Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/463

344 The book opens with a long poem, "The Heart of Katahdin," suggesting the very atmosphere of Maine's kingliest mountain. Following it are a series of lyrical memories, seven in number, entitled "Midsummer on Mount Desert." The collection includes also the poem read at the unveiling of the copy of the Westminster Abbey bust of the poet Longfellow in Portland, "Me., in 1885.

The second half of the volume contains poems written during her residence in California, in many instances suggested by its scenery, its associations, and especially by its beauty and promise. Such poems as "The New Italv," "Los Angeles," "Mount Hamilton," and "Vespers at San Juan" show her quick intuition of the forces around her and her swift divination of the future they were shaping. Yet it is evident that her thoughts were always straying to more familiar things and to remembered scenes.

And it came to pass that out of this longing remembrance of home, out of the sorrows that one after another came to her in these later years, and out of the long quiescence of a lingering physical helplessness, of which one or two of her later poems give most pathetic reminder, there were born a noble patience, a serene and sufficing trust, a larger and devouter thought, hallowing all that she had wrought before.

ATHERINE MAY RICKER, one of the most popular of the younger contralto singers of New England, is a member of one of the oldest and best known families of Maine, the Rickers of Poland Springs. They are of "ancient lineage, descending from the feudal and knightly family of Riccar in Saxony in the fourteenth century." The motto of the Riccar arms (now in the possession of the Poland Springs branch and said to be well attested) was "Sapientia domun Dei," "Wisdom the gift of God." Members of this Saxon family settled in later times on the Island of Jersey, whence came George and Maturin Riccar, brothers, the ancestors of most, if not all, of the name in America, a numerous and widely scattered progeny. George, the elder brother, was the first to come, advised, it is believed, by Parson Reyner. He settled at Cocheco, now Dover, N.H., about the year 1670. Maturin, from whom is descended the subject of this sketch, followed a few years later. Both married here, and reared families, George being the father of nine children and Maturin of at least four. They lived near together in garrison houses on Dover Point.

Tradition has it that they were greatly attached to each other, each frequently declaring that he did not want to know of the other's death. The Indians, so the story runs, planned to kill them both, and accordingly lay in wait for them one morning, one at each house. Hearing the shot that killed his brother, the other ran to the door and was himself instantly shot, so that they died within five minutes of each other. The "Journal of Rev. John Pike," minister in Dover at that time, relates the incident somewhat differently, recording under date of June 4, 1706: "George Riccar and Maturin Riccar of Cocheco were slain by Indians. George was killed while running up the lane near the garrison; Maturin was killed in his field, and his little son Noah carried away." The first narrative, however, is that passed down the line by Jabez Ricker, the grandson of Maturin. Noah, the child captured, was taken to Canada, where he became a Catholic priest. After the massacre of the brothers their families left Dover P«int, and went to Garrison House Hill in Somersworth, N.H., there being seven garrison houses near together.

Miss Ricker's line of descent from Maturin1 is through Joseph,2 Jabez,3  Wentworth,4  Albert G.5  (born in 1812, married Charlotte Schillinger, of Poland), and Wentworth Pottle" Ricker, her father (a cousin of the Rickers of Poland Spring House), who married Dorcas Ann Merrill, daughter of Leonard Merrill, one of the influential men of Falmouth and a descendant of Captain James Merrill, who settled there early in the eighteenth century. The old homestead, erected in 1727, was Miss Ricker's birthplace, and is at present occupied by her family.