Blackwell Family Antoinette Blackwell Biographythen minister in S. Butler he called on me on his way fr Cin to Boston--called as friend [and] who knew LS- he was enthusiastic over her & her work (LS was engaged) - he stayed perhaps 1/2 day & had pleasant visit. Soon after was asked to speak in Cin, probably on suf, & stayed at their house. Several times [after] abt that time she spoke in Cin & was guest there: & the acquaintance was formed. Never were engaged. : he never wld consider me as engaged to him, tho he wished to be to her; he wanted her to be free to break it off, & if she was willing to consider it enough to correspond - that was his generosity - so we were never absolutely engaged till we rather suddenly decided to be married. He & Papa & one more were in hardware bus in Cin & were just trying to sell it out. He was 31 - abt 1 1/2 older > Aunt. N. His hair had already some gray, but main part was black. Was not handsome grew better looking as he grew older. L.S. once sd he was the most consistent man in applying Golden Rule she ever knew, & I think so too. Somebody once asked her [LS] if she ever knew anyone who always did as he wd be done by, & she named him. I never heard & no child ever heard him speak a cross word. He kept his temper perfectly. We were told that as a child he was quick tempered & often angry. Got converted abt 15. One strong attraction between was that we were both losing our orthodoxy, & knew it, & were striving toward something better. After we were married we never had slightest dif [on] in religious opinion on any pt, but we always came to it fr absolutely opposite directions. He seemed to have an all-around enlightenment that compelled him to take the position, & I had to do a good deal of special reasoning & piecing together & coming towards it gradually: & we got there about together. Then he told me in the early days if could prevent it I shd never be in any way hindered or prevented in my publ work2 as preacher, teacher, etc, & he more than fulfilled his promise. There was always a 2d person there, as nursery governess etc, & he was at home in the evenings, and he was both father and mother. The children are always more enthusiastic over what he did for them than what I did - it was so unusual for a father to be so motherly (We did hear indignant words occasionally, over someone's doing wrong). Then ,as we went to meetings together, we spoke a good deal - more > he otherwise would: & his speeches were always agreeable, and acceptable to the people. I remember one woman saying "He is just too sweet for anything, in every thing he says." You cd hardly say it was very eloquent, but it was appreciated always. Then he was very helpful in drawing resolutions, at any meeting. He was businesslike in getting up a constitution for anything that was new - as the Social Purity Society. He wrote for Aaron Powell ever so much - A P always consulted him in every difficulty - Uncle Sam carried thro much of the business - A P wrote 1/2 his life & didn't reach us, wh his widow always regretted. We have pd tribute both to him & Aunt N - Left many poems: "Men have craved greatness whom the Fates withstood But we can be greatly good, for in the effort the attainment lies. Was always very earnest in matter of social hygiene 3 It was his dearest cause, I think. He was indignant against anybody who was false to womanhood. And he always sd in utmost earnestness that never had he been guilty in that direction. Never cared much for creeds, but was earnest in the sincerity of a mind. Was always ready to do everything in his power to help me in my pub work - to give money for long journeys - did more >promised - > I ever dreamed he could. When he first came to NY he knew no one but his sister Dr. Eliz. We went to her & stayed there for several mos. - Florence was born in her house - He wrote to Grinnell & Minturn, telling them what he cd do - they knew Eliz, but they liked his letter & took him [write] right up - began in low salary, but they increased it - stayed some yrs. & wd have stayed indefinitely, but by that time he had acquired enough to feel that he cd could retire - buy a large farm at Somerville, N.J., & cultivate it, & read & think & write - had a literary life. We built & sold several houses on that land to good advantage, & then came the civil war. (So back to just after Floy was born - a pretty hard birth, & Zakrziewska slapped F back to life - she was born black in face, & Dr. Z saved her life. Aunt N doubted if Aunt Eliz -4 and have had courage.) When Uncle Sam left Grinnell & Minturn & bought farm & went into building houses, the person who had bought their first country house, an old classmate of Aunt Ns (Kenyon Cox) [had] had a dreadful cold & was told he must take 6 mos rest; & he came to see 'em & fell in love with their place, & they cdn't agree how to divide it in half: both wanted high place, so Cox agreed to buy it all & when civil war broke out Cox at once enlisted & things were tied up & he went back to Grinnell & Minturn, & they * put him in temporarily for someone who was ill, & when that person got well they still kept him on, & after he was gone