VISITS AT GROTON.—SICKNESS.—LETTER FROM DR. SHATTUCK.—ENGAGEMENT.—LETTER TO REV. DR. GANNETT.—MARRIAGE.
During these years, Mr. Lawrence was in the habit of making occasional visits to his parents in Groton, thirty-five miles distant. His custom was to drive himself, leaving Boston at a late hour on Saturday afternoon, and often, as he says, encroaching upon the Sabbath before reaching home. After midnight, on Sunday, he would leave on his return; and thus was enabled to reach Boston about daybreak on Monday morning, without losing a moment's time in his business.
In 1810, Mr. Lawrence was seized with an alarming illness, through which he enjoyed the care and skill of his friend and physician, the late Dr. G. C. Shattuck, who, shortly before his own death, transmitted the following account of this illness to the editor of these pages, who also had the privilege of enjoying a friendship so much prized by his father:
"Feb. 28, 1853.
"More than forty years ago, New England was visited with a pestilence. The people were stricken with panic. The first victims were taken off unawares. In many towns in the interior of the commonwealth, the people assembled in town meeting, and voted to pay, from the town treasury, physicians to be in readiness to attend on any one assailed with the premonitory symptoms of disease. The distemper was variously named, cold plague, spotted fever, and malignant remittent fever. After a day of unusual exercise, your father was suddenly taken ill. The worthy family in which he boarded were prompt in their sympathy. A physician was called: neighbors and friends volunteered their aid. Remedies were diligently employed. Prayers in the church were offered up for the sick one. A pious father left his home, on the banks of the Nashua, to be with his son. To the physician in attendance he gave a convulsive grasp of the hand, and, with eyes brimful of tears, and choked utterance, articulated, 'Doctor, if Amos has not money enough, I have!' To the anxious father his acres seemed like dust in the balance contrasted with the life of his son. He was a sensible man, acting on the principle that the stimulus of reward is a salutary adjunct to the promptings of humanity. God rebuked the disorder, though the convalescence was slow. A constitution with an originally susceptible nervous temperament had received a shock which rendered him a long time feeble. An apprentice, with a discretion beyond his years, maintained a healthy activity in his mercantile operations, to the quiet of his mind. He did not need great strength; for sagacity and decision supplied every other lack. Supply and demand were as familiar to him as the alphabet. He knew the wants of the country, and sources of supply. Accumulation followed his operations, and religious principle regulated the distribution of the cumbrous surplus. A sensible and pious father, aided by a prudent mother, had trained the child to become the future man. You will excuse my now addressing you, when you recur to the tradition that I had participated in the joy of the house when you first opened your eyes to the light. That God's promises to the seed of the righteous may extend to you and yours, is the prayer of your early acquaintance,
"George C. Shattuck."
But few details of Mr. Lawrence's business from this date until 1815 are now found. Suffice it to say, that, through the difficult and troubled times in which the United States were engaged in the war with England, his efforts were crowned with success. Dark clouds sometimes arose in the horizon, and various causes of discouragement from time to time cast a gloom over the mercantile world; but despondency formed no part of his character, while cool sagacity and unceasing watchfulness and perseverance enabled him to weather many a storm which made shipwreck of others around him.
Amidst the engrossing cares of business, however, Mr. Lawrence found time to indulge in more genial pursuits, as will be seen from the following lines, addressed to his sister:
"Boston, March 17, 1811.
"My not having written to you since your return, my dear M., has proceeded from my having other numerous avocations, and partly from a carelessness in such affairs reprehensible in me. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn the extent and importance of my avocations; for, in addition to my usual routine of mercantile affairs, I have lately been engaged in a negotiation of the first importance, and which I have accomplished very much to my own satisfaction. It is no other than having offered myself as a husband to your very good friend Sarah Richards, which offer she has agreed to accept. So, next fall, you must set your mind on a wedding. Sarah I have long known and esteemed: there is such a reciprocity of feelings, sentiments, and principles, that I have long thought her the most suitable person I have seen for me to be united with. Much of my time, as you may well suppose, is spent in her society; and here I cannot but observe the infinite advantage of good sense and good principles over the merely elegant accomplishments of fashionable education. By the latter we may be fascinated for a time; but they will afford no satisfaction on retrospection. The former you are compelled to respect and to love. Such qualities are possessed by Sarah; and, were I to say anything further in her favor, it would be that she is beloved by you. Adieu, my dear sister,
