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 MEMORIAL SKETCH 
 
 Elizabeth Emerson Atwater 
 
 WRITTEN FOR HER FRIEXDS. 
 
 By MARY CLEMMER. 
 
 BUFFALO: 
 THE COURIER COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1879- 
 
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 Cabinet Portrait. 
 
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 SAN FRANCISCO.
 
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 £(f|atct5 Emerson ^ttoatcr. 
 
 Born in Norwich, Vt., August 8, 1812. 
 Died in Buffalo, N. Y., April ii, 1878. 
 
 701082
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Childhood — Youth — School- days. 
 
 Air HEN a woman endowed with mental gifts in any 
 special direction passes away, it is considered the 
 proper thing to tell her story, and to do reverence to her 
 memory. But every little while we see a woman great in 
 womanhood pass swiftly and silently out of her secluded 
 sphere, and there seems to be no one to uplift the virtues 
 which she exalted, or to tell the story of a life fit to be the 
 inspiration of every life that comes after it. One reason 
 for this is, that so much may be lived that never can be 
 told. She lived, she loved, she served, she suffered, she 
 died — that seems little to tell the eager denizens of the 
 world, rushing in every direction to seize the prizes which 
 the world hangs everywhere almost within reach of its own, 
 I may be mistaken : I may have been unfortunately placed, 
 but I seem to know many more women who are struggling 
 after these prizes — the prizes of fashion, of society, of 
 wealth, of i)0\ver, of fame — than I know women simi)ly
 
 great in those unconscious graces of the soul -which bring 
 womanhood nearest to the Divine Nature and closest to the 
 human heart. 
 
 Such a woman was the one whose perfection of character 
 and of life can be but faintly reflected on these pages. The 
 exhalations of the finest natures are as subtle, as illusive as 
 the perfume of flowers. They fill every day of a life with 
 pervasive fragrance ; but, when they have passed on and 
 higher, who may catch and transfix forever in the amber of 
 recorded fact that exquisite memory ! It is most fitting 
 that the name of such a woman should be perpetuated in a 
 flower. Elizabeth Emerson Atwater, not the mother 
 of children who could rise up and call her blessed, was the 
 discoverer of plants new to science. One of these, "in 
 honor of its enthusiastic discoverer," was named by Dr. 
 Carl ]\Iuller, the distinguished Bryologist of Germany, 
 "Bryum Atwaterise." 
 
 Elizabeth Emerson was born in Norwich, Vermont, 
 August 8, 1812. She grew to the first consciousness of 
 childhood in one of those homes of plenty and intelligence 
 in which New England abounds. At six years of age, 
 through the intercourse of their parents, she became ac- 
 quainted with another little girl of her own years in the 
 neighboring village of Strafford. The daughter of Judge 
 Harris, a man of substance and repute, this little friend 
 bore the name of Janette Harris. In addition to his magis- 
 terial duties, Judge Harris kept the village "store." Here, 
 in an immense crate, which was a receptacle of all the " paper- 
 rags " of the surrounding country, these two little maids
 
 played and "rummaged," and found new "strips" of start- 
 ling cloth for their dolls' clothes. This was the beginning 
 of a friendship that lasted more than sixty years, and was 
 not dissolved even by death. Janette Harris of that long- 
 ago time still lives, honored and beloved by all who know 
 her, the widow of Hon. Portus Baxter, of Vermont, who 
 died in Washington, D. C, iS6S. 
 
 To her devotion to the memory of her life-long friend, 
 the writer is indebted above all others for the material for 
 this sketch. 
 
 Janette Harris had a sister — only one — " Marcia," who, with 
 herself, lived to become a beauty and belle famous through 
 all their State. But before that day of enchantment came, 
 the two sisters, with little Elizabeth Emerson, started 
 forth — not to seek their fortune, but to go to school — to 
 boarding-school which, in 1828, was more of an event in a 
 girl's life than it can be in 1878. 
 
 To hear ]Mrs. Baxter tell of the journey to-day, is indeed 
 "a tale of ye olden time." Think of riding all the way 
 from Northern Vermont to Troy, New York, in a stage- 
 coach and that a sleigh ! One gets a very vivid picture of 
 the three girls — the two beautiful blondes and the little 
 brune, Elizabeth. The hoyden of the party whose pranks 
 filled the minds of her companions with dismay was Janette, 
 foredoomed, as a matter of course, by her vivacious tem- 
 perament to terrible home-sickness, when, for the first time 
 in her life, she should find herself far from father and mother 
 shut up in a very famous establishment for young ladies. 
 To educate young ladies seriously, elegantly and liberally
 
 8 
 
 was at that day a far more exceptional process than it is at 
 present when colleges and ologies for women are so diffu- 
 sively multiplied.. In 1828 the one famous school in the 
 land for young women was Mrs. Emma Willard's Seminary 
 at Troy. Here Elizabeth Emerson laid the foundation 
 for that fine and careful culture which the leisure of her 
 after-life as well as the proclivities of her mind made to her 
 possible. 
 
 Yet, as we listen to the 5'ellow, time-worn letters so sacredly 
 preserved by Mrs. Baxter, we find that the school-girl of 
 1828 writes to her " Dearest Janette " wonderfully like the 
 school-girl of 1878 writes to her "Darling Dovie." Eliza- 
 beth Emerson and Janette Harris happily went to school 
 before the diminutive "z>" had robbed of their nobility 
 three-fourths of the noblest names of womanhood. But 
 in genuine girl fashion Elizabeth Emerson laments the 
 departure of her mother to her "Dearest Janette." 
 
 Troy Seminary, October 18, 1S27. 
 Mother left us before the stage passengers had breakfasted, and Abba 
 and myself had to wait there all alone until they were to start, which was 
 half an hour ; I suppose that time to you, Janette, seems very short, but 
 to us, I assure you, it seemed a long, long time. Can you, my dearest 
 Janette, imagine my feelings when the carriage came to the door? You 
 may conceive in some measure that they cannot be described. I thought 
 there never wasso cruel a woman as mother. 
 
 To US who know^ the " Battle of Prague " only as a laughed- 
 at tradition, her allusion to it here seems to come out of the 
 far past.
 
 Troy Female Seminary, January, 1828. 
 
 Does your father intend purchasing a piano for you? The last music 
 lesson I took, was a part of the " Battle of Prague." 
 
 I am housekeeper (no, not housekeeper — room-keeper) this week ; have 
 risen every morning before six o'clock and made a fire out of paper, 
 lighted my lamp, and put my room in order before the "warning bell," 
 Now, Janette, don't you think I am a smart child ? 
 
 My lecture in chemistry, in which I am to expose myself in explaining 
 at examination, is Fluorine ; I do not like it much. 
 
 As we recall the advance she made in the science after- 
 wards, which made her the honored correspondent of some 
 of the most distinguished Botanists of the world, her first 
 allusion in her early girlhood to her favorite science is full 
 of interest : 
 
 Troy Seminary, July 21, 1828. 
 
 I fear, Janette, you will be disappointed in finding me with no addi- 
 tional knowledge of Botany, as I have attended very little to it this term ; 
 have collected very few flowers, as I think I have not been to walk since 
 the last of June, and shall indeed be happy once more to get home, where 
 I can ramble as I like, and without a teacher. 
 
 In 1829 we find the young lady at home again, in Nor- 
 wich, making to her beloved Janette, very free, vivacious 
 comments on one of the characters of the region. 
 
 Norwich, Jan. i82g. 
 Janette, I must tell you Mr. Rifford passed two days with us last week, 
 and of all the disagreeable objects, I think he is one. He is from morn- 
 ing till night talking of Marcia Harris ; thinks there never was such per- 
 fection — he thinks Janette he should prefer for a wife. While here, he 
 was continually calling for tea, tea — " Mrs. Emerson, a little more of your 
 good tea ! "
 
 lO 
 
 In 1830 her father, Judge Emerson, moved to a new estate 
 and into a new house, which he had built irt Windsor, Ver- 
 mont. In the same house and on the same estate, the pres- 
 ent Minister to Russia, Hon. E. W. Stoughton, to-day finds 
 his summer rest, and his fair summer home. There is not a 
 more picturesque spot in all Vermont than this, in sight of 
 Mount Ascutney, and in one of the most exquisite corners 
 of the whole Connecticut Valley. From this enchanting 
 place a venerable young lady of eighteen deplores to her 
 old comrade, " Janette," the days of their youth, i. <?., when 
 they were six years old and " rummaging " for doll rags. 
 
 ^YINDSOR, April 12, i8jo. 
 I am glad you have determined upon passing this summer leisurely, or 
 rather that you have not attached yourself to the duties of a school. I am 
 in hopes to be at liberty in May, when I shall anticipate and hope to real- 
 ize a visit from you. It seems an age since you and I have exchanged 
 visits, as we used frequently to do. How many happy hours we have 
 passed together ! Could old times, or rather the days of our youth, be 
 restored, I fancy we should be found working dresses for dolls, or rum- 
 maging over paper-rags in the store ; but to recall scenes and pleasures 
 past, no doubt in our happier days, is a melancholy thought, and as I 
 was just inclining to be merry, I'll leave this subject. 
 
 Nine years later we find her in this same pleasant home 
 writing to her friend of a recent recovery from a severe ill- 
 ness, under date of 
 
 Windsor, March, i8jg. 
 
 That the ills of this life, though they may impair, do never destroy the 
 health, is indisputably evidenced to me in the fact that I am still a 
 "sojourner on earth." You will deem me quite wanting in the share of 
 fortitude allowed to woman ; I am ready to acknowledge that the "lot" 
 which fell to me was considerably diminished in quantity. Considering
 
 II 
 
 my stature it was doubtless regarded sufficient. In my estimation the 
 ills I have encountered seem quite disproportionate to the object. But 
 spring has come ! The harbinger of genial suns and early flowers that 
 I love so well — sufficient, I trust, to arouse my dormant powers ; to prove 
 the brighter, that they've slept so long. 
 
 In July, of the same year, she was married to Mr. Samuel 
 T. Atwater, of Buffalo, N. Y. She writes of her marriage to 
 her friend " Janette," in a letter dated 
 
 Windsor, July fS, i8jg. 
 In your letter you desire remembrances to Mr. Atwater, and say " if he 
 loves you, I love him." Mr. A. is sorry that you speak with so little 
 confidence of his affection, and begs me to tender you his kindest re- 
 gards, and say that it does not admit of a doubt. We were married on 
 Tuesday (July i6) morning, at nine o'clock, rather privately, but few 
 friends invited. I knew it would be a mere matter of cei;emony to 
 extend an invitation to your family to be present, whom of all my 
 friends, I should be most gratified to have recognized on this occasion. 
 The wedding was private ; in the evening we received a small party of 
 friends, and thus passed off our marriage-day. Don't fail to write me ere 
 my departure, and allow me this first time to add my changed name, 
 though with continued affection, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Elizabeth Atwater. 
 
 With this letter we part with her maiden days. Serene, 
 most fair, they lie far back, touched by the enchantment of 
 the past. They can be but dimly reflected on these pages 
 by one to whom the earth was then an unknown sphere. 
 But those who follow these lines may see, by the works that 
 do follow her, that the days of her life and the clear perfec- 
 tion of her character more than fulfilled all the promise of 
 her auspicious youth.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Her Happy Marriage— Removal to Buffalo — to Chicago— Active Life 
 
 There. 
 
 T N her marriage Mrs. Atwater entered into that rare ideal 
 relation with another human being which is reserved for 
 the elect pairs of this world. More than thirty years of 
 daily intercourse failed to wear away the fineness of its 
 charm or the sweetness of its fellowship. 
 
 In a letter to " Janette," written in Buffalo, February 24, 
 1840, she gives a picture of New Year's Day in that city 
 near forty years ago. She writes : 
 
 As you anticipated, dear Janette, the Holidays passed merrily with us. 
 It is customary in Buffalo, as in all the New York cities, for the ladies to 
 "sit in state" on New Year's Day, from which custom we did not choose 
 to deviate. Accordingly we " sat up (or rather stood) for company" and 
 received seventy-six calls from the beaux of our city. We prepared a 
 table of refreshments, of which all made it a ceremony to partake — 
 though sparingly, as the same ceremony was observed in every successive 
 calling place. The wines and champagne were not wholly neglected. 
 The fluids seemed in greater requisition than the solids, though the sub- 
 stantial were occasionally partaken of, that the equilibrium be main- 
 tained. Those who paid their devoirs in the after part of the day 
 evidenced a little more spirit than those who called in the morning. 
 Yet none were so far regardless of the respect due to themselves and the 
 ladies whom they visited as to appear other than with propriety. It was 
 truly a merry season to all, and a novel one to me, for I have never
 
 13 
 
 before chanced to be deposited where this custom prevailed. Notwith- 
 standing the hard times there are splendid parties at private houses, 
 assemblies, military balls, etc., constantly in agitation. My husband 
 and myself are so well satisfied with each other's society that we are not 
 necessitated to resort to such scenes for amusement or enjoyment, and 
 both entertaining the belief that there is no comfort in such scenes, no 
 good arising from a habitual attendance on them, we have refrained from 
 frequenting them, as many do — to dissipation. 
 
