The Friendly Club and Other PortraitsParsons, Francis
History
The Friendly Club and Other Portraits
Parsons, Francis
Authors, American; Hartford (Conn.) -- Biography
As to the identity of the man whom Elizabeth loved there have been many
speculations. A cousin of hers, an able man, distinguished in the
history of his time, has often been assumed to have been the cause of
her tragedy, but it is fair to his memory to say that he denied this
assumption vehemently. The late Charles Hoadly, State Librarian of
Connecticut, had a theory that the man was a prominent member of the
Yale class of 1776, but no evidence for this belief is given. Another
supposition is that Elizabeth, against the wishes of her family, had
contracted a marriage with a French Romanist who, had he acknowledged
this union, would have forfeited his inheritance. Probably Jeremiah
Wadsworth, who was her friend and adviser, knew the secret, but if so it
perished with him.
Her brother William, who was eight years younger than she, long survived
her, dying in Hartford on Christmas Day, 1846, at the age of eighty-six.
In the old man, who was one of the last in his city to wear the knee
breeches of the preceding century, it would have been difficult to
recognize Elizabeth's "little rogue of a brother" whom she frequently
commended to Joel Barlow's care while at Yale. Through a slight
knowledge of medicine he acquired the title of "Doctor," but he was also
admitted to the bar and for some time was Town Clerk, and Clerk of the
City Court. In his later years he became something of an antiquary and
after the Wadsworth Atheneum was built he found in that castellated home
of the humanities, particularly in the library, a grateful refuge from
the world, where he was always ready to converse with other visitors
upon incidents of days long gone by. One subject, however, was
universally accepted as unapproachable. With his son, who died unmarried
in Philadelphia in 1875, the line of the Rev. Elnathan Whitman became
extinct.
After Elizabeth's death her brother is not known to have mentioned her
name outside of the family, but for many years he made an annual
pilgrimage to her grave with his sister Abigail. The letter of an old
resident tells us that after Elizabeth died the door of her room in the
Whitman home was kept locked and nothing disturbed till fire destroyed
the building.
_III: The Hemans of America_
IN 1866, the year after her death, Timothy Dwight, later beloved
president of Yale University, contributed to "The New Englander" an
article on Mrs. Sigourney in the form of a review of her posthumous
autobiography, entitled "Letters of Life." This article deserves to be
remembered because, for one thing, it reflects from its author's mind a
sense of humor which Mrs. Sigourney never, even in her most inspired
moments, displayed.
We all recall the old story of the Hartford personage who achieved a
certain measure of fame by remarking that Mrs. Sigourney's personal
obituary poems had added a new terror to death. Dr. Dwight's paper
begins with a reference to this same phase of the poetess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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