Tag Archives: Lincoln family

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Books as Heritage: Inside the Scaife Family Collection

Over 350 years, the Benjamin Lincoln House was owned and used by 11 successive generations of the same extended family. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was occupied by the family of Roger Livingston and Ethel Bryant Scaife.  Roger (1875-1951) was from Boston and a Harvard graduate from the class of 1897. Beginning in 1898 he worked for Houghton Mifflin Company, a Boston-based publisher, first as a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and then later as an editor and director at the publishing house itself.

Portrait of Roger Livingston Scaife, 1890s.
Portrait of Ethel Bryant Scaife, 1890s.

“Reception for Ethel Bryant and Roger Scaife,” 1906.

Roger married Ethel Bryant Scaife in 1906. Ethel (1876-1959) was what we would now call a socialite: she came from an upper middle class family, did not have a career, and spent much of her time engaged in clubs and homemaking responsibilities. She was a member of the Chilton Club, the Colonial Dames, and the English Speaking Union and was active in Trinity Church in Boston. Their union bridged the two’s colonial ancestry; Ethel was a descendant of General Benjamin Lincoln while Roger was a member of Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Society of Colonial Wars. After their wedding the two settled in Milton, Massachusetts, and maintained a home on Beacon Hill in Boston, where Roger stayed during the work week.

Portraits of Lauriston (top left), Elizabeth (top right), and Roger M. (bottom) Scaife, 1920’s.

Roger and Ethel had three children: Lauriston L. Scaife (1907-1970), Elizabeth (“Skiffy”) Scaife Beveridge (1910-1998), and Roger M. Scaife (1916-2001). Elizabeth was the one to later live in the house with her children, win it recognition as a National Historic Landmark, and inscribe the many objects, photographs, and documents throughout the house with the original owner’s name or the place it was from. Much of our knowledge of the Scaife family, as well as other generations of the Lincoln family before them, is due to her diligence and dedication to preserving their history.

Although the Scaifes spent the majority of their time at their other two homes, they still had occasional stays at “the family home” in Hingham, what we now refer to as the Benjamin Lincoln House. During many of these stays Roger would write poems about the house that speak to his reverence for the Lincolns. One of the earliest was “The Song of the Corner Cupboard,” written in 1907. In the second stanza he writes:

“The Song of the Corner Cupboard” from Roger L. Scaife’s Scrapbook (1907).

I sing of the days of our great Revolution
Of war and of bloodshed
Of sickness, starvation
Of Lincoln the soldier
His wife bravely smiling . . . .

In a later poem, written during a Christmas trip in 1948, Roger included the Scaifes in this lineage:

Eleven generations have enjoyed it’s shelter
Amid all the worlds bleak welter
The house has stood firm as a rock
With always a welcome for those who knock
The House has been a refuge true
In hard times and in good days too
The Lincolns, Crosbys, Bryants, Scaifes
May not be rich, but play it safe
They have always stood for what is right . . . .

Although the Scaifes spent less time in the house compared to other generations, their presence can still be seen throughout. This is primarily through the books. While prior generations wrote their names or other inscriptions inside, Roger and Ethel had bookplates inside of theirs.

A bookplate is a decorative label pasted into a book, usually on one of the front endpapers, indicating ownership of the book. In addition to the owner’s name the Latin phrase “ex libris,” translated as “from the library,” is often included on the label. As for the designs, they were either a design related to the book owner such as crest, coat of arms, or motto, or one commissioned by an artist. Bookplates were popular in the late 19th and early 20th century amongst those of Roger and Ethel’s class.

In the case of Roger and Ethel’s bookplate, they had commissioned Bruce Rogers. There is lacking documentation about the specifics of the bookplate commission. It is unclear when it was completed, what Roger and Ethel asked for initially, and to what extent each one’s input was honored.

Printed bookplate found inside “Cape Coddities” by Roger Livingston Scaife.

What is left is only the bookplate itself, which consists of a small naked child reading a book laid across their lap and holding something, possibly rolled paper, in their right hand. The child is flanked by musical instruments on their right and books on their left. It is possible that these objects were meant to symbolize Ethel (the instruments) and Roger (the books). Ethel was known well enough for her musical talent that it was mentioned in the two’s wedding announcement shown earlier in this post. Books would only be natural for Roger as he was not only a writer and editor but an avid reader as well. The ivy strewn below the instruments and the frame enclosing their names were consistent with other design motifs by Bruce from this time period.

