By Susan Martin, Collections Services

The MHS recently acquired this letter by Mary Ware Hall about spurs belonging to famed historian Francis Parkman, possibly worn during his expedition on the Oregon Trail in 1846. To catalog the letter, I had to identify its writer, recipient, date, and subject. But not only is the letter undated, it didn’t come to us as part of a larger collection, so I had no context to help me. Fortunately, researching the people and the stories behind our manuscripts is all part of the fun.

The letter itself is fairly mundane. It reads:

Dear Mr. Coolidge

Among my cousin, Mr. Hall’s books we found this which it seemed to me should go back to the Parkman family and I thought it might be of some value to you.

The spurs I found among Mr. Hall’s army outfit, labelled “F.P.[”] as you see, and we wondered if by any chance they could have been worn by Mr. Parkman on his “Oregon Trail” journey. It is of course only a guess, but certainly F.P. could only mean Mr. Parkman and Miss Lizzie might have given them to Mr. Hall as a keep-sake. If they were his, possibly your son Jack would like them. If not, you can of course do as you please with them.

Hoping that all goes well with your scattered children and grand-children, believe me,

Very sincerely yrs.

Mary Lee Ware

Mary Lee Ware (1858-1937) was a noted philanthropist who lived at 41 Brimmer Street, Boston. She was easy enough to find. And Francis Parkman (1823-1893) is definitely a known quantity here at the MHS—not only do we hold books by and about Parkman, we also have collections of his papers (here, here, and here) and photographs.

Our cast of characters also includes Mr. Coolidge (the recipient), Mr. Hall (Ware’s cousin), Miss Lizzie, and Jack. My first step was to put together a family tree to trace the connections between the Wares, Halls, Parkmans, and Coolidges. The spurs had somehow made their way from Francis Parkman to Mr. Hall to Mary Lee Ware. Who was this mysterious Mr. Hall that connected Parkman and Ware? Ware’s aunt Harriet had married a Hall and had several sons, but most of them died as children. Francis Parkman’s mother Caroline had also been a Hall.

I found a clue in Parkman’s 1865 book Pioneers of France in the New World. He dedicated that book to the memory of three relatives “slain in battle”: Theodore Parkman, Robert Gould Shaw, and Henry Ware Hall. Henry Ware Hall (1839-1864), Parkman’s cousin, had served in the 51st Illinois Infantry Regiment and was killed in action at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Ga. This military connection would explain Hall’s “army outfit,” where the spurs had been found.

Henry Ware Hall and Francis Parkman shared an uncle, Edward Brooks Hall—the same Hall who had married Mary Lee Ware’s aunt Harriet. So Henry, Francis, and Mary were all first cousins. Still with me?

So who was Mr. Coolidge, the Parkman family member to whom Ware sent the letter and the spurs? That question was a lot easier to answer. John Templeton Coolidge (1856-1945) was Parkman’s son-in-law. (Coolidge had a son with the same name, but he was undoubtedly the “Jack” mentioned in the letter.)

Identifying the letter’s recipient also helped me to assign an approximate date. Not only did the reference to Coolidge’s grandchildren confirm it was written later in his life, but if Ware was sending the spurs to him, I could probably make the assumption that he was the last (or oldest) surviving relative of that generation. Parkman had had two daughters who lived to adulthood—Coolidge’s wife Catherine and her older sister Grace. Most likely they had both already died, as well as Grace’s husband Charles P. Coffin, or else Ware might have sent the spurs to one of them.

Catherine died in 1900, Charles in 1927, and Grace in 1928. Mary Lee Ware herself died in 1937. So the letter was apparently written sometime between 1928 and 1937. The style of stationery and writing seem to correspond to that time.

I can only guess at the story behind the spurs. If I’m right that Mr. Hall is Henry Ware Hall, they may have been found among his things long after his death in the Civil War. Ware speculates that “Miss Lizzie” gave them to Hall. She is probably Francis Parkman’s unmarried sister Eliza Willard Shaw Parkman (1832-1905)—“Lizzie” to her brother—who lived with him at 50 Chestnut Street for the last twenty years of his life, just a few blocks away from Mary Lee Ware.

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter — artist, wife of Sir Gilbert Thomas Carter, a British colonial official, and mother to a young son, John Codman Carter. In February of 1917 the family resided in Barbados where Gertrude spent her days overseeing the construction of Ilaro Court, the family residence she had designed, and participating in a wide variety of social engagements.

