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GENERAL LIBRARY
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Josephine Mellen Ayer
~ qq.72%
a ſpemoir --T
Let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest.
Browning.
Tºbe Rnickerbocket pregg
NEW YORK
I900
.:
The following Memoir embraces a brief account of
the persecution to death of Mrs. Ayer's colonial Quaker
ancestors,
LAWRENCE AND CASSANDRA. SOUTHWICK
3ogepbine (Dellen $outbwich-kiper
>{<
M** Josephine Mellen Southwick-Ayer was
born on December 15, 1827, in Medway,
Massachusetts, and died on January 3, 1898, in
Paris, France. Her life, for the most part, was
cast in pleasant places. A believer in reincar-
nation would say that she enjoyed the fruits of
self-denial practised and temptations conquered
and good deeds done in a previous state of ex-
istence. But however befriended by fortune,
to all life brings its trials, its duties, and its op-
portunities. The burdens laid upon her Mrs.
Ayer endured with such patient courage and
fortitude that few besides herself knew that
her life was not always all sunshine; the ob-
ligations imposed upon her she discharged
faithfully; her opportunities she improved, not
alone for herself, but for others, so that it may
I
3
be truly said many found this world a better
place to live in because she had lived in it. In
filling the psalmist's allotted span of life, she
was a dutiful and loving daughter, a helpful
and devoted wife, a wise and tender mother,
and at all times a loyal friend.
Her maiden name was Southwick. She was
the daughter of Royal Southwick and Direxa
Claflin. Her father was a Quaker, and all her
ancestors in the male line for several gener-
ations back had been members of that gentle
but heroic sect :
“Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong ;
With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
And trusting God against the universe.”
Royal Southwick was a direct descendant
of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, mar-
tyrs in the cause of religious freedom in the
days of colonial Massachusetts, who were per-
secuted and destroyed for being Quakers.
Lawrence Southwick came from Lancashire,
England, to America in 1627. He returned
5
to England and brought his wife Cassandra
and two children to Massachusetts in 1630,
on the Mayflower, in company with William
Bradford, and settled at Salem, Massachu-
setts. James Savage, in his Genealogical Dic-
tionary of First Settlers of AVew England,
says: “In the dark days of delusion against
the Quakers the whole family of Lawrence
and Cassandra Southwick suffer much from
fines and imprisonment.” In Felt's Ammals
of Salem we find that on October 14, 1656,
the Court of Assistants took into considera-
tion the appearance of Friends in their juris-
diction. They charged them with claiming to
be inspired, writing erroneous doctrines, and
despising the orders of Church and State.
They ordered that if any Friend came into
Massachusetts he should be confined in a
house of correction, severely whipped, be kept
at hard work, and not suffered to speak. On
October 14, 1657, the Court of Assistants en-
acted, that each male of the Friends, if re-
turning after the law had been executed on
him, should have one of his ears cut off; for
7
the second return he should have the other
ear cut off; each female so doing should
be whipped; if either sex came back a third
time, they should have their tongues bored
through with a hot iron.
From the Massachusetts Colonza/ A'ecords
we find that in 1656 Cassandra Southwick
was arrested and fined for non-attendance at
church. After this, she and her husband were
excommunicated from the Church.
In 1657, Lawrence and Cassandra South-
wick were committed to a Boston prison for
having entertained two Quakers at their house.
Lawrence was released, but Cassandra served
a sentence of seven weeks' imprisonment for
having a Quaker paper in her possession. In
May, 1658, Lawrence, Cassandra, and their
son Josiah were arrested, whipped, and im-
prisoned for twenty weeks at Boston for being
absent from public worship and owning the
Quaker doctrine. In October, 1658, they
were again imprisoned, with others, in Ips-
wich, for the same offence, Cassandra being
again whipped. According to the Massachusetts
9
Colonza! A'ecords, the Quakers imprisoned
at Ipswich were sent for October 19, 1658.
All six, including the three Southwicks,
were “enjoyned at theire perrill to depart
out of this jurisdiction before the first day
of the Court of election next.” They
still remained; and on May I I, 1659, was
passed the sentence of banishment: “It is
ordered that Lawrence Southwick and Cas-
sandra his wife, Samuel Shattocke, Nicholas
Phelps, Joshua Buffum and Josiah Southwick
hereby are sentenced, according to the order of
the General Court in October last, to banish-
ment, to depart out of this jurisdiction by the
8th of June next, on pain of death ; and if
any of them after the 8th of June next shall
be found within this jurisdiction, they shall
be apprehended by any constable or other
officer, there to lie till the next Court of As-
sistants, when they shall be tried, and being
found guilty of a breach of this law, shall be
put to death.” Lawrence and Cassandra
Southwick went to Shelter Island, Long Isl-
and Sound, and soon died there, within three
I I
days of each other, from privation and ex-
posure; his wife died three days after him.
Of Endicott and his minions Gough writes:
“The proceedings of these haughty rulers are
strongly marked throughout with the features of
self-importance, inhumanity, and bitter malig-
nity; but I know of no instance of more perse-
vering malice and cruelty, than that wherewith
they persecuted the aforesaid Lawrence and
Cassandra Southwick and their family. Thus
despoiled of their property, deprived of their
liberty, driven into banishment, and in jeop-
ardy of their lives, for no other crime than
meeting apart and dissenting from the estab-
lished worship, the sufferings of this inoffen-
sive aged couple ended only with their lives”
(Gough's History of the Quakers).
Josiah Southwick, son of Lawrence and Cas-
sandra, having returned from banishment, was
again arrested, and ordered to be “stripped
from his girdle upwards, tied to a cart's tail
and whipped ten stripes in each of the towns
of Boston, Roxbury and Dedham.”
