CHAPTER XXXIII.
During my youth, public entertainments were rare in Plymouth, especially in the winter. During that season, with unlighted streets and the houses lighted for the most part with oil lamps, the town, more particularly in a storm of rain or snow was gloomy, indeed. Families gathered around their wood fires and here and there groups of men would sit on the counters and boxes in the stores until the nine o’clock bell called them home. When any of the housewives ventured to have a party, candles with their candlesticks and snuffers were brought out and scattered about the parlors on mantels and tables. Occasionally instead of a formal evening party a lap tea was the entertainment, the guests arriving at half past six or seven. Those lap teas were glorious times for us boys, for there was something exciting in the preparation. An extra supply of cream was to be bought, the sugar loaf was to be divested of its blue cartridge paper covering, and chopped into squares, and sandwiches and whips and custards were to be made, of which we were sure to get preliminary tastes. And better than all we were permitted to carry around waiters loaded with cups of tea and plates and cream and sugar, and the various articles of food.
Music at these entertainments was uncommon. There were as long ago as about 1828 or 1830 only four pianos in town, and these were owned by Mrs. Pelham W. Warren, Mrs. Nathaniel Russell, Jr., Miss Eliza Ann Bartlett and my sister Rebecca. My sister’s was given as part pay for a Chickering piano; Miss Bartlett’s was sold to Joseph Holmes of Kingston and is now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. H. M. Jones of that town; Mrs. Russell’s is still owned by her daughter, Mrs. Wm. Hedge, and Mrs. Warren’s went I know not where. The Russell piano is, as I remember the others were, of mahogany, ornamented with brass and with a scale of five and a half octaves. It was made by Alfred Babcock of Philadelphia, probably before 1825, for R. Mackey of Boston, who was not a manufacturer, but probably an agent for the maker. I say that it was probably made before 1825, because it is stated in histories of piano making that Mr. Babcock invented in that year the iron string board, which this one does not have.
At a party in a house where either of the above pianos was owned, one of the guests, probably a visitor from Boston, favored the guests, by request, with a song. I recall one occasion when a lady was invited to sing who was unable to pronounce the letter “s.” She unhesitatingly consented, and taking her seat at the piano sang the song beginning with the words, “Oh ting tweet bird, oh ting.” Though more than sixty years have elapsed I am often reminded when I hear a lady sing at the piano of the polite invitation of that lady to the tweet bird to ting.
Aside from the parties the entertainments were chiefly lectures by Rev. Chas. W. Upham on “Witchcraft;” by Rev. Chas. T. Brooks on, “Education in Germany,” by Mr. Emerson on “Socrates;” or lectures by other prominent men; exhibitions of ledgerdemain by Potter or Harrington, or of a mummy which walked “in Thebes’ streets three thousand years ago”; or if nothing better offered an evening book auction. Occasionally a debating society would be formed of which Timothy Berry was always the organizer and patron, a man always ready to encourage the oratorical efforts of young men. I was permitted as a boy to attend the meetings of the society, and I remember the debaters well. As young as I was I could not help being amused at the seriousness with which the grandest subjects were attacked as if then and there their settlement depended on the merits of the debate. There was one gentleman who every evening, when the nine o’clock bell rang, rose impressively and said, “Mister President, many subjects not been teched on to-night, move we journ.” The club accordingly adjourned, and the impressive gentleman left the hall, evidently feeling that he had been an active participant in the debate.
There was another society in my boyhood called the Plymouth Madan Society, but from whom it derived its name I never knew. It was a musical society, and occasionally gave concerts. The nearest approximation to the name I ever knew until recently, was the Scripture name of Medan, the son of Abraham. But that was evidently a misfit. I next found among the proper names in the Century dictionary, that of Martin Madan, an English Methodist divine who published in 1780 a book called Telyphthora, advocating polygamy. But as the Plymouth Madan Society gave concerts in the Universalist church, it is not probable that it was named in honor of a polygamist. Having since met with the name of Madan in the newspapers of a family in Marshfield, I wrote to Lot J. Madan, living at Green Harbor, asking him if any of his family in past generations, either his father or grandfather, had been musical. Mistaking my word musical for married, he replied that if his father and grandfather had not been married he would not have been around in these days. In a subsequent letter he said he played on the violin, and was as far as he knew the only musician in the family. For whom then the society was named is a question still unsolved.
Among other societies within my day was one to aid in arresting horse thieves, and that was one of many formed in various towns. The only surviving one within my knowledge is in Dedham, which annually meets and elects its officers. I have already alluded in another chapter to a temperance society which was formed in 1832, by whose efforts more was done to promote temperance than by all other agencies combined from that time to this. The sale of intoxicating liquors was almost completely stopped, the family use of wines was abandoned, and under the influence of Daniel Frost, whose addresses were largely attended, more than a thousand names were secured to pledges to abstain from the use of ardent spirits.
