Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/562

Rh AROLINE HANKS HITCHCOCK was born September 20, 1863, in Lowell, Mass. From that city during her early childhood she came to the house on Harvard Street, Cambridge, which is still her home. Her parents were the Rev. Stedman Wright Hanks and Sarah Hale Hanks. Her father was descended from an old English family of Malmesbury, near the great Stonehenge in Wiltshire. "All the Malmesbury men who fought in the battle of Eddington under Alfred the Great were rewarded with certain tracts of land, which are still held by the descendants of these old families. Among these so called 'connnoners,' each of whom had five hundred acres, were two brothers of the name Hankes, who.se descendants still hold the 'commoners' rights' in Malmesbury, King Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, having given them one charter, King John another later, and so on."

It was along the old Roman Foss Road that the first known ancestor of Mrs. Hitchcock travelled when he ventured to leave his native place. This was Thomas Hanks, who then .settled in Stow-on-the-Wold, and whose son Benjamin with his wife Abigail "came from, London, October 17, 1699, and landed in Plymouth, Massachusettts." This Benjamin Hanks was the great-grandfather of Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States. The olil records show that " the history of the descendants of Benjamin Hanks is interwoven in the annals of New England, where they are known as 'a remarkably inventive family' ami 'a family of founders.' The first bells ever made in America were cast on Hanks Hill in their old New England farm.

"Mrs. Hitchcock's great-grandfather, one of the descendants of this Benjamin Hanks, placed in the steeple of the old Dutch Church in New York City the first tower clock in America, a iuu(iue affair, run by a windmill attachment. The bells and chimes made by members of the Hanks family, are now ringing all over the world, on land and sea, one of them being the bell in Philadelphia which replaced the old Liberty Bell, and another the great Columbian liberty bell, which hung in front of the Administration Building at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. This bell weighed thirteen thousand pounds, to represent the thirteen original States, and was made from relics of gold, silver, old coins, and metal sent from all parts of the world. On it were inscribed the words, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'; also these: 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,' and 'A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another.'"

It was Mrs. Hitchcock's great-grandfather who erected the first silk-mill in America to run by water-power. He also made the first cannon carried by the Connecticut artillery into the battles in which many of the family gave their lives for their country. For the United States army and navy during the Revolution the Hanks inventions in almost every department were manifold. The founder of the American Bank Note Company and also the discoverer of the new mineral in California, named, after Professor Hanks, "Hanksite," were of her family. Sunday-school publications prepared by a member of this family from a careful research into the Hebrew language and literature have been studied all over America.

Mrs. Hitchcock's father was the author of the well-known Black Valley Railroad temperance illustrations and of many books on the subject of temperance. Realizing the needs of those who "go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters," he instituted sailors' libraries. His daughter well remembers helping prepare the first little box of books that was sent on board ship as a "library," and which was ivally the nucleus of what has become a great system of floating libraries.

She is, as was her father, an ardent believer in temperance. On her mother's side, also, Mrs. Hitchcock is of English descent. The English historian Atkyns says, "The family of Hale has been of ancient standing in this county, and always esteemed for their probity and charity." Illustrious names have crowned this family throughout its history, from Sir Matthew Hale, Lord C'hief Justice, to the patriot soldier, Nathan Hale and the beloved minister philanthropist, the Rev. Dr. Eilward Everett Hale,