CHAPTER I.

–––––– A GRAND-DAUGHTER OF THE REVOLUTION.

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 for peace and plenty.

At Elisha Cook’s, on this particular winter morning, the simple Puritan rites were especially earnest. The mother had gathered the children into her arms, and the light of high resolve lit up her face; for this day the family was to begin a long, hard journey westward—away from the town of Ellington, away from Tolland County, away from Connecticut and New England, beyond the Dutch settlements of New York State to Lake Ontario and the Black River Country!

I will not attempt to describe that journey in January, 1806. Suffice it to say that Elisha Cook and his wife Huldah, setting their faces bravely westward, sought and found a home in the wilderness. They went to stay. No turning back for those hardy pioneers. Children and household goods went with them. With axe and plough, hammer and saw, spinning-wheel and loom, they went forth to enlarge the Kingdom of God. There was no Erie Canal in those early days. The red men had hardly quitted the unbroken forests. Not many years had passed since Fort Stanwix resounded with the warwhoops of St. Leger’s Indians. Indeed, Huldah Cook herself—she was Huldah Pratt then, a little girl of ten years—had been in Albany when Burgoyne surrendered.

No doubt as the emigrants entered the Mohawk Valley, little Electa Cook heard from her mother’s lips something about Arnold and Morgan and their victorious soldiers. Perhaps she saw in imagination what her mother had actually seen—soldiers in three-cornered hats, some in uniform and some in plain homespun, every man armed with powder horn and musket, hurrying through the streets of the quaint old town to the American camp beyond. Perhaps she saw the fiery Arnold himself, mounted on his fiery warhorse. Perhaps she saw Daniel Morgan and his men—of all the heroes of the Revolution none was braver and truer than he, and of all the soldiers in Washington’s army none could shoot straighter than the men that magnanimous general sent to Gates—Morgan’s riflemen.

* * * * *

Moses Stickney was a crack shot, too. I have seen a long-barreled musket of fine workmanship which he carried in the Revolution, and have listened to tales of his marksmanship still preserved in the Vermont valley whither his sons treked westward from their New Hampshire home. Between that snug little valley and the Connecticut River is a high ridge, from the top of which Mt. Monadnock is clearly seen. And it was by the side of that grand old mountain, in the town of Jaffrey, that Moses Stickney, late of Washington’s army, provided a home for his bride, Mary Hastings, whom he loved and cherished for sixty-nine years, lacking four days. Tradition says this lady was descended from an English earl. Certain it is she bore her husband four noble sons and four fair daughters.

But who was Moses Stickney? Why, he bears the same relation to the heroine of this story as does Elisha Cook. He was Angeline Stickney’s grandfather—her paternal grandfather, of course. No child could have wished better forebears than these—Moses Stickney and Mary Hastings, Elisha Cook and Huldah Pratt. It is recorded of Moses Stickney that he yoked up his oxen on the day he became one hundred years old. A nonagenarian of Gill, Mass., by the name of Perry, who resided in Jaffrey, N.H., from 1837 to 1847, used to tell me of this Revolutionary ancestor, with whom he became well acquainted during those ten years. The old soldier was fond of telling war stories, and tradition has it that he carried his long-barreled musket at Bunker Hill. Though his eyes were bloodshot, like the Moses of Scripture his natural force was unabated. He was about five feet, ten inches tall, rather slender, and a good walker even in extreme old age.

Now Moses Stickney had a daughter Mary, who was courted and won by a gay young man of the name of Daniel Gilman. Just what the virtues and vices of this gallant may have been I am unable to say; but he vexed his father-in-law to such an extent that the old gentleman declared no more young men should come to woo his daughters. “If they come,” said he, “damn ’em, I’ll shoot ’em.” Being a crack shot, he simply needed thus to define his position. His daughters Lois and Charlotte lived out their days at home, maiden ladies. The oldest sister, Susan, had escaped the parental decree, presumably, by marrying before its promulgation.

Young Gilman shortly left for parts unknown—though shrewdly guessed at. The War of 1812 was going on, and the Black River Country, home of Elisha Cook, was the scene of great activity. Thither, then, went young Theophilus Stickney, brother to Mary, in search of her runaway husband. Tradition says he unearthed him. However that may be, young Stickney, himself a gay and handsome youth of four and twenty, found the country pleasant, and its maidens fresh and blooming. Moreover, his skill in carpentry, for he was an excellent workman, was much in demand. So instead of returning home to New Hampshire, he wooed and wedded Electa, daughter of Elisha Cook.