Daniel and Provided, a son and daughter
I3
of Lawrence Southwick, were fined 4, 1o for
absence from church and for siding with the
Quakers. Being unable to pay the fine, their
parents' estates having been reduced by fines
and distraints, they were ordered to be sold
for bond-slaves, the county treasurers being
empowered “to sell the said persons to any
of the English nation at Virginia or Barba-
does, to answer the fines.” But no ship-
master could be induced to take them. It
was from this son, Daniel, that Mrs. Ayer
was directly descended.
Under the title of Cassandra Southwacá,
Whittier has described the sublime courage
of Provided Southwick, which was born of
faith that refused to yield to persecution and
recant, and how she passed the night in prison
before the day set for carrying out the dia-
bolical sentence that had been passed upon
her :
“All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the
In Orr'OW
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my
sorrow ;
I5
Dragged to their place of market and bargained for
and sold,
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from
the fold ’’
He tells what temptations beset her, alone
in her wretched cell, to purchase freedom by
renouncing what she had been taught was the
way of salvation, and how these gathered force
as she contemplated her future:
“And what a fate awaits thee! — a sadly toiling slave,
Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to
the grave
Think of thy woman’s nature, subdued in hopeless
thrall,
The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all !”
The poet describes how her faith finally
triumphed over the weakness of the flesh :
“Bless the Lord for all his mercies – for the peace and
love I felt,
Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit melt ;
When “Get behind me, Satan l’ was the language of ,
my heart,
And I felt the evil tempter with all his doubts depart.
17
In the morning her prison doors were
opened, and with the sheriff at her side and
a wondering throng at her heels, she was
marched down to the beach :
“Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning,
said, *
“Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker
maid P
In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore,
You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or
Moor.”
“Grim and silent stood the captains; and when again he
cried,
“Speak out, my worthy seamen no voice, no sign
replied ; $
But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words
met my ear, –
‘God bless thee and preserve thee, my gentle girl and
dear ! '
“A weight seemed lifted from my heart, — a pitying
friend was nigh,
I felt it in his hard right hand, and saw it in his eye;
And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice so kind
to me,
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the
Sea. .
I9
“‘Pile my ship with bars of silver—pack with coins of
Spanish gold,
From keel piece up to deck plank, the roomage of her
hold—
By the living God who made mie I would sooner in
your bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child
away !’
“‘Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their cruel
laws ' '
Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's
just applause.
“Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old,
Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver
Sold 2 ” ”
So human nature, as it has often done, de-
spite the doctrines of total depravity and
original sin, proved its superiority to intoler-
ant and fanatical theology, and Provided
Southwick was saved from a fate worse than
death.
In 1884, a monument was erected at Shel-
ter Island to the memory of Nathaniel Syl-
vester, the proprietor who gave refuge to the
Quakers. There are inscriptions on each face
2 I
of the monument; that on the east end reads
as follows:
“LAWRENCE AND CASSANDRA. SOUTHWICK,
Despoiled—Imprisoned—Starved—Whipped—Banished,
Who fled here to die.”
At the unveiling of the monument, a poem
by Whittier was read :
“Over the threshold of his pleasant home
Set in green clearings, passed the exiled Friend,
In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.
‘Dear heart of mine !” he said, ‘the time has come
To trust the Lord for shelter.' One long gaze
The good wife turned on each familiar thing —
The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,
. The open door that showed the hearthfire's blaze —
And calmly answered, ‘Yes, He will provide.”
Silent and low they crossed the homestead's bound,
Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.
“Move on, or stay — and hang !’ the sheriff cried.
They left behind them more than home or land,
And set sad faces to an alien strand.
“So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea,
Saw far and near the loom of land, and gave
With feeble voices thanks for friendly ground
Whereon to rest their weary feet; and found
23
A peaceful deathbed and a quiet grave,
Where, ocean-walled and wiser than his age,
The lord of shelter scorned the bigot's rage.”
To such people who had the courage of
their convictions, be the sacrifice what it
might, the world to-day owes its release from
an inconceivable barbarity of religious fanati-
cism, which had bidden fair to drag the world
back to its darkest ages. Such Christian ad-
vocates as Endicott, once in power, have in-
variably sought to inculcate their message of
peace and good will with the gallows and fag-
ots in full sight. Nor have they been back-
ward in applying the torch. Quakers were
imprisoned, beaten, robbed, dragged through
the streets, banished, and hung for presuming
to entertain their own opinions and to wor-
ship their Maker in their own way. As for
us who come after them to reap the harvest
of their manful resistance, — we who breathe
an air of freedom because they played the
parts of men and women to the last resort;
we who live to think and act for ourselves be-
cause they died, - let us not cease to shout
25
their paeans and rear their monuments, that
the sweet memory of them may not perish
from the earth. &
For a more detailed account of the perse-
cution and sufferings of the Southwicks see
Sewel's History of the Quakers, Watson's
Azfe of George Fox, Bishop's AWew England
}udged by the Spirit of the Lord, Savage's
Genealogical Dictionary of First Settlers of
Mew England, Felt's Annals of Salem, Mas-
sachusetts Colonial Records, Gough's History
of the Quakers, Whiting's Truth and Inno-
cence Defended, American Ancestry (Joel
Munsell's Sons, Albany, 1888, vol. iii.); The
Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts, by Hal-
lowell (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887).