 The same year, speaking of the absence of Mr. Atwater, 
 on a business trip to New York, she says: 
 
 My husband found it necessary to go to New York on business, where 
 he was detained nearly three weeks. He reached home Sunday last, 
 only to leave the following Wednesday, to return to-morrow. Now, 
 Janette, I can sympathize with you in the absence of your husband. 
 If ever I knew what it was to experience loneliness in a crowd it has 
 been in the absence of my husband. You will not laugh with incredulity 
 at the idea of my regretting an absence so temporary, for you have a 
 better self and can appreciate my feelings. 
 
 We have a regiment of officers stationed in our city, which contributes 
 much to its life. General Scott and his Aid gave us a call a week or 
 two since, when they were in the city. His Aid, Lieutenant Keyes, 
 married a particular friend of mine in Brooklyn, L. I. General Scott is 
 one of the most noble-looking men I ever saw, and vastly familiar and 
 agreeable in conversation. 
 
 In the winter of 1841, after speaking of the gaiety of the 
 city (Buffalo), she says : 
 
 Agreeable to Samuel T.'s and my own sage decision, such a disposition 
 of time is incomparably insignificant to the pleasures attendant on our 
 own domestic fireside, when, with books and work, and occasional con- 
 versation, time passes merrily, innocently and in realization of substan- 
 tial enjoyment. However, with an extended city acquaintance, it seems 
 a duty to occasionally receive and reciprocate such civilities. We regard
 
 H 
 
 this interchange in the light of duty ; for really it is at the sacrifice of 
 every amiable feeling to make one's toilet at nine o'clock in the even- 
 ing and proceed to a fashionable party. 
 
 The necessity of conforming to fashion, which is so fickle and 
 arbitrary, is almost unbearable, and yet one cannot be independent of 
 it, if they mingle in society at all ; it is a sorry state of things. 
 
 In the two last quotations we find the key — the open sesame 
 — to her entire nature. Small and slight though she looked, 
 she was never lifted from her feet by any vanity of this 
 world. Of an exquisitely-refined presence — with a person 
 petite to daintiness, manners as delicate as they were win- 
 some, radiating with the finest intelligence — she might have 
 "shone " in what is called the most " brilliant " society, had 
 ** shining" been in any degree a purpose of her life. Born 
 to the most refined and intelligent associations, she retained 
 them to the last. But to be, rather than to seem anything, 
 was so utterly the main-spring of her being that from very 
 girlhood her character and life struck to the surest founda- 
 tions. The purpose for personal improvement, which the 
 average girl leaves behind with her school-books, was a pre- 
 vailing impulse in Mrs. At water to her latest earthly day. 
 Nor in her did it ever degenerate into a selfish seeking after 
 self-growth or mental perfection for her own laudation. She 
 received to impart. She enriched science with the treasures 
 of nature. With as hearty a largesse the gold of this world 
 that came to her as her share she divided with the helpless 
 and the afflicted. Never a self-seeker, even now it is easier 
 to lay your hand upon what she did than to touch even by 
 spirit that which was essentially her. The proofs of her ex- 
 quisite taste, the results of her tireless industry, the monu-
 
 ments of her endless benevolence remain. But even the 
 recorded words left to reflect her personal self are few and 
 far between. To those who knew and loved her, they are 
 the feeblest of pale shadows of her busy yet serene life — of 
 her symmetrical, subdued, yet strong and sunny character. 
 As the long years run on through her journals, reference to 
 her personal experience, to her personal emotions, became 
 less and less frequent till they cease almost entirely, and the 
 closely-written pages become compact records of the out- 
 goings and in-comings of her ever-busy, fruitful days. This 
 would have been a wise repression of herself 'had she been 
 possessed by an aggressive, egotistical self, which required 
 repression to keep it within due bounds. In her it was the 
 final and finest seal of self-forgetfulness, of pre-occupation 
 for others, of absorption in scientific and benevolent pur- 
 suits. The most noticeable fact on these pages is the frequent 
 recurrence of the name of every friend, even of those who 
 had passed but on the outer edge of her life. That these 
 journals to her were but mere records of reference was 
 proved when, before her death, she requested her husband to 
 destroy them all. Had imagination or emotion held her in 
 stronger thrall there would have been page after page of 
 glowing description, or of self-centered musing, out of which 
 might have been cut passages that to-day would have been 
 most precious to her friends. They would not have ex- 
 pressed her^ therefore we have them not. Hours that a more 
 subjective mind might have spent in thought, she spent in 
 active occupation. And the most certain expression of 
 Elizabeth Atwater's nature and mind we find not in the
 
 i6 
 
 pages of any journal whatever, but within the walls of His- 
 torical Rooms, and Museums of Science, and in the Home of 
 the Aged in Chicago, which she aided in founding. 
 
 Of the happy years of her life spent in Buffalo we have 
 no record outside of her letters. 
 
 In 1856 Mr. Atwater moved to Chicago. Here, perhaps, 
 more than anywhere else, she sowed and reaped the richest 
 harvests of her useful life. The writer must deplore that 
 she herself holds no personal knowledge of those years. It 
 seems indispensable to the perfect justice she would do to 
 the memory of Elizabeth Atwater, that she should have 
 had personal association with her during the epoch when 
 her activity was greatest, her benevolence at high tide, and 
 her ripe and perfectly-balanced powers at their prime. It 
 hurts me to think how much more interesting and perfect 
 this sketch would be could I tell all about the beginnings of 
 that beneficent charity which she aided in organizing, and 
 did so much to carry on— ^the Old People's Home; and if 
 I could but recall personally some of her acts of heavenly 
 kindness to the dumb creatures of God in the Humane 
 Society. This is not my high privilege. I can only repro- 
 duce the scanty pages on which her own delicate hand traced 
 the story of one happy episode in her "Old Ladies' Home " 
 life. Of a Christmas Celebration at the Home, she says : 
 
 Directly after dinner I drove down to the Old Ladies* Home, agree- 
 able to previous arrangement ; the weather being very severe, T. would 
 not let me go in the cars. On my arrival found quite a number of 
 friends of the Home and neighbors already assembled. A lady con- 
 tributed two Christmas trees, one quite large and one small. I laid aside 
 my bonnet and heavy blanket shawl, and went to work with the others
 
 in marking gifts witli the names of the old ladies who were to receive 
 them, and attaching tiiem, or such as were not heavy, to the Christmas 
 trees. Handkeichiefs, skirts, shoes, collars, shawls, stockings, gloves, 
 nightcaps, alpaca aprons, calico aprons, Sontags, flannel, cotton, etc., 
 etc., made up the donations to the old ladies. A beautiful writing-desk, 
 filled with all the necessary equipments, was our gift to the matron, also 
 handkerchiefs and a nice breakfast shawl from some other friend. The 
 old ladies had not the remotest idea what was going on down stairs, but 
 received instructions from the matron to present themselves in a body in 
 the parlor at the sound of the bell ! Accordingly, when all the articles 
 were apportioned, and the empty boxes and waste papers and strings set 
 aside, the bell sounded, the doors were thrown open, and a procession of 
 eighteen old ladies descended the stairs and entered the parlor. And 
 now forthe"ohs" and the "ahs," the interrogations (??)and exclama- 
 tions (! !) One said, " How could you keep this all so quiet ? We thought 
 we were to have a very dull Christmas, nobody having called to see us." 
 After being permitted to walk around the trees and see the beautiful 
 things, they were requested to step into the dining-room and seat them- 
 selves, when they should be allowed to taste of some, and be presented 
 with others. Ice cream and several varieties of delicious cake were pre- 
 sented to each one in turn. I poured out the four pounds candy from 
 " Giinther's " on a huge platter, and passed it to one and all, saying that 
 each one might take as many as they could hold in one hand. It was 
 amusing to see the effort made to adapt the hand to the circumstances ! 
 They all thought the candies were marvellously good. The ladies and 
 one gentleman present partook of ice cream and cake with the old ladies — 
 all but one. I improved this opportunity in going up stairs to visit two 
 sick ones who were unable to appear down stairs. I took a few articles 
 extra to these two, and to three more of my favorites who are invalids. 
 The dining-table looked very nicely, laden with ice cream and confection- 
 ery. The repast concluded, three ladies of us commenced to demolish the 
 fruit of the Christmas trees, by calling out " Collar for Mrs. Van Buren, 
 handkerchief for Mrs. Lavinea," etc., at the same time passing the 
 declared article along the ranks to the recipient. It was interesting to 
 witness the delight of these poor old creatures at being so kindly remem- 
 bered. All the old ladies kissed me over and over from very joy. They 
 hardly knew how to give expression to their gratitude. All being over, 
 I bundled up, bid adieu to all, and went home. 
 o
 
 Again she writes : 
 
 This being our day of regular meeting, I visited all the old ladies in 
 their rooms, giving poor old Mrs. Grant the snuff I purchased for her 
 last evening. She was very grateful for my attention, and pronounced it 
 the pure maccaboy — with a bean in the bargain ! Old lady Horton 
 was so grateful for the dress, that she had to give me an embrace with 
 a kiss. 
 
 On her return from California, in September, 1873, she 
 visits her old ladies : 
 
 I called upon all the old ladies, twenty-one in all. Gave them all 
 shells and pebbles from " Pescadero." They were as much pleased as 
 children.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Mrs. Atwater's Visit to Nantucket — Discovery of a Flower — Visit to 
 California— A Rich Family Relic. 
 
 ANY one who recalls the reedy moors of Nantucket and 
 its old quaint houses, will realize all that such a spot 
 would be to a natural antiquarian like Mrs. Atwater. 
 In 1858 she writes of it to Mrs. Baxter: 
 
 Two sheets of paper would not suffice to tell you of the wonders of 
 Nantucket. The old, old dwellings with the horseshoe imbedded in the 
 casing over the door for the purpose of keeping off the witches. This 
 superstition I had read of, but doubted ; now, my eyes have seen it. 
 The old fire-places with tiles around them an hundred years old. These 
 tiles represent Scripture scenes and some fancy pieces, and others yEsop's 
 Fables. Some are red on white ground, some steel color, and some blue. 
 There were usually from twenty-one to twenty-seven around the fire- 
 places, according to the size of the chimney. We visited one house 
 where the entire set was perfect. They represented Scripture scenes and 
 were blue on white ground. Another, the residence of Capt. Albert 
 Wood, had twenty-seven tiles around the fire-place. These were steel 
 color and represented ^sop's Fables. It was too comical to see the wily 
 old fox ! I have always been crazy to have some tiles and am now 
 rejoicing in some. — 
 
 We visited the grave of John Gardner who came over in the " Mav- 
 flower," and went to see the first house erected in Nantucket which is 
 still standing, built by John Gardner for his daughter's dowry. It has 
 a horseshoe built in the front of the chimney.
 
 20 
 
 One who remembers "the oldest house in Nantucket," 
 standing as it does on the sea-washed moor aloof from the 
 village, little and brown, and so old, stuffed with mediaeval 
 furniture on exhibition at ten cents per sight, will find it 
 easy to "realize" the emotions of Mrs. Atwater as she 
 " revelled " under its roof. But Nantucket, rich in stories 
 of the past and in trophies from every land under the sun, 
 gave from its scarred old bosom to Mrs. Atwater the one 
 treasure that above all others could be dear in her sight — a 
 flower. One sole flower, whose seed she believed was 
 brought by birds from distant lands, for not the whole 
 island nor America itself produced another plant. Of the 
 precious " Erica " we will speak further on under Mrs. 
 Atw^ater's contributions to science. 
 
 Delicate, always hovering on the borders of invalidism, 
 Mrs. Atwater was not an extensive traveler, and while all 
 lands contributed to her culture, she had never visited any 
 shore beyond her own. But a long-anticipated delight was 
 hers when, accompanied by her husband in April, 1873, she 
 went to California. For years and years a supreme longing 
 of her own and of her friend " Janette " had been to look 
 upon the flowers of California. To the latter the first sight 
 came a few years later, but in 1873 Mrs. Atwater thus 
 writes of them : 
 
 Oh the wealth of flowers ! I could never have conceived such a para- 
 dise on earth. The thought of passing without plucking them compelled 
 me to close my eyes and try and shut them out from my vision.
 
 21 
 
 Again : 
 
 Took no dinner, but took the time when passengers were eating to 
 secure lovely wild flowers on the plain beyond the track. At supper 
 time repeated the performance. Some scarlet larkspurs I saw nearly 
 distracted me ; I had never even heard of them before. 
 
 On the bank of a rivpr I discovered the beautiful flowering shrub that 
 cousin Robert once had in his yard. I screamed on seeing it, and " T." 
 voluntarily jumped out for it, recognizing it at once. This plant is worth 
 the journey to the Redwoods, if we had no other pleasure. Oh the 
 flowers ! I could not step without crushing them. The most petite ; 
 the most exquisite structures I ever beheld. 
 
 Mr. Blair had sent up to my room during the morning, a package of 
 New Zealand ferns for my acceptance. There are twenty-four varieties 
 elegantly prepared. He purchased the collection at Wellington, New 
 Zealand. This is a most unexpected gift. 
 
 September 17, 1873, she writes in her diary: 
 
 Spent a morning finishing up the collection for Academy of Science, 
 Buff"alo. 
 