Although physically far removed from the war raging in Europe, the family and their neighbors were intimately connected to the violence across the Atlantic. On February 18th, Gertrude interrupts the short-form structure of her typical diary entries to give an account of the injury and later loss of a neighbor’s son in battle.

While diaries invite us to see the world through the eyes of the diarist, that perspective is not always a comfortable one. On February 17th, she notes that she took her son John and a friend to a carnival dressed as a pirate and an “Indian Chief.” Toward the end of the month, between describing social calls and an afternoon playing tennis, Gertrude sees fit to remark that she received a call from “a dreadful little Jew. These casual displays of racism and anti-semitism remind us of the larger British and American imperial hierarchies within which this white New England woman was embedded.

*** February 1917 *** 

8 Feb. Ilaro. Mr. Carter seems to be doing well.

The Harold [Whytes?] gave us a jolly little lunch at the Bridgetown Club. The Harrells, & Lady Challum, Mrs. Ball Greene from [illegible] & ourselves.

9 Feb. Plans for theatre. Called Evelyns.

10 Feb. Another engagement (doesn’t say what – so I imagine it was a [illegible]).

11 Feb. Ilaro. Took  [illegible].

Lady Clark’s [illegible]. She is much better.

12 Feb. Ilaro. Called Skeet.

13. Ilaro. John in nursery window.

14 Feb. Women Self-Help Committee Meeting.

15 Feb. (What did I do all this time? Calendar says nothing). Government House at home.

16 Feb. Ilaro. 3 [illegible] Called [illegible] Mrs. Cullen. 9. Hall Clarks. Personal [illegible].

17 Feb. Auction at Mandon. Children’s carnival at [illegible] Park. John as a Pirate walked with Lyall as an Indian Chief. Took Hamilton.

18 Feb. E.F.S. Bowen to see house.

To Wm. Mannings to tea. A lovely afternoon & I took the Hamiltons to see the place. Mrs. Manning was very cheery having just received a letter from her son John saying “The Germans seem to be out of the stuff they need to kill me!” After tea on the verandah we went out on the lawn. The telephone bell rang & Mrs. Manning trotted off to answer it. I saw her coming back with her head up like a brave soldier. “Bad news,” she said, “John is wounded. They are sending up the cable. I walked up and down with her while the others melted away. Presently a boy on a bicycle came wheeling up the drive & the butler with a tragic face brought the orange envelope across the lawn. The sun was savagely bright & the yellow and blue macaw shrieked as he swung on his perch. I opened it & read it to her.

“Regret to inform you Lieutenant John Manning brought in dressing station severely wounded. 17th instant.”

Mr. Sam Manning came across the lawn: his face was impassive & he still held a fossil shell in his hand. Mrs. Manning was sobbing in my arms. She raised her head & said, “Sam. Wasn’t it odd? You remember yesterday afternoon?” “Indeed yes,” said the husband to me. “Mrs. Manning was sitting in her room & she looked up & saw John come in.”

(There seems to have been no doubt that this was a real case of telepathy, that the dearly loved son appeared to his mother of whom he thought constantly to say goodbye. It does not to me [impair?] the example of telepathy the fact that the man who came in to Mrs. Mannings room was her other son Herbert. She saw the face of John later form upon the face of Herbert for only a few moments.)

I sat with Mrs. Manning for an hour, trying vainly to give comfort. “He isn’t missing dear Mrs. Manning, he’s comfortable. They are taking care of him, he is at the dressing station. They’ll do everything for him.” But the mother shook her head. “He will die,” she said slowly. It was to say goodbye that he came yesterday.”

And indeed I was not surprised the next day to see the flags of the town at half mast for the boy who had gone. It was to me significant that his farewell should have been to his mother rather than the graceful little wife who married him in a rush & repented it afterward.

19 Feb. A nice swim. Called [illegible] etc. etc. in P.M.

Lady Godfrey & Mrs. Austin [illegible]. Dined at the Hamilton who have moved into [illegible].

20 Feb. Tea at Mrs. Burton’s. Stone carving.

21 Feb. Took John to make calls.

22 Feb. Another nice swim. [illegible] at 11. Mrs. Clifton [Whyte’s?] party [for?] Edna

23 Feb. Took Mrs. Burton to Ilaro. Some nice [gossetts?] to Lewis. Colonel G’s son’s [fiancee?] (he was killed at Ypres) a Miss [illegible].

