II: The Mystery of the Bell Tavern
THE investigator of early American fiction will find that a peculiar interest attaches to two novels, both published in the last decade of the eighteenth century, both following Richardson in their epistolary form and both founded on fact.
One of these was called "Charlotte Temple, or a Tale of Truth." In the graveyard of Trinity Church in New York, at the head of Wall Street, is a large stone, flush with the ground, bearing the name of the heroine of this now forgotten story which in its day attained an astonishing popularity. The tale is of a young girl who during the War of the American Revolution eloped from an English school with a British officer who abandoned her in New York where she died soon after the birth of a daughter. The tradition runs that more than a century ago the daughter, grown to womanhood, caused her mother's body to be removed to an English churchyard, but the stone still marks the first resting place and when the writer last saw it two wreaths lay upon it.
In 1797—seven years after the date of the first edition of "Charlotte Temple"—the second of our two novels appeared. It was called "The Coquette" and was written by Mrs. Hannah Foster, the wife of a Brighton, Massachusetts, minister. For many years it was read and re-read throughout the country, the latest edition appearing in 1866. Like "Charlotte Temple" its theme was the tragedy of abandonment. It seems, indeed, that the writer who wished to intrigue the interest of our ancestors of this period was compelled to hang his plot on the judiciously interwoven threads of sentiment and gloom. Perhaps no further proof of this is needed than the example of Charles Brockden Brown's portentous and sinister romances, with their undeniable flashes of genius. But it is well to remember, too, that these were the days when "The Castle of Otranto," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "The Vicar of Wakefield" were all popular, and all exhibited varying phases of the literary vogue of the day. In other words, though the prevailing mode of thought found expression in different forms, the imaginative impulses beneath the various manifestations were the same.
Therefore it is not surprising to find little relief from the tragic note in "The Coquette." It is true that the author endeavors to present the heroine, Eliza Wharton, as a worldly and volatile young woman, but these touches of lightness have lost with the passing years whatever approaches to polite comedy they may have once implied. One must confess that regarded strictly as a piece of fiction the book makes rather hard reading today. But examined with some knowledge of the mystery upon which it is founded, the old novel becomes a genuine human document.
Mrs. Foster was a family connection of Elizabeth Whitman, the original of "Eliza Wharton," and may have known her. Whatever the shortcomings of her portrayal may be, it is clear that the authoress was endeavoring to set forth in her book the character, as she estimated it, of the charming and gifted girl, the tragedy of whose death is still unexplained. It is true that the accuracy of the portrait in all respects may be doubted. For example, the few letters of Elizabeth Whitman that have been preserved are far more spontaneous and delightful than any of Eliza Wharton's epistles which constitute so large a part of the story.
Evidently they are the letters of a different person, as well as a more attractive one, than Mrs. Foster's heroine. Then, too, Mrs. Foster's tale has something of the effect of a tract, of a moral effort. She is driving home an ethical lesson and Eliza is the example to be shunned, whereas modern speculation, grown more tolerant, is apt to question the pre-judgment which guided the novelist's pen. He who today seeks to penetrate the old secret realizes that he is furnished with only half of the evidence. On that incomplete data how can a verdict of condemnation be fairly based? Elizabeth's own story has never been told.
Nevertheless, here, for what it is worth, is Mrs. Foster's notion, adapted to her fictional purposes, of the kind of person the real Elizabeth was, and from this reflection, faint and clouded though it may be, of a genuine and appealing character, the old novel today gathers its greatest interest. For against the somewhat somber background of her New England period this Hartford girl stands forth with a flash of brilliancy and charm. In the midst of a somewhat limited and narrow social life, she was an individualist, an exotic. In contrast with her Puritan environment she seems almost Hellenic—yet one fancies that there is something about her more Gallic than Greek.
She was the eldest of the three daughters of the Rev. Elnathan Whitman, D.D., a Fellow of Yale College, and pastor from 1732 till his death in 1777 of the Second Church in Hartford. It is a singular coincidence that through her mother, born Abigail Stanley, she traced kinship to the Charlotte Stanley who was the original of "Charlotte Temple." Her father was a grandson of that noted divine, Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, who, it will be remembered, was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. John Trumbull, the poet and judge, was a cousin and so was Aaron Burr. Besides these, the Pierreponts, the Whitneys, the Ogdens, the Russells, the Wadsworths, were all kin or connected by marriage.