Bruce Rogers is best known as a typographer, but got his start as a book designer. His first notable position was at The Riverside Press in Cambridge, MA. The Riverside Press was owned by Henry Oscar Houghton, who would partner to create Houghton Mifflin Company in 1880 (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). In the 1900s and 1910s Roger oversaw the publishing of limited edition prints of literary classics with book cover designs by Bruce. It is likely during these years when the two were working together that Roger commissioned the bookplate, since there is currently no other time known that these two worked together professionally.

In addition to his nonfiction writing and work as an editor and director at Houghton Mifflin Company, Roger also wrote six books. They were published between 1913 and 1922: Confessions of a Debutante (1913); What daddies do: old-fashioned rhymes for new fangled kiddies (1916); Muvver and Me: old-fashioned rhymes for new fangled kiddies (1917); The Land of the Great Out-of-Doors (1920); Cape Coddities (1920); and The Reflections of a T.B.M. (1922).  Most of them are light-hearted in nature, whether that be the nursery rhymes found in Muvver and Me and What Daddies Do, or the satirical tone found in The Life of a T.B.M. (Tired Business Man).

Houghton Mifflin partners, c. 1910 (R. L. Scaife, second row, on the far left). Annotation by Elizabeth Scaife Beveridge.

All were published through Houghton Mifflin Company under pseudonyms. There once again is no documentation of the reason for this choice. Roger had nonfiction pieces in newspapers and magazines published under his legal name, so he wasn’t opposed to being recognized for some of his writing. It’s not clear if this is something Roger wanted or if there were higher ups at Houghton Mifflin Company who made this decision.  Cape Coddities marked the end of Roger’s attempts to be a published author . However, he continued to write for pleasure. The Christmas poem from 1948 is just one from a whole notebook of poems now in the archives of the Hingham Historical Society.

After 36 years at Houghton Mifflin Company Roger got a job as a vice president, director, and editorial advisor at Little, Brown and Company in 1934. He worked there until his retirement in 1948. From 1944 to 1948 he also worked as an interim director at Harvard University Press, which was considering closing due to losses in the 1930s. Roger was specifically contracted because of his successful track record at other publishing giants. During his short tenure at Harvard University Press, it was able to double its output and save itself from bankruptcy.

Roger chose to retire in 1948 due to increasing health problems. Up until his death he remained engaged with civic commitments in Milton, such as the Board of Trustees at the Library, as well as with Class leadership obligations for his Harvard class. Roger passed away in 1951 and was survived by Ethel and his children. Ethel lived until 1959, spending the last four years of her life in Hingham living with her daughter Elizabeth and her grandchildren in the “family home.”

Endnotes:

1. Harvard University’s Houghton Library has a collection of Bruce Rogers’ sketches from the late 19th and early 20th century, including one sketch and one mockup print of Roger and Ethel’s bookplate, where these motifs are shown in other bookplate designs as well as drawings and sketches.  [Rogers, Bruce. Bruce Rogers papers and designs. Houghton Library, Harvard University.]

2. All images are of materials generously donated to the Hingham Historical Society by Rose Woodard and Franklin Beveridge–the last of the 11th generations of Lincoln descendants to own the Benjamin Lincoln House.

3.  This post was written by Aurora Daniel who was the Hingham Historial Society’s 2023 Sally Hess Intern.

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To My Children

After recuperating from a wound suffered during the Saratoga Campaign at his home in Hingham, Massachusetts, Major General  Benjamin Lincoln of the Continental Army was well enough to rejoin George Washington in New York in early August 1778.  Although he did not yet know it, he would be given the command of the Southern Division of the Continental Army in September 1778.  He would not be home again for any period of time for five years.

When General Lincoln left Hingham, his wife Mary was recovering from smallpox.  His eldest son, Benjamin, Jr., was 22 and away from home, studying the law.  Six children were at home:  Molly, 20; Elizabeth, 19; Sarah, 17; Theodore, 15; Martin, 9; and Hannah, 5.  Molly, the oldest daughter, who is referenced in this letter, was intellectually disabled and lived with her parents throughout her adult life.

