Poet and patriot Annis Boudinot Stockton, with her husband noted attorney Richard Stockton, entertained many prominent figures at Morven, their home near Princeton, New Jersey, during the Revolutionary War years. (See posts by Stockton here and here.) Lest February slip by without a mention of George Washington, here is part of the ode Stockton sent to the general following the announcement of peace in 1783.

With all thy country’s blessings on thy head,
And all the glory that encircles man,
Thy deathless fame to distant nations spread,
And realms unblest by Freedom’s genial plan;
Addressed by statesmen, legislators, kings,
Revered by thousands as you pass along,
While every muse with ardour spreads her wings
To our hero in immortal song;
Say, can a woman’s voice an audience gain;
And stop a moment thy triumphal car?
And wilt thou listen to a peaceful strain,
Unskilled to paint the horrid wrack of war?
For what is glory–what are martial deeds–
Unpurified at Virtue’s awful shrine?
Full oft remorse a glorious day succeeds,
The motive only stamps the deed divine.
But thy last legacy, renowned chief,
Hath decked thy brow with honours more sublime,
Twined in thy wreath the Christian’s firm belief,
And nobly owned thy faith to future time.

Read Washington’s reply to Mrs. Stockton in the next post.

John Wollaston painted the portrait of Annis Boudinot Stockton; it is at the Princeton University Art Museum. Her poem can be found HERE..

Clarence Cook, from whose book A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago (1887) the recent posts (here, here, here, here, and here) of Eliza Southgate Bowne’s letters are taken, expressed in the Introduction his pleasure in reading Eliza’s letters. “[They] are not . . . the letters of a practised writer, nor was there ever in her mind any thought of publication. It was the age of ‘epistolary correspondence’: all the girls of [her] acquaintance were writing letters to their friends, long ones, often, made up in the manner of a diary, with a week’s doings recorded day by day; for postage was dear, and to send blank paper an extravagance. . . .” Cook also expressed regret that letter-writing was in decline. His remarks resonate today and are worth reproducing.

No doubt we have gained much, so far as the material convenience of the great public life is concerned, from the invention that, for all practical purposes, have reduced time and space to comparative insignificance. We have, however, lost some good things, which those who lived in younger days must always regret, and for which there is small compensation in the material gain we have received in exchange. Among these losses, that of letter-writing is perhaps the most serious. A whole world of innocent enjoyment for contemporaries and for posterity has been blotted out, and, so far as appears, nothing is taking its place. Is it the newspapers? But how scattered, how disjointed, how impersonal, the record they contain! . . . Nor do memoirs or biographies give us what we want. They are too formal, too self-conscious; they want the spontaneity, the vividness of impression, the lightness of the recording hand. These things letters give us, and letters alone. . . .

To the readers of successive generations, they speak with the living voice of the writer; they recall the fugitive emotions, the joys, the sorrows, the whims, the passions, as we read we persuade ourselves that we are part and parcel of the times they record. . . .

Nowadays no one writes letters, and no one would have time to read them if they were written. Little notes fly back and forth, like swallows, between friend and friend, between parent and child, carrying the news of the day in small morsels easily digested; it is not worth while to tell the whole story with the pen. when it can be told in a few weeks, at the farthest with the voice.

Do take some time from tweeting and texting to write a long letter to someone. For inspiration check out the many blogs dedicated to renewing the art of letter-writing. This question posed by one strikes me as wonderfully apposite: “What will we leave our grandchildren? The username and password to our email accounts?”

A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne, with an introduction by Clarence Cook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), pages viii and ix. You can download a free e-book of this work HERE.

After Eliza Southgate’s dissertation on love and marriage in the letter she wrote to her cousin Moses in 1800 (see previous post), it is interesting to read how she describes to her mother in September of 1802 her encounter with the man she was to marry.