Fairly early in life Elizabeth became engaged to be married to the Rev. Joseph Howe, a Yale graduate, and for a while a tutor at the college, whose chief pastorate was at the New South Church in Boston. During the siege he was compelled to flee from the city and, his health failing, he died at Hartford, probably in 1776.
In that rare volume, "American Poems, Selected and Original," published at Litchfield, 1793, is "An Ode, Addressed to Miss—. By the late Rev. Joseph Howe, of Boston." Its occasion was the departure, by sea, of the young woman to whom it was addressed.
"Nor less to heaven did I prefer,
For thy dear sake, my pious prayer.
O winds, O waves, agree!
Winds gently blow, waves softly flow,
Ship move with care, for thou dost bear
The better part of me."
It is possible, indeed probable, that Elizabeth Whitman, who visited occasionally in Boston, inspired these lines, but it appears that on her part this love affair was of only moderate intensity and that her father's death, which occurred in the year following the death of her betrothed, affected her far more than that of the young minister she was to have married. Not long after Mr. Whitman died, while Elizabeth was visiting in New Haven at the home of Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, whose daughter Betsy was her intimate friend, her second love affair developed.
The Rev. Joseph Buckminster was also a Yale graduate and tutor, later settling at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in Dr. Stiles's old parish, where his life was spent. He was considered an exceptionally brilliant and promising young man and he seems to have loved and wooed Elizabeth ardently. It appears that she had a deep affection for him, but also an intense dread of the harrowing melancholia from which he at times suffered. There is an intimation, too, as to her own growing doubts of future happiness in the somewhat limited rôle of a New England minister's wife. Would her free and eager spirit find satisfaction in a lifetime of parochial routine? She was discussing her final decision in this matter with her cousin Jeremiah Wadsworth in the arbor of her mother's garden when Buckminster, who did not like Colonel Wadsworth, suddenly appeared and, misunderstanding the situation, went away in great anger.
Are the following lines from a letter of Elizabeth to Joel Barlow, written at Hartford, February 19, 1779, references to this affair?
". . . . to find yourself quite out of Ambition's way, and in the very bosom of content,—this certainly is agreeable, and never more than when one has met with trouble in a busier place. I felt myself no longer afraid when a certain subject was started. I neither trembled nor turned pale, but sat at my ease and felt as if nobody would hurt me. I know you will laugh at me for a pusillanimous creature for being ever so afraid as you have seen me; but I cannot help it. . . .
"As to Mr. Baldwin, if he were at the door, I would not run into the cupboard to avoid him. He may mean well, in writing all to Buckminster and nothing to me; but I do not think it."
After the encounter in the garden Elizabeth wrote Buckminster explaining the matter, and, we may infer, telling him that her decision would have been unfavorable. His reply was the announcement of his approaching marriage, but in spite of this rapid volte face he is said to have cherished Elizabeth's memory during all of his life. Mrs. Dall in her "Romance of the Association" tells the story of his burning the first copy of "The Coquette" he read, which he found on a parishioner's table. "It ought never to have been written," he said, "and shall never be read—at least, not in my parish. Bid the ladies take notice, wherever I find a copy I shall treat it in the same way."
Familiar letters are always a fairly clear indication of character, and it is from these letters of Elizabeth Whitman, printed in part in her little book by Mrs. Dall, that we may obtain our most direct knowledge of her personality. After reading them one closes the book with the conviction that here was a rare and lovely woman. Here is wit, originality, sympathy—one is almost tempted to say a certain tenderness—encouragement, good sense and good advice. The writer obviously had that quality that will forever be wholly captivating to the masculine mind—the ability to enter whole-heartedly into the aspirations and ambitions of a friend, to make them her own, and to supply the comforting assurance and admiration that the male sex so frequently craves and that is so often the spur to high endeavor. There is something very winning about this affectionate sympathy as displayed in these old letters, all, with one exception, written to Joel Barlow at the time when he was striving for accomplishment and recognition as a poet. Yet the writer's praise is not blind or overdone, for she does not hesitate to criticise adversely, though in a most engaging way, some of Barlow's verses that he sends to her for her comment:
"There are so many beauties in your elegies, that it looks like envy or ill-nature to pass them and dwell upon the few faults; but you know that I do not leave them unnoticed or unadmired. If you will have me find fault, I can do it in a few instances with the expression. The sentiments are everywhere beautiful, just and above all criticism. . . . Why are you gloomy? You must not be. Expect everything, hope everything, and do everything to make your circumstances agreeable."
