man drank more or less, even the elders and preachers. When the farmers came down the mountain road with their loads of wood or lumber, they always stopped at Grandfather Read's for a slice of bread and cheese and a drink of hard cider, but the elders and preachers were regaled with something stronger. This was the custom, and criticism would have been considered fanatical.

The little factory nourished and produced many yards of excellent cotton cloth. A store was opened in one corner of the house to supply the wants of the employes and neighbors, and the Anthonys enjoyed a plenty and prosperity somewhat unusual where small incomes and close economy were the rule.

1. Her oldest daughter, Hannah, became a famous Quaker preacher.

2. A wedding trip was taken to Palatine Bridge, Deerfield, Union Springs, Farmington, Rochester and other points in New York State, to visit relatives of both families, all the long journey being made in a light one-horse wagon, many miles of it over corduroy roads.

3. Hannah was born September 15, 1821; Daniel Read, named for father and grandfather, was born August 22, 1824; Mary S., April 2, 1827; Eliza Tefft, April 22, 1832, and Jacob Merritt, April. 19, 1834. At the present writing, 1897, Susan, Daniel, Mary and Merritt still survive, aged seventy-seven, seventy-three, seventy and sixty-three, all remarkably vigorous in mind and body; a family of few words, quiet, undemonstrative and yet knit together with bonds of steel, loyal to each other in every thought and each ready to make any sacrifice for the others.