An Anti-slavery society I have also referred to which was formed in the Robinson church on the evening of the Fourth of July, 1835, and occupied for some years rooms in the second story of the northerly end of the building which up to 1883 stood on the site of the Sherman block on the west side of Main street. The seed of anti-slavery fell in Plymouth on sandy soil, but watered by heavenly dew, it soon took root and broke through the conservative crust which under the influence of the commercial and financial interests of the town, for a time obstructed its growth.
There was a peace society formed in 1831, but as we were then at peace with the world, there does not appear to have been at that time any special call for the organization. It seems to have been a fashion of the times to form peace societies, but their influence was not sufficiently enduring to check the movements which resulted in the Mexican war not many years later. But it seems to be the way of our people to advocate peace in a time of peace, and when war threatens, to advocate war. The President of a Massachusetts Sunday-school Association preached in peaceful years as a minister of the gospel peace on earth and good will among men, but in 1898 I saw him marching with the first battery in all the panoply of war to join the murderers of his fellow men. Another prominent minister of the gospel who, when no war clouds darkened the horizon, permitted himself without protest to be called the apostle of peace, was as dumb as an oyster when the opportunity came to utter trumpet-tongued his protests against the war.
Bu it was not always so with the people of Plymouth. Ever after the close of the revolution they were advocates of peace, and when the war with Great Britain broke out in 1812 they uttered in no uncertain language their determined protest. A memorial to the President denouncing the war was passed unanimously in town meeting, the closing words of which were as follows: “Thus sir, with much brevity, but with a frankness which the magnitude of the occasion demands, they have expressed their honest sentiments upon the existing offensive war against Great Britain, a war by which their dearest interests as men and Christians are deeply affected, and in which they deliberately declare, as they cannot conscientiously, so they will not have any voluntary participation. They make this declaration with that paramount regard to their civil and religious obligations which becomes the disciples of the prince of peace whose kingdom is not of this world, and before whose impartial tribunal presidents and kings will be upon a level with the meanest of their fellowmen, and will be responsible for all the blood they shed in wanton and unnecessary war.”
My only comment on the above memorial is that milder language was flippantly denounced as treasonable by some of the advocates of the recent war with Spain.
The various societies which I have thus far mentioned were temporary in their character, and had short careers. There were, however, two others formed in the first quarter of the last century, one charitable and the other historical, which have continued to this day, and having been incorporated, will continue for an indefinite period. One of these, the Pilgrim Society, will be noticed in a later chapter in connection with the celebrations of the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. The other, the Plymouth Fragment Society, having its origin and inspiration in the heart of a benevolent lady a native of a foreign land, with whom the ladies of Plymouth enthusiastically co-operated, has year after year for nearly ninety years, by the kindly hands of each succeeding generation, dispensed among the suffering poor a charity which, dropping like the gentle rain from heaven, is twice blessed, for it blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. It was founded by Madame Marie de Verdier Turner on the 13th of February, 1818, for the declared purpose of “relieving the wants of the destitute poor.” To meet legal requirements imposed by bequests to the Society, it was incorporated March 14, 1877, with a capital not estimated nor divided into shares.
The officers of the Society since its organization have been as follows: Presidents, Mary Warren, Martha Russell, Joanna Davis, Betsey F. Russell, Margaret Warren, Sarah M. Holmes, Laura Russell, Martha Ann Morton, Caroline B. Warren, Esther Bartlett. Vice-presidents: Esther Parsons Hammatt, Betsey Torrey, Elizabeth Freeman, Lucretia B. Watson, Rebecca D. Parker, Mrs. Thomas, Sally Stephens, Mercy B. Lovell, Ellen M. Hubbard, Helen Russell. Secretaries: Betsey H. Hodge, Rebecca Bartlett, Elizabeth L. Loud, Abby M. Hall, Helen Russell, Jennie S. Hubbard. Treasurers: Francis L. Jackson, Phebe Cotton, Mary Ann Stevenson, Eunice D. Robbins, Caroline E. Gilbert, Lydia G. Locke, Elizabeth W. Whitman. The amount expended in charity during the year ending October 1, 1905, has been $883.93 for food, fuel and clothing, and $360 in payments of $2 a month to eleven regular, and four special pensioners.