 Received a present from Mr, Bosi, of Florence, Italy, thus described: 
 It is a magnificent work of art — the head of Mr. Lincoln, our late be- 
 loved president — done in Florentine mosaic. Underneath the head are 
 represented delicate white flowers and rosebuds, copied from a little 
 bouquet of pressed natural flowers which I sent to Mr. Bosi with a carte 
 de visile of Mr. Lincoln, which Mrs. Lincoln gave me, saying, " it was 
 the best likeness of him ever taken." The flowers were presented me 
 at the old Lincoln home at Springfield, during Mr. Lincoln's presidency, 
 by a lady temporarily occupying the premises. Thinking they might 
 interest Mr. Bosi, I forwarded them to him with the picture, while we 
 were boarders with Mrs. Lincoln and Taddy at the Clifton House. This 
 exquisite mosaic is framed in an elegant bronze frame, and is altogether 
 a gift to be coveted by royalty itself.
 
 22 
 On the eighth of August, 1877, she writes in her diary: 
 
 Received newspaper from my friend Mercy B. Wright noticing a 
 Grammar, which has recently come to light, written by my grandfather, 
 Abel Curtis, when in college at Dartmouth. The book, which seems to 
 be the only copy extant, is in possession of Rev, Henry A. Hazen, of 
 Billerica, Mass. Have written a few lines to the owner regarding the 
 book, and giving the reason of my especial interest in it that I am the 
 granddaughter of Abel Curtis. 
 
 The thirteenth of August, 1877, she says: 
 
 Received response to my communication to Rev. Henry A. Hazen, 
 relating to grandfather Curtis' Grammar. He is very enthusiastic over 
 the discovery of this long-secreted book, and pronounces it almost be- 
 yond doubt the first English Grammar written in America. Says he shall 
 take it to Bennington to exhibit at the Centennial next week, as beyond 
 doubt Vermont's first contribution to the literature of the world.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Her Devotion to Children and Animals — Connection with Humane 
 Society — Extracts from Journals. 
 
 TT is part of the irony of fate that many women especially en- 
 dowed with the tenderness of motherhood should live and 
 die childless. This is so ordered that love which else might 
 be all lavished upon their own may flow forth through many 
 channels to enrich and gladden the world. Mrs. Atwater 
 was one of these women. To hear her speak to a child or 
 to an animal, was to make you feel that you had never heard 
 them spoken to before. Says her friend Mrs. Baxter, 
 "There never was anything like her child-talk. Nothing 
 half so tender or bewitching." Children who would have 
 so filled and crowned her life were denied her. But because 
 of this she did not murmur or repine. She did not sink 
 down to idleness, fretfulness, satiety or selfishness. She did 
 not, as so many women have done, elevate her life solely to 
 housekeeping, to fashion, to society — or even to the Church. 
 Her tide of sympathy being deep, clear, still, could not be 
 absorbed by any one object, but, full of blessing, flowed out 
 over many. Literature, art, science, claimed her attention, 
 but more than all, benevolence ! The religion of such a 
 spirit had nothing in it of the sounding brass or tinkling 
 cymbal. Rather, it suffered, and was always kind — how kind,
 
 24 
 
 with that charity which is love, the unfortunate, the helpless, 
 the dumb knew best. 
 
 One of the strongest passions of her nature was her sympa- 
 thetic love for animals. Their silent life full of irresistible 
 appeal went straight to her heart. Long before Bergh's name 
 had ever been mentioned she constituted herself a " Humane 
 Society " of one, and went into the most active operations. 
 No one in Chicago was better acquainted with \.\\t petite fig- 
 ure, the gentle, deprecating face, the entreating voice of Mrs. 
 At WATER, than the drivers of drays, and the beaters of help- 
 less animals. No street was too crowded, no crossing too 
 dirty for those delicate feet to pass — if so doing she could 
 reach the afflicted creature she essayed to help. No man 
 was so rough or so cruel that she would refrain from uttering 
 to him her spontaneous, tender appeal, to be merciful to the 
 poor beast who at such terrible disadvantage shared with him 
 the heavy burden of life. And few, indeed, were the men so 
 lost to manly honor, or latent kindness of heart, as to listen 
 unmoved to the entreaty of this gentle woman. They might 
 resist the interference of any man ; but a lady — " such a 
 lady!" Oh! that was a different, matter. Few were so lost 
 to the possible sense of chivalry, but that they gladly with- 
 held a few blows for the sake of rising a little in the estima- 
 tion of "such a lady." The writer met, at the sea-side last 
 summer, a lady from Chicago, who lived long in the same 
 hotel with Mr. and Mrs. Atwater, sitting at the same table 
 with them. Still she said : " I never think of Mrs. Atwater, 
 but I see before me, as I saw more than once, that slender
 
 25 
 
 body leaning far out a high window, as she begged the man 
 in the yard below to cease beating his horse." 
 
 When the Humane Society was organized in Chicago, she 
 became one of its most active members, and in her journals 
 we constantly meet passages concerning it. November, 1873, 
 she writes : 
 
 I rushed over in a state of great excitement to see Mr. Sharp at the 
 rooms of the Humane Society, and report a man who was cruelly beating 
 a poor ox about his face and over his eyes. 
 
 During the prevalence of the epizootic, she writes: 
 
 Have grown so nervous from seeing so many poor sick animals com- 
 pelled to do duty, that I could sit no longer at my window. 
 
 Again : 
 
 Horses are becoming more frequent on our streets, but I have not the 
 heart to ride, even if they were going my route. 
 
 Was greatly excited at seeing a horse, one of a span attached to a large 
 wagon, seized with apparent convulsions and falling to the earth. A 
 great crowd assembled, and I was half frightened out of my senses, run- 
 ning down to the office of the Humane Society and requesting the agent 
 to go and see about the matter. 
 
 Seeing the abuse inflicted on some poor oxen drawing bricks and stone, 
 opposite my windows, I hastily laid aside my work, dressed in all the 
 winter paraphernalia, and was just starting for the Humane Society, when 
 Mrs. Shaw was announced, and after a call she accompanied me to the 
 office, where I suggested to Mr. Bronson, the secretary, the propriety of 
 watching these inhuman men. 
 
 The twenty-sixth of February, an intensely cold dav, she 
 writes :
 
 The poor animals compelled to lal)or to-day must have suffered greatly. 
 
 Have been so annoyed at the inhuman treatment of a horse by a la- 
 borer, that I could not endure it any longer, but went over in all the mud 
 to State street, to enter a complaint to the Humane Society. The rooms 
 of that Society having been removed to Madison street, near the bridge, 
 a long way to go, in the mud, Mr. Sharp kindly said he would speak to 
 Mr. Brown, and have some person on the ground to-morrow morning. 
 
 Miss Stone called (October same year) weeping convulsively. She had 
 seen a splendid horse prostrate on the sidewalk, with his leg broken, suf- 
 fering intense agony. Said he looked at her and groaned so piteously. 
 that it almost broke her heart. I immediately accompanied her to the 
 office of the Humane Society and told Mr. Sharp of the circumstance. 
 He dispatched a message to the west side by telegraph to the surgeon in 
 their employ to come without delay, and sent a man to the protection of 
 the poor animal until further aid should arrive. 
 
 While at Pescadero, California, in 1873, she writes: 
 
 An old family dog accompanied us in our ramble. He is sick of con- 
 sumption, and very feeble, but inclined to go with us. He formerly 
 accompanied the family to the beach daily, and has rescued several 
 children from the sea. An immense Newfoundland, but his days of 
 usefulness are passed. He enjoyed the walk, but seemed very feeble. 
 
 Again, while at Stagg's Springs, California: 
 
 The old pet dog " Nigger " is one of the family here, and often follows 
 the guests on their excursions into the canons. He was savagely bitten 
 not long ago by several dogs. Mrs. Ware took all the care of him, and 
 washed the wound on his head daily, since which he manifests the most 
 intense attachment for her. 
 
 While en route to the Yosemite Valley : 
 
 We stopped at " Jerry Hodgden's," the regular stage-house, to rest a 
 moment, as well as to leave a little black dog that we found in the wilder- 
 ness, six miles back. He implored us, as plainly as a dog could speak, to 
 take him into our carriage. I, of course, interceded in his behalf, and he 
 was overjoyed to be riding with us. We passed but one habitable cottage,
 
 27 
 
 and that of the rudest kind. We stopped the carriage before the door, 
 and asked if they (three men) would not give the little dog a home. 
 They replied, " Take him on to Hodgden's." So to Hodgden's we took 
 him, and to our astonishment found he was their dog, quite a pet. his 
 name "Billyh It seemed that he was greatly attached to one of the 
 stage-drivers, and rides on the seat with him frequently, and follows him 
 off by stealth, though the "Hodgdens" tie him up. I was greatly 
 relieved to know he had a home, and we were the means of conducting 
 him to it. 
 
 Of a friend's parrot she says : 
 
 Her parrot manifested the greatest pleasure at seeing me, leaving her 
 perch immediately on my entrance, and sitting on my lap until my 
 departure. Mrs. C. said it was an unusual manifestation of affection on 
 her part ; that she rarely condescended to such an extent. 
 
 With all her kindness, her extreme sympathy with animals, 
 she was not one of those half-natures who allowed animals 
 to supercede human beings in her affections or care. But 
 when into the empty nest came little animals and birds, how 
 much of the doting tenderness that would have been lavished 
 upon a child was unconsciously bestowed upon them, we 
 realize as we recall the story of the death of her little "Jo," 
 a canary-bird, March, 1877. She writes of the death of 
 little "Jo": 
 
 After dinner discovered dear little "Jo" lying in the bottom of his 
 cage, apparently in great distress. Put him in my handkerchief and sat 
 down with him near the fire. He soon had two spasms, and ceased to 
 breathe. It has really made me sick to witness the little darling's suffer- 
 ings. We have had him, and watched over him with the greatest solici- 
 tude, as we think, about twelve years — a gift from Mrs. Latham — a 
 precious little treasure — I have cried myself sick. " T." feels his loss too. 
 So fades away, one by one, the dear earthly attachments, wisely ordered, 
 but painful to submit to. Have put him in a little tin box, with cotton
 
 28 
 
 and silk paper. " T." took the dear little remains over to " Katie's," to 
 await the softening of the ground, that we may put him in his final 
 resting-place. 
 
 Amid the delicate treasures long ago laid away by her 
 tender little hands, I find an envelope, bearing on its outside, 
 in her writing, the inscription, " Fidelity Dog," and inside 
 the faithful record of this famous dog of Chicago, which 
 I give: 
 
 The Dog " Fidelity." — This dog is an object of historiqal interest. 
 On the night of the great fire. October 9, 187 1, he took refuge in an open 
 vault in the basement of the Fidelity Savings Bank and Safe Depository, 
 143 Randolph street, and remained there until the morning of the 
 eleventh of October, when he was found unharmed. He is believed- to 
 be the only creature that passed through the Great Fire alive. The 
 event of yesterday was the appearance of that famous canine hero, the 
 Fidelity dog. This grizzled and sturdy veteran is henceforth to be a 
 permanent feature of the display. He will receive the visits of old and 
 new friends at the stand of J. M. Terwilliger, the safe-man. The dog is 
 the noble fellow whose memory is to be handed down to all fair posterity 
 in connection with fire annals in Chicago. Pent up in the Fidelity vaults, 
 he lived unscorched through those blazing hours when all the rest of 
 Chicago toppled to fiery ruin. The fact that these vaults could perfectly 
 protect animal life right through the fiercest conflagration ever known, 
 was naturally accepted as permanent, irrefutable evidence of their invin- 
 cibility to flame. Vaults and dog were henceforth famous — modern types 
 of salamanders. 
 
 In the same case is another memento quite as character- 
 istic of the woman who placed it there, three exquisite ferns 
 issuing from one mossy root, folded away, their tissue wrap- 
 per bearing in Mrs. Atwater's hand this inscription : 
 
 Three sister ferns, Ellen, Sarah and Jennie, from west side of Pacific 
 Lake, to which a new path has lately been opened, where were found 
 these first beautiful mosses and ferns, August 16, 1877.
 
 29 
 
 No added words can make more vivid the mingled deli- 
 cacy and tenderness of so rare a nature. 
 
 In her journal we find these three personal records. 
 Thursday, August 8, 1872 : 
 
 My sixtieth birthday ! Who could believe it ? And yet it seems forever 
 since I went to Sabbath-school, and received the little blue tickets and red 
 tickets in return for the verses from the New Testament which I recited. 
 God has mercifully spared me these many, many years. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day, 1872, she writes: 
 
 It has not seemed much like the old-fashioned Thanksgivings of my 
 dear mother's preparation. Those days are gone irrecoverably. 
 
 April 18, 1877, she says: 
 
 The grass is fresh and green, and spring indications are apparent. I 
 long for the country. Are we mortals ever satisfied? A lovely mocking- 
 bird across the street contributes greatly to my pleasure.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Her Contributions to Science and to Historic Records — Correspondence 
 with Almira Lincoln Phelps — Professor Gray, etc. — The Erica and 
 Bryum Atwaterice. 
 