Royal Southwick was a worthyrepresentative
of heroic ancestors. He, too, was a Quaker
with the courage of his convictions in relig-
ion and all other things. His inborn hatred
of oppression and injustice and his love of lib-
erty made him an outspoken Abolitionist in the
days when speech of that sort was indulged in
at the risk of a broken head. He entertained
27
William Lloyd Garrison at his home when poli-
ticians hurled anathemas at him and mobs pur-
sued him. He made Frederick Douglass the
recipient of his hospitality when association on
terms of equality with a negro was regarded as
evidence of depravity of the worst sort. And
yet such was the high esteem in which his
character was held in Lowell that he easily tri-
umphed over the prejudices which these acts
aroused. He served in the House of Repre-
sentatives for several terms, was later elected
to the State Senate, and for several years was
chairman of the Whig City Committee.
A man is known by his friends. Royal
Southwick enjoyed the friendship of Daniel
Webster, Henry Clay, and the Quaker poet,
John Greenleaf Whittier. One of his sons
was named after Henry Clay. Royal South-
wick resembled Webster in one striking par-
ticular. His head was of the same size, and
for many years he and Webster wore hats
made on the same block in Boston. Webster,
it is well known, had one of the largest brains
known to science.
29
Royal Southwick died in 1875, being then
eighty years old, carrying with him to the
grave the well-earned respect of all who had
known him. -
This Quaker ancestry is of interest because
it supplied those characteristics which fur-
nished the key-notes to Mrs. Ayer's character
—gentleness and firmness. She was not a
Quaker herself; her religion was too broad
for sectarian limitations; but none the less
was it deep and sincere, finding its chief ex-
pression in acts of kindness and charity and
helpful counsel which made her presence as
welcome as sunshine in many a household
besides her own.
From her mother, Direxa Claflin, she in-
herited that common sense which is so very
uncommon, and soundness of judgment that
made her of great assistance to her husband
in the conduct of his large business affairs.
Direxa Claflin was a sister of Horace B.
Claflin, that Bayard of the mercantile world,
who successfully conducted the largest dry-
goods business then in existence, while
3I.
!
maintaining the highest standard of integrity
and honor. It was of him that Henry Ward
Beecher said :
“He grew gentle and tender where men are
apt to become suspicious and cynical. He
had the power of discerning men. He saw
the difference between prudence and honesty,
and yet he never grew sour, but always, until
the very end, he had charity for the infirmities
of men.”
The house which he established, now known
as the H. B. Claflin Company, still stands as a
monument to his enterprise and sagacity, and
many a gray-haired man recalls gratefully the
helping hand which, when young, was ex-
tended to him by Horace B. Claflin.
In 1829, when Mrs. Ayer was still an infant,
her father and mother moved to Lowell, Mas-
sachusetts, where they lived for many years.
Much of Mrs. Ayer's girlhood was spent with
Horace B. Claflin's mother — “Grandmother
Claflin,” as she was called in the Ayer family.
A most excellent woman she was, with the old-
school notions of the limitations of woman's
33
sphere and the importance of household work
as an essential of early training. Mrs. Ayer
undoubtedly profited much by early associa-
tion with this kindly woman, who, in her own
life, furnished such excellent example of devo-
tion to duty as she saw it. But let it be ac-
knowledged that Mrs. Ayer never acquired
“Grandmother Claflin's " high regard for
household industry as a factor in woman's
training and education. She never did believe
that much washing of dishes was essential to
the development of high ideals of feminine
character.
In talking of her early life, in her own family
circle, she used sometimes to tell how, when
she was a mere child, she was once set to
cleaning silver by “Grandmother Claflin,”
and in a burst of girlish petulance declared:
“Oh I just hate cleaning silver.”
Whereupon “Grandmother Claflin,” pained
and shocked, remarked gravely:
“Little girls who hate cleaning silver should
be made to clean it until they love to do it.”
The little girl turned this observation over
35
in her mind for some time while still plying
the chamois, and then, perceiving that it held
out a ray of hope for escape from the task
which she disliked so intensely, exclaimed with
apparent glee :
“Oh, Grandma, I just love cleaning silver !”
But “Grandmother Claflin,” though a firm
believer in instantaneous conversions in mat-
ters of faith, was sceptical about such sudden
changes in ordinary matters of life, and the
little girl's announcement that her hatred of
silver cleaning had been transformed into love
for it did not bring her the reward she ex-
pected, an order to clean silver no more.
Mrs. Ayer had that kind of pride which
prompts one to conceal one's own hurts.
Ever ready to bestow sympathy, she never
sought it. Her own standard was that of the
stoic. She scorned to yield to physical pain.
In her younger days she suffered much from
headaches of the severest type. She often
went to a ball in those days with a splitting
headache, but none ever suspected it, because
with the gay she was always among the gayest.
37
Only her maid would discover it when on
her return she would throw herself on her
couch utterly exhausted, not by physical exer-
tion or weakness, but by the effort to subdue
the fiend that had been racking her brain.
This self-neglect, for such it was, more or
less persisted in through life, caused her much
unnecessary suffering and illness, and no doubt
resulted in very materially shortening her days.
Only a few months before she died she ac-
knowledged that it had been the great mistake
of her life. Not knowingly, however, did she
neglect herself. She was gifted with too sound
a sense to run against her knowledge. But
she was continually and unwittingly overesti-
mating her strength. She lived to realize and
admit that nature will not tolerate any slight,
not even the smallest inattention, and never
forgives or forgets an injury; and that those
who would lock arms with fate must first learn
to make their bow and bend their knee to the
iron-handed autocrat of health.
Yet hers was essentially a joyous nature. It
proclaimed itself in her frequent laughter,
39
which was hearty, spontaneous, mirthful, and
melodious withal. It was that winning, light-
hearted laugh of hers that brought about the
most important event of her life. At a little
social gathering fate ordained that she should
be the partner of James Cook Ayer in a game
of whist, and that at a critical stage of the
game she should trump his trick. He took a
very serious view of whist in those days and
chided her for her oversight. And she re-
sponded with a laugh, a laugh so frank and
free and musical, and revealing such a well-
spring of happiness within, that Mr. Ayer then
and there, as he subsequently acknowledged,
fell in love with her, and resolved to win her
for his wife. He succeeded, for the guiding
principle of his life, as he himself so aptly ex-
pressed it, was : “Undertake what you can
accomplish, and accomplish what you under.
take.” *
When one recalls what manner of man Mr.