On July 28, 1778, en route to New York, the General penned this letter to his children:

My Children:

The ill health of some of you, joined to my great hurry, prevented my making some general observations to you relative to your future conduct before I left home—some of which are of the greatest importance.

In the first place you will never forget your God—the duty you owe to him as your creator, preserver and best benefactor.   The duty you owe to your neighbor and to your selves you will learn from divine revelation, which you will attentively study, and the example of our dear redeemer.

I must mention to you the peculiar state of your mother whose cares and burdens are greatly increased by my absence. I need not urge; I am sure your own feelings will always suggest to you the propriety of your lessening her cares, lightening her burden, and treating her with every mark of tenderness, duty. and respect.  Never wound her by doing a wrong action. You may safely confide in her advice.

I must in the next place recommend to your constant notice your sister Molly. Consider who made you to differ.  You owe her every attention.  Make her life as happy as in your power. Some are made strong to bear the infirmities of the weak.

You will love each other.  Those of you who are grown up will counsel those who are not. Never set an ill example before the little ones.  Encourage them to every act of goodness, charity, and benevolence by precept and example.

As our happiness is connected with the happiness of those about you, always watch over yourselves; let your deportment at all times be such, if possible, that even the malicious shall be constrained to acknowledge its fitness.

I am in haste, must close ,but cannot do it without saying again remember your God, love your fellow creatures, injure no person.

I am, with every wish for your present and future happiness, your affectionate father,

B. Lincoln

 

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The Lincoln Chair Returns

IMG_4895

The “Lincoln Chair” has returned to Hingham after a sojourn in the Arts of the Americas wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Tradition holds that this joined armchair, made of red oak with walnut inlays, belonged to Thomas Lincoln “the cooper,” one of Hingham’s original settlers. It was long thought to have been constructed in England, but microanalysis of the wood in the early 2000s revealed that the chair was made in North America. This information makes the chair even more of a rarity than formerly believed, as only about two dozen examples of 17th century New England joined chairs exist.

Of a type often called a “wainscot” chair, the Lincoln Chair has a plank seat and carved panel back. The series of elongated S- and reverse S-curves are thought to have been inspired by classical design.

The chair descended in the Lincoln family until 1914. In 1908, as the Town’s 275thanniversary approached, a national campaign was launched to raise funds for a bell tower in memory of Hingham’s first settlers. When the Memorial Bell Tower was dedicated in November 1912, an interior chamber, the “Peter Hobart Room,” was created and furnished with furniture and artifacts from mid-17thcentury England. Hingham’s Lincoln family donated the chair to the Memorial Bell Tower to furnish the Peter Hobart Room.

IMG_4897 (1)The chair was moved into Old Ship Church in 1933 and remained there until 2008, when it was loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts for display with other First Period furniture.

But now, the Lincoln Chair has returned home to Hingham. We are grateful to the Town of Hingham and Hingham’s First Parish for their stewardship of the chair over many years and for their decision to loan the Chair to the Society for display at the Hingham Heritage Museum.

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A 19th Century Thanksgiving

In 1857, eleven year-old Francis Lincoln of Hingham described his family’s Thanksgiving in a school essay.  As we would today, he writes of roast turkey, a multi-generational family gathering, and giving thanks to God:

Thanksgiving was the day set apart from work by our forefathers to worship God, after they had gathered in their harvest, and it has been celebrated ever since their time. It is the occasion when Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, Brothers and Sisters gather together and have a good dinner of Roast Turkey and Plum-Pudding. I have generally dined at my Grandfather’s, but since he has been unwell and rather old, I have remained at home. I will give you an account of my last Thanksgiving Day. In the morning, I attended church and heard the Rev. Calvin Lincoln preach an excellent sermon. In the afternoon my Father, two brothers and I started on a walk to World’s End, which is more than two miles from our house, but we went to the point which made the walk about one half a mile longer. Solomon then loaded his gun and fired at a target, he also let Arthur fire at an old stump. We got home at about five and a half o’clock having been gone three hours. I therefore spent a very pleasant Thanksgiving.

Yet, from our 21st century perspective, two things are missing from Lincoln’s essay: football, of course, which did not yet exist in its modern form, and any mention of the Pilgrims –because the now-universal association of Plymouth, the Pilgrims, and Thanksgiving Day is a relatively recent phenomenon. 