 A 1 Then Elizabeth Atwater entered the Troy Sem- 
 inary, that institution was more in the land at that 
 day than is Vassar or Smith College to the young women 
 of our own epoch. The names of its principal and chief 
 teacher — two sisters, Mrs. Emma Willard and Mrs. Almira 
 Lincoln Phelps — will live in after generations with that of 
 Mary Lyon, of South Hadley. Among the earliest and 
 noblest pioneers of woman's advanced education in the 
 United States, Emma Willard and Mary Lyon have passed 
 on to the reward of their fruitful lives, honored already by 
 the women of a second generation, who never looked upon 
 their living faces. But Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps still 
 remains upon the earth, in the full possession of her facul- 
 ties, honored and revered in her venerable age. After fifty 
 years have measured their cycle, she, at the age of eighty, 
 lives to publish in the Botanical Gazette of September, 1878, 
 her record of the Bryum Ativateria^ discovered to science by 
 Elizabeth Emerson, her pupil of 1828. She says in Botan- 
 ical Gazette :
 
 31 
 
 Bryum Atwaterl^. — The discoverer of this plant was Elizabeth 
 Emersox, of Vermont, a pupil at the Troy Seminary in 1828, when the 
 writer (then Mrs. Lincoln) was preparing for publication her lectures on 
 Botany. Some forty years after this, the former pupil visited the writer 
 at her home in Baltimore, introducing her husband, S. T. Atwater, Esq., 
 of Chicago. She had cultivated the love of science imbibed from her 
 school-teachings. In affluent circumstances, without children, and with 
 an indulgent husband who was happy to gratify her literary and scientific 
 taste, she had traveled much and made extensive researches in Natural 
 Science. 
 
 After the renewal of our acquaintance she was a faithful and attentive 
 correspondent. At my suggestion she presented to the " Maryland Acad- 
 emy of Science " a valuable collection of four hundred botanical speci- 
 mens. She was elected an honoray member of this society, which, after 
 her death in Buffalo, N. Y., in April, 1S7S, paid a fitting tribute to her 
 memory, as an earnest laborer in the cause of science. 
 
 We take from a Michigan paper an extract from an address of Prof. 
 Albert D. Hager, before the Chicago Historical Society : 
 
 " Mrs. Atwater w^as interested in several departments of science, but 
 botany was her favorite study. During a sojourn in California she pre- 
 served more than two thousand specimens of plants, several of which 
 were new to science." After recounting her valuable historical records, 
 her philanthropic efforts, and her active and generous benevolence, the 
 Professor closes by this remark : " It may, in truth, be said that the 
 world is made the better as well as the wiser for her having lived in it." 
 
 The following extract from a letter of February 12, 1878, to the 
 writer, gives the history of the discovery and naming of the Bryum 
 At water ice : 
 
 " I forward for your acceptance this little specimen. I believe you will 
 feel an especial interest in it, from its having been found by your former 
 pupil. I gathered it with other plants at the foot of the Yosemite Falls, 
 in the Yosemite Valley, California, on June 24, 1873. It being an infer- 
 tile specimen, I hesitated relative to pressing it, but was attracted by its 
 peculiarity, and preserved several tufts of it. Attaching no particular 
 value to it — being not in fruit — yet greatly interested in its appearance, I 
 did not send it with other plants to friends for whom in my travels I am 
 in the habit of collecting, but chanced to include one in a small parcel to
 
 32 
 
 my friend, Dr. Charles Mohr, a German gentleman, resident in Mobile, 
 Alabama, and a fine botanist. He noticed it as new to himself, and 
 immediately forwarded the tuft to Dr. Karl Muller, the distinguished 
 Bryologist in Germany. I quote from Dr. Mohr's letter in reference to 
 it : ' Dr. Muller describes that fine brown moss, of which you had sent 
 me an infertile specimen, as a new species, naming it in honor of its 
 enthusiastic discoverer, Bryum Atwateria. It is nearly allied to the 
 B. alpinum of Europe.' It was reported in the ' Bulletin of the Torrey 
 Botanical Club,' New York, August, 1874." 
 
 To this account of the discovery and naming of the plant under con- 
 sideration, we will add that, though the name of the genus Brytim is 
 ascribed to Linnaeus, it seems to have been merged in with other genera 
 of mosses, and is not found in the works of many of our distinguished 
 American botanists. Lindley refers to Hooker for a description of the 
 family Bryacea;, of which Bryum may be considered a type. He 
 enumerates more than a hundred genera of BryacecB, and says : " The 
 little plants, the Ur7i Mosses, form one of the most interesting depart- 
 ments of Cryptogamous Botany ; they are distinctly separated from all 
 the previous tribes by the peculiar structure of their reproductive organs." 
 The position of the Bryacea, according to Lindley, is between Junger- 
 manniacecE and Andnvacea. We have not seen what the distinguished 
 Bryologist, Karl Muller, says of this peculiar family of plants. That he 
 has honored our countrywoman in naming her as a discoverer, entitles 
 him to our gratitude. 
 
 I will add to this article but one short sentence, worth more than all to 
 her who is now in the better world — she was a Christian. — Almira 
 Lincoln Phelps, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 In Mrs. Atwater's diary we find this allusion to Mrs. 
 Phelps' acknowledgment of her discovery : 
 
 Received a letter from my old teacher, Mrs. Almira L. Phelps, She 
 writes : " Mrs. Phelps rejoices over my discovery of the Erica, saying 
 she is very proud that a pupil of hers, after forty years' separation from 
 her, has discovered a new plant."
 
 33 
 
 Earlier letters from Mrs. Atwater to Mrs. Phelps refer 
 to her contributions and relations to the Society of Natural 
 Sciences of Maryland. Here is one written May ii, 1875 : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Phelps : 
 
 Through your instrumentality am I indebted to the "Maryland 
 Academy of Sciences" for the honor conferred upon me of correspond- 
 ing member. Complimentary as it is, were it courteous to decline its 
 acceptance, I should have felt constrained to do so, not possessing the 
 health adequate for the duties which a membership involves. I can but 
 imperfectly maintain the extensive correspondence in which I have for 
 many years been engaged. 
 
 The trifling assistance of occasional contributions of plants, culled in 
 my travels in pursuit of health, I shall be happy to render. This will be 
 a poor equivalent for the compliment offered. However, I shall throw 
 all the odium of a failure in my duties upon shoulders too well known by 
 the public to admit of a doubt regarding their capacity for the burden. 
 
 I regret not having visited the academy when last in Baltimore. I 
 devoted an entire day to the wonderful collection at the Academy of 
 Sciences in Philadelphia. 
 
 Before the Chicago conflagration of 1 8 71, 1 was the possessor of one 
 of the best individual collections in the whole Northwest — consisting of 
 minerals, fossils, rare Italian marbles of exceeding beauty, precious 
 stones, curiosities, etc., etc. All were absorbed in the devouring element, 
 save a few boxes placed beyond the limit of the fire. My choicest speci- 
 mens, at the solicitation of our lamented secretary, Dr. William Stimpson, 
 were temporarily deposited at the " Chicago Academy of Sciences" — all 
 were lost. I have had but little heart in the work since that terrible 
 night. My herbariums were saved. 
 
 From Mrs. Atwater to Mrs. Phelps, March 3, 1876 : 
 
 I have felt great reluctance in forwarding plants to the " Maryland 
 Academy of Sciences," knowing their facilities for collecting to be so 
 great. However, have sent off by to-day's express a package of over 
 four hundred specimens, and earnestly hope in the little collection there 
 may be an occasional one of interest to the society.
 
 34 
 
 Since I last wrote to you, added to the fearful effects of the fire, I 
 received a fall in a peculiar way ; from the combined effects of which and 
 the fire I abandoned the idea of delaying the plants for printed labels or 
 a systematic arrangement. I have been particular in appending the local- 
 ities and the dates, though in a very informal way. 
 
 I have for several years in my travels culled duplicates for the Buffalo 
 Academy of Sciences — Judge Clinton, in response to my expressed hesi- 
 tancy in sending common plants, emphatically saying " send everything y 
 I consequently obeyed his injunctions, and have%^x\\. to him everything in 
 my pathway. He is so enthusiastic on this subject that it has been a 
 delight to me to please him. (He has encouraged this effort by occasion- 
 ally praising me !) 
 
 I hope the plants will arrive in good order, and that, when they are 
 properly mounted, you will have an opportunity of seeing the result of 
 your pupil's efforts in wandering about our country. I send a fine 
 specimen of the Gymnogramme triangularis of California, the lovely 
 golden fern. 
 
 From Mrs. Atwater to Mrs. Phelps, February 14, 1876: 
 
 This morning one of our managers of the " Old People's Home " 
 called, leaving twenty tickets for me to dispose of in aid of an " exposi- 
 tion" at the Home for the benefit of our old ladies. I have been one of 
 the managers of this, my favorite charity, many years. So yon see I have 
 few idle moments — not enough for my physical welfare. In a city like 
 Chicago one can never fold their hands in idleness without violating the 
 injunction to " love your neighbor as yourself." 
 
 Mrs. Atwater writes: 
 
 Buffalo, Nov. 18, 1876. 
 Saturday P. M. 
 ^Ty Dear Friend Mrs. Phelps : 
 
 I have treasured up, for a long time intending to forward to the Society 
 of Natural Sciences at Baltimore, a specimen of the wonderful snow 
 plant, Sarcedes Sangiiinea, of Torrey. I send it first to you, for your 
 inspection at your leisure at home. At any convenient time will you do 
 me the kindness of forwarding it to the society. The society may be
 
 35 
 
 supplied with specimens of the plant ; as they are not common, venture 
 to send it. This was not of my own culling. I saw but one growing 
 during my California explorations ; that was inaccessible to me. The 
 specimen I forward was plucked in the mining region near the " Calaveras 
 Big Trees," about the first of June, 1871, by Mr. Stevens, of San Fran- 
 cisco. The plant is described as singularly beautiful. It grew near banks 
 of snow three feet in thickness, at the edge of the snow bank where it 
 was melting. The entire plant is of a brilliant ruby color, beautiful 
 beyond expression. 
 
 The following is the acknowledgment of the receipt of 
 I\Irs. Atwater's contribution : 
 
 Baltimore, March 2, iSj^. 
 Mrs. Almira H. L. Phelps : 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to be honored with the privilege of convey- 
 ing to you the thanks of the Maryland Academy of Sciences for the gift 
 of that interesting and valued specimen of Bryum Atwaterii. It was 
 examined with much interest by many of the members present, and it 
 would have been admired by a larger number on that occasion but for 
 the particularly inclement weather of Monday evening. I return at the 
 same time the letter of Mrs. Atwater. Both letters were read before 
 the meeting, and were the occasion of polite and grateful remarks by 
 several of the gentlemen present. The specimen will be mounted on a 
 sheet of our stout botanical paper, and will be carefully preserved as 
 another mark of your kind interest in the welfare of the academy. Every 
 moment of my time has been commanded by necessary duties, or I should 
 have availed myself of your kind invitation to call upon you. 
 With highest respect and esteem, yours obediently, 
 
 P. R. Uhler, 
 
 President M. A. S. 
 
 Mrs. Atwater for years was the correspondent of Prof. 
 Gray, of Harvard College, whose works on botany take the 
 precedence of all others in America. December 6, 187 1, 
 Mrs. Atwater inclosed to Prof. Gray the beautiful stranger
 
 36 
 
 of a flower she discovered on Nantucket. The following is 
 the copy of the letter, which since her death has been 
 returned by Prof. Gray, for that purpose : 
 
 Dear Sir : In the summer of 1868, August 24 (I think^, I discovered 
 on Nantucket Island, growing wild on a sandy plain, the interesting plant 
 ''Erica Ciiteria." On the day following this discovery I left the island, 
 having no opportunity for making further search for duplicate plants, but 
 suppose it must be obtainable in other localities on the island. Soon after 
 my return I forwarded specimens of the plant to several of my corre- 
 spondents— Hon. G. W. Clinton, of Buffalo, Prof. I. A. Lapham, of Mil- 
 waukee, and Charles H. Peck, Esq., State Botanist at Albany. At the 
 solicitation of the latter, I forwarded to him a plant for Mr. Wood, who 
 gave me in his last edition credit for the discovery. Meanwhile, several 
 persons had written for specimens, and for an accurate description of the 
 locality where found. The former I supplied until my stock in hand 
 was nearly depleted ; the latter I could not render intelligently, there 
 being so few prominent landmarks to govern one ; in fact, I was so 
 absorbed in the plant that I was oblivious to all external objects outside 
 the carriage until our drive was concluded. Since that time many persons 
 have been disappointed in their investigations on the island, and I fear 
 have questioned my veracity ! I am most happy to say that last summer 
 (1871) our niece (Mrs. Thomas E. Morris, of Saginaw, Michigan, who 
 with my husband and a little niece were in the carriage when I first saw 
 the plant) went again to Nantucket, with my strict injunctions to search 
 the island perseveringly, and redeem my reputation, which I feared was 
 occupying the minds of some indefatigable botanists unfavorably. She 
 did so, and I have the pleasure of offering for your acceptance one of the 
 plants plucked in the summer of 1871. Mrs. Morris thinks the specimens 
 • she has recently sent me were plucked, as she says, " from the same old 
 roots ;" and nowhere beside on the island could she find the plant. 
 