Ayer was, it is not to be wondered at that
that gleeful, girlish laugh fell upon his ears
like rain upon a long-parched land, and caused
4. I
the flower of the divine passion to take instant
root within him. His early life had been a
struggle of the grimmest, sternest sort. There
had been very little play in it. At eleven
years of age he set to work attending a picker
in a woollen factory at four cents an hour;
and to increase his earnings often worked
twenty hours out of the twenty-four, for in
those days there was no benignant child-labor
law. There are some men, Galton tells us in
his work on hereditary genius, who are bound
to amount to something, despite all the obsta-
cles that may be put in their path. Of this
irrepressible type was James Cook Ayer. That
which would have crushed utterly boys far
above the average in intelligence and ambition
simply acted as a stimulus upon his indomita-
ble spirit and boundless energies. He refused
absolutely to yield to circumstances. Every
opportunity that came his way he made the
most of. And thus he obtained an education
and became a classical scholar of the first at-
tainments. He learned to read and write the
Portuguese language after he was fifty. When
43
he was twenty-one he invented a rotary steam-
engine. Numerous other later inventions at-
tested his mechanical versatility. He studied
medicine. He became an expert chemist. He
made himself acquainted with all the latest
discoveries of science. He organized and
managed a vast business. He took a hand in
politics. He was a master of the intricacies
of finance. He built railroads, canals, and
cotton mills. He founded the town of Ayer.
But up to the time that he met the charming
young lady who was to become his wife, he
had gone through life like a soldier, fighting
for everything that he gained. It had been
one long battle with only here and there the
briefest sort of a furlough. So when he
heard that laugh it revealed to him a na-
ture that had thriven on, and enjoyed to
the full, what he had so keenly missed in his
own life. He recognized the true complement
of himself.
They were married on November 14, 1850.
He was then thirty-two years old and had
already laid, strongly and substantially, the
45
foundations of his fortune. She lacked a
month of being twenty-three years old. The
union was in every way a happy one. In
Mrs. Ayer he found, as he himself wrote
nearly a quarter of a century after their mar-
riage, “that great, best gift of God to man—
a good wife.” But not only in the sphere of
his home did she prove herself truly a help-
meet. In his business enterprises he found
her judgment invaluable. It is his own testi-
mony that after their marriage he never made
an investment, nor engaged in a new enter-
prise, nor reached a decision in any critical
matter affecting his business, without first con-
sulting her; and to no course would he com-
mit himself without her approval. So great
was his confidence in her judgment, that he
made her one of the executors and trustees of
his will. From a man of the ordinary range of
activities testimony of this sort would not
mean much ; but when one recalls the extent
of Mr. Ayer's business ramifications and the
success which he achieved, it becomes very
significant. *
47
To that intuitive knowledge of human na-
ture which, in company with many other good
women, Mrs. Ayer possessed to a remarkable
degree, she added the results of minute pow-
ers of observation, and thus acquired a capac-
ity for “reading people” of which her husband
often availed himself. He used to say that he
never knew her to be mistaken in her estimate
of persons whom she had met. She took great
delight in the study of character, and some of
her deductions, from seemingly trivial and in-
consequential actions, would have delighted a
Sherlock Holmes.
Once, when driving down Fifth Avenue with
one of her sons, when a jam in the thoroughfare
compelled very slow progress, she called his
attention to a woman who was walking on the
sidewalk a little ahead of the carriage, and go-
ing in the same direction, with the observation :
“There goes a woman it would not be safe to
trust.” -
“Why, how do you know that ?” asked her
son. “Have you ever seen her before ?”
“No,” Mrs. Ayer replied, “I never set eyes
49
on her before ; but women who walk like she
does are never to be trusted.”
Then she directed her son's attention to a
peculiarity in the woman's gait that had entirely
escaped his observation, and treated him to a
highly entertaining dissertation on character
as indicated by gait in walking, with illustra-
tions drawn from life, which showed that she
had devoted to the subject much original
thought and study.
After his marriage, Mr. Ayer took a house
in Gorham Street, Lowell. There were born
their two sons, Frederick Fanning and Henry
Southwick, who survive them. Soon after
this Mr. Ayer purchased the historic “Stone
House,” or “Stone Tavern,” as it was some-
times called, on the right bank of the Merri-
mac River and within sound of Pawtucket
Falls. It was built on the site of the wigwam
of the celebrated Indian chief Wanalancet,
who did not wait until his death to become a
“good Indian,” but embraced Christianity and
proved himself a friend of the white man.
Here Mr. and Mrs. Ayer lived for some
5 I
twenty-seven years and dispensed a generous
hospitality, which, added to sprightly wit and
intellectual conversation, made their home one
of the social centres of Lowell. Not a few
celebrities here found entertainment and re-
freshment, the most renowned of whom was
Daniel Webster.