they continued his salary for a good while & were most kind. "He won everybody." --Aunt N cdn't nurse Floy, & Horace Greeley's wife sd city milk wasn't good for her, & gave them milk fr their own country place. They took a house in Newark that they called The Pepper Box, 3 [stro] storeys of 1 room each; stayed till another baby was coming, & then moved to another house, & then into country. They got this money back fr Kenyon Cox finally, but he failed, & they were crippled in consequence & were very poor for some time. Aunt N did the work, & wrote in the [*found a place for him in the Mexican & So Am Tel Co*] 5 evenings - was now doing more writing preaching. Series of 5 volumes were all adapted for minister - never abandoned [preach] work of ministry - preached whenever asked - once she & Uncle Sam took hall in NY & she preached every Sunday for 3 mos - didn't quite cover expenses & Wendell Phillips paid the difference - when [my] I foresaw that my view of outlook was changing - I think Aunt Eliz thot I was a failure, & in her book she never mentioned me, though she spoke so often & so kindly of Lucy - & after I had contrib pretty liberally to Aunt B's monument & Kitty wanted to say something kindly in book, she didn't say 1st woman minister, but only wife of Uncle Sam & author of a good6 many books -- People have [wonde] that I was a failure, up like rocket & down like stick -- was a trial to me -- they didn't realize that my writing was in same line -- Uncle Sam thot all I did was right -- read all I wrote, & it was most unselfish thing he cd have done, for that kind of writing wasn't in his line, yet he always took the greatest interest in it, & gave me his advice. Mun Grace was a little child & Ethel the baby, we went to for 3 mos my father I knew there was always a home for me there -- Floy went to Aunt B? & I took the 3 young children -- my father didn't want Uncle S to pay for his board, but he helped & did things -- when they left there they went along & took our fathers team & sent along shore of Lake Ontario & it was ideal outing of her life -- tress full of apples -- stopped at night at houses & asked people to take 'em in , & they almost always did , & gave 'em a lunch to carry along -- Mun took an apartment in N.Y. After his operation he sd "Why, Nettie dear, I know you, but I don't seem to know much else." Aunt B never liked Aunt N's becoming Unitarian. -- She always (Aunt N thinks) believed in Jesus as part of the Deity. Uncle Sam never made an enemy; "I never knew him to have an enemy in his life" -- he was so kind, & looked after every body's interests -- just a little too diffident. [*woman's work > I did, if possible, yet if I was to lecture on suf where I shd have everybody against me he did not like me to be criticized & wd rather I went some where else]8 about pushing his own fortunes, even properly - and just a little like Aunts Eliz & Emily who wd not have their college called the Blackwell College - had something of that for himself & also for me - is only respect in wh I have felt a little freer since he was gone, because [I knew] altho' I was never gd at pushingself I cd do things that wd have offended his taste - I think we shd never seek praise, but if people want to [*do things for you, let them, if there is no harm in it - He believed more in*] 9 It was always a comfort for us to get away together - all the holidays were better for us even without the children - we were more to e o when they were not all around us - I feel now that when I go forward I shall go right to him - I want very much to get back my eye-sight & live a year or 2 more to do some things10 that ought to be done. I can say truthfully that I never did a things which was disapproved of, when it wdn't have been harder for me not to do it than to do it. I was thoroughly in earnest. And that was what helped your Uncle Sam, everybody believed in him, they knew he was absolutely sincere. 11 Were great limitations upon a woman - need of fresh air was realized - a saying was, "She spins of street yarn many a skein" - if a woman went up & down a street a few times, she would be thought to be making errands - a woman's house was her castle, & she was expected to stay within its 4 walls, & they didn't like to have even the young girls go out much, & the little girls were expected to stay in & knit stockings for the winter. I was sometimes allowed to speak in church but not in pulpit - & 1 woman stood just in door, not12 in church, & preached against me fr St Paul - was another side to it. 60 years ago was a respect for the ministry. When your mother had been variously maltreated, I hadn't be, & I think it was the respect for the calling - the World's Temperance Convention was the first time I had been treated in open disrespect, & that was mostly by ministers and lecturers. There wasn't much for women to think about but dress, & food, & household duties, & they had to be interested in something. They cd go to church - but generally not speak in it. Paulina Wright Davis - she was a pretty woman, & gentle, & earnest 13 -when she was Mrs. Wright, her husband always took the lead in everything & she