Truly a Memorable Year

 

The Sons of George Washington Doane
by Henry Inman

As the year 1832 opened, Eliza Doane, at the age of 42, was pregnant again. On March 2, 1832, she gave birth to another boy; the child was named William Croswell Doane.

Postpartum depression generally sets in four to six weeks after giving birth and may last for months. Eliza may have been particularly at risk at her age of 42.  Eliza was a sweet and rather child-like woman, capable of being quite happy and radiating joy to those around her, but she had fallen into a deep depression eight years earlier after the death of her first son to the point where she and her first husband had to travel for a year in Europe. After the birth of little Willie Eliza again fell into depression. “It pleased God to bring a shadow over the house, by which half of its light was eclipsed” and their home became a place of “deep domestic sorrow.”

While George Doane was concerned for the state of his wife and effusive in his delight for his progeny, he seems to have written little about his Perkins stepchildren. There is no doubt that Sarah Perkins played an outsized role in raising her grandchildren owing to their mother’s illnesses and their father’s early death. And perhaps the Perkins children were not that interested in their new stepfamily; three weeks after the birth of her half-brother, fourteen-year-old Sarah Perkins wrote a chatty letter to her cousin John Murray Forbes in Canton, China, and never mentioned the recent new arrival in her family:

March 25, 1832, Boston

My dearest Johnny, - I have been trying for a long time to write you, but have had no time; I suppose you will say to yourself – “I do abhor these letters that are always beginning with excuses,” but you know your “sweetheart” is an exception. And in the first place, my dear coz, I must needs inform you of the new engagement. I think I hear you say, “What can it be?” It is Miss Elizabeth Sturgis to Mr. Henry Grue. There is another gone for you, Johnny! You must take care…

Fanny goes to riding school and is now quite expert in the equestrian art. Teddy and I expect to go tomorrow and anticipate a great deal of pleasure with her then. … Mother desires to be affectionately remembered to you as well as Teddy, Charly and Henry whom I suppose you have almost forgotten. Merciful conscience! I am quite surprised to see how much I have written. I never wrote so much to anyone before, I heartily pity you for having to read such a pack of nonsense.

I often think of you, dear John, and I assure you again that “as turns the impatient needle to the pole, so turns my heart to thee, though mountains rise and oceans roll between us.” You may call this amazingly sentimental, but if you do so, excuse it. You know school girls have fits sometimes.

(Finished by her mother.) 

Sarah has gone to school and had not time to conclude. She begged me to do it for her and to be sure and say “dear John, very sincerely yours, Sady.”

Jenny Trumbull didn’t mention it in her journal either:

“May 3d. 1832 Grandmother Trumbull has come home and Cousin Margaret and Cousin Fanny escorted her home... Grandmother brought us each a very pretty book for which we [are] very much obliged to her. When I was three years old Grandmother took me to Boston and I had a very good time. I cannot remember the particulars as I was very young and it is six years ago…. Aunt Susan [Ripley] has sent us some maple sugar for which we were very much obliged to her. She sent a great box full and we are going to send a piece to [the Perkins family in] Boston as they do not have it there and they are very fond of it. “

Bishop Griswold was always annoyed at being called a “Low-Churchman”. He was doing his best to navigate between the High and the Low Church factions of his diocese. "There are two extremes in which we naturally and too often err. . . . The one is, undue reliance upon religious rites, and . . . the other is too little reverence for the sacraments and other institutions of Christ and his Apostles. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of religious life. They are perils to which we of the Episcopal Church, with all our best intentions to steer a middle course, are much exposed." 

In fact, the bishop held little real control – the Standing Committee and everything else of importance in the Diocese were in the hands of George Washington Doane and his High-Church colleagues. When the Rev. James S. Stone arrived in Boston that year, he discovered that "he had approached a mountain which from a distance had seemed quiet and beautiful," only to find it "covered with a somewhat large proportion of the lava and ashes to be thrown up by its sudden volcanic explosion." 

In the spring of 1832, the Eastern Diocese of New England voted to split into the three dioceses of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In a surprise move, when the new Diocese of Vermont met to elect its first Bishop, the call went out to Doane’s assistant, John Henry Hopkins. Hopkins had not solicited the call and was reluctant to leave his growing circle of friends in Boston for a rural State in which he knew not a soul. He was much more interested in staying in Boston and establishing a theological seminary, but when the support that he had been promised by Doane failed to materialize, he made up his mind to depart for Vermont.

The Massachusetts Diocesan Convention met on the 20th of June. The Rev. Mr. Doane seemed confident that he and his friends would be reelected to the Standing committee. Doane was in fact reelected, but the other seats were surprisingly filled by low-churchmen, and when it came to electing Deputies to General Convention of the National Church, Doane suddenly found himself on the short side of the vote. He made a desperate move late in the convention to invalidate the balloting with some parliamentary maneuvering; failing at this he published a "Manifesto" impugning the Bishop and his friends, and continued to scheme to procure a seat at the General Convention. When it came to light that Hopkins had voted with the Low Churchmen to prevent Doane from reelection on the Standing Committee, and also to defeat his election as a deputy to General Convention, the relations between the two reached a new low.  