Mrs. Ayer was a tactful, graceful, and gra-
cious hostess, and thereby added much to her
husband's popularity. She was an adept at
the art of “drawing people out” and pleasing
them by making them well pleased with them-
selves. But she never allowed any social func-
tions to interfere with her full performance of
those higher duties which held the first claim
on her, nor to divert a moment of her time and
devotion from her first thought, which was al-
ways her children. To them she gave all the
watchfulness of her waking and her sleeping
hours. Early in life she was obliged to adopt
the customary afternoon nap as a temporary
respite from the labors of the day. Unwilling
to trust her children with a nurse while she
herself was sleeping, she would invariably lock
53
them all in the room with her and see them
safely to sleep, before venturing herself into
the strange region of forgetfulness. With the
ample means which Mr. Ayer's growing for-
tune enabled him to place at her disposal, she
found opportunity to cultivate those tastes
which, next to her family, were her chief
source of delight. She adorned her home
with beautiful pictures and choice works of art,
and showed a rare and wonderful taste in their
selection and arrangement. She had an in-
stinctive and keen sense of harmony in color,
which is much rarer than the sense of harmony
in music, and which enabled her to give to her
home that artistic atmosphere which wealth
without culture can never simulate.
She was, however, passionately fond of mu-
sic, and loved to share her appreciation of it
with her friends. She gave many musicales
and sought for them the best talent obtainable.
But music of any sort gave her pleasure, and
she was too frank and independent to seek to
disguise the fact for the purpose of assuming
superiority of taste. She liked the best, but
55
that did not make her indifferent to the second,
third, or fourth best.
To the “tender charm of poetry " she was
keenly sensitive. The poets were the favorite
companions of her leisure hours. She had an
unusually retentive memory, and the treasures
that were thus gathered in her mental store-
house she loved to bring forth for the pleasure
of her friends. She made no pretensions to
elocutionary art, but she read and recited well,
because she had the feeling and sympathy
which enabled her to understand and interpret
with natural grace the best utterances of the
master singers of the English tongue.
For artificiality of any sort she had a strong
aversion, particularly that form of it commonly
called “putting on airs.” It was impossible
for her to be otherwise than her natural self at
all times and in all places, but her depth of
insight and breadth of character gave her great
powers of adaptability, and thus she could
make herself “at home” with persons of widely
divergent tastes and attainments. .
Blessed days for her were those spent in the
57
“old Stone House.” There was born her
only daughter, who survives her, Mrs. Lesley
Josephine Pearson, widow of the late Com-
mander Frederick Pearson, of the United
States Navy. There she met and faithfully
discharged the added cares and responsibilities
that were thrust upon her as she developed
from young womanhood to matronhood, with-
out any loss of that kindliness of heart and
gracious sweetness of manner that had charac-
terized her when she first entered the old
home as a bride. There she extended the
helping hand and open purse to many who
sought her in sorrow, poverty, and affliction.
There fell upon her the first great shadow of
her life — the loss of a favorite brother, Ed-
ward F. Southwick, who died in August, 1855,
before he had reached the age of eighteen.
His loss to her was most keenly felt ; and,
aside from the natural occasion for grief, she
had every reason for taking it greatly to heart.
Let me pause for a moment, to drop a flower
upon his grave. He was a lad of uncommon
promise. He seemed to have had united in
59
him all the great qualities of his Southwick
ancestors. His character was an unusual one,
distinguished by a certain marked superior-
ity of unworldliness coupled with an exalted
nobleness of thought and aspiration, which
placed him at once in the bright galaxy of lofty
souls. His whole nature was markedly spirit-
ual. He seemed not so much to mingle with
the world as to hover above it. “His soul
was like a star, and dwelt apart.” He seemed
to be sufficient unto himself. Mature with a
wisdom beyond his years, he was welcomed as
oracular in the presence of his elders. He
was calm with that “high seriousness” of
Matthew Arnold, which seemed strange and
awe-inspiring in one so young. There was an
unspeakable charm about him which seemed to
be the blossom of great manliness with exalted
ideals, united to a wondrous gentleness of
mind and manner. The lesser gifts of in-
tellect— talents which adorn, but never make
a man—nature had showered upon him. No
one who ever saw him could ever forget him.
Strange that one so rare and so keenly needed,
6I
should be hurried from the world almost be.
fore he had had time to speak. Such spirits
appear to dip their wings for an instant only
in a wave of the cold rough waters, and then
to rise again towards the star-sown domes
from whence they sprang. Who knows but
that Plautus gave us the true explanation:
“Whom the gods love die young " ?
Twenty-three years after there fell upon her
the second great shadow of her life, the loss
of her husband, who died July 3, 1878. They
were made for each other, and were devoted
to each other; and as they climbed the hillside
together, the skies scattered more than the
allotted share of roses across their path. But
the night cometh; and it was her night; and
none could know the deep darkness of it when
his star had set.
But, notwithstanding these great sorrows,
life for her still held its duties, and her children
claimed her care and guidance. She believed
in the “strenous life”; in gathering up “the
fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”
Not a moment was thrown aside. To be of
63
service, that was her motto—to be of the ut-
most usefulness in her power, and in her way.
She worshipped the beautiful. No matter what
form it took, or where it appeared, there she
could be found, a never-failing pilgrim, kneel-
ing at its shrine. It was her master passion :
To discover it, create it, purchase it, display it,
and see it capture others in its net; see it
come forth in new forms to ſhake new converts
—bringing the greatest number under its
greatest spell—that was her delight. She
was a born artist. With the right training in
the beginning of life, she would have become
an artist of the first distinction. She had the
creative faculty to evolve beauty from her own
ideals, and to stamp it upon others. I know
of no spaces in the firmament of beauty she did
not cultivate. To her, everything seemed to
have its beautiful side, even as to Victor Hugo
the slimy waters of the sewer reflected the stars.
