Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/250

Rh characteristic expression, through her ample means, in various benefactions and charitable works. To lend a helping hand to every worthy cause, not grudging either money or personal service, to extend to the poor and unfortunate both helpful advice and pecuniary aid, to do all that lay in her power to make the world better and brighter—this was the self-imposed mission which she nobly fulfilled. She was an incorporator and one of the trustees of the Maiden Hospital; one of the original incorporators in Maiden of the Y. M. C. A.; and a trustee and at the time of her death one of the board of managers of the Home for Aged People in Maiden. To each of these institutions she made generous bequests — one thousand dollars to the hospital, two thousand dollars to the Y. M. C. A., and a .similar amount to the Home for Aged People. She also left three hundred dollars to the city of Medford to maintain perpetually a drinking fountain, erected by her at the corner of Spring and Salem Streets, also the same amount to the city of Maiden for the permanent care of a drinking fountain previously erected by her in Judson Square, Maiden. She left the cities of Medford and Maiden several similar amounts for the care of her lot in Salem Street Cemetery; Maiden, the care of her father's lot in Oak Grove Cemetery, Medford, and for the care of the lot of her former husband, Mr. Teele, in Medford. To the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals she left two thousand dollars. Wilbraham Academy received from her the gift of one thousand dollars. Her memory is perpetuated in the Centre Methodist Church of Malilen by her gift of a silver communion service. The residue of her fortune, excepting some private bequests, was left to Mr. Hoyle.

Mrs. Hoyle was a constant attendant at the First Congregational Church, the pastor of which, the Rev. H. H. French, officiated a4 her funeral, assisted by the pastor of the Centre Methodist Church, the Rev. Mr. Hughes. A womanly woman and a practical Christian, she left behind a fragrant memory of her life and character that shall long endure.

ELEN N. PACKARD, widely known as a newspaper correspondent, a writer of poems, and an enthusiastic worker in patriotic societies, is one of the recent accessions from New England to the journalistic ranks of the Pacific coast, having removed from Springfield, Mass., to Portland, Ore., in 1901. This was three years ago, eight years after the death of her husband, John A. Packard, a veteran of the Civil War.

Mrs. Packard is a native of Maine. Her maiden name was Clark. She was born in Winterport, Waldo County, being one of the ten children of Lemuel and Harriet (Brown) Clark.

The Clark family of Winterport is one of the very oldest and most respected of the town, Lemuel Clark, Sr., having come there from Kittery nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. The original farm of the progenitor of the family is now owned and occupied by his great-grandson.

Mrs. Packard's father was a sea-captain, engaged mostly in the West India trade, but also visiting foreign ports. Two of his brothers served in the War of 1812. Mrs. Packard's mother, born in 1812, was daughter of .John, Jr., and Sally (Crosby) Brown, of Belfast, Me. John Brown, Sr., removed from Londonderry, N.H., in 1773. He had been an officer in the Provincial army in the French and Indian War. He was one of the first board of selectmen of Belfast, and is said to have been a man of "great vigor, energy, and honesty." He died in 1817, aged eighty-two years. His son, John, Jr., born in 1763, died in 1824 (History of Belfast). Both father and son were members of the Committee of Inspection and Safety during the struggle for American independence, and both rendered valuable service to the infant country. John Brown, Sr., was one of three men who alone of all the settlement refused to take the oath of allegiance to Great Britain when the British fleet appeared in Penobscot Bay in 1779, preferring to sacrifice all his possessions, which he did, but they were restored to him in 1783.

Sally Crosby, described by one who had seen her as a "remarkably sedate, sensible, godly