Only his old friend William Croswell seemed to appreciate Doane:

 I could liken your pleasantry, to nothing but that of some of our glorious English Martyrs, when they were going to the stake, to the ‘awful mirth’ of the 100th Psalm.   

It thus came as a relief to all parties when in early October unexpected news arrived in the form of a letter from the Diocese of New Jersey addressed to the Reverend George Washington Doane:

To G W D

New Brunswick Oct 3 1882

Rev and Dear Sir

We take the earliest opportunity to inform you that at the adjourned meeting of our Convention, held here this day, you were elected Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in this Diocese. After several balloting, the other candidates were gradually withdrawn, and a majority of both orders proved to be in favour of you. It was then unanimously declared that you were elected Bishop. We believe we may safely say that your election gives general satisfaction, and we hope it may meet your acceptance. …    

On October 6th, a committee from New Jersey met with Doane in Boston to officially announce his election as their next bishop, and to let him know that, as the General Convention of the national church was to assemble in New York in less than twelve days, it was much desired that his Consecration should take place at that date. Upon having received the news, Reverend Doane “came with trembling to announce it to his family, pale with surprise, and the overwhelming sense of unexpected responsibility.”  

When news of the election was spoken of during a casual meeting of several leading clergymen, surprise was expressed that the Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, would even think of taking charge of a diocese which had less than twenty clergymen and was still struggling to rebound from the dislodgment of the Anglican Church from the colonies fifty years prior. But Doane saw the challenge: “Our churches are few. Our parishes  feeble. Our people poor. But how much larger was the land promised to the fathers of the old covenant, the scene of the wonders, and cradle of the glories of the new? How much more in number were the Churches of Christ, which even St. John lived to behold established in the earth?...

On October 15th Doane departed Boston for New York in the company of his friend William Croswell:

Days much to be remembered! Arrived at St Paul's Chapel in time to hear nearly all the sermon at the opening of the Convention, by the Rt. Rev H. U. Onderdonk, D.D., and received the Holy Communion at the hands of Bps. Griswold and Brownell. It was soothing and comfortable, and I hope profitable. Never did I so much need its strengthening and refreshing for my soul.

Viewing it as a “call to the highest order of the Ministry…a voice from God,” on the 19th of October “after (I hope) due consideration, not without prayer” Doane communicated to the Committee his letter of acceptance. Twelve days later, on October 31, 1832, he was consecrated as Bishop of New Jersey during the General Convention in New York City. This was a notable Convention, for the House of Bishops, which numbered only thirteen when the session opened, added four new Bishops before it closed: Bishop Doane, Bishop Hopkins of Vermont, Bishop Benjamin B. Smith of Kentucky, and Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine of Ohio.

Bishop Doane took the morning steamboat on Wednesday December 12th, 1832, for Burlington, New Jersey. He preached in St Mary’s Church for the first time and then returned to Boston to prepare his family for the move to New Jersey. It was decided at that time that the four Perkins children would remain in Boston with their grandmother.

1832  - Another year departed. No death, no sickness, no disaster. Former mercies still preserved, and new and greater added. Lord as thou increasest our gifts, increase also our gratitude. Nor, shouldest thou withdraw them from us, leave us unresigned, and therefore comfortless. Thus ends a year by far the most eventful of my life. Blessed, in the early part of it, in the birth of a sweet boy, my second child, followed on the part of my beloved wife, by severe illness and long debility.

The Summer much distracted, with dissensions in the Church at large, and attempts at division in my own Parish. Then my unlooked for, and most undeserved election to the Episcopate of New Jersey. In October, attended the General Convention, and by the special mercy of God's blessing and the generous interposition of friends, was rescued from a foul and cruel conspiracy against my character and usefulness. Consecrated on the last day of October, (every cloud being dispersed, as by a wind from the Lord,) to the office of a Bishop. The remaining three months of deep domestic sorrow: yet God be praised, diversified with manifold and great mercies. 

Truly a memorable year. 

"My Dears it was Hell"

 

There is some evidence that Eliza’s marriage to Reverend Doane may not have been received all that enthusiastically by the rest of the family.  John Murray Forbes noted in a letter to his brother Tom in Canton that Eliza Perkins “is now Mrs. E. P. Doane, having been married last week.  - Aunt P. has never mentioned the subject.”

At the time of their marriage Charley Perkins was a happy six-year-old who made friends easily and seemed eager to learn to draw and to play music. His sister Saadi was eleven and loved to read and took riding lessons and drew pictures of her horse Romeo in her journal.  Teddy, who was nine, had an ethereal face and a clever sense of humor, and had a way of always finding “treasures new and old”. Four year old Hal seems to have been lost in the shuffle.