"The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" (1914) By Jennie A. Brownscombe

“The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” (1914) By Jennie A. Brownscombe

The Puritan settlers of New England had a tradition of “providential” holidays: days of fasting during difficult times for the community and days of thanksgiving to celebrate times of plenty or deliverance from strife. In the years following the American Revolution, our federal government adopted this practice and held periodic thanksgiving holidays, including one declared by newly-elected President Washington in 1789. The practice gradually became institutionalized, and in 1816 Massachusetts and New Hampshire became the first two states to establish late fall state holidays of Thanksgiving.  During the depths of the Civil War, in a bid to foster unity, Abraham Lincoln declared a national Thanksgiving holiday.  All were framed in religious terms not unlike the early settlers’ days of thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims were not ignored in 18th and 19th century New England; we just did not always think of them and turkey dinners at the same time.  Rather, in Plymouth, Boston, and other Massachusetts towns, dinners, speeches, parades, and other celebrations were held on December 22, the anniversary of the date in 1620 when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth (having already spent several months on Cape Cod).  Speeches and sermons were given, on what came to be called Forefathers’ Day, by South Shore ministers and politicians, as well as the occasional national luminary, such as John Quincy Adams (1802), Daniel Webster (1820), Edward Everett (1824), and Lyman Beecher (1827).  The focus, however, was on the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock and their role as our nation’s “founding fathers.”  

 So, what led to the rise of the popular story of the “first Thanksgiving?”  To a great extent, it was the product of social and political currents in post-Civil War America.  Interest in the Pilgrims and our “founding fathers” grew with white Protestant America’s increased anxiety over immigration and the influx of newcomers with diverse backgrounds. A myth of non-violent colonialism was a balm to the conscience of a nation that had achieved its “manifest destiny” of expansion across the continent. 

First National Day of Mourning, Plymouth, Mass., 1970

In 1970, 350 years after the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth, representatives of the Wampanoag declared a National Day of Mourning on the fourth Thursday in November, to honor their ancestors and educate those celebrating a “traditional” (though no more than 100 year-old) Thanksgiving about white America’s treatment of their people. This “counter-commemoration” has its own 50th anniversary as Plymouth observes its 400th this year. Growing recognition of the checkered history that lies behind the “First Thanksgiving” is the result of the attention that has been paid to Native American history in New England and a more critical examination of the late 19th and early 20th century version of that story.  This itself is resulting in a further evolution of the holiday’s meaning, including a greater emphasis on celebrating our families and fellowship in the present day.

[First posted in Nov. 2014; edited in Nov. 2020]

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“Harrison Melodies” in Hingham

Harrison Melodies Cover

Solomon Lincoln’s copy of “Harrison Melodies.” Lincoln, a lawyer and banker, was active in Hingham politics.

We recently blogged about Jairus Lincoln’s 1843 “Anti-Slavery Melodies”—an anthology of songs to sing at abolition rallies (see The Songs of the Abolitionists). We were delighted to learn that the political singing did not end there, having recently discovered in our archives a second political songbook, only three years older, published by  local supporters of William Henry Harrison during the 1840 Presidential election campaign. This compilation of the lyrics of seventy pro-Harrison songs, the authors explained, filled a pressing need:  “The want of such a compilation has been for some time sensibly felt at . . . ‘Whig gatherings’” around Boston.

The Whig party was born out of opposition to Andrew Jackson’s Democratic party.  The ‘Age of Jackson” and “Jacksonian democracy” were built on increasingly broad white male suffrage as states eliminated poll taxes and property ownership requirements that once limited the vote to wealthier men.  Long before Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson was famously born in a log cabin.  Jackson’s veto of a bill renewing the charter of the Second Bank of the United States divided Eastern mercantile interests and western farmers, debt-ridden in a tough economy.  Not surprisingly, Hingham was “Whig” country:  in their Hingham history Not All Is Lost, Russell and Lorena Hart report that Andrew Jackson won only 28 votes from Hingham during his first Presidential run and 32 votes as the incumbent four years later.

"Old Tippecanoe." The campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" is still remembered.

“Old Tippecanoe.” The campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” is still remembered.

