William Sprague’s line of the family achieved prominence in the arts—from botanical illustration to poetry.

In this “Rev 250” period of commemoration of the War for Independence, I need to first mention that William’s great-great grandson, Samuel Sprague, born in Hingham in 1753, was a Revolutionary War Patriot who also participated in the Boston Tea Party, as discussed in a 2020 post on this blog.  Samuel’s pension states that he crossed the Delaware with George Washington!  (That tidbit is courtesy of the recently published book, Revolutionary War Patriots of Hingham, Ellen Stine Miller & Susan Garrett Wetzel, 2024, copies of which are available from the Hingham Historical Society.

Charles Sprague (1791-1875) —Samuel’s son, Charles, was born in Boston, where his father Samuel earlier had relocated as an apprentice mason.  Charles had success both in the banking business and as a poet and became well known as the “Banker Poet of Boston.” He is considered one of America’s earliest native-born poets. Some of his poems suggest an affinity for transcendentalism, a movement associated with Charles’ contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, all of Massachusetts. One example of Charles’ poetry can be read here.

This portrait of Charles hangs in the hallway of the Hingham Historical Society’s General Benjamin Lincoln House (Charles’ granddaughter Helen Amelia Sprague married Lauriston Scaife, a Lincoln descendant).  A modern notation on the back of the canvas attributes the painting to “Matthew Sprague”–another talented Sprague?

Charles James Sprague (1823-1903), like his father, was a banker and a poet but he left his mark in the field of botany.  His portrait,  looking very much like a respectable banker, also hangs in the Benjamin Lincoln House.  It was painted by his nephew, Charles Sprague Pearce, a well-known painter of the 19th century.

Charles James Sprague was known for his study and illustrations of lichens. More info about the Sprague Herbarium of Fungi can be found here.

Based on his scientific and literary contributions, Charles James Sprague was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.

Hosea Sprague (1779-1843) — A grandson of Isaac Sprague, Sr. (1709-1789) another Revolutionary War Patriot of Hingham, Hosea first trained as a printer in Boston. He then returned to Hingham where he worked as a bookseller and became known as a wood engraver.

A few of his engravings from the Hingham Historical Society archives are shown here.

Hosea also was the compiler of The Genealogy of the Spragues in Hingham, published in 1828, an excerpt from which is show here.    The Hingham Library also has an original edition in its Sprague family archive. This genealogy is notable as it was published well-before the popularity of genealogies in the late 19^th/early 20^th century, following the 1876 U.S. centennial and the 1890 launch of the Daughters of the American Revolution, when charting colonial ancestry became quite popular.

In the 1840s, Hosea published several issues of a periodical of his observations about life, history, and weather: “Hosea Sprague’s Chronicle.” In an October 18, 1888, feature story, published in the Hingham Journal, Hingham’s Luther Stephenson (a Civil War general, who had both maternal and paternal Sprague grandmothers) wrote about his cousin Hosea:  “He had great respect for the first settlers of Hingham, and spent much time in deciphering and copying in his bold hand the early records of the town…”

Isaac Sprague (1811-1895)—A great grandson of Isaac the Revolutionary War Patriot, Isaac was born in Hingham. He became an Artist Assistant to the well-known illustrator John James Audubon, joining Audubon’s expedition to Montana in 1843. Isaac then began his successful career in Cambridge as a botanical illustrator, working with influential botanist Asa Gray and others. In recognition of Isaac’s Hingham roots, the Hingham Heritage Museum treasures its collection of several of Isaac’s beautiful artworks and the Society sponsored an exhibit of his work in 2016.

Here are some of the prints in our collection:

Isaac’s work has been the subject of two posts on this blog, —in 2016 and 2017:

In addition to poets and artists, the William Sprague line includes skilled craftsmen known as coopers—artisans in woodenware-making including boxes, buckets, and wooden toys, during the long period when Hingham was known to many as “Bucket Town.” This history is documented and beautifully illustrated in the book Bucket Town, Woodenware and Wooden Toys of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1945, written by Derin T. Bray and published by the town’s Hingham Historic Commission in 2014.

In 2014-15, Old Sturbridge Village featured an exhibit titled “Bucket Town: Four Centuries of Toy-Making and Coopering in Hingham.” The Hingham Heritage Museum’s inaugural exhibition in 2017 was Boxes, Buckets, and Toys: the Craftsmen of Hingham.”

