“Kate” was followed by “The Smugglers,” the scene of which was laid in her native town, and “Truth’s Pilgrimage, His Wanderings in America and in Other Lands,” an allegory. Both of these books were published in continued numbers in The Offering, and the first-named was copyrighted by a Boston firm in 1844, but was not published.
Her last novel, “Jessie’s Flirtations,” was published first by George Munro in 1846 and afterwards by the Harpers; and it still holds its place in their “Library of Select Novels.” “S. S. Philosophy,” her last published book, is full of pithy paragraphs, containing (as her friend “Warrington” said in the Lowell Journal) “much that is sensible, sound, and salutary, as well as some considerable that is saucy and sarcastic.” She was for three years co-editor of The Lowell Offering; in 1854-1855 she was associate editor of the Vox Populi, a Lowell newspaper; and she also wrote for many leading journals, notably The New York Tribune, The Lowell Journal, The Lowell American, and N. P. Willis’s Home Journal (N.Y.).
Her nom de plume, “Mina Myrtle,” first used by her in the newspapers in 1847, became well known; it was afterwards appropriated by another author as “Minnie” Myrtle. (See Wheeler’s “Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction.”)
During her last years Miss Curtis lived on a small farm in Needham, Mass., with her invalid niece, and was cared for and supported by her nephew, George H. Caldwell, brevetted lieutenant-colonel for gallant and meritorious service at Gettysburg, the Battle of the Wilderness, and before Petersburg.
Miss Curtis died in October, 1889, at the age of seventy-six, leaving the invalid niece, who had been her charge for so many years; but her affection for her “Aunt Harriot” was so strong that she died of “no seeming disease” a few weeks after her distinguished relative.
THE CURRIER SISTERS.
These were four sisters, named Louisa, Maria, Lura, and Marcia, and at least three of them wrote for The Offering.
They were the daughters of Mr. John Currier of Wentworth, N.H., and members of Mr. Thomas’s congregation and of his Improvement Circle. Maria has put on record an authentic account of the first Improvement Circle (quoted elsewhere); but Lura deserves the most extended mention, from the fact that she, as Mrs. Whitney, was the prime mover in establishing a free library in the town of Haverhill, N.H. Mrs. Whitney died before I had thought to write to her for information; but I am able to quote extracts from the following letter, written by her to Mrs. E. E. T. Sawyer, her early work-mate and lifelong friend, on Jan. 19, 1885.
“I think I have told you about the library that I had the honor of starting here about four and a half years ago. Now we are talking about a new library building; and I think we have made a great start, as one man has given us fifteen hundred dollars towards it.... As far as our library is concerned, I have accomplished what no one else in this place has done before, and I feel amply repaid in the perusal of some of the interesting volumes contained therein.”
Mrs. Whitney died April 4, 1889.