BLACKWELL FAMILY
LUCY STONE 

Subject File

Biographical papers
(childhood)Jan. 6, 1892. When she was of an age such 
that her father began to think of beaux in
connection with her, he said to her tauntingly,
"Lucy's face is like a blacksmith's leather apron;
it keeps off the sparks." She was very mad;
told him she did not wish to be married, did
not want any man, would not have a husband
for anything, and that she wished she were still
plainer, and that the mole on her upper lip was
an inch long, so as to hang down! When she
married Papa, her old friend [Amasa?] Walker
(Father of General Walker, president of the Mass.
Institute of Technology) in whose family she had
boarded while teaching school, said to Papa:
"She is not much to look at, but she is like a
Sickle pear, good all through."


Oct 8, 1892. Mamma and I were eating at 
breakfast, before Papa got down. I had been
telling her of a woman who had written apologising
for being in arrears for the Woman's 
Column, saying she had had to ask her
husband three times for the 25 cents before she
got it; but we were not to stop the paper, for she
was determined to have it, if she had to go out
mopping to earn the money. Mother said her 
father was very ugly to her mother about money. She
had left off asking him for money before Mother 
could remember; and instead she used to take
it out of his pocket-book. He kept it under the 
pillow of his bed, night and day; and she would
take out six cents at a time. In those days
they had 6 1/2 cent pieces and 12 1/2 cent pieces.
Or sometimes she would privately sell a cheese.
There were one or two hundred of them in
the cheese-room, and he kept no account
of the number. Grandma said that itseemed like "hooking". "But" she said, "I have
a right to it." Once, when they had to have money
and he would not give them any Mamma started
out with a cheese under her cloak, to sell at
[Ware?]. She thought her father was out of the
way; but, just as she was about to back the horse
out, her father came out right upon her. "But
I was as strong as a young buck. I held the cheese,
which must have weight 20 lbs., close to me,
under my arm, while I led the horse out with
the other arm," and off she drove to [Ware?], and 
her father never perceived what she had under 
her cloak. Mamma said, "Now you are never 
to tell that story in any biography of me or in
any article. I will not have my father blamed.
It is enough simply to say that he had the
Puritan idea that women were to be governed,
and that he had the right to hold the purse,
and to rule his own house." Grandma very much
wanted a best table cloth, to use when they had

company; and she did not like to speak to Grandpa
about it. Mamma spoke to him. He was very angry,
and declared that a tablecloth which was good 
enough for him was good enough for anybody, etc.
But much of his talk was owing to the fact that he
kept himself cross with cider. Hee was very bright
and witty, and grew much more genial in his
old age, after the cider was all gone.
Hee made his mill leaving Grandma
only the use of one room, with what milk she
needed, etc. But when his children united in
representing to him how wrong this was, he
changed his will and left it all to her; and it
was a comfort to her, though she did not live to
inherit any of it. "She felt the justice of it."
I asked Mamma if she did not care
a good deal more for her mother than for 
her father. She said, "I loved her more than I
did him, for she was always kind to us, and 
took a great interest in us." She rememberswhen Aunt Sarah was about a year old, and she
about four years old, seeing her father with Aunt
Sarah between his knees, dancing her and singing
to her; and she wished he would to the same to 
her. Aunt Sarah was a very pretty baby.
I told Mamma I felt as if I loved every
bit of stone about that old farm, because her
little bare feet had probably trotted over them; and
she said they had trotted over pretty much 
everything. "We used to run like spiders. We 
were left perfectly free, after our chores were done."
She remembers once when the other children ran
away and left her, and called "Tag-tail, tag-tail!"
when she wanted to follow them, and she howled, and
old Aunt Sally said to her, "You come with me and
we will go bird's-nesting" She took Mother on her hip,
and went down to the end of the Long Pasture, where
there was a great swamp overgrown with black alders --
all cut down now -- and she had Mamma sit 
down on a bog hummock, and told her to wait

there while she got the eggs. She went into the thicket,
and came back with the eggs of a cat-bird; and the
poor mother flew around crying, and Aunt Sally
said, "Scairt you away! Scairt you away!" Then
Aunt Sally went into the thicket again, and came 
out with the eggs of a brown thrust, and said, "She's
an ugly bird; she tears up the corn." There was
an idea among the farmers that the brown thrushes
tore up the corn. Then she brought out some white
eggs, probably those of a Phebe-bird or a wood-
pecker, Mother said; and she thinks there were also 
a fourth kind. Aunt Sally had brought a needle 
and thread with her, and she blew the eggs and 
strung the shells in a necklace for Mother, and
then took her home. And Grandma was very
angry and lectured them on the cruelty of robbing
birds' nests; and she would not let mother wear 
the string of egg-shells, but hung it up over the 
looking-glass in the East Chamber.Oct 8, 1892.
Mamma says that when she was last
at the old farmhouse, she and Phebe went and
looked out of one of the back windows, to take a 
last look at the Rock House, etc; both of them
had tears in their eyes, thinking that it was
probably the last time. And she shed tears
as she told me about it. She loves the old
farm.At the same time Mother told how she 
remembered the first piece of anthracite coal
she ever saw. She was coming home from 
school, and it lay black amongst the white
snow of the road, in the flat between the 
school-house and Mr. Lamberton's, where it had
been dropped from one of the wagons that were
carrying it to Ware village, to see whether it 
could be used for the factories there. It was
an experiment. The factories in Ware village
began either the year Mother was born, or the 
year before. She and Ware village are of
an age. Mother took the piece of coal

home; it was about as big as her thumb, and
it was regarded as a great curiosity. Her
father tried it with his hammer and his
knife, and then they threw it on the fire
to see if it would burn, but that the heat of
their wood-fire was not sufficient, and it
did not burn.

The stage ran over the hill past her 
father's for many years, and Grandpa,
who was a sociable man, was furious
when the road was changed. He said he
would live on a travelled road, and that
the new road under the hill should not pass
through his land. The heavy teams going over
the hill often got stuck, and he earned a 
good deal of money by turning out with his 
ox-team and helping them out, for which he 
received a quarter or a half-dollar. Womenused to be scared by the steep and slippery hill,
and beg, "Oh, let me get out!" On the other side
it was still steeper, where the two houses of Tom
and Bill Coney were -- Tom's being nearest
the top of the hill. Some one asked the Coney
boys how their sheep contrived to stick to the 
hillside -- or something of that kind -- and 
the Coney boys answered, "We sharpen their 
noses." Mother went to school to Tom, who 
was a cross teacher, and struck her the hardest
blow she ever received except from her 
father. It was struck with his ruler on 
her ear and made her head ring.


Early Years. 1881
(In handwriting of A.S.B.)
Mother has just been out and brought
in a big armful of wood. "Why did you?" I 
asked."