Among the Hingham Sprague family members who were coopers/ woodenware makers are:

• Isaac Sprague, Sr. (1709-1789), the Revolutionary War Patriot, by trade a set-work (or bucket/barrel making) cooper; his son Isaac (1743-1800) also a set-work cooper; and Isaac Sprague, Jr.’s sons Peter (1773-1859) and Isaac (1782-1826) both of whom were box coopers. Peter’s son, Peter (1801-1868) also worked as a box cooper.
• Amos Sprague (1747-1838) a box cooper; and his son Amos (1774-1830) also a box cooper.
• Blossom Sprague (1784-1860), a carriage painter who was also an award-winning maker of wooden toys.
• Reuben Sprague (1785-1852), whose son Reuben O. Sprague (1811-1898) used his woodworking skills as a stair builder with a shop in Boston.
• Adna Sprague (1790-1860) a box cooper who also served in town government as a Selectman.
• Bela Sprague (1804-1878), a brother of engraver Hosea, a “white cooper,” or maker of buckets, pails, and other household containers. Bela’s work is featured in the Bucket Town book. We have some examples of Bela’s work in our Hingham Historical Society collection, including this bail-handled pail and a small pail with a handle, known as a “piggin.”

  

  Bail-handled water pail, by Bela Sprague (Hingham Historical Society)

  

  Piggin by Bela Sprague (Hingham Historical Society)

  
  
• Samuel Sprague (1809-1882), cooper, whose son Samuel (1833-1900) was a stair builder; and
• Anthony J. Sprague (1855-1921), who ran the ad shown here for his woodenware business in the 1894 Hingham-Hull Directory. One of Anthony J. Sprague’s buckets is this firkin from the Historical Society’s collection.

  

  Firkin by A. J. Sprague (Hingham Historical Society)

  

  A. J. Sprague Woodenware Advertisement (1894 Hingham-Hull Directory)

  
  

Women of the 18^th-mid 20^th century were generally less recognized for their contributions to the arts, but we are fortunate to have examples of the illustrations of Lydia Sprague (1832-1907), a cousin of Isaac, and a daughter of box cooper Adna Sprague. Several examples of Lydia’s artistry are included in Joan Brancale’s two-part post on our blog from 2014:

Also in our collection are some wonderful samplers by Sprague women – created when they were in school.

• First, this sampler where nature and a structure (perhaps Derby Academy) are prominently featured, embroidered by Mary Sprague (1804-1871.) Mary was a daughter of Peter Sprague and Mary Whiton. She married Elijah Burr in 1828.
• Next, a genealogical sampler, which tells us in embroidery that the creator is a then 8-year-old Jane Sprague, who stitched it on May 1, 1820. As spelled out in stitches, Jane is a daughter of David Sprague and Mary Leavitt Gardner. Jane (1811-1878) married Thomas Cushing in 1836.

Before concluding this short visit with members of the William Sprague family line, a note about descendants who are an important part of the history of Rhode Island. William’s son William, born in Hingham in 1650, moved to Rhode Island around 1710. His grandson William, born in Cranston in 1795, started
a grist and sawmill in Cranston along the Pocasset River. The next generation built on that foundation, and much wealth was created in the process due to the success of A & W Sprague, which grew to become, for a time, the largest cotton textile manufacturer in the country. Their business success made members of this line quite wealthy and propelled some of the family into politics: two became Governors of Rhode Island in the 19^th century. One of these, another William, born in 1830, also became a US Senator, and built an enormous estate in Narragansett, RI in the 1860s, named Canonchet.

Part 3 of this blog will focus on the descendants of Raph Sprague, older brother of Charlestown and Hingham settler William, — and this line’s lasting contributions to science, technology and related businesses.

While doing research for the Hingham Historical Society’s 2023-24 lecture series, Suburbia: The American Dream, I learned of the important contribution of late 19th/early 20th century electrical engineer and inventor Frank Julian Sprague to the electric streetcar—an engine critical to early suburban development in the U.S.  The name Sprague caught my attention.

In his landmark book, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Kenneth Jackson pointed to the importance of the contributions of Franklin Julian Sprague:

By the turn of the century, half the streetcar systems in the United States were equipped by Sprague, and 90 percent were using his patents.

Could this engineer and inventor, born in Connecticut and for most of his life a New Yorker, be part of the same family that produced the 19th century botanical illustrator Isaac Sprague and other notable Sprague family members here in Hingham? I needed to know more.

What my research revealed was a fascinating multi-generational story of an innovative, creative family. I was struck by the significant contributions made to both the arts and sciences by the descendants of the two-family lines–those of Ralph and William Sprague–that began with brothers who were among the original settlers of Charlestown in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The impressive examples of creativity and innovation in these two Sprague lines got me thinking about the influences of both nature and nurture, as well as the close relationship between the creative arts and scientific inquiry and invention. Perhaps the story of this family will get you pondering too.