It would be agreeable to me to record that they lived happily ever after. But they did not. No couple could have started life under more favorable auspices: the bride, a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked maiden of eighteen years, daughter of a prosperous farmer; the groom a handsome, curly-haired man of twenty-six, of proved ability in his calling, and a prize for any country girl. They were married on Washington’s birthday, 1816—at a time when this country had finally declared her emancipation from the tyranny of foreign kings, when the star-spangled banner had been vindicated by Old Hickory at New Orleans, and hallowed by Francis Scott Key at Baltimore. So these young patriots needed only to conquer themselves; but herein they failed—at least, Theophilus Stickney did.

It is delightful to contemplate how Americans of those days, clinging to the songs of Merrie England, to the English Bible, and to English learning, defied the political authority of the Old World, and realized the dream of eighteen Christian centuries by establishing on a new soil the Brotherhood of Man. But it is sad to see how many Americans of those days and of these days, too, have failed to overcome the weaknesses inherent in human nature. The only free man is he who is master of himself, whether the person at the head of the government be called King or President.

But do not form the impression that Theophilus Stickney was guilty of unpardonable sins. He was an altogether lovable man. In fact, I half suspect he won his father-in-law as readily as his bride. Both men were fond of music, and sang well. They were generous, large-hearted, as befits the pioneer. Resolved to win a home on the shores of the Great Lakes, they yet loved New England and Old England, too. Little pertaining to my unfortunate grandfather, Theophilus Stickney, has come down to me, except the songs he sang. One of them begins:

’Twas on the fourteenth day of May Our troops set sail for America.

Perhaps the best stanza of this homely ballad is the following:

We saw those bold American sons Deal death and slaughter with their guns. Bold British blood runs thro’ their veins, While proud old England sinks in chains.

The best of his ballads, to my mind, was this—the music of which I have tried to preserve, for a little old lady of seventy years, his daughter, sang it to me long ago:

[Music

On yonder high mountain there the castle doth stand, All decked in green ivy from the top to the strand; Fine arches, fine porches, and the limestone so white— ’Tis a guide for the sailor in the dark stormy night.

’Tis a landscape of pleasure, ’tis a garden of green, And the fairest of flowers that ever was seen. For hunting, for fishing, and for fowling also— The fairest of flowers on this mountain doth grow.

At the foot of this mountain there the ocean doth flow, And ships from the East Indies to the westward do go, With the red flags aflying and the beating of drums— Sweet instruments of music and the firing of guns.

Had Polly proved loyal I’d have made her my bride, But her mind being inconstant it ran like the tide; The king can but love her, and I do the same— I’ll crown her my jewel and be her true swain.

]

Trouble was in store for the young carpenter and his bride. He contracted to build a house for a neighbor, finding all the lumber himself, and going into the woods with his men to hew out the timbers. The work done, the pay for it was not forthcoming, and his own little home, with a farm of eighty-five acres, nearly paid for, was swallowed up. So the family moved to the Genesee Country to seek a better fortune. Here the children—for there were children now—suffered from fever and ague; and humbling his pride, Theophilus Stickney accepted his father-in-law’s invitation to return to the Black River Country and live on a piece of the Cook farm. Here it was, in the town of Rodman, Jefferson County, that Chloe Angeline Stickney, the carpenter’s sixth child, was born. There were three older sisters, and two little brothers had died in infancy.

The soil of Rodman is to this day very productive. In those early days grain grew abundantly, there were no railroads to ship it away, and distilleries were set up everywhere. The best of good whisky was as free as water; and Theophilus Stickney became a drunkard. It is the sin of many a fine nature, but like other sins it is visited upon the third and fourth generations. Especially was it visited upon little Angeline, a child of a very fine and sensitive organization. For sixty-two years, in a weakened nervous system, did she pay the penalty of her father’s intemperance. To her that father was but a name. Before she was three years old he had left home to become a wanderer. And in February, 1842, he died among strangers in a hospital at Rochester.