William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) was the Whig candidate for President in 1840. He had gained national fame defeating Native American forces at the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, served as the first territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress from the Northwest Territory, and was later elected congressman from the new State of Ohio. Taking a page from Andrew Jackson’s book (although he had been raised in a wealthy Virginia family), Harrison ran for President as a war hero and a man of the people. His supporters impugned his opponent, incumbent President and Democratic candidate Martin van Buren, as a New Yorker and wealthy elitist.  The Democrats in turn ridiculed Harrison as old and provincial, suggesting that he was most fit to sit in his log cabin, drinking hard cider. Harrison and as his vice-presidential candidate John Tyler seized upon these symbols, using images of log cabins and cider jugs in their campaign.

"King Martin's Soliloquy." The Whigs chose the name of their party from that of the 18th century opponents of King George III.

“King Martin’s Soliloquy.” The Whigs chose the name of their party from that of the 18th century opponents of King George III.

The “Harrison Melodies” return repeatedly to the log cabin and hard cider theme, as well as Harrison’s Indian wars nickname, “Old Tippecanoe.”  Van Buren is referred to as “King Martin,” a reference to the Whig objection that Jacksonian Democrats wielded a dangerous amount of executive power.  (Jackson had killed the Second Bank of the United States not because he believed it unconstitutional but because he disagreed with it as a matter of policy.  This was a departure from prior Presidential vetoes.)

William Henry Harrison was elected President in 1840.  The Whigs’ joy was short-lived, however.  Harrison died after only a month in office.

 

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The Songs of the Abolitionists

Jairus Lincoln of Hingham published his song book “Anti-Slavery Melodies: For the Friends of Freedom” for the Hingham Anti-Slavery Society in 1843.  Music was an important part of abolitionist meetings and rallies. In the foreword to his anthology, Lincoln noted the success that the temperance movement had enjoyed incorporating music into its message and urged the anti-slavery movement to follow the example: “[t]here are many who have not the gift of speech-making, but who can, by song-singing, make strong appeals, in behalf of the slave, to every community and every heart.”

Lincoln included the words and music to 57 anti-slavery songs, some original, some “standards” in the movement, and some taken from a previous anthology, “The Anti-Slavery Pick-nick.”  Many of the melodies are based on hymns that would have been very familiar to the audience, with lyrics based on anti-slavery poetry by John Pierpont, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others. (To our 21st century sensibilities, the absence of any music influenced by the rich music–spirituals and field tunes–of the enslaved peoples themselves is striking.)

A few songs stand out.  Lincoln included a sharp parody of a familiar patriotic hymn:

My country! ’tis of thee,
Stronghold of slavery,
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride,
From every mountainside,
Thy deeds shall ring.

My native country! thee,
Where all men are born free,
If white their skin:
I love thy hills and dales,
Thy mounts and pleasant vales,
But hate thy negro sales,
As foulest sin. . . .

One well-known anti-slavery anthem, “The Song of the Abolitionist,” was written by William Lloyd Garrison, to be sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”:

I am an Abolitionist! I glory in the name;
Though now by slavery’s minions hissed, And covered o’er with shame;
It is a spell of light and power, The watch-word of the free;
Who spurns it in the trial-hour, A craven soul is he.

I am an Abolitionist! Then urge me not to pause,
For joyfully do I enlist In Freedom’s sacred cause;
A nobler strife the world ne’er saw, Th’ enslaved to disenthral;
I am a soldier for the war, Whatever may befall. . . .

Words and music to "Song of the Abolitionist," from Lincoln's Anti-Slavery Songbook

Words and music to “Song of the Abolitionist,” from Lincoln’s Anti-Slavery Songbook

In From Abolition to Rights for All: The Making of a Reform Community in the Nineteenth Century, Professor John Cumbler writes that “[t]he social world of abolitionism also had its lighter side.”  The two examples with which he supports his assertion are close to home:  an 1844 meeting in Hingham, where New England abolitionists enjoyed a boat trip from Boston, the seaside, and the country air, and a “fishing party” to Cohasset during those same years. Perhaps after enjoying sunshine and a good meal, the abolitionists pulled out their copies of Lincoln’s “Anti-Slavery Melodies”–perhaps even the copy that is now in our archives.

