Tag: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

bike happy tours then & now: 1885 Gloucester travel guide for cyclists & 2017 stylish new bike fleet at Beauport Hotel

Posted on by Catherine

Beauport Hotel guests can explore the city of Gloucester, MA, and Cape Ann…by bike. What a great perk for visitors!

Biking culture linked with tourism in Gloucester and Cape Ann hearkens way back…as in 1878. Scroll down to see historic tourist guides from 1881 and 1885 that catered to cyclists and visitors. The sights and recommendations are the ones we continue to celebrate.

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Lookout Hill and Stage Fort Park as seen here from the Beauport Hotel deck is just a close walk or bike ride away.

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Enjoy excerpts from an 1885 cyclist tourist guide

In and Around Cape Ann: A Handbook of Gloucester, Mass., and Its Immediate Vicinity. For the Wheelman Tourist and the Summer Visitor by John S. Webber, Jr with eleven illustrations. Gloucester, Mass: Printed at the Cape Ann Advertiser Office, 1885. Library of Congress collection

“…After months of labor–hard labor, too, for one unaccustomed to the work–I am permitted to send forth the present little manual on Gloucester and its immediate vicinity. The material here given is designed for the especial use of the touring wheelman and the summer visitor, and I have endeavored to describe–in a way perhaps peculiar–all the most important sights and places of interest to be found upon this rock-bound territory of Cape Ann…

“The streets about town are generally in condition for bicycle riding, though the surface of most of them is either cut up by thick patches of the coarsest gravel or a layer of loosely lying stones; the rider, however, can pick his way along without any very serious trouble. Main street is paved with square blocks of granite from Porter street to Hancock street, and from Chestnut street to Union Hill. Western avenue, or more frequently spoken of as the “Cut,” is a favorite street for bicycle riding; beyond the bridge take the deserted sidewalk on the left, and enjoy a very pleasant spin upon its easy running surface…

the first suggested itinerary- Bicycle rambles on Eastern Point

“And now let’s take our wheel for a short run along our harbor road to East Gloucester, and note the many points of interest on the way. The start is made at the Gloucester Hotel–the headquarters of all visiting wheelmen in the city–at the corner of Main and Washington streets;

Gloucester Hotel 1885 Washington and Main

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photo: cyclist on the bend passing brick building at Main and Washington now features Tonno Restaurant. Notice the chimneys and same stairs as when it was the Gloucester Hotel. “Special Rates Made to Wheelmen”

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“from thence the journey takes us over the rather uneven surface of Main street, going directly toward the east. In a few minutes we pass the Post Office on the left, and soon leave the noisy business portion of the street behind us, then, e’re we are aware of it, we reach and quickly climb the slight eminence known as Union Hill. Once over the hill the road has a downward grade, with generally a very muddy surface, but on through this we propel our machine to the curve in the road at its junction with Eastern avenue. To the right we follow the now well trodden thoroughfare and again pedal quickly up the steep incline before us. Now the machine is well taken in hand, and with a sharp look-out ahead a pleasant little coast over the gently sloping road is cautiously indulged in; down, down we spin, following the main road to the right over the well worn surface, an on, on we glide, past the dwellings of the rich and poor, directly though the business section of the settlement, until in a few minutes we reach the “Square,” so called, at the village center. Passing the pump at this place on our left, we continue the ride over the mud-covered highway, enjoying highly the magnificent stretch of harbor scenery before us. A short distance, and the first dismount is now taken at the foot of a rough incline known as “Patch’s Hill.” At this place are a number of prominent Summer cottages, among them being the Delphine House, Craig Cottage and Brazier Cottage, each affording first-class accommodations, with facilities for bathing, fishing, and boating in close proximity. Once again we bestride the slender wheel and continue on for half a dozen rods or more to the gate-way at the entrance to Niles’ Beach, which marks the terminus of the public way… 

Celebrity spotting famous authors

“…Our trip on the bicycle in this direction has finished, and so we sit awhile on the near-at-hand rocky bluff and watch the merry throng of bathers in their sportive antics in the cooling sea, and inwardly wish that we were among them in the refreshing exercise. At our back, as we sit facing the sandy shore, is the little Summer abode of the well known authoress, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps–the cottage in which she has already penned a great number of interesting works, and where she passes the greater portion of the long, warm  Summer days.

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photo caption: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps house

“Directly in front of us, at the further end of the beach, is the old mansion house of the Niles family, and still further on, at the extreme end of the rocky shore, is the tall stone column of Eastern Point Light. “The walk across the beach and over the narrow winding tree bordered path is well worth taking, and makes a pleasant 

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Haunting for Halloween: Pumpkin carving and poetry John Greenleaf Whittier & Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Posted on by Catherine

Jack o’lantern traditions. There’s this – our annual amateur foray

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and then this public art tableau  that we stop for each year, just past 370 Main Street, Gloucester (before the Crow’s Nest heading into downtown Gloucester)

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The history of carving jack o’lanterns includes a description in a Victorian era poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (b.1807 Haverhill, MA-d.1892 Danvers, MA; resided/buried in Amesbury)-  a Massachusetts poet, legislator, journalist, editor, Quaker, and abolitionist. Cape Ann, North Shore, Essex County, and New England appear in his prose. 