 And now, sir, I owe you an apology, not for proffering the plant (this 
 I am emboldened to do by our mutual friend Mrs. Lewis), but for the 
 informal preamble which I really felt to be your due. I have taken the 
 liberty to inclose a Dianthus, which Prof. Peck thought had been pre- 
 viously found in the State of New York, and a pink Achillea from
 
 37 
 
 Trenton Falls. If I can render you any service in the way of Western 
 plants, I shall do so most cheerfully. I would gladly have sent you a 
 more acceptable specimen of the Dianthus were it not that " since the 
 fire" my plants have been inaccessible; this being the only one at my 
 command. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Mrs. Sam'l T. Atwater. 
 
 Among the mass of historical matter contributed by Mrs. 
 Atwater to the Chicago Historical Society, was complete 
 files of all the daily papers printed in Chicago from the tenth 
 of October, 187 1, for the following thirty days, which were 
 the thirty days succeeding the great conflagration, in which 
 $200,000,000 of property was destroyed October 9, 187 1. 
 Two trunks of "fire relics^" picked up and purchased from 
 different localities about the city, and each sample or relic 
 duly labeled as to the places were found. Two hundred and 
 fifty-three old and new almanacs from 1853 to 1878. One 
 box containing all the daily papers printed in Chicago, giving 
 a minute and full account of everything pertaining to the 
 Great Sanitary Fair, held in Dearborn Park, Chicago, 1865, 
 with a full account of what was exhibited, with badges and 
 decorations, programmes, etc. Complete files of papers 
 printed in all the cities through which President Lincoln's 
 remains passed from Washington to Springfield, with all the 
 proceedings at each place, and a full account of the assas- 
 sination, with all the programmes, cards of admission to view 
 the remains as lying in state at the Court House in Chicago, " 
 being a complete history of that event. A complete history 
 of the great tunnel at Chicago, under Lake Michigan, two 
 miles to the crib, from and by which the city of Chicago is
 
 38 
 
 supplied, with a diagram of the tunnel, crib, etc., published 
 at the time of the inception and completion of the wonder 
 of the day. A large amount of Confederate currency, and 
 a framed picture of all the fractional currency of the Union 
 government. Medals, too, probably 150 or more, some very 
 beautiful in bronze, marking great events, and with printed 
 scraps giving the history of each. 
 
 The following acknowledgment was sent to Mrs. Baxter 
 at Washington : 
 
 Chicago, Dec. 11, 1878. 
 Mrs. Portus Baxter : 
 
 Dear Madam : I found your name so frequently associated with the 
 valuable contributions made lo this society by the late Mrs. E. E. Atwater, 
 that I wanted to see you and learn from you more of that excellent and 
 remarkable woman, and with the hope that you might be in the city, in 
 September last I wrote your son and expressed that wish. As I have 
 learned your address by your esteemed favor of the gth instant, I will 
 take occasion to invite you to visit this Library at your convenience, and 
 see the valuable contributions made by Mrs. A. 
 
 We have the coins, medals, metallic business cards, small paper cur- 
 rency or " shinplasters " and continental money arranged in a case by 
 themselves, and as soon as we get the pamphlets, almanacs, autograph 
 letters, etc., all bound, we shall have another case made expressly for the 
 books, fire and war " relics," and other historical mementos, all of which 
 will be properly designated " The Atwater Collection." 
 
 On the eighteenth of last June, at a meeting of the Chicago Historical 
 Society, a resolution was unanimously adopted expressing the thanks of 
 the society for the interesting and valuable contributions of Mrs. Atwater, 
 a copy of which was spread upon the records of the society, and a notice 
 of it communicated to Mr. Atwater. In addition to this, after enume- 
 rating the various articles presented, I read a brief biographical notice 
 of Mrs. Atwater, which was also spread upon our records, and subse- 
 quently published in the Chicago Evening Journalf a copy of which I 
 sent to Mr. Atwater.
 
 39 
 
 Agreeably to your suggestion, I send herewith a copy of the resolutions 
 adopted by this society. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Albert D. IIager, 
 
 Secretary and Librarian. 
 
 Resolved, That for the many valuable contributions made to this society 
 by the late Mrs. E. E. Atwater, we gratefully express our thanks, and 
 direct the secretary to make a record of the same. 
 
 The above was unanimously and heartily adopted by the Chicago His- 
 torical Society, June i8, 1S7S. 
 
 A. D. Hager, Secretary. 
 
 The following is the biographical sketch referred to by 
 Prof Hager : 
 
 GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. 
 
 A Touching Tribute to Real Worth— The Late Mrs. S. T. 
 Atwater. 
 
 Many of our citizens who attended the fair given at the Jefferson Street 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in February, 1S76, will recollect the beau- 
 tiful and rare collection of mosaics exhibited, and which were loaned for 
 the occasion by Mrs. S. T. Atwater, of Chicago. Mrs. Atwater was 
 a sister of Curtis Emerson of this city, was a lady of rare accomplish- 
 ments, and was known to many of our citizens. She was an accomplished 
 botanist, and corresponded with Profs. Gray, Clinton, etc., and she was 
 also the discoverer of a new species of California plant, to which the 
 scientists have given her name and credited to her in the later text-books. 
 It will be recollected that Mrs, Atwater died last April. In connection 
 with the above the following extract from an address delivered before the 
 Chicago Historical Society, by Prof. Albert D. Hager, Secretary, at the 
 last meeting, will be of interest : 
 
 "Mrs. Elizabeth (Emerson) Atwater, who for several years was a 
 resident of this city and a patron of its charitable institutions, was born 
 in Norwich, Vermont, August 8, 1812.
 
 40 
 
 " She improved the excellent opportunities offered her for obtaining an 
 education, and was a graduate of Mrs. Emma Willard's Seminary, Troy, 
 New York. Upon the receipt of her diploma she did not quit her studies, 
 but was an active student till the day of her death, which occurred in 
 Buffalo, New York, April ii, 1878. 
 
 " Mrs. Atwater was interested in several departments of science, but 
 botany was her favorite study, her large herbarium gave evidence that 
 she collected plants wherever she went. During a sojourn in California 
 she collected, preserved and labeled, over two thousand specimens, several 
 of which were new to science. In conchology, mineralogy and paleon- 
 tology, she made large collections ; these too were all carefully and accu- 
 rately labeled. She did not make these collections for herself exclusively, 
 but shared them with her scientific friends, and gave liberally to the 
 Buffalo and Maryland academies of science, of which she was a member. 
 At the time of her decease she had thirty boxes filled with botanical and 
 other scientific specimens. These she requested her husband to give to 
 the Chicago Academy of Sciences. He has faithfully complied with her 
 request, and they are now safely deposited in that institution. 
 
 " It was not in the field of science alone that Mrs. Atwater labored. 
 The study of history and the preservation of historic facts also claimed 
 her attention. She not only exhumed history from the records of the 
 dead past, but caught it on the wing of the living present. In the same 
 cdllection where she had packed two hundred and fifty-one old almanacs 
 and other old documents marked " For the Historical Society," there 
 were pamphlets and newspapers and hundreds of newspaper slips or 
 clippings of modern date, each appropriately assorted and marked. In 
 one package were slips referring to Abraham Lincoln and his peculiar- 
 ities ; in another to his assassination and the funeral obsequies that fol- 
 lowed. Other packages were composed of slips referring to the war, to 
 the great fire of 1871, to the rebuilding of Chicago, to the construction 
 of its tunnels, to the sanitary fair of Chicago, the Home fair of Milwau- 
 kee ; and accompanying these were specimens of the badges worn and 
 numerous mementos from the battle-field, the great fire ; and, indeed, the 
 records of every historic event that has transpired during the last fifteen 
 or twenty years has been carefully preserved by this industrious and 
 thoughtful lady and generously given to this society. Were we writing a 
 biographical memoir of Mrs. Atwater in extenso, we would give in
 
 41 
 
 detail her efforts in organizing and sustaining the * Old People's Home ' 
 and other charitable institutions of this city, and tell how earnestly she 
 worked for the Humane Society, and cite instances of her active benev- 
 olence ; but in this brief notice it must suffice to say that through her 
 efforts science has been promoted, historic records have been secured and 
 preserved, the aged and infirm have been provided for, the sorrowful 
 have been made happy, and could the dumb animals speak they would 
 bless her memory. It may in truth be said the world is made the better 
 for her having lived in it." 
 
 Mrs. Atwater bequeathed thirty boxes of valuable speci- 
 mens to the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and the follow- 
 ing resolution, in appreciation of the gift, was unanimously 
 adopted by the members of that association : 
 
 Whereas, The late Mrs. Elizabeth E. Atwater, for several years 
 an honored resident of this city, during her lifetime made a large, valuable 
 and carefully-arranged collection of specimens of natural history, which 
 she requested should be presented to this academy by her husband, 
 Samuel T. Atwater, Esq., now of Buffalo, New York ; and, 
 
 Whereas, Mr. Atwater has faithfully complied with the wishes of his 
 deceased wife, and forwarded some thirty boxes of specimens to this 
 institution ; now, therefore. 
 
 Resolved, That for this munificent donation, and for the fidelity, prompt- 
 ness and care exercised by Mr. Atwater in carrying out the wishes of his 
 deceased wife, the members of this academy hereby express their hearty 
 thanks, and direct that a copy of this preamble and resolution be spread 
 upon the records of the academy, and also that a copy of the same be 
 sent to Mr. Atwater. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the managers of the " Old Peo- 
 ple's Home," held at Chicago, May, 1878, the following 
 preamble and resolution was passed and entered upon 
 record :
 
 42 
 
 Whereas, Death has again taken one of our co-workers, Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth E. Atwater, be it 
 
 Resolved, That the managers of the " Old People's Home " have 
 learned with sincere sorrow of the death of Mrs. Elizabeth E, Atwater, 
 who died at Buffalo, New York, April ii, 1S7S, after a long and painful 
 illness. 
 
 She had been connected with this society from its earliest organization 
 in 1861, a period of seventeen years. 
 
 She was one of its most interested and active managers — faithful in the 
 discharge of the duties devolved upon her. She won the love and esteem 
 not only of her associates, but of the inmates of the Home, for whose 
 welfare and happiness she constantly labored. 
 
 It is but a just tribute to the memory of the departed to say, that, in 
 regretting her removal from our midst, we mourn for one who was every 
 way worthy of our respect and love.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Last Days — Last Letters — Last Hours. 
 
 'T^O one who has loved to live, to whom life has come al- 
 ways full of blessing, the saddest days are the last spent 
 in this wondrous world. Then the shadows deepen and 
 close in upon the sight. Behind, the harvests are reaped and 
 gathered. Before, no vast horizons open above the earth. 
 The last dark river is reached. The startled spirit pauses 
 on the brink, turns backward a gaze of unutterable love on 
 the garnered treasures of a whole life — its work, its trophies, 
 its friends, the best, the dearest, all to be left. With our 
 best faith, what waits just the other side, who may know.? 
 Who can tell ? But this we are sure of, that which we leave 
 behind still holds our hearts with hooks of steel. Thus 
 Mrs. Atwater writes to her dearest friend " Janette," from 
 Buffalo, January 30, 1878: 
 
 The parting-time must come to us all. But it is sad to leave this beau 
 tiful world so at variance with it as all this physical torture renders 
 one. ********* 
 
 May God spare you yet a long time to your dear children and friends. 
 I am willing and ready to obey His summons when it shall come ; still 
 life is dear to me for the sake of loved friends. I have never been a 
 society woman, my whole nature has revolted at it, but I have realized 
 great enjoyment with Nature, with dear friends, and in my pursuits.
 
 44 
 
 This is the last letter to her life-long friend. After more 
 than sixty years of unwavering attachment, it was her tribute 
 to the lovely human life she had lived, the life that she hon- 
 ored and loved, and for which she thanked God. Yet to 
 those who know best the active benevolence of her life, its 
 tenderness to the helpless, its care of the needy, its ceaseless 
 charity, as diffusive and pervasive as it was widely intelligent ; 
 nothing in this summing up of her life is more remarkable 
 or touching than its humility and utter lack of self-conscious 
 assertion. 
 
 To her friend — herself that moment passing before the 
 door of the Valley of Shadows — life looked different. Dear 
 friends and dearer children were still left to her; but the 
 dearest of all, the husband of her youth, had passed on be- 
 fore, and the bodies of four of her children rested within 
 the circle of those far-away beloved Vermont hills. More 
 beckoned her from the other side than staid behind to hold 
 her here. The joy and loss of motherhood had never come to 
 Mrs. Atwater. She had many and dear friends. But the 
 supreme pang of parting came to her when she looked upon 
 the one she was to leave desolate. The dear comrade who, 
 for so many faithful years, had been an unfailing staff to her 
 tender feet, screening her from all the world's rude contacts; 
 sheltering her that even the winds of heaven might not touch 
 her gentle cheek too roughly ; saving her from every earthly 
 ill. He had saved her from everything hard to meet but the 
 Angel of Death. When he came and would not be hindered, 
 what desolation entered one soul — and it was not hers ! To 
 me there is something piteously touching in the last days
 
 45 
 
 these two shared together on earth. As there must always 
 be something piteous in the final severance of any long, 
 sweet human relation. It was born in spring — their love — 
 in the tender warmth of youth and hope ; it grew the more 
 beautiful and strong in life's summer; but all the same came 
 the dreary winter of its rending — nor tears, nor prayers could 
 save it on the earth. But as the earthly life recedes and 
 wanes the heavenly light shines more strongly and purely in. 
 As early as November 12, 1877, she writes in her journal : 
 
 I must now say adieu to our old pleasant home on Lake Jklichigan 
 shore. 
 