In the winter the Perkins/Doane family lived in a townhouse adjoining their grandmother’s house on Pearl Street.  Their grandfather had seven siblings, and they had a vast array of second cousins – Forbes, Russell, Abbot, Sturgis, Trumbull, Winslow, Cushing…  The Perkins children were particularly close to their Forbes cousins. The Forbes’ father had died young so the boys were put to work at an early age - Tom was already clerking in Canton, Johnny apprenticed in the Perkins counting house as soon as he left school, and Ben went to sea at the age of thirteen, while the girls, Margaret and Emma, joined the Perkins household. Margaret became “Queen Margaret” and presided over the sewing chamber. Her sister Emma had travelled to Europe with James and Eliza after the death of their first child and became one of the Perkins children’s main caretakers. She was very well read and loved for looking after “the old and the young, the sick and the well, the ignorant and the enlightened, the rich and the poor”. 

Daddy Mousse lived with the family as well.  Deyaha Moussa had been born in West Africa around 1760 and had been abducted and trafficked to Haiti, where, after the horrendous voyage, he languished for days in the slave market, wracked with fever and dysentery, too sick to be sold. The story passed down in the family is that James Perkins and his brothers happened to pass by the market when Deyaha looked at them, and, perhaps taken by their friendly expressions, he smiled.   To be clear, James was not a sentimentalist – he traded slaves on a regular basis – but he was taken by that smile and   paid for the man even though he was close to death and brought him to the hospital where he eventually recovered his strength. He soon proved his capability and was put to work in the Perkins counting house. 

In 1791, when Haiti’s slaves rose up in bloody rebellion and James and Sarah Perkins found themselves (with their infant son) trapped at an inland plantation Deyaha smuggled the family back to the coast hidden in the back of a hay wagon and guarded them as they made their way to the safety of their ship. 

Deyaha Moussa lived for thirty years in Boston as a member of the Perkins Family. By all accounts he shared the family’s joys and sorrows as his own, and was “much cherished for his honesty, his independence, and warmth of heart”.  When he passed away in August of 1831, he was buried in the family crypt under St. Paul’s Church (even though he was “a sincere Mohammedan”) alongside James. 

With their father and Mousse both dead, and their new stepfather absorbed in Church affairs, the Perkins children were left without a warm-hearted father-figure in their lives. 

Their Uncle Tom (Thomas Handasyd Perkins) lived nearby in a four-story townhouse on Temple Place. The house contained twenty-six fireplaces, marble statues in the vestibule, rare engravings in the dining room, a piano nobile in the hall, and an armchair in the parlor that Emperor Napoleon had sat on while exiled at St. Helena. Three of the Colonel’s daughters had houses on Temple Place as well, so grandchildren and cousins were common. The whole family would gather at the house for Thanksgiving and crowd around two long tables and applaud as youngest child walked the length of the tables.

When the time came, the Forbes boys shipped out to take their place in Canton. Their cousin John Perkins Cushing had shipped out as a sixteen-year-old in 1803 to clerk in the family’s counting house there, but when the head of the firm suddenly died, John found himself the sole agent for all the family’s accounts in the Far East. By the time he returned to Boston in 1830, he had completely mastered the Opium Trade and was as much a Chinaman as a Bostonian. Fabulously wealthy and popularly known as “Ku-Shing,” he wore ivory silk pajamas and was attended by a Chinese manservant who wore his hair in a long black queue. The young ladies of Boston naturally beset him “like bumblebees”.

Boston was then a small and pretty city. The streets around the Common were full of comfortable homes; the Back Bay was still a bay. There was an attempt to turn the Public Garden into a private park with a conservatory, an aviary, and a menagerie. In an exuberant display of wealth Cushing bought a house which occupied an entire city block on Summer Street and surrounded it with a wall of porcelain imported from Canton. The Perkins children all looked forward with joy to Cushing’s parties - with haystacks, pony rides, music, fire balloons, dancing on the lawn with the dancing teacher Papanti in charge, and a great procession of the children to the supper table.

In the summer the family moved to Pine Bank on Jamaica Pond. Pine Bank was originally a simple wood framed cottage which their grandparents had built in 1802. It stood on a peninsula which stood high over the northern bank of the pond. Pine Bank was about a mile distant from their Uncle Tom’s farm in Brookline, which had massive heated greenhouses full of strawberries and camellias and orange blossoms, and their Uncle Sam’s house with its orchards of seckel pears and vineyards of zenfandel grapes.  Off to the right stood the Shaw property – Past the Shaws lived the Wards and the Welds and the Parkmans. To the left lay the Curtis farm, known for the apples it shipped abroad in great quantity, and beyond lived the Adams, Winslow, Spaulding, Gorham and Munson families. Gazing out past Captain Prince’s orchards famous for their pears, plums, and apricots, a visitor could see the hazy Blue Hills in the distance bumping up like a whale from the flat horizon.