Perhaps Elizabeth did not feel incompetent to assume the rôle of a critic and literary adviser, for she herself had the true artist's desire for self-expression and this found relief in her own poetry which usually took the form of the heroic couplet.
It is inevitable that the reader of these letters should ask himself: Was there anything more than friendship between Barlow and Elizabeth? Doubtless the answer is in the negative. When Elizabeth Whitman first met the poet he was engaged to be married to Ruth Baldwin who always remained one of Elizabeth's closest friends and who through all of Barlow's strange career was his faithful and beloved wife. Yet it is evident that in his correspondent Barlow's wavering and self-centered spirit found a steadying and assuring solace that he could never have forgotten. Is it possible that he knew the secret of the final mystery?
Of love affairs, other than those here indicated, that may have transpired in Elizabeth's experience before the catastrophe, we know little or nothing. No doubt certain emotional adventures occurred as the years passed. She was exceptionally cultivated and entertaining and all accounts agree that she was beautiful, though her exact type of beauty is a matter of speculation, for her portrait which for years after her death hung in her old home was destroyed in 1831, when the house was burned—perhaps with much memoranda which would have given us a clue to her secret.
The following well-rounded sentence from Mrs. Locke's historically inaccurate but emotionally true preface to the edition of 1866 of "The Coquette" is not without its character-illuminating quality. "By her exceeding personal beauty and accomplishments," wrote Mrs. Locke of Elizabeth, of whose personality she seems to have had some reliable evidence, "added to the wealth of her mind, she attracted to her sphere the grave and the gay, the learned and the witty, the worshippers of the beautiful, with those who reverently bend before all inner graces."
For a young woman of the period her life was reasonably varied and her acquaintance extensive. At President Stiles's home, and elsewhere in New Haven, where she often visited, she met many men of distinction. She and Betsy Stiles both spoke French fluently and it is said that Elizabeth was greatly admired by several of the French officers who had known Dr. Stiles at Newport and who called upon him from time to time at New Haven. Certain, it must be confessed rather indefinite, "foreign secretaries" are alleged to have fallen victims to her charms.
There is an intimation that after her father's death she did not always find life at home congenial. This is an inference—though not entirely an inference—that one may readily accept. There was an irony in the fate that placed this vivid creature in a New England parsonage in the last half of the eighteenth century. Paris or Florence in the days of the Renaissance—in such a setting one can visualize her. But, alas! there was little in common between the New England of 1780 and the France or Italy of three hundred years before.
And yet one thing was common—as it is common wherever individuals of the human race abide. When the great passion overwhelmed her and swept her away from all that she had known to a mysterious end, Elizabeth Whitman was no longer a young girl. She was a woman of experience, knowing the ways of her world as well as any one of her day and time. The love that broke down all restraints, that surrendered everything, that threw the world away, was no ordinary affair of the heart. It was, in truth, the irresistible, the incredible, the historic passion. It was of a piece with the substance of which the great dramas of the world are made and against the New England scene it now became the motif of a tragedy.
On a day late in May, 1788, Elizabeth took the stage at Hartford for Boston where she was to visit her friend, Mrs. Henry Hill. No doubt her family knew that something was wrong. They knew, among other things, that she had spent all the preceding night alone in the starlight on the roof of William Lawrence's house on the north side of the old State House square. It was a strange proceeding, but their daughter and sister was, after all, a strange, temperamental creature whose impulses and mental processes they seldom understood and frequently disapproved. Of how much more they were aware we do not know—they must have had their suspicions—but at least they were ignorant of her purpose in her journey. From the moment when she drove away in the stage neither they nor any one of her Hartford friends saw her again—nor did she reach her destination.