showed the effect of it. I think she was better than your mother thought she was & more genuine - you have to make allowances for peculiarities. "What do you think of Mrs. Stanton?" Aunt N. laughed. There was a time when I thought very badly of her but when I became her neighbor in NY, & learned to know her better & to understand her peculiarities, I liked her better, & condoned a great deal, though I did not approve her methods. She had the faults of a society woman, & they are very bad faults - if she didn't like anyone, she let them know it - she liked me so well she wanted me to take part in her funeral services, & I did.14 Mrs H.M. Tracy Cutler I knew very well - she studied at Oberlin - she was very genuine, very simple, & strong, & willing to help everyone - not very refined. The A.A.W. was started by women who wanted to keep it in NY but others, especially Mrs. Howe, were bent on having it go around the country. Knew Ernestine Rose very well. Polite, had pretty accent, & was pretty woman - a little too serious to be [popular] understood by everyone. I liked her. I did not desire to be a presiding officer, & never was president of anything. S.B.A Mrs Bloomer & I went together to speak on temperance - that was the beginning of my 15 speaking. Susan in those days was a very poor speaker, but could preside well & make bright little speeches while presiding. Mrs. Bloomer didn't care about it. Mrs. Bloomer was young, small, & looked pretty in the Bloomer costume, looked like a child - she was a pleasant speaker, not very deep, but agreeable, & acceptable to the audience - never sd a brilliant thing, & never sd a very weak thing. (Aunt N wants Mrs. Bloomer's book). A very pretty woman, & goodnatured, never jealous or anything of that sort. Susan later developed into a fine speaker. Gerrit Smith16 took part in ordaining Aunt N & gave the charge - told Sam May that he hoped she wdn't insist on being ordained, but when she did, he helped - & she always believed he sent her an anonymous $100, right after. It was 6 yrs before the next woman was ordained, & she was in Xtian denom & didn't go outside it - & 4 yrs later another. Ely Smith Miller's mother was a Southern lady & always dressed in white, winter & summer.Antoinette Brown Blackwell Excerpt from letter of her daughter Florence, to Alice Stone Blackwell, Chilmark, Mass. May 25, 1911 Rubena (housekeeper) brought me a clipping from an Elizabeth (N.J.) paper with a funny account of Mother in the Parade, the Pastor Emeritus of All Souls Church and far in the nineties, but it had a good picture of her. It also mentioned Mrs. Gilson as being with her. *** Ibid - June 3, 1909 Mother and Jerry went down and dug up fifty pine trees today and set them out. Mother sat on top of the load in her sun bonnet, beaming with satisfaction. xxxxx xxxxxxxxx The poem that you wrote for mother's birthday has been much praised. She thoroughly enjoyed going to the Gay Head Convention and being petted by the ministers, but I told her today she thought more of her trees than her daughters. She lives our with them even in the rain, unless it rains too hard.Copy Antoinette Brown Blackwell Cambridge, Apl 25/48 "Aunt Nettie's" husband was Samuel Charles Blackwell, born in England (about 1821, probably). In early life, he was connected with a shipping concern in New York, near the Battery. In later years and until his death in 1901, he was treasurer of both the Mexican Telegraph Co. and the Central and South American Telegraph Co. with offices in downtown New York. Aunt Nettie's brother, whom we knew was the Rev. Wm M. Brown, of East Orange, N.J. We think she had another brother Henry. He is said to have promised to communicate with her from the other world, if he died first, but he never did, although he did die before [she did] her. The above was written for Miss Blackwell by her cousin, Howard L. Blackwell. Copy of the above was made for A.S.B. to send to Mrs. Wm Kerr, 9020 Hamilton Ave. Chicago, Illinois. (Laura Kerr)ONE CARVER STREET PLYMOUTH MASSACHUSETTS March 26, 1958 Dear Edna Stantial: Thank you so much for your nice letter and letting me have the cards. It was kind of you to bother. Thay did bring back memories! Life has been so busy for me this year that I haven't even unlocked the trunk of Blackwell things to look them over. Have you got a copy of the memoirs that my grandmother dictated to Mrs. Gilson? My husband's mother (90) is with us and after a serious operation last October, she has been somewhat of a care. And the excitement of Sam's wedding and their hopping off to India has keept me from thinking much about my family past. We do get wonderful letters from my marvelous daughter-in-law. She sends us round robins full of grand descriptions of their adventures, Taj Mahal, and climbing the Himalayas to see majestic sunrise etc. They have found a cottage to live in but the great camera-telescope has not yet arrived and the observatory, which has been in the process of building for six or seven months (two small buildings) is only half done. Everything is done by hand in the most primative way. ONE CARVER STREET PLYMOUTH MASSACHUSETTS Sam does have work