Then there were the Worcester relatives. Their grandmother, Sarah Paine Perkins had been born in Worcester and always made sure that her sisters were properly provided for. She had acquired the old Worcester Court House and, after refitting it as a private residence, deeded it to her sister, Elizabeth Trumbull, with the stipulation that the deed could only be conveyed through the female side of the family (specifically excluding her sister’s husband and son, who had demonstrated a notable lack of business acumen).   “Aunt Jem” Perkins made sure that Trumbull girls received gifts of books and outgrown clothing from older relatives and that, when the time came, Trumbull boys found employment in the counting room of a merchant house or shipped out on a China Trade ship.

Jenny Trumbull, who was just five months older than her cousin Charley Perkins, started keeping a diary in 1829 when she was seven years old. In September 1830, she noted the birth of a new cousin:

September 8th 1830. Caroline and I played in the woodhouse-chamber and made tea and had beans for bread, and we called beans without being shelled cake. Mrs. Doane has got a child; it is a boy. 

The Reverend George Washington Doane recorded the same event in his own journal:

Sunday, September 5, 1830 - My beloved boy born this morning - Gratias Domino maximas

A week later Doane received a counterweight of sad news – John Henry Hobart, the Bishop of New York was dead at the age of 55.  Bishop Hobart, who had ordained Doane and had founded the college in Geneva that now bears his name as well as the General Theological Seminary in New York City, and had served as Bishop of the state of New York as well as Rector of Trinity Church in Manhattan, had been an important mentor to Doane; he thought nothing of travelling all across western New York on a winter visitation and took 26 clergy at the beginning of his episcopate and quintupled them to 133 and watched the number of parishes increase from about 50 to almost 170 and confirmed roughly 15,000 souls.

A month later, Doane asked his friend William Croswell to baptize his newborn child.

Sunday, October 17, 1830 - My little boy baptized by the name of George Hobart. May the rest of his life be according to this beginning. And may he be emulous in his faithful service of the Lord of him whose honoured name he bears - Deus faxit.

On April 19, 1831, George Washington Doane was officially instituted as the sixth Rector of Trinity Church, Boston by the Rt. Rev. Alexander V. Griswold, Bishop of Massachusetts. With a wealthy congregation and a brand-new building, Doane was ready to transform Trinity Church. He threw himself into his work and recruited the Reverend John Henry Hopkins to become his assistant.

Rev John Henry Hopkins

Hopkins, who was in his seventh successful year at a parish in Pittsburgh, had tried to establish a theological seminary there, but the Trustees in Pennsylvania decided that the idea was “inexpedient, at present.” After this rejection Hopkins was receptive to Doane’s suggestion that he might create a seminary in Boston. Bishop Griswold voiced support for this idea, but the Bishop had no talent for organizing anything; it had fallen upon Doane to lead the charge. He invited Hopkins to a dinner with the bishop and several prominent clergymen; after the dinner meeting, Doane promised Hopkins that he could deliver favorable action from the Convention and a position at the proposed seminary.

At the end of July, 1831, Hopkins moved to Boston. He and his family were welcomed with enthusiasm and he bought a house in Cambridge and settled in with his family. He had three sons whom he schooled at home, and he expressed interest in taking on a few private pupils as well. The three Perkins boys were the same ages as the Hopkins boys, so while many of their cousins were sent to the academies in Exeter or Andover, or the new Round Hill School in Northampton, Charley Perkins and his brothers studied with John Henry Hopkins that year.

We know from Sam Eliots’ memoir that Charley “was taught at various schools, and by some very poor as well as by one or two good teachers in Boston and at boarding schools in Cambridge.” Sam Eliot did not make clear into which category of schoolmaster Hopkins fell. We know a bit more about his next schoolmaster, William Wells.

Wells had been an usher at Boston Latin, had taught at various private schools, and had sold books in Boston.  In 1830 he opened a “classical” school for boys in the old Fayerweather House in Cambridge, and for a time the school achieved a reputation on a par with Boston Latin as the best place to fit a boy for Harvard.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson recalled: “In some ways Mr. Wells was in advance of his time, in his English love of athletic exercise, for instance, baseball, football, skating, coasting, were all actively encouraged by him, and I still recall with blissful delight the winter days when the ice on the neighboring pond was so fine, or the snow on the hills behind the house so well crusted for sledding, that we had, without asking, a special holiday to enjoy it.”

“The boys were well housed, well fed, and well taught, in the old classical way. Unfortunately, there the merit ended; the discipline of the school was of the old Spartan kind. If a boy was ill, he was tenderly cared for by the ladies of the family; but a boy in health was regarded as a sort of hardy little animal, who was to be turned out among his mates, to hold his own as he could.”