On Tuesday, July 29, 1788, the Salem "Mercury" printed the following notice:
"Last Friday, a female stranger died at the Bell Tavern, in Danvers; and on Sunday her remains were decently interred. The circumstances relative to this woman are such as to excite curiosity, and interest our feelings. She was brought to the Bell in a chaise, from Watertown, as she said, by a young man whom she had engaged for that purpose. After she had alighted, and taken a trunk with her into the house, the chaise immediately drove off. She remained at this inn till her death, in expectation of the arrival of her husband, whom she expected to come for her, and appeared anxious at his delay. She was averse to being interrogated concerning herself or connections; and kept much retired to her chamber, employed in needlework, writing, etc. She said, however, that she came from Westfield [Wethersfield?], in Connecticut; that her parents lived in that state; that she had been married only a few months; and that her husband's name was Thomas Walker,—but always carefully concealed her family name. Her linen was all marked E. W. About a fortnight before her death, she was brought to bed of a lifeless child. When those who attended her apprehended her fate, they asked her, whether she did not wish to see her friends. She answered, that she was very desirous of seeing them. It was proposed that she should send for them; to which she objected, hoping in a short time to be able to go to them. From what she said, and from other circumstances, it appeared probable to those who attended her, that she belonged to some country town in Connecticut. Her conversation, her writings, and her manners, bespoke the advantage of a respectable family and good education. Her person was agreeable; her deportment, amiable and engaging; and, though in a state of anxiety, and suspense, she preserved a cheerfulness which seemed to be not the effect of insensibility, but of a firm and patient temper. She was supposed to be about 35 years old. Copies of letters, of her writing, dated at Hartford, Springfield, and other places, were left among her things. This account is given by the family in which she resided; and it is hoped that the publication of it will be a means of ascertaining her friends of her fate."
The hope of the editor of the "Mercury" was realized. This notice, coming to the attention of Mrs. Hill, finally resulted in the identification of the mysterious lady of the Belt Tavern as Elizabeth Whitman.
Monument and Bell Tavern, Danvers.
And that, really, is the whole story. The succinct newspaper statement, with its contemporary note and its effect of reality, furnishes a more effective climax than the phrases of any modern chronicler.
Yet one cannot quite close the record without mention of a few incidents of the last days.
The copies of letters mentioned as found among Elizabeth's belongings evidently escaped her, for, fearful of the outcome of her illness, she burned, as she supposed, all her papers. A poem and part of a letter, both clearly addressed to her lover or husband, though no name was given, escaped her.
"Must I die alone?" she wrote in those final days. "Shall I never see you more? I know that you will come, but you will come too late: This is, I fear, my last ability. Tears fall so, I know not how to write. Why did you leave me in so much distress? But I will not reproach you: All that was dear I left for you: but do not regret it.—May God forgive in both what was amiss:—When I go from hence, I will leave you some way to find me:—if I die, will you come and drop a tear over my grave?"
There is a legend, perhaps apocryphal, that one afternoon she wrote in chalk on the inn door, or on the flagging before it, her initials or other sign, which a small boy rubbed out without her knowledge. That evening, the legend runs, an officer in uniform rode into the town on horseback looking carefully at all the doors and walks, but speaking to no one. Not finding what he evidently sought, he is said to have ridden despondently away.
During all her stay at Danvers, Elizabeth wore a wedding ring and at her request it was buried with her.
As to the identity of the man whom Elizabeth loved there have been many speculations. A cousin of hers, an able man, distinguished in the history of his time, has often been assumed to have been the cause of her tragedy, but it is fair to his memory to say that he denied this assumption vehemently. The late Charles Hoadly, State Librarian of Connecticut, had a theory that the man was a prominent member of the Yale class of 1776, but no evidence for this belief is given. Another supposition is that Elizabeth, against the wishes of her family, had contracted a marriage with a French Romanist who, had he acknowledged this union, would have forfeited his inheritance. Probably Jeremiah Wadsworth, who was her friend and adviser, knew the secret, but if so it perished with him.
Her brother William, who was eight years younger than she, long survived her, dying in Hartford on Christmas Day, 1846, at the age of eighty-six. In the old man, who was one of the last in his city to wear the knee breeches of the preceding century, it would have been difficult to recognize Elizabeth's "little rogue of a brother" whom she frequently commended to Joel Barlow's care while at Yale. Through a slight knowledge of medicine he acquired the title of "Doctor," but he was also admitted to the bar and for some time was Town Clerk, and Clerk of the City Court. In his later years he became something of an antiquary and after the Wadsworth Atheneum was built he found in that castellated home of the humanities, particularly in the library, a grateful refuge from the world, where he was always ready to converse with other visitors upon incidents of days long gone by. One subject, however, was universally accepted as unapproachable. With his son, who died unmarried in Philadelphia in 1875, the line of the Rev. Elnathan Whitman became extinct.
After Elizabeth's death her brother is not known to have mentioned her name outside of the family, but for many years he made an annual pilgrimage to her grave with his sister Abigail. The letter of an old resident tells us that after Elizabeth died the door of her room in the Whitman home was kept locked and nothing disturbed till fire destroyed the building.