Excerpt from The Pumpkin, ca.1846 Thanksgiving poem

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin,—our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

 

Whittier was a contributing founder of Atlantic Monthly.  He was wildly popular, successful, and influential in his time. He helped many other writers. Letters to Whittier “poured in at the rate of ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty a day, making all manner of unreasonable requests and sending innumerable axes to grind…” In 1887 “deluged by over a thousand letters and manuscripts at his birthday, he put a public notice…that he could not answer any letters or read any manuscripts…”* Schools, cities and towns across the country were named after him. “People seem determined to use my name lately in many ways. Within a week I have had two ‘literary Institutes’** named for me, and a big vessel launched last week from Newburyport yard carries “Whittier” in brass letters to her element. I hope I shall not next hear of my name attached to notes of hand!”
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was “one of the many woman writers Whittier befriended, but their relationship was especially close. Whittier wrote her scores of letters during his life and they met often to discuss religious themes. Whittier once wrote of her: Miss Stuart Phelps was there-an intense nature-frail but strong-a Puritan with passion and fire of Sappho and the moral courage of Joan of Arc.”** Phelps spent her summers at the seaside in East Gloucester, and was equally compassionate about social concerns.
Whittier and Phelps joined other luminaries at gatherings held in the Cambridge home of James (editor/publisher) and Annie Fields (writer) and other salons.  Who might be mixing it up there? Charles Dickens, Mary Abigail Dodge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Dead Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Lucy Larcom,  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Phelps, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Celia Thaxter and Whittier. Jewett, Longfellow and others visited and wrote about Gloucester. Here’s a link from the Cornell University library to Phelps’ Atlantic Monthly article The 10th of January  about the tragic 1860 Pemberton Mills collapse and fire in Lawrence, MA*** (estimated 90-200+ killed), less known than the horrific 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (146 killed).
*Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier 1861-1892, Volumes I II III, 1975, Harvard, edited by John B. Pickard. Fun read!  We’re told one of the colleges was Whittier college, Salem, Iowa
**ditto above and below any mentions from letters in the timeline

Selected Whittier links and timeline bits:

1908 poem: The Gloucester Mother, by Sarah Orne Jewett, copy of McClure’s Magazine where it first was published: http://www.unz.org/Pub/McClures-1908oct-00702
1888: Whittier “Was there ever such a droll thing?”** letter to Annie Adams Fields gossiping and happy for Elizabeth Stuart Phelps in love with a younger man “Love seems to have cured her…I feel rather aggrieved that I wasn’t consulted.” He calls her E.S.P.  To Celia Thaxter who Whittier visited on the Isle of Shoals, “treasuring evenings in her parlor room where she told ghost stories or they exchanged folk tales:   “What do you think of Eliza Stuart’s marriage to young Ward? He is a good fellow and Elizabeth for once in her life is happy!” Phelps married Herbert Dickinson Ward in 1888–he was 27 and she was 44. It didn’t go well: she bucked his surname within three years and wrote Confessions of a Wife in 1902.
1888 Whittier letter to Annie Fields after editing a new edition of his poetry: “I hope I am correcting a little of the bad grammar, and rhythmical blunders, which have so long annoyed my friends who have graduated from Harvard instead of a country district school.”
1886 Whittier poem: To a Cape Ann Schooner
1886 Whittier letter mentioning Elizabeth Stuart Phelps sending a “very pretty shade of fine lace work…because of its exquisite color” gift on Christmas Eve, which Whittier re-gifted 🙂
1884 Whittier letter to Annie Fields: “Have you seen Elizabeth Phelps lately? I am not in favor of capital punishment, but the burglars who robbed her of her hard earnings would fare hard if I were on the jury that tried them…”
1882 Whittier letter “The world can no longer be to me what it was while Emerson and Longfellow lived. They should have outlived me, for Emerson was never sick, and Longfellow until the last two years had splendid health. A feeling of loneliness and isolation oppresses me. But as Emerson said to me the last time I saw him ‘the time is short’ “ collection of Swarthmore college
1879 Whittier letter to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: “Dr. Bowditch says that a man of active brain ought to make a fool of himself occasionally and unbend at all hazards to his dignity.” admittedly hard for these two
1877  Mark Twain (work friend),  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at Whittier’s 70th birthday celebration. Hawthorne and Whittier were not exactly fans of each other’s works.
1873: Whittier thank you note to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps for sending her book
1868: Whittier letter to Annie Fields complimenting Elizabeth Stuart Phelps The Gates Ajar “Good in itself and full of promise.” 1869 he’s promoting it to Harriet Minot Pittman
1868 Whittier thank you note to James Thomas Field for paying him the $1500 check
1866 Whittier poem: Snow bound: A Winter Idyll  his bestseller and dedicated to his family- memories from childhood
1857 Whittier poem: Garrison of Cape Ann* opens with a view of Cape Ann as seen from Po Hill: “From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span,
Of the sky, I see the white gleam headland of Cape Ann.” For readers that have come this far–the complete Garrison of Cape Ann follows the break.
1843 Whittier poem: Massachusetts to Virginia (in reference to George Latimer, alleged fugitive slave) “The fishing smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann…”  Woodie Guthrie 1958 This Land is Your Land feels like a 20th Century connection.

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