George Ticknor Curtis recalled “Mr. Wells always heard a recitation with the book in his left hand and a rattan in his right, and if the boy made a false quantity or did not know the meaning of a word, down came the rattan on his head.” 

In later years, when Charles Perkins was questioned by his sons about his school days with Mr. Wells, he would simply say, “My dears, it was hell.”

"...a family in Heaven, Amen"

The first Trinity Church in Boston was built in 1735. It was a simple barnlike structure that had served its parishioners without much elegance for almost one hundred years. It was plain and well-lit and had a pretty little organ, but as Phillips Brooks said, its appearance was “of such exemplary plainness as would delight the souls of those who grudge the House of God the touch of beauty.”

On June 24th, 1828, the family and many notables of Boston gathered at the church for the funeral service of James Perkins, Jr., dead at the age of 37. The elderly rector Dr. Gardiner presided; his promising young assistant, the Rev. George Washington Doane, was solicitous to the grieving family. It was a busy season for funerals - Trinity filled again three weeks later for the service for Gilbert Stuart who for his part left behind six unfinished commissions and a debt to John Doggett of $326. 

When James Perkins Jr’s estate was inventoried after his death, it was valued at $166,553.34. His house on Pearl Street was valued at $18,000.00, the house and grounds at Pine Bank at $15,000.00, wines and other liquors came to $ 1,515.17, and horses and carriages were valued at $1,195.00.  His Last Will and Testament provided various accommodations for his family and the yearly sum of six thousand dollars for his widow Eliza. While it is difficult to compare the value of money over time, by some measures his estate would be worth at least $150 million dollars today.

These were the last funerals held in the old church. The aging Rector, John Sylvester Gardiner, was recuperating from an illness so his assistant, the Reverend George Washington Doane, preached the final Sunday sermon on August 3^rd, and notice was given that the congregation would move its services to Boylston Hall, above the meat market at the corner of Boylston and Washington Streets, while a new church building was being constructed.

Rev. George Washington Doane

Father Doane was twenty-nine years old and eager to make his mark and began reaching out to his well-to-do congregation. In September the Episcopal Watchman brought news from Washington College in Hartford of a proposed “African Mission School” which planned to educate promising young men of color. The Watchman reported eight subscriptions received from the Boston area - including $20 from the Rev. George W. Doane and $20 from Mrs. Eliza G. Perkins. By the following summer it was clear that Reverend Doane was actively courting the rich young widow. On August 2, 1829, Margaret Winslow wrote in her journal:

“We heard today that the marriage of Mr. Doane, Episcopal clergyman of Trinity Church to Mrs. Perkins, widow of James Perkins Jr, is certainly to take place in October. 

Six weeks later, on September 17th, George Doane recorded in his journal:

“My happy wedding day.   May the blessing of the Lord rest upon it and all its issues.”

Margaret Winslow recorded the event as well:

 “All of us went to a tea party at Mrs. Willis’ in Purchase St. - Amory and Catharine told us while making a call here this morning, that they had just returned from their Aunt Perkins’ wedding. - She was married by Dr. Gardiner at the North Church - Trinity Church, of which Mr. Doane is Rector, not being quite finished.”

Margaret Winslow was not fully correct in her account – The Reverend George Washington Doane was still the assistant rector of Trinity Church, and the marriage ceremony was pronounced not by old Dr. Gardiner, but by the groom’s best friend, the Reverend William Croswell. Doane and Croswell had met in Hartford [6] where Doane had been a professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Washington College and where they had jointly edited “The Episcopal Watchman”.  When Doane was called to Boston,

Croswell started to feel a similar call. In January 1829 Croswell received an invitation to visit Christ Church (the Old North Church) and by Easter he had found himself called as the church’s assistant minister. A month later, when the rector resigned, Croswell was offered the full position.  It was a daunting task for a young cleric, but “Mr. Doane will hold himself in readiness to stand in the gap, in case of failure…”

Rev. William Croswell

A month after the wedding Rev. Croswell made a pastoral call on the newlywed couple at Pine Bank, where the Reverend and Mrs. Doane had taken up residence:

"I went out about midday. It was the perfection of autumnal weather. The woods were changing most gorgeously.  The atmosphere was perfectly transparent, and there was a glory in the sunshine beyond the burning brightness of midsummer. The scenery about my friend's seat is always picturesque and enchanting, and reminds me of those scenes described by Isaac Walton… The sunset was indescribably beautiful. I returned to town by a rich moonlight, which, struggling with the haziness of autumn, invested everything with a sort of sleepy magnificence."

George Washington Doane, who fancied himself a poet, celebrated his new life as well:

LINES BY THE LAKE -SIDE

This placid lake, my gentle girl,

Be emblem of thy life,

As full of peace, and purity,

As free from care and strife;

No ripple, on its tranquil breast,

That dies not, with the day;

No pebble, in its darkest depths,

But quivers, in its ray.