So little is known by the present generation of Madame Turner, the founder of the Society, and of her romantic life that I present to my readers a short sketch of her career for the facts in which I am chiefly indebted to a paper read by Lois B. Brewster as a graduating exercise in 1899, at the Plymouth High school, the language of which I have in a measure adopted:
Mrs. Turner was a native of Sweden, born in Malmo in 1789. Her father was a retired officer in the Hussars, an accomplished gentleman, and her mother was connected with noble families from whom she inherited the prejudices of the aristocracy. She received an education which beside the ordinary branches taught in the schools, included music, embroidery and painting. Her father died when she was fifteen years of age, leaving her mother with only a little more than a government pension for her support. After removing with her family to Copenhagen, Madame de Verdier soon after died, never having recovered from the shock caused by the death of her husband. Marie became an inmate of the home of a rich merchant, who provided her with every luxury, and in whose house she often met guests of the merchant from foreign lands. Among these guests at dinner one day were Captain Robinson, an Englishman, and Captain Lothrop Turner of Plymouth, ship masters, whose ships were consigned to their host. It is needless to say that the handsome Captain Turner and the pretty Swedish maid fell deeply in love with each other before his ship was ready to leave, but as she could speak no English, and Swedish was to him an unknown tongue, their language of love was carried on by the tell tale eye and blushing cheek, except when Robinson lent his services as an interpreter. Marie, against the advice of her friends, yielded to the influence of her own head, and accepting his hand in marriage, the husband and wife after a marriage solemnized in April, 1812, sailed for her new home in New England. It was during the war of 1812, and in entering Massachusetts Bay, Capt. Turner barely escaped capture by an English frigate patrolling the coast, but finally reached Plymouth. The story of the romantic marriage had reached Plymouth before them, and on the day of their arrival the young friends of the captain were gathered to give a cordial welcome to his Swedish bride. Long before the arrival of the stage bearing them was due, numbers of women and children anxious to see the bride gathered on Cole’s Hill, and from that vantage ground saw the blue-eyed, golden haired little woman as she dismounted and entered the house of Capt. Turner’s father, which stood near the foot, and on the South side of Leyden street. It was a trying season for her among new friends whom she had never seen, imperfect in the use of the English tongue, and amid scenes to which she must become accustomed, as those of home. Not long after her arrival a daughter Maria was born, who died in infancy.
It now became her task to learn the language which she must make her own, but she was an apt scholar, and bravely and speedily fought her way through its intricate words and phrases. As she became acquainted with Plymouth people she was surprised that the pupils in school were not taught to paint and embroider, and as two sisters of her husband were teaching a private school she engaged in the instruction of their pupils in those accomplishments. She also formed classes of girls, and taught them music, besides painting and needlework. In her visits among the sick she came to realize the needy condition of many families suffering from the effects of the embargo, which were added to the sad conditions of the revolution from which they had not yet recovered. Throughout the early years of her life in Plymouth, she worked with zeal in enlisting the aid and sympathy of those in comfortable circumstances in charitable work, and while engaged personally in visits among the poor she conceived the idea of associated work in aid of the sick and destitute.
Her husband died in Havana, April 28, 1824, and she was left with little means of support, except that derived from her own labors. Friends in Boston offered her aid which she refused, believing it inconsistent with the character of a true American to accept assistance while able to support herself.
She opened a school in the house of a friend on Fort Hill in Boston, but after a short time felt a longing to return to her native land, and sailed for Sweden in a vessel owned by Capt. John Russell. She found, however, her country not as she had left it, rich and moral, but a decaying monarchy, its people intemperate, and without the political freedom enjoyed in America. She lived for a time in Stockholm as a friend of Countess Ferson, and there received an advantageous offer of marriage, which she declined, saying, “I have been the wife of a free citizen, I will not lower myself by marrying a subject.” One day while riding with the Countess, she saw a ship flying an American flag, and exclaiming—“See the stars—see the stars,” told the Countess that she must return in that ship to her adopted country. And this she did, declaring that she preferred a home of poverty in a free country to an abode of luxury under a monarchy.
Arriving in Boston in delicate health, with symptoms of pulmonary disease, after a season of suffering, she removed to New York, hearing of a place there where she could teach. Her disease, however, increasing, she went south, where she spent two years with friends, engaged in finishing a translation of “Waldermar, the Victorious,” from the Danish of Ingerman, which she had begun while on her last voyage.
She had previously published with great success a work on “Drawing and Shadowing Flowers,” with lithographic plates, executed by herself, and “The Young Ladies’ Assistant in Drawing and Painting,” and several stories for magazines. She returned to Boston in 1837, with the hope of continuing literary work, but her disease increasing, she was obliged to abandon the publication of her book, and told her friends that if it should be published after her death, she hoped that a sketch of her life might be prefixed, for she “believed that it would make the women of America more sensible of the inestimable value of their free institutions; more thankful for their religious privileges, and more American, when they read her story. I would do something for the country where I have found a Saviour for my soul, where I have had a home, and where I shall have a grave.” She died at the Massachusetts General Hospital, March 15, 1838, and her body was removed to Plymouth and buried in Oak Grove cemetery. Her life and work should be remembered by something more enduring than an occasional allusion, and I suggest that a stone be erected over her grave with something like the following inscription:
This stone is erected by the Plymouth
Fragment Society in memory of its
founder, Marie de Verdier Turner, a native
of Sweden, who was born in Malmo,
in 1789, and died in Boston, March 15, 1838.
And Christ said: “Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of
these, ye have done it unto me.”