 In June, 1877, she had written to her friend of this home: 
 
 One look at the calm, green waters of Lake Michigan quells all 
 anxieties. 
 
 T. seems really happy to take the Evening Journal at the window, with 
 one eye on it and one on the lake. 
 
 At the final leaving of this beautiful home, in utter faith, 
 she writes : 
 
 God be praised through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for all His 
 mercies vouchsafed to us, for all His forbeaiance with us. May He go with 
 us where we go, guide us by His counsel, and afterwards receive us and 
 all whom He has given us to love into glory. 
 
 Again, December 30, 1877 : 
 
 The last Sabbath of the year ! What a year of suffering I have experi- 
 enced. God has mercifully preserved us. May He continue to care 
 for us.
 
 46 
 
 But as the pangs of physical suffering increased and the 
 inevitable end drew near, there was no outcry, no murmur, 
 only a gentle putting of the dissolving house in order, that 
 when its final dissolution came there could be no unavailing 
 regret. Not an object in her possession that did not have 
 its place and final destination placed upon record. Not 
 only had thousands of plants and specimens been classified 
 and labeled by her delicate hands with laborious care, but 
 not a friend or acquaintance in her last suffering days was 
 forgotten. It was at this time that a little package arrived 
 from her to the writer which called forth the following letter. 
 At that time a prisoner in my room, from the effects of an 
 accident, a disabled hand traced the letter without delay, so 
 fearful was I that Mrs. Atwater might pass where no letter 
 could reach her before it could arrive in Buffalo, and so 
 desirous was I that before she left the earth she should know 
 from myself what she was to me as a woman. As my one last 
 personal tribute to her in life I here record it : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Atwater: 
 
 A little more than a week ago, as I sat by my window one morning 
 I saw an express wagon stop ; and, as my brother often sends packages 
 to my mother, the thought never occurred to me that anything had 
 arrived for me. Imagine my surprise and delight a very few moments 
 later when I opened the pretty box and discovered, within it another 
 prettier box. It was more than kind of you, dear Mrs. Atwater, to send 
 this to me. I shall keep it for the sake of the giver as long as I live. 
 I have nothing at all like it. I am glad of that. It is an exquisite 
 little thing, like its giver, and I shall never look upon it without think- 
 ing of you, and I shall see it very often for it is on the table before me 
 in mv own room.
 
 47 
 
 I think often, dear Mrs. Atwater, if I outlive you, how much more I 
 shall miss you out of the world than many with whom I have spent much 
 more time on the earth. 
 
 I have not only long known you intimately through your life-long 
 friend, Mrs. Baxter ; but, in the realm of nature, you have seemed a 
 close kin to me. I have a little California fern that you gave me long 
 ago, and every time I look at it (and that is often), it seems to bind me 
 anew to you. It is so fine, so perfect, so appealing — this most delicate 
 expression of nature — and through all the vicissitudes of life the children 
 of the natural world have been so much to 7ne — no matter where or how 
 life failed me otherwise — I have always found rest and peace under a tree. 
 Your great love for nature, your fine perception, your keen appreciation 
 of all her most exquisite forms, your love for this great tender mother of 
 ours, has always made you dear among women to me. 
 
 And another trait in your nature has brought you even nearer — your 
 wonderful sympathy for the dumb creatures of God, made to appeal so 
 piteously, yet so often, in vain to the human kind. Your heart is large 
 enough to hold all God's creatures — the dumb, the voiceless — so you see 
 I have no uncertain reason for holding you dear upon the earth. 
 
 I am not so great a " philosopher " as you think. I meet calmly, as 
 we all must, the inevitable. But to the final parting of dear friends, I 
 never in my heart feel reconciled. It is so hard — even the promise of 
 re-union does not quite comfort me. If I love my friend at all, I must 
 love her as long as I exist in this life or in another. So no one dear dies 
 to me. I sigh for her. I cry to see her; but, though I see her not, she 
 ever abides with me as utterly as if I saw her always. 
 
 In your sickness, I sympathize as deeply with Mr. Atwater as with 
 you. It must be as hard for him to see you suffer, as for you to suffer. 
 My heart aches for him. As for you it seems as if I could not have 
 it so. * * * * 
 
 Dear Mrs. Atwater accept my tenderest sympathy and prayers, my 
 life-long, loving memory. If not here, then hei^eafter lue shall meet again, 
 where there is no more parting nor dying, nor any more pain. With 
 kindest regard to Mr. Atwater and the most sympathetic love for 
 yourself. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 Mary Clemmer.
 
 48 
 
 It is a long way back to the girlish letters, full of youth, 
 hope, happiness and girlish affection, written in the wide 
 bright rooms of the old Vermont homesteads. 
 
 Now these two women had planted, reaped and garnered 
 their harvests. Life had brought to them both love and its 
 fruitions. It had brought to them also loss. Death more 
 than once had brought them desolation. One thing had 
 outlived everything — unwavering, imperishable — their love 
 for each other. It glows unworn, undimmed in their last 
 letters to each other, as it did fifty years before in their first. 
 Such a friendship not only sweetens life, it makes it larger 
 and richer. Reaching on to "the Communion of Saints" 
 within the vale, it strengthens one's faith in immortality. 
 For the earth it makes us surer of womanhood by holding it 
 inviolable in the high fine atmosphere of fidelity and un- 
 changeable affection. A devotion between two women that 
 never swerved through sixty years of mortal chance and 
 change should be set high in honorable record. 
 
 In " Janette's " last letter to her friend, written but a few 
 days before that friend's death, and just after she herself had 
 been down to the very door of the Valley of Death, we find 
 a spray of arbutus, just such an one as the girl might have 
 gathered fifty years before out of the mossy coverts of the 
 woods at Strafford, and one of the last acts of that friend's 
 life was to place with her own hands into a beautiful box 
 some of the daintiest treasures in her possession, including 
 the rose-colored, strawberry-flecked neck-ribbon given to 
 her by " Janette " nearly forty years before, now returned to 
 its giver with other exquisite personal belongings. In a
 
 49 
 
 letter written by her to " J^^nette " from the Gardner House, 
 Chicago, June 9, 1877, she says of this necktie: 
 
 What think you I saw when packing to leave 591 ? The pretty little 
 necktie — pink ground with white and red strawberries embroidered on 
 it — your gift to me when married ! just as bright and pretty as ever ! 
 
 This box for her friend was discovered after her death, 
 containing, in her own handwriting on a slip of paper, this 
 inscription : 
 
 To My Dear Friend Janette, from Ella. 
 
 Mrs. Atwater wrote to Mrs. Baxter from Buffalo, No- 
 vember 27, 1877, the first detailed account of her disease; 
 She said : 
 
 My Dear Friend Janette : 
 
 I have not been unmindful of your kind remembrances, the parcel of 
 Vermont ferns and autumn leaves, and your kind letter received October 
 23d. 
 
 You are aware, through T.'s letter to the Doctor, that I have been very 
 ill. He told him, doubtless, that two of our most responsible physicians, 
 having made a thorough investigation, pronounce me a " very interesting 
 case." Flattering — consoling — is it not? It is right that we endure 
 physical suffering, I suppose, where science can be advanced. 
 
 Honestly, Janette, I do not anticipate any permanent relief, and must 
 summon even more than my wonted fortitude to endure to the end. My 
 cough is more spasmodic than continuous. The effort of coughing in- 
 creases the pain at the point of the right shoulder, which, at times, is so 
 severe as to require sharp external applications for temporary relief. I 
 can only rest in one position — on my left side — which, added to my other 
 tribulations, renders the nights somewhat dubious. Six o'clock in the 
 morning is my signal for leaving my wearisome couch. 
 4 .
 
 50 
 
 We had charming weather for our trip. Dr. C. forbid my leaving until 
 we had experienced two days of sunny weather. They came at last. He 
 said he should be thankful to have me deposited safely in Buffalo, for 
 company counteracted all the good he might do for me. He positively 
 denied company and conversation. (The idea — so beyond all precedent 
 — of a woman holding her tongue.) Notwithstanding these injunctions, 
 I received eighteen visitors on the day of our departure. Had not left 
 my room in nearly three weeks when we were whirled into the depot. 
 * * * The old-time picture en route of gathering winter apples 
 from prolific orchards was the first absolutely refreshing scene that had 
 greeted me in many a day. -sf******* 
 
 Among the last letters written at this time, was her last to 
 her dear friend and teacher Mrs. Lincoln Phelps, of Balti- 
 more. She writes, Christmas, 1877 : 
 
 I cannot let the Christmas of 1877 and 1878 come and pass without 
 giving expression to my unabated interest in and my deep-rooted affec- 
 tion for you. 
 
 You will perceive that I write from Buffalo. l\Iy physicians decided 
 that hotel life was to exciting for me in my prostrate condition. We have 
 therefore come to the home of my husband's niece for the winter. I am 
 a recluse confined entirely to the house, and mostly to my room. My 
 disease — solidification of the right lung, with other threatening symptoms 
 of an alarming character. 
 
 She goes on to describe minutely to her friend the com- 
 forts and happiness of the home to which she had come — 
 the home of her husband's niece, Mrs. Sexton, where a little 
 more than four months later she entered into everlasting 
 rest. 
 
 As the shadows deepened, and she drew step by step the 
 nearer to the brink of the final river, we know how she felt 
 by the last letter which she wrote to her friend "Janette " 
 in Washington. She said :
 
 51 
 
 Buffalo, January jo, iSyS. 
 My Dear Janette : 
 
 The old year has bid us farewell, and the new year is making rapid 
 strides toward the same bourne — its termination, and you and I, physical 
 sufiferers, are mercifully spared. I know not how it is with you, but a 
 continued earthly existence is with me hardly desirable. So long as you 
 can breathe, Janette, do not murmur. My respiration is very laborious. 
 The effect of walking across the room deprives me of the power of speech 
 until I have a little recovered. My cough is exhausting and the pain in 
 my shoulder terrific. Were they both continuous I could not long sur- 
 vive. Last night my shoulder was painted with morphine and iodine on 
 retiring. Whether I have become more than ordinarily sensitive I can- 
 not say, but I am frantic with the smarting until one o'clock. I have not 
 been so affected in the other applications. So, Janette, if it is not one 
 trial, it is another. Our physician, fortunately, is only three doors from 
 us ; we were compelled to summon him a few nights since at two o'clock. 
 He remained an hour with me. He is pronounced the best homeopa- 
 thist in the city. 
 
 After detailing her symptoms, T)rs. Cook and Johnson's 
 diagnosis, she writes : 
 
 Were it not too late when the discoveries were made I should have 
 gone straight to Washington to consult Dr. Jed. However, the parting 
 time must come to us all, but it is sad to leave this beautiful world so at 
 variance with it as all this physical torture renders one. I am confined 
 wholly to my room — have been for three weeks. My rations are one-half 
 a quail at a meal. On yesterday I sent down my entire breakfast un- 
 touched ; have no appetite, no rest. My good " T." is devotion itself, 
 and will permit no one to do the slightest service for me. Only occasion- 
 ally I receive a friend in my apartments, then with the injunction thev do 
 all the talking. 
 
 Now, Janette, I am only too happy to read from your letter that you 
 can sleep, and converse, and eat. May God spare you yet a long time to 
 your dear children and friends. I am willing and ready to obey His sum- 
 mons when it doth come ; still life is dear to me for the sake of loved 
 friends. I have never been a societv woman. Mv whole nature has re-
 
 52 
 
 volted at it, but I have realized great enjoyment with nature, with dear 
 friends, and in my pursuits. Let me hear just how you are when you are 
 inclined to use the pen. I have not written of late, save when it was im- 
 perative. A letter has just come from the south of France, from our dear 
 friends the Andersons ; say they will be here in June. I can hardly ex- 
 pect to greet them^— possibly may. 
 
 Mr. Gooding is failing daily. Emma M. Taylor, of Havana, has re- 
 cently sent me, from Cuba, a little box of curiosities. In her letter she 
 deplores her father's condition. Did the holidays give you pleasure? 
 They were sad to me. If elegant presents would make one joyous, I 
 should have been so. I was only sorry I could not reciprocate as of old. 
 I regret to learn through Maria of Mrs. Clemmer's sad accident. I shall 
 make an effort to write her, inclosing my note to Maria, as I know not 
 her address. I did not anticipate claiming so much of your lime as a 
 perusal of this long letter demands, but I have not written to you in so 
 long a time. 
 