 

And see, how every glorious form,

And pageant of the skies,

Reflected, from its glassy face,

A mirrored image lies;

So be thy spirit, ever pure,

To God, to virtue given;

And thought, and word, and action, bear

The imagery of Heaven. 

 

Construction of the new Trinity Church on Summer Street was completed that fall. On November 11, the congregation processed out of the hall above the meat market and made its way to its new edifice, built in the Gothic Revival style of rough-hewn granite and dominated by an imposing square tower. Bishop Alexander Griswold gathered the congregation before him, explaining how through the ages, Almighty God had moved his people to build houses of prayer and set places apart for the ministry of his holy Word and Sacraments. The congregation then marched up to the entrance - “Let the doors be opened!” the bishop commanded, and the doors swung wide and with his staff the bishop marked the sign of the cross saying “Peace be to this house, and to all who enter here: + In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The Reverend George Washington Doane then preached from St Jude - “Earnestly contend for the faith.  May God give us all this grace and to His Name shall be all the glory”.

Margaret Winslow faithfully recorded the festivities in her Diary:

“Nov 11^th -“Great doings today at the new Trinity Church in Summer St, – which is to be consecrated or dedicated, and all the rich and fashionable world will be there. I have not seen it since the walls were up; but they say it is a very elegant and noble church, the handsomest in the city.

In the evening Mrs John Callahan, Quincy Hill, Catharine W, her father, Miss Lee, Mrs Pickering & boys, and our TS and BPW are all going to the theatre. Box taken by Ben Winslow Sen’r.” Theatricals in the morning and theatricals in the evening, some people would say.”

She noted that the celebrations continued throughout the week:

“Nov 13th - William Pickering and our BP went by invitation to Miss Callahan’s – where they had some music with their flutes, Quincy Hill playing on the piano. Mrs John Callahan was there, and Catherine Winslow, Miss Lee, Timmins Blanchard, Miss Cotton, and Mr & Mrs Doane”.  

 

When the year came to a close, George Washington Doane took note in his journal:

“Thus ends the year 1829.  The happiest year of all my life.

For it has united me till death with her whom my heart holds dearest.”                             

He had good reason to be thankful. He had been called as Rector of the most prominent Episcopal church in Boston, and he had married one of the richest young widows of the town. He also found himself, at age thirty, in an unexpected role – that of stepfather to four energetic young children.        

“May we be meek, humble, and holy. May our love for each other and for Him abound more and more.

May we be disposed and enabled to discharge every duty to Him, to each other, to our dear children, to the Church, and to all mankind.  And when we have done serving Him here, may we rest together in peace and together rise to His celestial presence, to dwell accepted for His dear Son's sake, a family in Heaven, Amen.”

"No loss however"

 

Just prior to his passing, James Perkins had made arrangements to gift his Pearl Street mansion to the 
Boston Athenaeum to provide the private library with its first permanent home. The Athenaeum had a small collection of art at that time. Thomas Handasyd Perkins had helped local artists such as Washington Allston and Horatio Greenough travel to Europe to launch their careers and was a supporter of public monuments such as the Bunker Hill Memorial, for which he was supplying the granite stones. Wealthy merchants occasionally brought “old masters” home from Europe, but for the most part Boston in the early nineteenth century was a provincial backwater – a small port located an ocean away from the culture of the Old World, with few public galleries for the display of art, and no educational institutions where an aspiring artist might learn his craft.

In addition to Stuart’s paintings, John Doggett’s “Repository of the Arts” featured Samuel F.B. Morse's view of the U.S. House of Representatives and Thomas Sully's massive "Passage of the Delaware" that spring of 1823. In the summer he added an Egyptian mummy taken from the catacombs of ancient Thebes and in December a curiosity for the holidays - "Stollenwerk's Mechanical and Picturesque Panorama" - a machine-driven creation abounding with ships and wagons, merchants, mechanics, laborers, beggars and promenaders, all set in motion by hidden mechanisms.

There were a few other entrepreneurs who peddled culture to those seeking entertainment.

Visitors to the “Columbian and City Museum” on Tremont Street could admire wax figures of President Monroe and the King and Queen of England, or enjoy the amusing exercise provided by the Car of Diana which ran on a Patent Railway and was propelled by the person sitting in it. A superior painting by Sir Peter Leley hung alongside a curiosity brought back from St Helena - a branch of the weeping willow which Napoleon Bonaparte had planted and which now grew near his tomb. In the Lower Hall visitors could spend considerable time perusing “A Panoramic View in Turkey” as well as a dozen pieces of anatomical wax work representing different Dissections of the Human Body, executed by the esteemed local Doctor H. Williams. In addition, excellent music was provided occasionally on the Apollino. Admittance to the whole Collection was 25 Cents.     