A few years ago, a choral ensemble from Arizona State University recorded a number of the songs from Lincoln’s “Anti-Slavery Melodies.” Click here and scoll down the page to listen.

 

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A Trip to the Principal’s Office — in 1799

Old Derby Academy, soon to become the Hingham Heritage Museum and Visitors Center. It was built to house Derby Academy in 1818.

Old Derby Academy, soon to become the Hingham Heritage Museum and Visitors Center. It was built to house Derby Academy in 1818.

Derby Academy in Hingham, founded in 1784, is one of the oldest co-educational schools in the country. Its founder, Madam Sarah Derby, stipulated that the boys were to be educated in “the Latin, Greek, English, and French languages, and in the sciences of Mathematics and Geography”; the girls in “writing and in the English and French languages, arithmetic, and the art of needlework in general.” She directed that a “preceptor” be hired to teach these subjects to male and female students alike—with the exception of needlework, for which a “sensible, discreet woman” should be retained.  At Mrs. Derby’s request, the first Preceptor of Derby Academy was Abner Lincoln of Hingham. One of the many documents concerning Derby Academy found in our archives is his April 16, 1799 report to the Trustees of Derby Academy. Mr. Lincoln started his report with the academic progress of the school’s pupils:

The attention & improvement of the Lads, during the last term, have been pretty much as usual, no material difference. Some have been very industrious & some have been slack.  The young ladies have been more attentive than usual when they could attend with propriety. But a want of health & the peculiar badness of the passing, have caused many absences. I have not been able to pay them that attention which I expected.

The “principal’s office” in the 18th century does not appear to have been so different from the principal’s office today: by far the largest part of Lincoln’s report to the trustees involved disciplinary reports. “[T]he Lads” broke “a number of windows in a fit of snowballing” and were required to mend the windows. It was discovered that two boys had been stealing from local shops. Lincoln was ready to expel them l when he learned that

[t]heir mother was dead, their father absent at sea & they left under the care of their grandfather, Mr. Stephen Hall of Boston. He repeatedly urged me in a very earnest & feeling manner to receive them again. I finally consented on condition that the Lads would come & make a public confession of the enormity & heinousness of their crime, ask forgiveness of the scholars for the very bad example exhibited in their conduct & pray them to receive them again into their friendship. This was done & their request granted in a very affecting manner. . . .

The misbehavior of one of the girls at the school was particularly noteworthy:

Complaint was made by the Preceptress that Sally Wilder’s conduct in the Academy was very exceptionable & improper. After stating the charges, I observed that I could not with propriety make any inquiry respecting them, but begged that she would, which she accordingly did. It appeared by ample evidence that her conduct at times was such as will hardly bear explaining, that she had paid no regard to truth, that no Language, neither obscene nor profane was too gross for her frequently to use; some of the Misses absented themselves on her account; many were late because they did not wish to be entertained by her. The general character was despicable & there appeared no probability of reformation. It was our united opinion that she ought not to remain in the Academy . . . .

Co-education fell into the category of novel experiments when Abner Lincoln found himself confronted with Sally Wilder’s misbehavior, and his discomfort is evident. We are left wondering whether there were appeals for clemency, explanations in mitigation, or a decision by the trustees that she should remain in school after all. One suspects not.

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Lincoln on Lincoln (and the start of the Civil War)

When John Barker, subject of two prior posts on this blog (“A Soldier Writes Home” and “John Barker at Gaines Mill”), went off to war in 1861, 15-year old Francis H. Lincoln of Hingham was a student at Derby Academy.  In two bound volumes, preserved in our archives, he minutely described his primary and secondary education.  The Academy’s rules (memorialized in these books) provided that “the writing of compositions be required of the scholars as often as once a fortnight during each term.”  Lincoln recorded each of his efforts in these volumes.

Two of Lincoln’s compositions written during his last year at Derby took current events as their subject–South Carolina’s secession from the Union, the election of a distant relation as President, and the coming of war.  In February 1861, two months after South Carolina seceded, he penned “A Fable on the Times”:

“Once upon a time” when the people of the United States elected their President, the South or Southern States, the inhabitants of which were mostly Democrats, generally outvoted the Republicans and other parties of the North; but in 1860 at the Democratic conventions, for nominating candidates for the Presidency they were unable to agree, and Republicans outvoted the other parties, and selected Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, President.