A. L."
As this volume is intended only for the perusal of the family and friends of the late Amos Lawrence, no apology need be made for introducing such incidents of his life, of a domestic nature, as may be thought interesting, and which it might not seem advisable to introduce under other circumstances. Of this nature are some details connected with this engagement. The young lady here alluded to, whose solid qualities he thus, at the age of twenty-five and in the first flush of a successful courtship, so calmly discusses, in addition to these, possessed personal charms sufficient to captivate the fancy of even a more philosophical admirer than himself. Her father, Giles Richards, was a man of great ingenuity, who resided in Boston at the close of the Revolutionary War. He owned an establishment for the manufactory of cards for preparing wool. A large number of men were employed; and, at that time, it was considered one of the objects worthy of notice by strangers. As such, it was visited by General Washington on his northern tour; and may be found described, in the early editions of Morse's Geography, among the industrial establishments of Boston. As in the case of many more noted men of inventive genius, his plans were more vast than the means of accomplishment; and the result was, loss of a handsome competency, and embarrassment in business, from which he retired with unsullied reputation, and passed his latter years in the vicinity of Boston. Here the evening of his life was cheered by the constant and watchful care of his wife, whose cheerful and happy temperament shed a radiance around his path, which, from a naturally desponding character, might otherwise have terminated in gloom. She had been the constant companion of her husband in all his journeyings and residences in nearly every State in the Union, where his business had called him; and, after forty years, returned to die in the house where she was born,—the parsonage once occupied by her father, the Rev. Amos Adams, of Roxbury, who, at the time of the Revolution, was minister of the church now under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Putnam.
Sarah had been placed in the family of the Rev. Dr. Chaplin, minister of the church at Groton, and was a member of the academy when Mr. Lawrence first made her acquaintance. "The academy balls, the agreeable partners in the hall, the pleasant companions in the stroll," remembered with so much pleasure in after life, were not improbably associated with this acquaintance, who had become a visitor and friend to his own sisters. After a separation of four years, the acquaintance was accidentally renewed in the year 1807. Sarah was on a visit at Cambridge to the family of Caleb Gannett, Esq., then and for many years afterwards Steward of Harvard University. In a letter to Rev. Dr. Gannett, dated February 15, 1845, Mr. Lawrence thus alludes to this interview:
"My first interview with you, thirty-eight years ago, when you were led by the hand into the store where I then was, in Cornhill, by that friend (who was afterwards my wife), unconscious of my being within thirty miles, after a four years' separation, connects you in my thoughts with her, her children and grandchildren, in a way that no one can appreciate who has not had the experience."
Enclosed in this letter was a faded paper, on which were written several verses of poetry, with the following explanation:
"Only think of your sainted mother writing this little scrap thirty-eight years ago, when on her death-bed, for her young friend, then on a visit to her, to teach to you, who could not read; and this scrap, written upon a blank term-bill without premeditation, being preserved by that friend while she lived, and, after her death, by her daughter while she lived, and, after her death, being restored to me as the rightful disposer of it; and my happening, within four days after, to meet you under such circumstances as made it proper to show it to you."
MRS. GANNETT'S HYMN FOR HER LITTLE BOY IN 1807.
How can a child forgetful prove
Of all that wakes the heart to love,
And from the path of duty stray,
To spend his time in sport and play;
Neglectful of the blessing given,
Which marks the path to peace and heaven?
O! how can I, who daily share
A mother's kind, assiduous care,
Be idle, and ungrateful too;
Forsake the good, the bad pursue;
Neglectful of the blessings given,
Which mark the path to peace and heaven?
O! how can I such folly show,
When faults indulged to vices grow,—
Who know that idle days ne'er make
Men that are useful, good, or great?
Dear mother, still be thou my guide,
Nor suffer me my faults to hide;
And O may God his grace impart
To fix my feeble, foolish heart,
That I may wait the blessing given,
Which marks the path to peace and heaven!
Mem.—Mrs. Gannett died soon after writing this on a blank term-bill of Harvard College, in 1807.—A. L., 1847.
The marriage of Mr. Lawrence took place in Boston, on the 6th of June, 1811, three months after announcing his engagement to his sister.