[A]mong the many gentlemen I have become acquainted with and who have been attentive, one I believe is serious. I know not, my dearest Mother, how to introduce this subject, yet as I fear you may hear it from others and feel anxious for my welfare, I consider it a duty to tell you all. At Albany, on our way to Ballston, we put up at the same house with a Mr. Bowne from New York; he went on to the Springs [Saratoga] the same day we did, and from that time was particularly attentive to me; he was always of our parties to ride, went to Lake George in company with us, and came on to Lebanon when we did,—for 4 weeks I saw him every day and probably had a better opportunity of knowing him than if I had seen him as a common acquaintance in town for years. I felt cautious of encouraging his attentions, tho’ I did not wish to discourage it,—there were so many New Yorkers at the Springs who knew him perfectly that I easily learnt his character and reputation. he is a man of business, uniform in his conduct and very much respected, all this we knew from report. . . . his conduct was such as I shall ever reflect on with the greatest pleasure—open, candid, generous, and delicate. He is a man in whom I could place the most unbounded confidence, nothing rash or impetuous in his disposition, but weighs maturely every circumstance; he knew I was not at liberty to encourage his addresses without the approbation of my Parents, and appeared as solicitous that I should act with strict propriety as one of my most disinterested friends. He advised me like a friend and would not have suffered me to do anything improper. He only required I would not discourage his addresses till he had an opportunity of making known to my Parents his character and wishes—this I promised and went so far as to tell him I approved of him as far as I knew him, but the decision must rest with my Parents, their wishes were my law. . . . the first of October he will come. I could not prevent it without a positive refusal; this I felt no disposition to give. And now, my dearest Mother, I submit myself wholly to the wishes of my Father and you, convinced that my happiness is your warmest wish, and to promote it has ever been your study. That I feel deeply interest in Mr. Bowne I candidly acknowledge, and from the knowledge I have of his heart and character I think him better calculated to promote my happiness than any person I have yet seen; he is a firm, steady, serious man, nothing light or trifling in his character, and I have every reason to think he has well weighed his sentiments towards me,—nothing rash or premature. I have referred him wholly to you, and you, my dearest Parents, must decide.

Eliza did marry Walter Bowne in 1803, with her parents consent. They had one child, a boy, in 1806, and two years later in July, a girl. But all was not well with Eliza. She had not recovered her strength after the birth of her daughter and, following her doctor’s recommendation to visit a warmer climate, she went to Charleston, South Carolina, with her sister and brother-in-law, her husband promising to join them later. Unfortunately, Eliza’s health did not improve; she died in February 1809 at the age of twenty-six.

Eliza Southgate’s letter is from A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne, with an introduction by Clarence Cook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), pages 139 to 141.

I cannot help but return once again to Eliza Southgate Bowne; her letters are so delightful. This one, however, to her cousin Moses Porter in September 1800, on the subject of love and marriage, is very thoughtful and quite serious.

As I look around me I am surprised at the happiness which is so generally enjoyed in families, and that marriages which have not love for a foundation on more than one side at most, should produce so much apparent harmony. I may be censured for declaring it as my opinion that not one woman in a hundred marries for love. A woman of taste and sentiment will surely see but a very few whom she could love, and it is altogether uncertain whether either of them will particularly distinguish her. If they should, surely she is very fortunate, but it would be one of fortune’s random favors and such as we have no right to expect.

Gratitude is undoubtedly the foundation of the esteem we commonly feel for a husband. One that has preferred us to all the world, one that has thought us possessed of every quality to render him happy, surely merits our gratitude. If his character is good—if he is not displeasing in his person or manners—what objection can we make that will not be thought frivolous by the greater part of the world ?— yet I think there are many other things necessary for happiness, and the world should never compel me to marry a man because I could not give satisfactory reasons for not liking him. I do not esteem marriage absolutely essential to happiness, and that it does not always bring happiness we must every day witness in our acquaintance. A single life is considered too generally as a reproach; but let me ask you, which is the most despicable—she who marries a man she scarcely thinks well of—to avoid the reputation of an old maid— or she, who . . . preferred to live single all her life. . . .

I wish not to alter the laws of nature — neither will I quarrel with the rules which custom has established and rendered indispensably necessary to the harmony of society. But every being who has contemplated human nature on a large scale will certainly justify me when I declare that the inequality of privilege between the sexes is very sensibly felt by us females, and in no instance is it greater than in the liberty of choosing a partner in marriage; true, we have the liberty of refusing those we don’t like, but not of selecting those we do. This is undoubtedly as it should be. But let me ask you, what must be that love which is altogether voluntary, which we can withhold or give, which sleeps in dulness and apathy till it is requested to brighten into life? Is it not a cold, lifeless dictate of the head,—do we not weigh all the conveniences and inconveniences which will attend it? And after a long calculation, in which the heart never was consulted, we determine whether it is most prudent to love or not.