The Story Begins Along the Wey River in England

Brothers Ralph (1599-1650), Richard (1605-1668) and William Sprague (1609-1675), were sons of Edward Sprague (1576-1614), who operated a fulling mill on the river Wey, in Upwey, located between Dorchester and Weymouth, in the county of Dorset, England. (Edward’s mill, shown here, no longer exists.) After their father’s death, the three brothers joined a party of colonists emigrating for the Mass Bay Company to settle what became Charlestown, Massachusetts. It is unclear if religion was part of the Sprague brothers’ motivation to leave England. They arrived in Salem in 1628, then soon traveled on to Charlestown.

Fulling mills (“fulling” is part of the cleansing and thickening process when making cloth from sheep’s wool) were also common in the New England colonies, and there were three fulling mills in Hingham in 17^th and 18^th centuries: one on Crooked Meadow River in South Hingham, at what became known as Fulling Mill Pond; one off South Pleasant Street (near present-day Fulling Mill Road); and one at what was known as Beechwoods River or Mill River, flowing northeast from Accord Pond. As detailed in the 1893 History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts, these mills were operated by the Jacob and Cushing families, closely aligned through marriage.

Ralph Sprague emigrated, at 25, with his wife, Joanne Warren, and 4-year-old son John. He had trained as a fuller with his father in England, but apparently took up farming here. He also became a Selectman of Charlestown in 1637 and was elected Representative that same year, serving in both positions for several years. (Source: The History of Charlestown.) Just before Ralph died in 1650, he joined with others to petition successfully with for their own lands on the Mystic River side of Charlestown, later to  be known as Malden.  Ralph and his wife had several children. For generations, Ralph’s descendants lived in and around Charlestown and Malden.

In the early 20^th century, two books, both focused on documenting the genealogy, were written about Ralph Sprague’s family line:

• The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, written by descendant Edward George Sprague and published in 1913, covered 10 generations who had lived by that time.
• The Spragues of Malden, written by the then-Secretary of the Malden Historical Society, George Walter Chamberlain, M.S., in 1928. A copy of this book, originally “printed for private circulation only” is in the collection of the Hingham Historical Society.

Richard Sprague, 23 at the time they left England, married in Charlestown in 1632. Richard became a merchant and owned a considerable amount of farmland and salt marsh and had shares in a couple of ships. He was a founding member of the church in Charlestown and a Selectman, Overseer of Highways, and Captain of the Military (local militia then.) Richard and his wife Mary Sharp had no children.

William Sprague, just 19 when he emigrated, married in 1635, while still in Charlestown, and moved to Hingham with his wife Millicent Eames 1636.  There they joined others from England who were just one year into founding a town here. William and Millicent would have 11 children, 8 of whom would survive into adulthood. Some descendants stayed in Hingham for generations.

The book Sprague Families in America, written by descendant Warren Vincent Sprague, M.D., and published in 1913, includes a section on the genealogy of William Sprague and his descendants up to that time. The author credits The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, published the same year, for providing valuable family data; he apparently had not seen the earlier Genealogy of Spragues in Hingham, published in 1828 by Hingham’s Hosea Sprague (1779-1843), about whom you’ll learn more in the next part of this blog.

The connection between colonists in Charlestown and the early settlers of Hingham was established at the time of the town’s founding. In the 1827 History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, author Solomon Lincoln, after listing inhabitants who started to arrive in Hingham as early as 1633, noted:

. . . The others settled at Charlestown, and in 1635 removed to this place. . . .  It was in June of that year that Rev. Peter Hobart arrived at Charlestown, and soon after settled in this place.

. . . In 1636, [there arrived] John Beal, senior, Anthony Eames, Thomas Hammond, Joseph Hull, Richard Jones, Nicholas Lobdin, Richard Langer, John Leavitt, Thomas Lincoln, Jr., miller, Thomas Lincoln, cooper, Adam Mott, Thomas Minard, John Parker, George Russell, William Sprague, George Strange, Thomas Underwood, Samuel Ward, Ralph Woodward, John Winchester, William Walker.

The Anthony Eames in this latter group was the father of William Sprague’s wife Millicent, and they would soon be granted adjacent parcels of land for their homes—as shown in the lower right corner of this 19^th century plot chart created by local historian George Lincoln in his “Sketch of the Division of Land Plots to the Early Settlers of Hingham.”

From Ralph Sprague, of Charlestown and Malden, and William Sprague, of Charlestown and Hingham, descended a remarkably talented collection of 18th, 19th and 20th scientists/inventors/industrial innovators and artists/poets/craftsmen. The family lines have distinctions—with Ralph’s line most prominent as scientists and inventors while Wiliam’s descendants stand out as artists and poets and craftsmen.

Part 2 of this blog will focus on William’s line—and its noteworthy creators:  poets, a maker of woodcut engravings, a botanical illustrator, several woodenware craftsmen and more.