The Project Gutenberg EBook of Julia Ward Howe, by
Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott
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Title: Julia Ward Howe
1819-1910
Author: Laura E. Richards
Maud Howe Elliott
Release Date: January 23, 2012 [EBook #38648]
Language: English
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JULIA WARD HOWE
1819-1910
VOLUME I
From a photograph by J. J. Hawes, about 1861
JULIA WARD HOWE
1819-1910
BY
LAURA E. RICHARDS
AND MAUD HOWE ELLIOTT
ASSISTED BY
FLORENCE HOWE HALL
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY LAURA E. RICHARDS AND MAUD HOWE ELLIOTT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE-MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TO
HENRY MARION HOWE
CONTENTS
I. ANCESTRAL. 3 II. LITTLE JULIA WARD. 1819-1835 15 III. "THE CORNER." 1835-1839 41 IV. GIRLHOOD. 1839-1843 56 V. TRAVEL. 1843-1844 79 VI. SOUTH BOSTON. 1844-1851 101 VII. "PASSION FLOWERS." 1852-1858 136 VIII. LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR. 1859-1863 173 IX. NO. 13 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON. 1864 194 X. THE WIDER OUTLOOK. 1865 213 XI. NO. 19 BOYLSTON PLACE: "LATER LYRICS." 1866 235 XII. GREECE AND OTHER LANDS. 1867 260 XIII. CONCERNING CLUBS. 1867-1871 283 XIV. THE PEACE CRUSADE. 1870-1872 299 XV. SANTO DOMINGO. 1872-1874 320 XVI. THE LAST OF GREEN PEACE. 1872-1876 339 XVII. THE WOMAN'S CAUSE. 1868-1910 358
JULIA WARD HOWE
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRAL
These are my people, quaint and ancient,
Gentlefolks with their prim old ways;
This, their leader come from England,
Governed a State in early days.
* * * * * *
I must vanish with my ancients,
But a golden web of love
Is around us and beneath us,
Binds us to our home above.
Julia Ward Howe.
Our mother was once present at a meeting where there was talk of ancestry and heredity. One of the speakers dwelt largely upon the sins of the fathers. He drew stern pictures of the vice, the barbarism, the heathenism of the "good old times," and ended by saying with emphasis that he felt himself "bowed down beneath the burden of the sins of his ancestors."
Our mother was on her feet in a flash.
"Mr. So-and-So," she said, "is bowed down by the sins of his ancestors. I wish to say that all my life I have been buoyed up and lifted on by the remembrance of the virtues of mine!"
These words are so characteristic of her, that in beginning the story of her life it seems proper to dwell at some length on the ancestors whose memory she cherished with such reverence.
The name of Ward occurs first on the roll of Battle Abbey: "Seven hundred and ten distinguished persons" accompanied William of Normandy to England, among them "Ward, one of the noble captains."
Her first known ancestor, John Ward, of Gloucester, England, sometime cavalry officer in Cromwell's army, came to this country after the Restoration and settled at Newport in Rhode Island. His son Thomas married Amy Smith, a granddaughter of Roger Williams. Thomas's son Richard became Governor of Rhode Island and had fourteen children, among them Samuel, who in turn became Governor of the Colony, and a member of the Continental Congress. He was the only Colonial governor who refused to take the oath to enforce the Stamp Act. In 1775, in the Continental Congress, he was made Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, which from 1774 to 1776 sat daily, working without intermission in the cause of independence. But though one of the framers of the "Declaration," he was not destined to be a "signer." John Adams says of him, "When he was seized with the smallpox he said that if his vote and voice were necessary to support the cause of his country, he should live; if not, he should die. He died, and the cause of his country was supported, but it lost one of its most sincere and punctual advocates."