 I should be overjoyed to see the Doctor and his wife " in the spring," 
 as you say, " en route " to California. If all is well with us I see not why 
 this may not be possible. We have not, as yet, contemplated spring ar- 
 rangements, there are so many dreary winter weeks to intervene. Strange 
 as it may seem to you, we pine for Chicago and our Chicago friends. 
 
 When Mrs. Baxter received this letter her own life trem- 
 bled in the balance. Months later it was given back to the 
 many who love her, by a skillful surgical operation. After 
 she had passed through this trial, which so easily might have 
 ended in death, she, still feeble from suffering, wrote her last 
 brief letter to the friend of her youth, sending it with the 
 spray of arbutus, so full of youth and spring, into the cham- 
 ber of decline and final triumph. 
 
 She writes : 
 
 AfarcA g, 1878. 
 My Dearest E. : 
 
 Thanks for your kind and heartfelt congratulations. Yes ! I passed 
 through a severe ordeal successfully. The preliminaries were anything
 
 53 
 
 but pleasant. The success seems sure, but I assure you the fact that yoti, 
 my dearest friend, are still suffering, detracts from my own rejoicing 
 exceedingly. Your suffering is constantly in my thoughts, and I vainly 
 wish some permanent relief could be discovered. You know I am with 
 you in spirit as I would most surely be in flesh were it possible. * * 
 I am still weak, but the wound is healing. God bless and comfort you 
 both ! Ever devotedly, 
 
 Janette. 
 
 I believe the last letter Mrs. Atwater ever wrote, she 
 wrote to her friend's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Florence Baxter, 
 wife of Dr. J. H. Baxter, Chief Medical Purveyer, U. S. A., 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 176 Franklin Street, Buffalo, 
 
 March 2, 1878. 
 Dear Mrs. Baxter : 
 
 If it must be so — if dear Janette must pass through that terrible 
 ordeal — thanks to you for so kindly and clearly conveying the intelligence. 
 I was greatly shocked and grieved, as you can well imagine. The more 
 I reflect upon the matter the more reconciled I become, especially as my 
 physician assures me there is no fear of a return of the disease. He has 
 performed a similar operation successfully — removing one breast — the 
 lady at present being in perfect health. His only surprise being that the 
 operation was so long deferred. Of what a burden are all your minds 
 relieved. The promise of health to the dear invalid — dear to so many 
 hearts — and the hope of her charming presence among you all for years 
 to come must throw a roseate hue upon all your surroundings. God be 
 praised for the attainments of science. Would that they might have 
 fathom.ed my case. I will not speak of myself to-day. When Janette 
 has recuperated a little, if I can guide my pen, we will held converse. 
 I responded to Mrs. Clemmer's kind note a few days since — this morn- 
 ing only have taken up my pen again. Thank you for your very kind 
 letter. 
 
 My husband is writing to Mrs. Gooding, relative to Janette's condition. 
 In the event of any unfavorable change, which is hardly to be thought 
 of, pray let us be advised.
 
 54 
 
 Mr. Atwater joins me in the most cordial love and congratulations to 
 dear Janette, the Doctor and yourself. Believe me, dear Mrs. Baxter, 
 
 Your warm friend, 
 
 Elizabeth E. Atwater. 
 
 The handwriting of this letter, written scarcely a month 
 before her death, shows in unwavering lines the same beau- 
 tiful precision which was remarkable in her youth, and shows 
 with equal luster the unselfishness of her character, which, 
 amid the agony of her own dissolving nature, thought first 
 most tenderly of her friends, last of herself. 
 
 In great suffering, but with peace profound, she passed 
 into the final sleep and the forgetting. 
 
 Of those last hours that cloud this mortal life and opened 
 on the life everlasting, we find the touching account in the 
 words of Mr. Atwater, He writes to Mrs. Baxter from 
 
 Buffalo, April i8, 1878. 
 My Very Dear Friend: 
 
 Your very kind note of the fourteenth is at hand, and pray accept my 
 heartfelt thanks for it and its expressions of sympathy in my behalf. 
 From the relationship which has ever existed between yourself and my 
 poor departed wife, I can never cease to love you as her dearest, best 
 friend. 
 
 She suffered long and most intensely, and patiently. Begged her phy- 
 sician not to administer any medicine which would prolong her life. She 
 was ready, willing and anxious to depart and be freed from the constant 
 agony and suffering. She retained her consciousness up to about six 
 o'clock P. M. of the tenth, and from that time until she died (ten and one- 
 half o'clock A. M. of the eleventh) she was unconscious. She moaned 
 feebly during the night and until she ceased breathing, but died quietly 
 and without any violent struggle. * * * It was a dreadful sickness — 
 of terribly protracted agony. We all try to divest ourselves of selfish- 
 ness, and to thank our Heavenly Father that He has taken her to himself, 
 and that she is relieved from suffering and agony.
 
 55 
 
 My dear, good friend, such a wife as I have lost ought not to pass away 
 from earth unnoticed and unannounced. Somebody should say something 
 of her virtues, if she possessed any, and you know of and about her 
 better than any other living being. I can say nothing. I may know 
 much, but my tongue must be silent on that subject. Cannot you, my 
 good friend, who have known her so long and loved her so well, give to 
 Mrs. Mary Clemmer something of her history, of her attainments and 
 characteristics, to enable her to give to the world some knowledge of a 
 pure, good, devoted woman, of whom many have heretofore had no knowl- 
 edge. It can do my poor dead wife no good, but it would be a great 
 comfort and consolation to her many kind friends to know that, though 
 dead, she was not forgotten. 
 
 My dear wife donated her entire cabinet of minerals and shells to the 
 Chicago Academy of Science. To the Chicago Historical Society she 
 gave everything relative to history. To the Old People's Home sundry 
 gifts. To every one of her friends some memento. I find in a beautiful 
 Tunbridge mosaic box sundry articles with a slip of paper in her own 
 handwriting, " To my dear friend Janette, from Ella," which I shall for- 
 ward to you soon. Very many of her rare and beautiful things are 
 deposited in the Safety Deposit Vaults in Chicago, where they have been 
 for three or more years, and I cannot distribute them until I return to 
 Chicago, when the Doctor will hear from me. 
 
 She began the distribution of her effects three months before her death, 
 but the work was very distasteful and unpleasant, and she often remarked 
 that she was induced to do so to relieve me from so sad a task. She 
 could do but little at a time and was unable to finish, but she gave me 
 verbally her wishes, and I have endeavored to carry out her wishes in every 
 respect. She selected all her own grave clothes three months before her 
 death, and intimated to me fully her wishes as to her funeral and pall- 
 bearers. * * * * Her nurse and physician became very much 
 attached to her, she was so considerate and so patient. Th«y both say 
 that they never saw such suffering. 
 
 And yet to her last moment she never suffered so much that she did 
 not think of others — often of others far distant — before she thought of 
 herself.
 
 56 
 
 Mr. Atwater's next letter is dated : 
 
 Buffalo, April jo, i8y8. 
 My Very Dear Friend Mrs. Baxter : 
 
 Your kind note of the 22d instant was received as I was leaving for 
 Canandaigua to make the necessary arrangements for interring the 
 remains of my dear wife by the side of her mother in our family lot at 
 that village. 
 
 I went there a week ago yesterday and caused a stone and brick vault 
 to be constructed, under the direction of one of my old school-mates, a 
 resident, and now about seventy-three years of age. I returned on 
 Wednesday, and on Thursday my niece (Mrs. Sexton) moved into her 
 new quarters. On Friday I received notice from my venerable friend 
 that all was in readiness ; when, with my nephew (Mr. Albert Barnard), 
 of this city, I left with the remains of my dear wife for Canandaigua, 
 where' we arrived at half-past six o'clock P. M., and were met at the depot 
 bv my niece (Mrs. Brush, a sister of Mrs. Sexton's), several ladies, and 
 ten of my old school-mates. The remains were taken direct to the cem- 
 etery, attended by the Presbyterian clergyman, and deposited in the vault 
 prepared for them, by the side of her mother. It had rained hard nearly 
 all day, but before we arrived at Canandaigua it became clear, bright and 
 sunshiny, and it was beautiful. My old Canandaigua friends were exceed- 
 ingly kind and attentive, and the few who had the pleasure of knowing 
 her spoke of her with great kindness. 
 
 I remained at Canandaigua until three o'clock P. M. of Saturday, and 
 reached Buffalo at eight P. M.; and I write you thus particularly because 
 you were ever my dear wife's nearest and dearest friend, and would feel 
 interested in knowing all about her. 
 
 Since her death I have been dreadfully lonesome and dreary, and have 
 but little desire to do anything, see anybody, or go anywhere. She made 
 very manyjDequests of trifles to her frieiids, and I have been engaged in 
 hunting them up and sending them to the persons for whom they were 
 designed. But she brought but few articles here, and I must finish up 
 carrying out her wishes on my return to Chicago. You knew my dear 
 wife well, but you would be astonished to find such method, such order, 
 such detail. I find she has kept an accurate account of all her expenses 
 ever since 1841 — all written out in her books; and I find journals from
 
 57 
 
 i86o up to December, 1S78, written out fully every day, and giving a 
 complete history of each day of where she was, what she saw, and whom 
 she met in all her various travels to the South, through all the Southern 
 States and cities, to California, Colorado, etc., etc., with her views and 
 ideas of what she saw. These journals are interesting to me, as they take 
 me back over the same journeys, and bring everything fresh to my mind. 
 You have no idea of the world of work she has done with her pen. 
 Every letter she ever wrote or received is a matter of record as to the 
 persons to whom written, or from whom received, with the date thereof. 
 A full list of every person who called upon her, or upon whom she 
 called, I find extending back for years. I find memorandums in detail 
 of the contents of every trunk, box, bundle or package, and a full inven- 
 tory of every shell, specimen, plant, shrub or curiosity ; where and how 
 she procured it, and in very many cases printed articles cut from papers, 
 giving a full history of the article or thing. I have had but little time to 
 examine her scores of books, filled full of memoranda, tied up and marked 
 by her. She has five thousand patriotic envelopes, designed to be placed 
 in books, and she has five large books (made for her in Philadelphia) in 
 which to place them, one of which is nearly completed, and the material 
 to fill the others ready. She has series of all the almanacs for this and 
 part of the last century, and an inventory of the number and of their dates. 
 Of her list of old spelling-books and of the books themselves I cannot 
 state accurately how many there are, but a great many. She has samples 
 of all the fractional currency issued by our government, and a world of 
 Confederate money, of all kinds and sorts and denominations ; as well as 
 a large assortment of individual or private ctirre^tcy issued by hotel-keep- 
 ers, merchants, butchers, etc., etc. I find that her cabinet specimens of 
 shells, minerals, etc., etc., are all numbered, and each box marked and 
 numbered, and an inventory made up of the contents of each box or 
 package, with the scientific name of each specimen. So wiih all of her 
 plants. Everything is in as complete condition as possible. The His- 
 torical Society will be enriched with a great number and variety of old 
 spelling-books and almanacs, and a variety of venerable literature. Was 
 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Maryland, and 
 also of the Academy of Sciences of Buffalo. Was one of the original 
 founders of the " Old Ladies' Home " of Chicago ; an active member of 
 the " Humane Society" of Chicago. She has always held a position as
 
 58 
 
 one of the directoresses of the " Old Ladies' Home," and at one time was 
 its treasurer. The Hon. George W. Clinton, an eminent botanist of this 
 city, held her in high regard as a botanist, and says the very many speci- 
 mens he received from her vi^ere prepared better than from any other 
 person. She discovered several new plants, heretofore unknown in this 
 country to botanists, and two or three have been named for her by bota- 
 nists. My dear wife was a wonderful, wonderful woman, self-sacrificing, 
 working always for others, and happy when she could in any way con- 
 tribute to the happiness of others, at whatever cost to herself.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Tributes of Friends. 
 
 IX/TANV personal tributes to his dear wife were received 
 by Mr. iVtwater. It would be pleasant to transcribe 
 them all to these pages were it possible. As this cannot be, 
 I give those which, springing from the most intimate knowl- 
 edge, deal most largely and most minutely with her personal 
 characteristics. First, the tribute to her dear memory from 
 her life-long friend "Janette," Mrs. Portus Baxter, of Ver- 
 mont. She says : 
 
 It is almost impossible to specify perfections in the character of my 
 dearest friend Elizabeth — her hfe from the beginning being fauUless, 
 Our acquaintance tvith and love/f;- each other commenced when we were 
 children, not more than six years of age, continuing, with constant corre- 
 spondence, until her decease. 
 
 From childhood her innate sense of propriety was wonderful. Her 
 devoted affection and large benevolence, controlled always by sound judg- 
 ment and strict justice, gave weight and respect to her opinions. Small 
 in stature, but in no other sense, she was full of animation and spright- 
 liness ; gay, but never boisterous in her mirthfulness ; her wit and repartee 
 sparkling, but never sarcastic. Her love of nature was intense, as her 
 great knowledge ^y" and interests natural science testify. Botany was 
 her favorite study in youthful and school-days, when we were intimately 
 associated in study, always rooming together if possible. Her neatness 
 and order were wonderful ; and my pleasure was unbounded when our 
 room and our bureau drawers were pronounced "perfect!" Though
 
 6o 
 
 stnall she was muscular, so much so we called her " Little Samson." That 
 strength enabled her small, almost " petite " body, to accomplish won- 
 ders mentally and physically in the pursuit of every good work in which 
 she engaged. There seemed no bounds to her endurance when interested 
 in some benevolent or scientific object ; in truth, I have never known 
 such an indefatigable, earnest worker in the various and praiseworthy 
 directions suggested by her love of humanity or science. 
 
