Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/138

Rh of Whitney families in England for fourteen generations, tracing; the line of John of Water- town and his father, Thomas of Westminster, England, back to a Sir Robert de Witteneye, living in 1242, who is spoken of by Mr. Mel- ville as the "first historic Vhitney."

From John Whitney, the English immigrant, and his wife Elinor, to Anne, the American sculptor, the line was continued through John, Jr.,^ Benjamin,' Daniel,^ Simon,^ Nathaniel Ruggles," and Nathaniel Ruggles, Jr.,' the father above named.

Daniel' Whitney married Dorothy, daughter of Deacon Simon and Joanna (Stone) Tainter, of Watertown. Simon'^ Whitney marrietl Mary Ruggles. Nathaniel Ruggles Whitney, born in 1759, served as Town Clerk of Watertown, Justice of the Peace, anil schoolmaster. His wife, Abigail Frothingham, born in 1760, was a daughter of James° and Abigail (Bradish) Frothingham, of Charlestown, and aunt to the artist, James Frothingham, third of the name, born in 1788, who ranked seventy years ago as "one of our best portrait painters," being thus mentioned by Dunlap in 1834.

Nathaniel R. Whitney, Jr., born in 1782, married in 1806 Sally (or Surah) Stone, who was born in 1784. Her father, Jonathan Stone, of Watertown, Miss Whitney's paternal grand- father, was a descendant in the fifth genera- tion of Deacon Simon Stone, who came from England with his wife Joan and four children in the ship "Increa.se" in the spring of 1635, and, settling at Watertown, became the founder of a prominent branch of the Stone family in New England. The record of the baptism of Deacon Simon Stone, of Watertown, has been found in the parish register of Much Brom- ley, now Great Bromley, Essex County, Eng- land, thus: "1585-6, 9 Feb., Simond, son of Davie Stone & Ursly his wife." His marriage record, also at Much Bromley, is as follows: " 1616, 5 Aug. Symond Stone and Joan Clarke."

To return now to Miss Whitney, the sculptor. Twenty years ago, hi a book on " Famous Women," appeared a sketch of the life of Anne Whitney, which, though incomplete, later biographers and paragraphists writing on the same subject have failed to surpass in sympa- thetic flelineation of character and achieve- ment. "Fortunate in her parentage and in her early training," says this sketch, "Anne Whitney passed through childhood and youth into womanhood under most favorable condi- tions. The simplicity and nobility of nature which strongly marked the parents are traits in the daughter, as are their individualism, their strength of character, their loftiness of moral tone. She has also inherited an inter- est in public affairs and reform, an uncon- querable aversion to any and every form of in- justice, and a vital belief in human betterment."

"As a child she was bright and joyous, over- flowing with animal spirits." In the school- room she was a general favorite. "Said one of her teachers, 'She always brought in with her such a sense of freshness and purity that instinctively I thought of the coming in of the morning. Every teacher in the school observed her, anil all rejoiced in her. ... A gentle grav- ity, a .sweet intelligence of infrequent speech, or a pervasive kindliness of manner marked her intercourse with her fellow-students, it being always apparent that she was with, but not of, them.'"

Slowly her girlhood passed into womanhood. With soul growth came new susceptibility to outward impressions, whether of beauty and of joy, or of sorrow and pain, while far above the possibility of attainment soared her cherished ideals. Fortunately the gift of expression was not denied. She wrote as prompted from within, wrote as the spirit gave utterance. A modest volume of poems, published in 1859, was the result. Poems of "remarkable quality," says Mrs. Livermore. Not that they made their author famous: rather may it be said, "Fit audience they found, though few." It was Samuel Johnson, himself a poet in the same order, who wrote of them, "They send the repose of absolute truth and spiritual in- tuition through the aspirations and conflicts of life, and give us its poetry and highest philosophy."

An extended critique, both admiring and judicial, appeared in the North Avierican Review, contributed l)y Harriet Prescott Spofford. "The publishers," she remarks, "did not give it [the book] their best style. The advertisement was limited, the criticism casual. . ..