To do right, that was her religion. “Do
what is right, and you will accomplish what
you wish "; those were her words, oft re-
peated. And how faithfully she followed
65
them . With her the conscience had to ap-
prove to the uttermost. No avoidance of what
appeared to her to be a duty. Like her
Quaker ancestors, she was not shackled by
any doctrines or creeds. To do right, that
was enough, to do right under all circum-
stances and without fear. Her fearlessness
and courage were most marked. And, with
it all, she was most gentle. In all respects,
and in the largest degree, she was a gentle-
woman. She had the gentleness of a pigeon,
with the fixed purpose and straight determina-
tion of an eagle. Utterly unsordid, she faced
what she believed to be right without a dawn
of hesitation; for in her make-up she knew
no fear.
Soon after her husband's death she moved
to New York, and made her home at No. 5
West Fifty-seventh street. Here in due time
her life resumed its wonted course. The old
“Stone House” with its hallowed memories
she transformed into a home for young women
and children, and by her will bequeathed $100,-
OOO for its endowment and support. Her new
67
home she again stocked with treasures of art
selected with her usual consummate taste, and
in it she entertained her friends in the same
delightful fashion that had characterized her
hospitality at Lowell.
After she took up her residence in New
York, she was in the habit of going to Europe
every spring, returning in the fall. She went
to Europe, as usual, in 1889, but was destined
never to return. An accident changed the
tenor of her life. An incident preceded it
which is worth mentioning, because of the
interest it may possess for students of the
occult.
She was staying at the Continental Hotel in
Paris with her friend, Lady Clark. It was about
the end of October, and she had made all prep-
arations for her return voyage to America, and
had engaged passage on one of the French
line steamers that was to sail in a few days.
Lady Clark told her that there was a clairvoy-
ant staying at the hotel, and suggested that
they call her in and see what could be got out
of her. Regarding it merely as a diversion,
69
Mrs. Ayer acquiesced. The clairvoyant was
summoned, and after some questioning as to
the peculiar powers to which she laid claim,
announced her willingness to submit them to
a test.
She appeared to go into a species of trance,
and then Mrs. Ayer asked her what kind of a
voyage she was going to have on the steamer
in which she expected to return to America.
After a pause of a minute or so, the clairvoy-
ant answered :
“I have been all over the steamer, but I do
not see you on board of her.”
“You must be mistaken about that,” said
Mrs. Ayer, laughing, “for I have already
engaged passage on her, and am all ready to
go on board.”
“You will not sail on her,” declared the
prophetess who professed her ability to see
into the future with closed eyes.
Mrs. Ayer laughed again sceptically, but
asked no more questions on that point. After
some further probing in other directions with-
out eliciting anything definite, the clairvoyant
71
volunteered the information : “You are going
to meet with a serious accident.”
This gruesome prediction, which might have
caused a woman of less strong nerves some
uneasiness, produced no effect whatever on
Mrs. Ayer, and the woman was dismissed after
receiving her fee.
Next day she went out for a drive with
Lady Clark. After the carriage had gone
some distance, Mrs. Ayer, who had been ad-
vised to take active exercise by her physician, -
left it for a short walk, her friend remaining
in the carriage to await her return. She had
gone only a little way and was about to cross
a street, when a cab dashed around the corner
and knocked her down. The driver, as is
usual in such cases, without stopping to see
what injury he had done, whipped up his
horses and disappeared. The wheels had
passed over both arms, breaking the right
elbow and the left wrist. Of course the pain
which she suffered was intense. But after
some spectators had assisted her to her feet,
she walked unaided to the carriage in which
73
she had left her friend, and, taking her seat
therein, directed the driver to return to the
hotel. More intent on sparing her companion
alarm than on the consequences of what had
happened to herself, she said nothing about
the accident on the ride back to the hotel;
and with such stoical fortitude did she control
her sufferings that her friend entertained not
the remotest suspicion of what had befallen
her. Only after she had reached her own
apartments in the hotel did she relax the vise-
like grip in which she had held her feelings
under subjection; and, throwing herself on a
couch, directed her maid to summon a doctor
at Once.
The physician perceived immediately the
serious nature of her injuries. He told her
that he would have to set the broken bones
in plaster casts, and, as a matter of course,
proposed that she take some anaesthetic to
render herself insensible to the pain of the
operation. But this stout-hearted woman of
more than sixty years, with the blood of Quaker
ancestors in her veins and the recollection of
75
their valorous submission to suffering and per-
secution for conscience'sake, would have none
of it. She could endure pain as well as they.
She merely wanted the operation done as
speedily as possible.
After the bones had been set, the doctor
told her that he could see no escape from the
bed for her for six weeks, as dressing with
both arms in plaster casts would be impossible,
as a matter of course. But she had another
surprise in store for him. She announced her
intention of giving a musicale to her friends
in two weeks. She did not propose to be
shut out from the world for six weeks by such
trivial matters as broken bones. Next day she
summoned a dressmaker and ordered a dress
made with the sleeves cut open from wrist to
shoulder, so that they could be wrapped over
the arms and be laced up without in any
way disturbing the arms in their plaster casts.
The dress was made, the invitations to a musi-
cale were issued, and the programme was car-
ried out in her apartments on the date specified,
just two weeks after she had been run over by
77
the cab, to the mingled gratification and aston-
ishment of her friends.
But the accident caused her to abandon the
idea of returning to America that winter.
When she was able to be about again, she
leased a house in Paris, No. 19 in the Rue de
Constantine. But so pleasant did her stay
in Paris prove, so many congenial friends did
she make there, so many new interests in life
were opened to her, that she stayed on year
after year—never to return. It involved no
sacrifice of old ties. Her children went over
frequently from America to visit her, and her
friends in this country enjoyed her hospitality
whenever they crossed the ocean. And thus,
with a mind ever alert to receive new impres-
sions, the “footfalls of the years” lighted so
softly upon her as scarcely to leave a print
that was perceptible.