How I should despise a soul so sordid, so mean! How I abhor the heart which is regulated by mechanical rules, which can say “thus far will I go and no farther,” whose feelings can keep pace with their convenience, and be awakened at stated periods,—a mere piece of clockwork which always moves right! How far less valuable than that being who has a soul to govern her actions, and though she may not always be coldly prudent, yet she will sometimes be generous and noble, and that the other never can be. After all, I must own that a woman of delicacy never will suffer her esteem to ripen into love unless she is convinced of a return. Though our first approaches to love may be involuntary, yet I should be sorry if we had no power of controlling them if occasion required. There is a happy conformity or pliability in the female mind which seems to have been a gift of nature to enable them to be happy with so few privileges,—and another thing, they have more gratitude in their dispositions than men, and there is a something particularly gratifying to the heart in being beloved, if the object is worthy; it produces a something like, and “Pity melts the heart to love.” Added to these there is a self-love which does more than all the rest. Our vanity (’tis an ugly word but I can’t find a better) is gratified by the distinguished preference given us. There must be an essential difference in the dispositions of men and women. I am astonished when I think of it—yet—

But I have written myself into sunshine—’tis always my way when anything oppresses me, when any chain of thoughts particularly occupies my mind, and I feel dissatisfied at anything which I have not the power to alter,—to sit down and unburthen them on paper; it never fails to alleviate me, and I generally give full scope to the feelings of the moment, and as I write all disagreeable thoughts evaporate, and I end contented that things shall remain as they are. When I began this it absolutely appeared to me that no woman, or rather not one in a hundred, married the man she should prefer to all the world—not that I ever could suppose that at the time she married him she did not prefer him to all others,—but that she would have preferred another if he had professed to love her as well as the one she married. Indeed, I believe no woman of delicacy suffers herself to think she could love any one before she had discovered an affection for her. For my part I should never ask the question of myself—do I love such a one, if I had reason to think he loved me—and I believe there are many who love that never confessed it to themselves. My Pride, my delicacy, would all be hurt if I discovered such unasked for love, even in my own bosom. I would strain every nerve and rouse every faculty to quell the first appearance of it. There is no danger, however. I could never love without being beloved, and I am confident in my own mind that no person whom I could love would ever think me sufficiently worthy to love me. But I congratulate myself that I am at liberty to refuse those I don’t like, and that I have firmness enough to brave the sneers of the world and live as a old maid, if I never find one I can love.

Eliza Southgate’s letter is from A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne, with an introduction by Clarence Cook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), pages 37 to 41.

Most readers will know that men and women wore wigs in the eighteenth century; children and servants wore them, too. Many were powdered. By the middle of the century women’s wigs had become incredibly elaborate and rose to enormous heights, though those in America did not reach the extreme of the one in this illustration, said to be of Marie Antoinette. Toward the end of the century, while wigs were still worn they were much simpler. Women who wore them cut their hair short or even shaved their heads. Nevertheless this letter of Eliza Southgate in 1800 to her mother was quite a surprise to me. It does account for Eliza’s reference to her wig flying off in the previous post dated 1802. Apparently her mother complied with her request.

Now Mamma, what do you think I am going to ask for?—a wig. Eleanor has got a new one just like my hair and only 5 dollars. Mrs. Mayo one just like it. I must either cut my hair or have one, I cannot dress it at all stylish. Mrs. Coffin bought Eleanor’s and says that she will write to Mrs. Sumner to get me one just like it; how much time it will save—in one year we could save it in pins and paper, besides the trouble. At the assembly I was quite ashamed of my head, for nobody has long hair. If you will consent to my having one do send me over a 5 dollar bill by the post immediately after you receive this, for I am in hopes to have it for the next assembly—do send me word immediately if you can let me have one.
Eliza

Anna Green Winslow, writing to her mother in Nova Scotia, on May 23, 1773, from Boston where she was living with her aunt while attending school, describes another way to dress women’s hair—using rolls or pads over which the hair was combed to bulk it up. One hairdresser advertised that he made “Ladies toupees pads braids and cushions.” Anna was only fourteen at the time but had a great interest in fashion. She sounds remarkably like a modern teenager when she says to her mother “Dear mamma, you dont know the fation here—I beg to look like other folk.”

After making a short visit with my Aunt at Mrs. Green’s, over the way, yesterday towards evening, I took a walk with cousin Sally to see the good folks in Sudbury Street, & found them all well. I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made wholly of red Cow Tail, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. … When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then took up her apron & mesur’d me, & from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur’d an inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue & modesty without the help of fals hair. . . .

At the end, at least Anna had the good sense to poke a little fun at the styles … and herself.

Eliza Southgate’s letter is from A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne, with an introduction by Clarence Cook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), page 23. Anna Winslow’s letter is from the Diary of Anna Green Winslow, A Boston School Girl of 1771, edited by Alice Morse Earle (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894), page 71.