                                                                                                                                                        

Two more letters from Sarah Perkins to Sarah Newton in Calcutta:

Pine Bank June 22, 1823 

You see I once more date from Pine Bank, where I have been about ten days, my return to this dear spot, where I have been so happy, has revived all my sorrow, which did but slumber to break out with more bitter regret.  .  . Eliza has been gradually recovering from her confinement. Country air and riding on horse-back I flatter myself, will compleat her cure, she looks very delicate & is very thin – her child is one of the finest she has ever had, we have called him Charles Callahan – the other children are well and happy – Edward is much grown, and continues as handsome and as interesting as when you saw him…..

Boston, November 15, 1823 

I am again set in my Town House, and as comfortable as a good establishment, kind children, and friends can make me – James’s family and mine make one at dinner every day, either at his house or mine, having a passage cut through the entry; this enables me to see them every hour in the day – the infant is the most lovely babe I ever saw, not really so handsome as Teddy, but enough so, healthy good natured and flesh like polished marble –

Master James has commenced dancing, Miss Sarah likewise attends a school for the same purpose, to say nothing of a course of lectures, Geographical  & Astronomical which the former is attending, calculated entirely for children –To amuse myself I am erecting on the East end of the lawn, towards the Cove at Pine Bank a small neat cottage, containing on the ground floor a drawing room – two sleeping apartments, closet etc. – In the roof three chambers for my domestics, below, where if you recollect the ground falls very much, I have a kitchen cellar and store room – this will give me quite as much accommodation as I want for my family, and leave an open room for a friend you will perhaps ask why not enlarge the House, this my dear Sarah could not be done without great injury to the building, the proportions are so beautiful, I could not bring mind to consent, altho’ Eliza earnestly desired it, & after all we shall be quite as much together and if I wish to be retired, I shall have it in my power – James and his Wife must see company, I can never mix with world again all is therefore as it should be….. 

                                                                                                                                                               

On Friday June 17, 1825, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Bunker's hill, the sun arose over the town of Boston in full radiance, saluted by the sounds of bells and artillery reports from the harbor.

Marquis de Lafayette
by Ary Scheffer

At seven o clock in the morning Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, passed through a huge welcoming crowd in the final leg of his farewell tour and entered the grand lodge of Masons. At ten o clock two thousand free masons, sixteen companies of infantry, a corps of cavalry, and a cluster of civil and military authorities assembled at the capitol. At half after ten, seven thousand persons took up the line of march; two hundred soldiers of the revolution marched at the head, forty veterans of the battle of Bunker's hill followed in open carriages; behind them marched a long array of subscribers (most notable Col. T. H. Perkins), followed by two thousand Masons covered with rich ornaments and symbols of the order.

Finally, General Lafayette appeared in a superb coach drawn by six white horses, followed by carriages carrying his son George Washington du Lafayette, his secretary, and the governor of Massachusetts.

The column advanced through a crowd of two hundred thousand citizens and arrived at Bunker's hill. When silence was established, the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge, Senator Daniel Webster, and Solomon Willard, the principal architect, proceeded to lay the first stone to the new monument commemorating the Revolutionary War battle. They placed medals, pieces of money, and an engraved silver plate into an iron box. Over the box they laid a stone on which the grand master poured corn, wine, and oil, while the chaplain of the day pronounced the benediction.

An artillery salute completed the ceremony, and the procession marched to a vast amphitheater set up on the northeast side of the hill where Daniel Webster thanked the veterans and General Lafayette in the name of the people. A signal gun sounded, and the procession ascended the hill and then, under an immense pavilion, four thousand persons feasted at a splendid banquet.  General Lafayette toasted the throng, and as the guests dispersed the brilliance and heat of the clear summer's day subsided into a delicious evening cooled by a gentle sea breeze.

General Lafayette’s son George mingled with the crowds that were slowly descending the hill, and he savored his return to the town and the Perkins family that had sheltered him in 1795 when he was a boy and his father was in prison and terror was sweeping through Paris. General Lafayette and his son remained several days in Boston after the ceremonies. On Sunday evening they accepted an invitation to dinner at T. H. Perkins’s country house. As they drove out to the farm in Brookline clusters of ladies and children offered them flowers from the streets. Colonel Perkins proudly showed Lafayette and his son about his gardens and the great greenhouses where he grew his fancy grapes and peaches. Dinner was served in the grand dining room; the table was set with monogrammed silver and the blue china from Canton with the pineapple motif, Chinese wallpaper festooned with peacocks adorned the walls, and much of the colonel’s extensive family gathered about to welcome their illustrious guests.

                                                                                                                                                  

In a letter to India written less than two weeks later, Sarah Perkins made no mention of any of the recent festivities in her town. Her first grandson, James Amory Perkins, was dead at the age of ten, the boy’s grieving parents had fled to Europe, and now the infant Charles who had been left in her care, was ill as well…. 