Mr. Lincoln being a man opposed to slavery, South Carolina, a miserable little State, tried to rebel against the Union, by seceding and making war, endeavoring to get some other small states to join her, and form what they intended to call the “Southern Confederacy.”

How this will turn out, nobody knows, but probably the Republicans will be masters of the Union.

“Haec fabula docet” that persons must not think that they can be masters of everything, that they must be sometimes willing to give way to others; and it is best to begin these habits in early life, for the child that is permitted to have its own way will grow up like South Carolina creating hatred, and perhaps war. Therefore, O parents, “lead up children in the way they should go;” therefore, O Republicans, do your best; correct South Carolina in her mad course, and “lead it up in the way it should go.”

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, March 5, 1861. Photo from Lincoln Collection, Library of Congress

The next months were eventful.  Lincoln’s June 1861 composition was titled, “Fort Sumter”:

 This fort, which is situated upon an island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; was taken by Secessionists in the spring of 1861, shortly after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States.

Although much might be said about Fort Sumter, I shall not confine myself to that in particular, but shall write concerning the present rebellion in general.

The Southern or slave-holding states, especially South Carolina, have probably desired to be separated from the Northern for more than twenty years; and until now have not had what they thought could be called a reasonable excuse. Once, I believe, during the administration of Andrew Jackson, they made an attempt at secession, but failed, as they must now.

They have now made the excuse, that Lincoln will interfere with their institutions, and do all in his power, to free their slaves; but this is nonsense; for Lincoln said in a speech before he was elected, “I shall not meddle with their institutions or slaves, but I shall certainly not permit them to extend slavery any farther than it has now gone.”

Persons who had sworn allegiance to the Government and Laws of the United States, have proved traitors, and have done all in their power to destroy the Union; and have done, also, to accomplish this object, the worst thing they could have done for themselves, that is, opened war upon us; and when Major Anderson (who was in command at Fort Sumter) and his handful of men, were nearly starved, opened fire upon him, and shame upon him, a Massachusetts man was the first to fire upon him.

The North should and will have revenge. “The Union must and shall be preserved.”  There are still at the South, many who would give all their property to preserve the Union, and such men should be delivered from the hands of those mean and cowardly scamps who are compelling them hither to die or fight for them.

But they will be freed, and their persecutors punished, and if the leaders, viz. Jefferson Davis & Gen. Beauregard and a few others escape with their lives they may congratulate themselves.

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Christmas in Hingham, 1857

Christmas 1857.  Francis Henry Lincoln of Hingham was an 11-year old student at Derby Academy.  When school resumed in January, he wrote a composition, entitled “Christmas,” which is preserved in our archives.  Lincoln recounts how he and his older brothers Solomon and Arthur spent their “very merry Christmas.”

Christmas is the day on which the birth of Christ is celebrated.  It is a holiday.  In many parts of the world, the week in which the anniversary occurs, is devoted to amusements.  I had a very pleasant Christmas this year.  I will give you some account of it.  In the morning I awoke as usual and found in my stocking a very handsome present.  In the forenoon I went to Loring Hall to see the committee of arrangements prepare the tables for the party in the evening.  The First Parish usually have a special social gathering on that evening.  At noon I witnessed the firing at a target by two gentlemen in our neighborhood.

After enjoying a Christmas dinner Solomon Arthur & I went into the field in the rear of our house and fired at a target with Solomon’s gun.  I then read a while at home. In the evening I attended the Parish party at Loring Hall. There was dancing until eight o’clock, when there was an intermission; during that time the scholars connected with the Sunday School were collected in the saloon and marched into the Hall. Arthur acted as Marshall.

I had been appointed to present to my cousin Henry E. Hersey, the superintendent of the school, a writing desk in behalf of the scholars.  Mr. Hersey, being introduced, I made a short speech and presented the desk to him.  He made a short speech in reply, expressing his warm thanks to the scholars.  Dancing was then resumed.  Afterwards by an invitation of my Sunday School teacher, I went to his house and received from him a present of a very interesting book.  I then returned to the Hall and spent the remainder of the evening in dancing.  We had refreshments and excellent music.  I went home between twelve and one o’clock having spent a very merry Christmas.