 [illegible] on theatre plans.

24 Feb. [illegible] Tea at the Felix Hayley’s. Theatre plans.

25 Feb. Meet Mr. Bowen & Mr. Carlin at Ilaro about sash weights. Called Wilkinson’s & Laws.

[illegible] round plan.

26 Feb. Burtons at 9. House at 10. 2 o’clock a call from Mr. R. Davis the theatre promoter. Very full of excitement. A dreadful little Jew. Hamiltons to tennis.

27 Feb. Electricity at 11. At Ilaro.

2 o’clock meeting of the Theatre Committee. [illegible] outside plan of theater for model. Worked rest of p.m.

28. Feb. Worked on [illegible] for theater. 4.30 Civic [illegible] at the Budges.

Dined at the Hamilton & played Pirate [illegible].

***

If you are interested in viewing the diary yourself, in our library, or have other questions about the collection please visit the library or contact a member of the library staff for further assistance.

These transcriptions are preliminary and not meant to be authoritative. In all cases where a word could not be contextually surmised [illegible] has been inserted in its place.

By Grace Wagner, Reader Services

As we begin to move out of February and, hopefully, leave behind the worst of winter, I’d like to reflect back on a historic Boston storm that had a strong impact both on Boston’s landscape and its mythology. February 15, 1876 was a stormy day at the start of the United States’ centennial year. It was also the last day that one of Boston’s first ‘residents’ would stand in Boston Common. This resident was known as the “Great Elm” (and later, the “Old Elm”) and it was one of the most prominent signifiers of Boston’s place in history, a silent witness to history called upon in many early accounts of the city.

The tree had a fabled history among Bostonians. Nehemiah Adams describes the tree in alternately flowery language: “That tree is to antiquity with us what a pyramid is in Egypt. It is like the pillars of Hercules, bounding the unknown ages which preceded the arrival of the Pilgrims” (Boston Common, 1842) and more bizarre turns of phrase: “vegetable patriarch” (The Boston Common: Or, Rural Walks in Cities). Adams’ assessment of the tree’s ancientness is largely in keeping with other Bostonian’s views. Although it was a long held belief that the tree stood in Boston Common even before the Puritans arrived, it was only when the tree fell and its rings were counted that residents definitively concluded that the tree had existed since at least the 1630s (Boston Common in colonial and provincial days by Mary Farwell Ayer). 

The tree had witnessed a number of types of events over the years, from public hangings and duels during the early days of Boston to local women laundering clothing by the tree and Frog Pond at the end of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, as Boston grew in size and the Common became more like a large public park, more common activities included people meeting at the Elm Tree or going skating on Frog Pond.

This nineteenth century print is one of many prints and artistic renderings that were produced of the tree and features Bostonians enjoying their time near the Great Elm, whether sitting under the tree, playing catch near it, or strolling by it. Although this particular print focuses on an idyllic depiction of the Common, it also reveals the age of the Great Elm, which is missing several branches and is fenced in by an iron gate in this depiction. The gate wasn’t installed until 1854, after a series of storms left the elm badly scarred. Over several hundred years, the tree sustained a number of injuries, including a large cavity that developed in the center of its trunk. When the tree finally did come down in 1876, struck by a strong gust of wind during a storm, Boston citizens rushed to the tree to claim branches and scraps of wood as souvenirs.

The tree was repurposed in a number of other ways by inventive residents, including creating veneered pictures of the tree made out of wood from the elm itself and growing a root of “The Old Elm” around a china dish cover. Part of the tree was also used to make a chair for the Boston Public Library (Boston Common: a diary of notable events, incidents, and neighboring occurrences by Samuel Barber). One of these keepsakes belongs to MHS’s own collection, a pair of “Old Elm earrings,” made by Benjamin F. Knowlton. The earrings are shaped like tiny liberty bells and are made out of elm wood, with tiny gold clappers, and red, white, and blue striped ribbon attached to the top of each earring.

From the days of Puritan society, when Boston Common was still a cow pasture, to the Revolution and into the nineteenth century, the Great Elm was a marker of time for Boston for many years. If you are interested in the Great Elm, or the history of Boston Common, please consider visiting the library to learn more!