Mrs. Julia R. Cutler.
Mrs. Cutler's graceful pen has already contributed to this volume the sketch of Mrs. Mary Lee Demarest and also another to follow of Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. Her pen has been busy at occasional intervals from girlhood, when as a school-girl her essays were, as a rule, selected and read aloud in the chapel, on Friday afternoons, and a poem securing the gold medal crowned the success.
Living since her marriage, in the old historic house of Mr. Cutler's great-grandfather, the Hon. Silas Condict, fearless patriot of the Revolution, and President of the Council of Safety during the whole of that period that "tried men's souls", it is little wonder that the traditions of '76 clinging about the spot should nurture and develop the poetic spirit of the girl. It was in 1799, after Mr. Condict's return from Congress that he built the present house familiar to us all, but the old house stands near by, full of the most interesting stories and traditions of revolutionary days.
Mrs. Cutler has written many articles, often by request, for papers or magazines, and verses prompted by circumstances or surroundings, or composed when strongly impressed upon an especial subject.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1791,
SESSION HOUSE AND MANSE.
MORRIS COUNTY SOLDIER'S MONUMENT, 1871.
Before us lies a lovely poem of childhood, entitled "Childish Faith", founded on fact, but we select from the many poems of Mrs. Cutler, the Centennial Poem given below and written on the occasion of the Centennial of the old First Church.