My dear Father,—I came here last Friday with the intention of returning to New Bedford on Monday, but I was seized with a very violent bilious attack that kept me in the house for a day or two. The physician that was called prescribed calomel, and I was fool enough to take it, the consequence of which is that instead of being perfectly well to-day, as I should otherwise have been, I have a pain in my bones, and not half the elasticity that generally attends my recovery. However, calomel or no calomel, I don’t regret my illness, for it has been the cause of my being in Newport at a most interesting moment. Early this morning Margaret was safely delivered of a fine, healthy boy, after an uncommonly short and easy labor. She was fortunate in the attendance of a most judicious, skillful, and experienced physician, a younger brother of her father, who has been in an extensive practice for more than forty years. Now, father, you may fairly say that you have a right to your gray hairs. Gray hairs and grandfathers always go together. The little fellow has been squalling most unmercifully this morning, and seems to take it for granted that no one’s convenience is to be consulted but his own. If he will but show the same energy in the development of his other faculties, we may expect great things of him.
Your son,
Isaac I. Stevens.
During the greater part of this year Oliver pursues his studies at Phillips Academy in South Andover; Sarah is teaching an unruly school in Saugus, Mass., where she punishes a refractory boy, maintains order, and overcomes the unreasonable anger of the boy’s parents in a way that proves her gifted with much firmness, decision, and good sense. Only Mary remains at home. She writes: “We had a fugitive slave to spend the night with us. He was as black a person as I ever saw.” So it appears that the old Abolitionist is doing his part towards the “underground railroad,” as harboring and forwarding fugitive slaves was termed.
Elizabeth, in Tennessee, became engaged in the spring to Mr. L.M. Campbell, a promising young lawyer, and they were married September 9.
After the birth of the child, Mr. Stevens and his wife went to keeping house in New Bedford. Sarah visited them in the winter, and on her return home in March, 1843, they accompanied her as far as Boston, where they remained a week while Mr. Stevens attended to some engineering duties on one of the islands in the harbor. In April he was again in Boston, while his young wife was visiting her mother in Newport for election day in May, when the state government was to be inaugurated.
Lieutenant Stevens received orders to assume charge of the fortifications at Portsmouth, N.H., to which those at Portland, Maine, were added soon afterwards. These consisted of Forts Constitution and Scammell at the former, and Forts Preble and McClary at the latter place. Breaking up housekeeping at New Bedford in 1843, and leaving his wife and boy in Newport, and the little stock of furniture and belongings stored in the old mansion temporarily, Lieutenant Stevens proceeded to Portsmouth and took charge of the works. Having in his ever prompt and energetic manner set everything under way, he returned to Newport, and brought his little family to the new station. They boarded for a short time, then he leased a spacious house, using a portion of it as an office. They speedily found themselves among warm friends and pleasant surroundings. Lieutenant Tom Breese, of the navy, a generous, whole-souled gentleman, who had married Lucy Randolph, a cousin of Mrs. Stevens, was stationed at the navy yard, and made them more than welcome. Lieutenant A.W. Whipple, of the engineers, a fellow student at West Point, was conducting a survey of the harbor. He became a major-general, commanded the third division, third corps, Army of the Potomac, and was mortally wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville. There were also Colonel Crane, Captain Stanberry, and Lieutenants William H. Fowler and Joseph Hooker, of the army, and Major Harris, of the marines. Hooker afterwards rose to be major-general, and commanded the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. Portsmouth, like Newport, had its old families and cultivated and agreeable society, which cordially received the young engineer officer and his wife. Among the first to call upon Mrs. Stevens were Mrs. John L. Hayes and Mrs. Samuel Elliott Coues, two beautiful young women, the daughters of Mr. Alexander Ladd, and a warm friendship grew up between the families, which continued after all three moved to Washington in after years.
In Portland, only a few miles distant, resided Rev. Asa Cummings, Mr. Stevens’s maternal uncle, the editor of the “Christian Mirror,” and his house was always open to the young couple like a second home. During the winter Mrs. Stevens’s sister Mary visited them. There was much social visiting and many entertainments; they attended the marriage of Lieutenant Whipple and Miss Sherburne. They were on board the frigate Portsmouth when she was launched at the navy yard.
Mr. Stevens found his hands full, with the two sets of works intrusted to him, and was obliged to spend no little time in traveling between them. At Fort Preble he planned and built the barracks, conceded to be among the best arranged in the country. Having to cross the harbor frequently in his visits to the fort, he had built at Newport one of the catboats for which that town was famous, and had it brought to Portland. He also brought on from New Bedford a faithful retainer, named Daniel Murphy, and put him in charge of the boat.
In addition to these onerous and responsible duties, he was placed in sole charge of the fortification of the narrows of the Penobscot River, where it was decided to build a regular, bastioned, casemated work for forty guns on the right bank of the river, opposite Bucksport, to be named Fort Knox. Mr. Stevens visited Bucksport in July, 1843, on this new duty. The first thing to be done was to purchase the site for the fort, and for this purpose he sought the owners of the land and made arrangements with them. One of these, an old farmer, not deeming it possible that the government could be represented in so important a matter by so young, boyish-looking, and unassuming a man, refused to talk with him, and soon afterwards, meeting an acquaintance, complained to him about that young fellow, a mere boy, talking to him as to buying his farm for the government, etc. To his astonishment, his friend assured him that he had made a great mistake, that the young man was Lieutenant Stevens, of the engineer corps, who had entire charge of building the fort, and advised him to lose no time in seeking the young officer and explaining his mistake, which he made haste to do. This incident shows how youthful Mr. Stevens appeared at that time, although twenty-five years old, a husband and a father. He was always quiet and unobtrusive in manner, without a trace of self-assertion or pretentiousness; and the marked impression he made upon all with whom he came in contact was due to real superiority of mind and spirit, and not to any adventitious advantages of stature or manner.
He also, in July, visited Castine, and inspected and reported upon the old works there, which had been fortified and held by the British during the war of 1812.