however and some army assistants who are helping him with what equipment they do have until the rest arrives. But they do have time for doing and seeing wonderful things. Shortly I will really get to that trunk and list up some things which,if you want them,can be sent. You can check my list. Is there a deadline? We expect Barbara home the end of April and are looking forward to that. When Charlie finishes the Easter music he will retire from the choir and spend as much time at the Vineyard as possible - week ends. Again thank you for the cards and hope to see you soon. Sincerely, EthelONE CARVER STREET PLYMOUTH MASSACHUSETTS May 7, 1958 Dear Edna Stantial: The trunk of letters, papers, ms, clippings, pictures, notebooks and more letters has proved so engrossing, time consuming (a good deal is difficult to decipher) and interesting that I haven't answered your last letter, wondering just what to say. You will receive a typed copy of the dictated biography of my grandmother, Rev. Dr. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, with foreword by Mrs. Gilson (188 pages) shortly. I find that I have a mass of the same in less presentable form. This will give something of the picture of my grandmother and her times. I wonder you do not already have this as I thought that Cousin Alice had a copy and that it would have been among her papers. In her own hand writing, dated June 1896. I have a description of her early years but most of that is incorporated in the dictation to Mrs. Gilson. I find I also have some typed copies of very early letters. As yet I have not descovered whether I have the originals of these although I do have a good many very early letters. I wonder just how much you do already have on Antoinette? As the things in this trunk are pretty well mixed up I am trying to sort them and also find some things which I know should be here. I want both Sam and Barbara to read some of these things and am going to see that thay do as soon as possible. Of course Sam will be in India for another year and a half at least. Barbara, I hope to have back from San Francisco shortly. Also I am attempting to make more accurate our family tree by noting some of the records I find. So for the moment I think I shall have to hang onto the contents of this trunk til I make some order out of the mess. Could some of these things be sent to join your collection later? We have postponed another trip to the Vineyard until the 16th. It was nice to see your lights the last time we were there. Very best regards to your husband - Cordially, Ethel S[*Biog*] Antoinette Brown Blackwell Brother Samuel Brown died before 21st birthday Ophelia Brown, next youngersister to Antoinette B.B. died at age 15 4 out of ten children died in Antoinette's teens Great grandmother - Hepzibah Chandler Brown Father - Joseph Brown Uncles - George and Samuel Brown Antoinette Brown married Samuel C. Blackwell, brother of Henry Children - Florence (married Elliot Mayhew) (M.D.) Ethel (m. Alfred Robinson) Agnes )m. Samuel Thomas Jones) Edith ( became a doctor, died of typhoid while nursing on M.Vineyard) Grace Florence adopted a son - Walter Mayhew - he married Doris Flanders Marion Mayhew Paul " Elliott Ella H. " Lloyd Gail " Ethel Robinson - baby who died in infancy Horace Brown Blackwell Robinson Alfred Brooks Robinson Antoinette Robinson (died in the 1940's?) Agnes Jones - Ethel Blackwell Jones m. Charles D.Whidden Samuel T. Jones Whidden Barbara Whidden Antoinette Brown Blackwell Woman's Journal References: 1894 - Feb. 10, page 41 Reminiscences of Lucy Stone at Oberlin College. (speech of A.B.B.) The Liberator - Nov. 25, 1853 The World's Temperance Convention (A.B.B.'s effort to speak etc.) See Lucy Stone files, letters from Lucy Stone to A.B.B. Oct. 4,1921 letter of Agnes Blackwell Jones to Kitty Barry: Excerpt: "Mother is as usual, very placid and content but very fragile. She gets up for a few minutes or an hour every day. She was interested to hear of your coming home to theU.S."Antoinette B. Blackwell Excerpt from letter of Cornelia Paddock to Alice Blackwell Jan. 31, 1882 "Twenty-five years ago it seemed to me a duty to hold religious meetings and to speak publicly on the temperance question. I obeyed my convictions and thereby shocked and grieved many good people, and alienated many friends. I remember listening to Mrs. Blackwell (Antoinette Brown) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. in 1858 (I think) and wishing, not exactly that I had her courage, for I did not lack that, but that I had her gift of overcoming obstacles. If I were back in the States to-day I would find the rough path I used to tread made smooth.("The World moves".)Antoinette Brown Blackwell Excerpt from letter of Alice Stone Blackwell to Kitty Barry Dec. 14, 1870 "Florence says: 'Aunt Nettie came home looking very well but rather thinner. She could have got some small half-dead society out west that wanted building up, if she would have taken it, but it is not settled as yet. She wants Florence to study with her; but F says her mother's views are too different and she muddles her, leaving her silenced and extinguished but not convinced!'"