The house in the Rue Constantine, adorned
with rare collections of works of art, became
the resort of the best people of Paris; not
people of society only,–though society took its
turn,--but artists, the creators of the beautiful,
79
were her favorites. She never lost an oppor-
tunity of helping a struggling artist to get
on. She founded a resort in Paris for the
shelter and assistance of poor American artists
who came there to complete their studies.
Her house became a salon where her friends
could partake of what was best and noblest in
the inspirations of the first masters of art. Her
literary and musical entertainments, marked by
the same exquisite taste that presided over
everything she did, were eagerly sought and
widely attended by lovers of the Muses, and
quickly became a distinguished feature of the
French capital, where she gathered about her
a host of friends, who were left to mourn the
loss of their gentle hostess.
Her taste was faultless. But it was more
than that. It was more than capacity to ap-
preciate and understand. It was the constant
expression of a deeper attribute — the power
to create and develop ideals of beauty, which
she was continually doing in one field or an-
other, and which pointed the unmistakable
genius within her. Genius she possessed of an
8 I
unusual order, the faculty to divine new
forms of beauty wholly hers, and she never
imitated and seldom adopted the ideals of
others. Genius to evolve and taste to adapt
were both hers. She delighted to see her
taste upheld and appreciated by others; for,
as Sir Joshua Reynolds put it, “taste depends
upon those finer emotions which make the
organization of the soul.” It was with a view
of emphasizing these emotions, in order to be-
come the better understood, that she gathered
about her as many appreciative friends as would
meet her on the common ground of taste to
understand and willingness to promote the
flowering of every shrub that could be planted
in the field of art. For society as such she
cared little or nothing. For the growth and
prosperity of her pet cause, namely, the incor-
poration of the beautiful and artistic into every-
day life, she cared everything. One woman
could scarcely do more to demonstrate and
popularize artistic beauty as the starlight and
the moonlight beating their way through the
fog and smirch of the dreary spaces. Her
83
social entertainments bore the same stamp of
gentle refinement. No skill was wanting to
put her guests on a footing of complete en-
joyment, which was her happiness; so that in
London, Paris, and Rome, where she was
thoroughly well known and appreciated, she
was warmly welcomed as the favorite and un-
rivalled hostess of the hour.
Through it all ran the thread of her artistic
nature — her overmastering faith in the su-
premacy of beauty wherever she could see it
or hear it; but, above all, where she could
bring it into existence by the touch of her
magic wand. She had Dante's intense “faith
in the ultimate union of perfect beauty and
perfect holiness.” She believed in the “doom
of the ignoble” and the ultimate triumph
over all things of the “power that makes
for righteousness.” Take her for all she
accomplished and for all she was, – her fidel-
ity to lofty ideals, her force of character, her
strength of will and fearless courage, her
large-heartedness and her extreme gentleness
withal, -and she is destined to be long
85
remembered for one of the most remarkable
women of her time.
Her life was a singularly fortunate one;
and yet, it might be truly said, nothing in it
so moved her friends to envy as her manner
of leaving it. She literally fell asleep in this
world and awoke in the next. No wasting
disease, no pain, no mental decay, no heart-
breaking good-byes preceded the summons of
the Angel of Death.
It was her habit to read in bed every night
after retiring. On Sunday night, January 2,
1898, she retired earlier than usual. She read
until about eleven o'clock, when she asked for
a cup of tea. A little after twelve she called
her maid to remove the lamp, and composed
herself for the night. The morrow found her
still sleeping, long after her wonted waking
hour, and in the same position her maid had
left her the night before. She had not moved;
she had not opened her eyes nor parted her
lips. Not a moment's suffering, not an instant
of consciousness had intervened; leaving an
expression of utter rest and peace that made
87
her face sweet to look upon. And so she
passed away to a better world, truly
“Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
89
A few only of the many kindly expressions
of the Press are added, showing the general
regard in which Mrs. Ayer was held; while
the great depth of her love and the tireless
tenderness of its devotion could only be
known to her immediate family and her
nearest friends.
9I
A correspondent, writing to the AVew York
Tribune over the subscription of “A Lifelong
Friend,” says of her :
“To the Æditor of the ‘Tribune.”
“SIR —
“I wish you would permit me to say a few
words about Mrs. Josephine M. Ayer, who
died in Paris on Monday. Probably no one
knew this estimable woman better than I.
She was a gentlewoman, descended from an
heroic stock of New England Quakers. She
inherited their peculiar gentleness and sweet-
ness of character, with all of the steadfastness
of purpose and allowance for the shortcomings
of the world that go to make a noble woman.
In these days of haste and anxiety too much
thought is bestowed upon what people do; too
little upon what they are. Emerson says:
“To be is to act.' How little is thought of
that Much as Mrs. Ayer did for her friends,
it was what she was that endeared her to
them. There was an indefinable charm about
93
her, the influence of which no one who ever
met her could escape. Although a consider-
able part of her time was devoted to matters
of society, it was with the desire to contribute
to the happiness of others, and not because
she was at heart, or in any sense, a society
woman. She liked to see others happy. She
would exert herself to no end of trouble and
expense for this purpose. How often I have
seen her force herself to be present at some
little entertainment she had prepared, when
she looked pale and worn, simply “because she
did not want to disappoint her friends.’
“In the fall of 1889, while driving with
Lady Clark in Paris, she got out of the car-
riage to take her accustomed walk. Upon
turning a corner she was knocked down and
run over by a cab, and both her arms were
broken. She got to her feet with some assist-
ance, mounted her carriage, making light of
the incident to her companion, drove back to
the Continental Hotel, where she was staying,
and, bidding her companion good-day, took
the elevator and went to her room alone, and
95
not even the elevator boy noticed that any-
thing had happened to her, so perfectly did
she conceal her suffering. She sent for her
physician, who was obliged to set the bones
without the administration of ether or any
anaesthetic, which she refused to take, and
bore the operation with scarcely a moan.