It would take several more months before she could recount all her recent travails:

January 16, 1826

My dear Sarah,

Since we parted my dearest friend, many and severe have been my trials, may you never be called to encounter scenes I have witnessed – The loss of my kindest husband as followed the next year by the sudden death of my dear grandson James, promising and lovely, at an age highly interesting, the fond object of a doting Mother, his loss nearly destroyed Eliza – everything became indifferent to her – Children, Husband, Mother, all, all ceased to hold any place in her heart. O! how heavily the hours weigh – The recollection even now, when brighter prospects glad my sight, make me shudder – Such was the state of things that in March James determined to take his wife to Europe, hoping a change of scene & the voyage might change the tenor of her thoughts – my kind and truly excellent Emma F consented to accompany them.

While preparation was making Edward had the misfortune to fall and break his arm! The feeling of that moment I never can obliterate from my recollection, for I feared it would derange all our plans – but a week placed him in a situation to render all anxiety about him needless – On the 7^th March they embarked on board the Amethyst, bound to Liverpool, and I removed the family into my House, I closed theirs – this was a heartbreaking house for your poor old friend-  but that being who knew my sorrows & supports me under this severe affliction.

Then my dear little Charley, Eliza’s youngest child, had the measles (as had the other children) on the second day a Lung Fever attacked him and his life was despaired of, it continued twenty two days, and for thirty nights he had two constantly devoted to him – to paint my suffering , my grief is utterly impossible, I lost all my flesh sleep, forsook my eyes and I wandered about in my house more like a specter than a human being, at this fearful crisis ‘twas thought advisable to write to his parents, who had in the interim arrived after a very tempestuous passage – They were in London when this intelligence reached them, it awoke all the maternal feelings of my daughter’s heart and opened it to a new object of solicitude at the moment the effect was dreadful, and for fifteen days they were in suspense – respecting the life of this dear infant.

As vessels were sailing from New York every eight days I was enabled to keep them informed of every change, I Blessed be God, I had it in my power to say he was out of danger altho’ remaining weak & feeble, & I did not remove him into the Country till June, the change was beneficial to him, and when I brought him into Town the 10^th of October he was quite recovered.

When James and his wife left home I advised them to pass the summer in traveling through England, Wales, and Scotland, and to go over to the Continent in the autumn, but the desire they both felt to be united with their family, and other circumstances determined them to return immediately. Their passage was bad enough, and Eliza suffered from seasickness severely, which was probably increased by her condition since her return which was about the middle of Nov, she has recovered in part, interesting herself about her children & family , and I trust will be herself again, altho’ I think her views of life have changed….

                                                                                                                                                      

The “other circumstances” referred to in the letter was likely the fact that Eliza was pregnant again. She gave birth to her fifth child, another son, on April 8, 1826. She and her husband had not yet recovered from the loss of their firstborn, and in a small act of consolation again named their child “James” – this time “James Henry Perkins”.  

November 9, 1826

Your kind letter my dear Sarah of Oct 29 I have duly rec’d, altho’ I have no eyes to answer it as I wish, I thank heaven I have a heart to feel your kindness and attention, and to thank you for it.-

I left Pine Bank a week since, reluctantly enough I assure you – the quiet and tranquility of the Country is better suited to my feelings than the noise of a City as I partake of none of its pleasures, I was much happier in my little cottage looking on the beautiful blue lake below its bank.-

My son’s family removed a fortnight before I did, my house not being ready to receive me, as I have had my drawing rooms painted – I am happy to say dear Sarah that Eliza is in better health and spirits than when you saw her last, she continues to nurse her precious infant who is very dear to us all, he has been through the blessing of heaven, the instrument of much good to his dear Mother -  

                                                                                                                                                             

James Perkins, Jr. did his best to follow in his father’s footsteps. He looked after his mother and his wife and saw that all five of his children were baptized at Trinity Church.  He doled out money to the family philanthropies (the Boston Athenaeum, Harvard College, the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Asylum for the Insane). But while his father and uncles had taken steps to set him up in business, he found he had other interests which mostly included fast horses and a lively social scene. By 1827, his cousin Tom Forbes would note that James was “daily disgracing himself – it is a melancholy subject to all his friends.”

In the third week of June in 1828, James went on a ride with his cousin Ben Winslow. The two stopped in Lincoln to water their horses, and James complained that he felt sick and went to lie down for a bit. A doctor came by but did not think he was in any danger, but then about 4 o’clock he was struck with terrible convulsions and all the muscles of his face clenched rigidly. His wife and mother were sent for, but by the time they arrived he had lost all consciousness.

Charles Francis Adams, the young Boston lawyer, and son and grandson of presidents, recorded the event in his diary entry for June 23, 1828:

 “Morning at the Office reading Kent’s Commentaries. Found them dull and myself sleepy. Heard of the death of James Perkins, the richest man of his age in Boston. No loss however.”