Dear Peggy : As I tell you this story of the noble grandmother who, dying long before you were born, would otherwise be to you a picture of the imagination, I am going to let the public listen, for several reasons: First. The public will want to listen, for everybody is interested in true stories of real folks. Secondly. While your grandmother was not the most wonderful woman that ever lived, she was a typical American. Her story possesses the charm and fascination of a romance, for she was a da

One fine winter morning a little more than a hundred years ago the sun peeped into the snow-clad valley of the Connecticut, and smiled cordially upon the snug homes of the sons and daughters of the American Revolution. The Yankee farmers had long been stirring. Smoke curled up from every chimney in Ellington. The cattle had been fed and watered. Pans of new milk stood on the pantry shelves, breakfast was over, and the family was gathered about the fireside to worship God and to render Him thanks

All the saints had not appeared on earth till the birth of Chloe Angeline Stickney on All Saints’ Day, 1830. At least, if she is not one of the All Saints she is one of the Hall Saints. No doubt the associations connected with her birthday helped the growing girl toward a realization of her ideals; for in after life, in the sweet confidence of motherhood, she used to tell her sons that her birthday fell on All Saints’ Day. But it appears that all the saints were not present at the baby’s birth.

In the summer of 1841 Elisha Cook closed his brave blue eyes in death; and the following winter a letter came to the Rodman postmaster saying that a man by the name of Theophilus Stickney had died on the 14th of February in the hospital at Rochester. So the Stickney girls were doubly orphans. Elmina married, and Angeline went to live with her sister Charlotte in the town of Wilna. How dark the forests on the road to Wilna that December day! Forty years afterward Angeline used to tell of that rid

In the North teaching follows schooling almost as a matter of course. In 1848 Angeline Stickney began to teach the district school in Heath Hollow, near Rodman, for a dollar and a quarter a week and board. The same year she taught also at Pleasant Valley, near Cape Vincent, whither Edwin Ingalls had moved. Angeline boarded with her sister and spun her wool. Would that some artist had painted this nineteenth century Priscilla at the spinning-wheel! For the next nine years, that is, until a year a

“Do the next thing”—such is the sage advice of some practical philosopher. Had Angeline Stickney failed to keep advancing she would have sunk into obscurity, as her sisters did, and this story could not have been written. But ambition urged her forward, in spite of the morbid religious scruples that made ambition a sin; and she determined to continue her education. For some time she was undecided whether to go to Albany, or to Oberlin, or to McGrawville. If she went to Albany, board would cost h

New York Central College, at McGrawville, Cortland County, seems to have been the forerunner of Cornell University. Anybody, white or black, man or woman, could study there. It was a stronghold of reform in general and of abolition in particular, numbering among its patrons such men as John Pierpont, Gerrit Smith, and Horace Greeley. The college was poor, and the number of students small—about ninety in the summer of 1852, soon after Angeline Stickney’s arrival. Of this number some were fanatics

It is next in order to examine some of the literary productions of Angeline Stickney while at college. Like the literary remains of Oliver Cromwell, they are of a strange and uncertain character. It would be easy to make fun of them; and yet sincerity is perhaps their chief characteristic. They are Puritanism brought down to the nineteenth century—solemn, absurd, almost maudlin in their religious sentimentality, and yet deeply earnest and at times noble. The manuscripts upon which these literary

Like many other impecunious Americans (Angeline Stickney included), Asaph Hall, carpenter, and afterwards astronomer, came of excellent family. He was descended from John Hall, of Wallingford, Conn., who served in the Pequot War. The same John Hall was the progenitor of Lyman Hall, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of Georgia. The carpenter’s great-grandfather, David Hall, an original proprietor of Goshen, Conn., was killed in battle near Lake George on that fatal 8th of Sep

President Eliot of Harvard University is quoted as saying that marriage ought to unite two persons of the same religious faith: otherwise it is likely to prove unhappy. President Eliot has said many wise things, but this is not one of them—unless he is shrewdly seeking to produce bachelors and spinsters to upbuild his university. One of Angeline Stickney’s girl friends had a suitor of the Universalist denomination, and a very fine man he was; but the girl and her mother belonged to the Baptist d

Do you know the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, the strong man who served his masters well, but was dissatisfied in their service until he heard of the Lord and Master Jesus Christ?—how he then served gladly at a ford, carrying pilgrims across on his back—how one day a little child asked to be carried across, and perching on his broad shoulders grew heavier and heavier till the strong man nearly sank beneath the weight? But he struggled manfully over the treacherous stones, and with a supre

They had left Shalersville resolved that Asaph should continue his studies, but undecided where to go. Professor Brünnow invited him to Ann Arbor; and Mr. Bond, director of the Harvard College Observatory, encouraged him to go there. Besides, the famous mathematician Benjamin Peirce taught at Harvard. Not till they reached Cleveland was the decision made. The way West was barred by a storm on Lake Erie, and Angeline said, “Let’s go East.” So she returned to Rodman for a visit, while her husband

Miss Sarah Waitt, a Cambridge school-teacher of beautiful character, and firm friend of Angeline Hall, once said, after an acquaintance of thirty years or more, that she had never known of a happier married life than that of Mr. and Mrs. Hall. And yet these lovers quarreled! The husband was opposed to woman suffrage. He opposed his wife’s writing poetry—not from an aversion to poetry, but because poetry inferior to the best is of little value. The wife, accustomed as an invalid to his thoughtful

Many an obscure man of ability was raised to prominence by the Civil War. So it was with the astronomer, Asaph Hall. A year after the war broke out, the staff of workers at the U.S. Naval Observatory was much depleted. Some resigned to go South; others were ordered elsewhere by the Federal Government. In the summer of 1862, while his wife was visiting her people in Rodman, Mr. Hall went to Washington, passed an examination, and was appointed an “Aid” in the Naval Observatory. The city was in a t

In November, 1867, the Halls bought the Captain Peters’ place, No. 18 Gay Street, Georgetown, and for twenty-five years, that is, for the rest of Angeline Hall’s life, this was her home. The two-story brick house, covered with white stucco, and having a shingled roof, stood in the centre of a generous yard, looking southward. Wooden steps led up to a square front porch, the roof of which was supported by large wooden pillars. The front door opened into a hall, with parlor on the right hand and s

The desire of knowledge is a powerful instinct of the soul, as inherent in woman as in man.... It was designed to be gratified, all the avenues of her soul are open for its gratification. Her every sense is as perfect as man’s: her hand is as delicate in its touch, her ear as acute in hearing, her eye the same in its wonderful mechanism, her brain sends out the same two-fold telegraphic network. She is endowed with the same consciousness, the same power of perception. Every attribute of his soul

The letters of Angeline Hall are genuine letters—not meant for publication, but for the eyes of the persons addressed. The style, even the spelling and punctuation, are faulty; and the subject-matter in most cases can have no general interest. However, I have selected a few of her letters, which I trust will be readable, and which may help to give a truer conception of the astronomer’s wife: Dearest Asaph : I am at Mother’s this morning. Staid over to help see to Ruth, and now cannot get back ov

The following tribute was written by Miss Augusta Larned, and published in the Christian Register of July 28, 1892: There is one master link in the family bond, as there is one keystone in the arch. Often we know not its binding power until it is taken away. Then the home begins to crumble and fall into confusion, and the distinct atoms, like beads from a broken string, roll off into distant corners. We turn our thoughts to one who made the ideal home, pervaded it, filled its every part like air