She had all the pluck and determination of
her Quaker ancestors.
“Her charities were well placed and very
generous. Kindliness and gentleness were
the characteristics most noticeable to those
who knew her well; and they were many, and
were dear to her, and she to them, and they
will remember her, and miss her, and mourn
her loss more and more as time passes away;
for she was unique in her characteristics
and possessed the faculty of impressing her-
self in the hearts of her friends, never to be
forgotten.
“A LIFELONG FRIEND.
“NEw York, Jan. 7, 1898.”
“Mrs. Ayer was ever ready to aid the
97
struggling American artists and singers who
went to Paris to study. Her purse and her
sympathy were never appealed to in vain, and
often she sought those whom she believed to
be worthy. She was a liberal patron of art.”
—(Philadelphia Press.)
“Mrs. Ayer lived in Lowell until the death
$f her husband in 1878. She then came to
New York, and for a number of years occu-
pied the house No. 5 West 57th Street, but
since 1889 she has been living in Paris,
where she occupied a distinguished social
position, being welcomed in the most ex-
clusive homes of the old French families,
to which but few Americans gain entrance.
Mrs. Ayer was a lover and generous patron
of art and music. Her social and musical en-
tertainments became well known throughout
the French capital, and her private and public
charities were most liberal at home and abroad.
She founded the Ayer Home for young
women and children in Lowell.”—(Home 7 our-
mal, New York.)
99
The Paris correspondent of the New York
Tºmes writes:
“In American society the New Year's fes-
tivities have been overclouded by the sudden
death of Mrs. Ayer, which took place two
days ago, after an illness of about a fortnight's
duration. She lived in the Rue Constantine,
and became greatly beloved by all classes of
society. Her portrait, by Carolus Duran, ex-
hibited at the Champs de Mars Salon three
years ago, was the pictorial sensation of the
year. Her musical soirées were very largely
attended. She was most charitable, and her
loss will be greatly felt not only by the artists
and men of letters whom she patronized, but
by the poor, to whom she was a Lady Bounti-
ful of tireless generosity.”
The Pennsylvania Hospital, of Philadelphia,
to which Mrs. Ayer bequeathed the sum of fifty
thousand dollars by her will, have very gener-
ously erected one of their handsomest buildings
to her memory, to be used as a clinical labora-
tory for the study of all sorts of germs and
IOI
germ diseases, for the general advancement of
the science of bacteriology. The building is
inscribed,
JEtected
Cotbø ſlºemory of
3.03epbine (II). Elyer.
“Mrs. Ayer was a lover and generous patron
of art and music. In Paris her social and
musical entertainments became well known
throughout the French capital. Mrs. Ayer's
private and public charities have been most
liberal at home and abroad. That which in-
terested her most was the Ayer Home, which
she founded for young women and children in
Lowell.” (New York Tribune.)
“The widow of Dr. Ayer, of Lowell, died
recently in Paris. She was well known in that
city as a person of great charitable kindness.
Her home was in the Rue Constantine. Un-
fortunate artists and literary men, besides the
poor of the masses, were materially helped by
Mrs. Ayer's American dollars. Three years
ago her portrait, painted by Carolus Duran,
IO3
excited much praise. It was hung in the
Champs de Mars Salon.” (The Independent,
New York.)
“The will of Mrs. Josephine M. Ayer has
been presented for probate in Cambridge. It
contains one bequest of local interest and one
most munificent in character, namely, $100,000
for the Ayer Home for Young Women and
Children. This bequest easily excels all pre-
vious remembrances of Lowell institutions,
and, in view of Mrs. Ayer's great generosity
to the Home during her lifetime, makes her
the foremost in the ranks of benefactors of
the city's charities.”—(Lowell Courier.)
“The death of Mrs. J. C. Ayer, who for so
many years has been prominent in this city,
brings sincere regret to both the French and
American society. Her loss will be felt no less
by the poor, who benefited by her lavish, but
unostentatious, charity, than by those who had
the many privileges of her immediate acquaint-
all CC, “MARIE CHAMPNEy.
“PARIS, January 7, 1898.”
IO5
At the annual meeting of the corporation of
the Ayer Home for Young Women and Chil-
dren, held January the eleventh, eighteen hun-
dred and ninety-eight, the following resolutions
upon the death of Mrs. Josephine M. Ayer
were adopted by a rising vote:
“The members of the corporation of the Ayer
Home for Young Women and Children, as-
sembled in their annual meeting, have received
with deep regret the announcement of the
death of Mrs. Ayer.
“Her benevolent spirit, which responded so
readily and so generously to Lowell's numerous
charities, was especially munificent towards this
institution which bears the name that she bore.
The public know in part, what we know and
appreciate fully, how largely it is due to her
that the Ayer Home now occupies the Home
which she so well adorned, that it has enjoyed
such a measure of prosperity hitherto, and that
it is able to shelter and protect so many who
would otherwise be homeless.
“Our name perpetuates the memory of her
Io?
generosity and that of her children, but we, as
members of this corporation, desire to record
our very deep sense of our obligation to her
and of the personal loss that we have expe-
rienced in her death.
“We direct that this brief but sincere expres-
sion of our appreciation of her interest in the
Home and her unfailing generosity towards
it, be perpetuated upon the records of the
corporation, and that the clerk be requested to
transmit a copy thereof to the family with our
heartfelt condolences with them in their be-
rea Vement.
“MARY A. WEBSTER,
“Clerk of the Corporation of
the Ayer Home for Young
Women and Children.”