 Her love of animals was very strong. Once, in Chicago, when passing 
 a teamster who had cruelly whipped his overburdened oxen, until the 
 tough skin was broken and the blood starting, she very feelingly called 
 his attention to it, asking how it happened. He was ashamed, and hung 
 his head. She did not leave him without a promise he would not strike 
 them again. She often saw horses and dogs abused, and never without a 
 word in their behalf, so judiciously spoken they had the desired effect. 
 
 Many, many years ago, her father. Judge Emerson, induced the great 
 revivalist Burchard to go to Windsor, where they resided, and make an 
 effort to convert sinners. On asking the reverend gentleman concerning 
 the prospect, he replied with earnestness : " Very well. I have strong 
 hopes of your daughter Elizabeth being converted." The father, with 
 the utmost surprise, replied : " Elizabeth ! Elizabeth ! talk of con- 
 verting her! Why, she is as pure as the angels in heaven !" Which 
 announcement I conscientiously believe was true ; and no one had a bet- 
 ter opportunity for knoiving. Our intimacy from childhood, to the latest 
 moment of her life, justifies the assertion \.\\q.\. htima?i nature can never 
 attain greater perfection ! 
 
 My admiration, respect and love for my dear deceased Elizabeth can 
 never be expressed in words, nor the sympathy and commiseration for 
 her beloved and unutterably bereaved husband, whom it has always 
 seemed to me was especially made for her. He was every way so com- 
 patible. In her last letter to me, January 30, 1878, she says : " My good 
 * T.' is devotion itself, and will permit no one to do the slightest service 
 for me." Also (as we were at that time both invalids), after recounting 
 her unfavorable and distressing symptoms, she says : " However, the 
 parting time must come to us all ; but it is sad to leave this beautiful 
 world so at variance with it as all this physical torture renders one. 
 May God spare you yet a long time to your dear children and friends. I 
 am ready to obey his summons when it doth come ; still life is dear to me
 
 6i 
 
 for the sake of loved friends. I have realized great enjoyment ^ith 
 nature, with dear friends, and in my pursuits. I have never been a 
 society woman ; my whole nature has revolted at it." 
 
 Her heroism in her sickness and death was in unison with her rounded 
 and perfectly Christian and consistent character, sustained through all her 
 useful and eventful life. The last si.\ months of suffering was intense, 
 trying her patience and faith most severely, which was never found want- 
 ing. A true and earnest Christian, she has gone to the rest which God 
 giveth his beloved. 
 
 The second tribute is from Mrs. Thomas Morris, a lady 
 of marked intelligence and refinement, the wife of Mrs. 
 Atwater's nephew. Both husband and wife were great 
 favorites and close companions of Mrs. Atwater. Mrs. 
 Morris writes : 
 
 Potomac, Va., May ig, j8j8. 
 Dear Mrs. Clemmer: 
 
 I have been looking over dear Aunt Elizabeth's letters to-day, and find 
 but one extract that seems to reveal the inner woman to the world. She 
 says : " I must not write a word more. I have such distress for respira- 
 tion, cannot cross the room without assistance. May God grant me 
 submission to His holy will." This shows to us her unselfishness, her 
 pen cheering us in this lonely place, though every stroke increased her 
 suffering. She was truly a Christian in all her acts. Though you early 
 heard her express in words her belief or hopes, she had not a particle of 
 cant about her, and was the most natural, unaffected person I ever saw. 
 With the nicest sense of propriety, she was the most girlish, playful 
 creature among her intimate friends. That made her a companion you 
 never tired of. 
 
 She was so sympathetic, she made warm friends among all classes of 
 people ; and she did not confine her sympathies to words, she was so 
 generous. She was passionately fond of birds and animals, and often in 
 the city stopped and pleaded for some dumb creature who was being 
 ill-used. I well remember her once out paying visits, beautifully dressed, 
 stopping and inquiring into the cause of a poor little mongrel dog's lame-
 
 62 
 
 ness, and stooping down in dust and dirt to look at the lame leg, the 
 indifierent answer of the owner, and her indignation at the brutality of 
 half the world. 
 
 She was order itself — did everything exquisitely. Her sewing was a 
 marvel, and her pressed flowers the finest I've heard botanists say they 
 ever saw ; and she had very valuable herbariums. Though she was in 
 correspondence and constantly exchanging specimens with botanists in 
 this country and Europe, I do not know what disposition she has made 
 of these ; but intend going to Buffalo very soon to assist Mr. Atwater in 
 looking over her effects, and can then write you ; and perhaps in settling 
 quietly down with Uncle Sam. I may glean facts that will be of use to 
 you ; if so, will write them down. 
 
 She was member of a number of scientific and historical societies, and 
 has left many things to them, which I can tell you about by and by. Had 
 a moss or fern named for her by some European botanist. She discov- 
 ered it in California. She was never idle, and the number of letters she 
 wrote was more than any one ought — so her physician often told her. 
 
 In her collection of rare things burned in the Chicago fire, she had 
 contributions from every part of the globe nearly. 
 
 To illustrate how she made friends, and what grew out of the chance 
 acquaintances : At the World's Fair in New York she was delighted par- 
 ticularly with the Italian department and the mosaics from Victor Eman- 
 uel s factory or pottery. She returned to look at them so often, and so 
 thoroughly appreciated them, that she finally attracted the attention of the 
 Italian Commissioner, a gentleman attached to the staff of the king, and 
 they had many pleasant talks about art in general, exchanged cards, and 
 within a year after his return to Italy came to her from him some exquisite 
 specimens of the different kinds of mosaics and a photograph of Victor 
 Emanuel, with his autograph. Since then, on the receipt of President 
 Lincoln's photograph, she had from him a mosaic of the same, which is 
 perfect as a likeness. Many pleasant letters passed between them, and 
 a lasting friendship grew out of a chance meeting. So with a Nantucket 
 sea-captain, whose wife she knew, but had never met him. Through a 
 four-years' voyage he was constantly writing of this or that he had col- 
 lected for Mrs, Atwater — which finally reached her. She fairly inspired 
 people thrown with her with her own tastes. She opened a new world 
 to many by her genuine love for nature.
 
 63 
 
 I shall never forget our rambles about Nantucket moors together one 
 summer. She found Scotch heather there — ^just one tuft — a thing unheard 
 of before in this country ; and then such a search for more, but in vain. 
 The next summer I found it again in the same place, to her great joy, for 
 some of her botanist friends had thought her mistaken, but another 
 specimen convinced them, and she was credited with the discovery. 
 
 Her married life was as perfect as anything can be in this world. She 
 was cherished and shielded from every care. I do not wonder poor Uncle 
 Sam. sits down in utter desolation, for she did her share in making life 
 sweet to him in a thousand womanly ways. 
 
 The following from Europe came from a correspondent 
 of many years : 
 
 Nice, Italy, March sg, iSy8. 
 My Dear Mr. Atwater : 
 
 You will readily understand how much sorrow we have experienced 
 from the contents of your letter of the 7th inst., which we received last 
 evening. We entertained hopes that the wonderful energy and vitality 
 which your wife's constitution had so many times evinced, might again 
 come to her aid and yet preserve her to us all for yet a longer period ; 
 but, from what you say as to her sufferings from pain and great weakness, 
 I see not much hope of her long continuing in this life, and, my dear 
 friend, why should we wish it, if so much pain and suffering is to be her 
 lot? for better happiness and absence from all sorrow in a better world, 
 with a Blessed Saviour for her companion and where the weary are 
 promised rest — by coming to Him. Blessed consolation for all who seek 
 Him faithfully. May such be the inexpressible happiness of us all, my 
 dear friend, when the hour of trial comes, for come it must to every one 
 of us sooner or later. 
 
 This news throws quite a cloud over the prospect of our proposed visit 
 to the West. To see our old and much-esteemed friend, your dear wife, 
 once more, formed a large feature in our anticipated enjoyment in our 
 trip, and now, I fear, such we are not destined to realize. Well, God's 
 will be done, for in His keeping are we all. Let it be for us to strive 
 earnestly to meet Him when He calls us away from this life, and to say 
 with the German poet Neander, " I am ready, mighty Lord."
 
 64 
 
 It must have been a very great source of thankfulness to you to be able 
 to enjoy the comforts of so good a home for yourself and Mrs. AtwateK. 
 in this her hour of great trial, and that your own health was so improved 
 as to admit of your constant watchfulness of her wants, and, I trust, 
 without any return of your own past ailments. This must be a source of 
 very great thankfulness to you hereafter, that you were enabled to be her 
 constant companion. I know not if this may come to your hand that 
 she may see it. I hope it may, and that you can read to her of all our 
 grief and of all our sorrow to think we may not meet her again in this 
 life. The many happy days — indeed I may say years — that we spent 
 together at Chicago, and our constant happy intercourse since by corre- 
 spondence, are things not to be easily forgotten, and we shall miss her 
 wonted happy and most interesting letters very, very much. Many 
 thanks for her kind thoughtfulness in sending us the pretty wild flowers. 
 They will be treasures to keep and recall to our minds one of those happy 
 features of her disposition — a love of nature — a most attractive souvenir 
 of our very dear friend. I am writing this by candle-light, and I am very 
 fearful you may not find it easy to read, for neither my sight nor my pen- 
 manship are so good as they used to be ; but you must bear with my 
 failings, for I am anxious that this may come quickly to your hand and 
 go by to-morrow's post to Paris and, may be, catch the Cunard steamer 
 on Sunday at Queenstown. And now, my dear friend, what more can I 
 say, but that God may have you both in His keeping here and hereafter, 
 and that such is my own and my wife's most earnest prayer. I seem as 
 if under the influence of a dream in contemplation of this sad event, so 
 pray excuse any blunders that may appear and be assured of our great 
 love and esteem for both yourself and our dear friend, your wife. Tell 
 her so if she yet be with you. Believe me now and always, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 P. Anderson, 
 
 The last is from a dear friend in ^Maine: 
 
 York Harbor, Maine, August 20, 1878. 
 My Dear Friend Mr. Atwater : 
 
 Your beautiful and most kind but truly sad letter, re-mailed to me 
 from Cambridge, was duly received. I delayed answering it until I should
 
 65 
 
 know from Cambridge that the express package was safely received. A 
 letter from Miss Lane's home assures us of its safe arrival. I thank you 
 for the mementos and also for the tender recollections of our dear and 
 faithful friend, your beloved wife. We thought we had known her 
 methodical industry' before your letter told us of it, but we had not con- 
 ceived of its extent. Her patience in suffering, her active usefulness when 
 health permitted, her untiring kindness, her consideration, her courtesy 
 to all, her justice in all her dealings, we knew, and it is a terrible loss to 
 us to feel that on earth we can know them no more. I "am sorry that I 
 did not know of your desire to have her friends' memories of her col- 
 lected, with a brief sketch of her life in a memorial volume. It would 
 have been a sweet, sad duty, and I should have felt I might in some poor 
 way convey to her in heaven, and to you on earth, our appreciation of 
 her, of your beautiful relation to each other, and of our gratitude for your 
 long friendship. We were like sisters in those early Chicago days, and 
 perhaps nearer to her than the friends made later after her life had broad- 
 ened. I know her affection for " Janette," and I hope that if there were 
 one thing more than any other that I should like to testify, it would be this : 
 The fideHtyand constancy of Elizabeth's nature. Though the circle of 
 her acquaintance, and even of her dear friends, was constantly widening, 
 yet she never slighted or neglected an old friend for a new. No one ever 
 felt superseded and set aside. What she was in the beginning she was to 
 the end, and if an old Chicago friend, after twenty years' absence from 
 her. had met her in Jerusalem, she would have been welcomed so cordially 
 that she would have been made to forget the lapse of years. 
 
 In this world of faithless friends and fickle fancies, I think this grand 
 trait of our dear E.'s character should be held up to admiration and 
 example. It would have been so easy for her, with her world-wide-apart 
 friends, to have passed over and forgotten some ; but she never did ; and 
 if she found a treasure in a new friend, she was ever eager to have all 
 who had loved her before share it. I felt comforted to know that Katie 
 Goodnow was with her to the last, she was so fond of her, and Katie was 
 a true friend to her. I sincerely hope our good friend Will is not seriously 
 injured. It would be a great blow to his sisters. I will not try to express 
 to you the sympathy we feel for you. Always when I have thought of 
 the happiest married pair, it has been of you two friends. You were 
 always patient with her, devoted to her, and she knew it, and blessed 
 5
 
 66 
 
 God for it. She was never tired of rehearsing your affectionate consid- 
 eration for her, your patience with her invalidism, your indulgence of her 
 tastes and anticipation of ever}- wish. Her sufferings are ended. If we 
 believe in a hereafter we can believe in nothing but good for her who 
 tried to live honestly and deal justly with all. It is you whom we pity 
 now. It is so mmh harder to be Uft than to be taken. We shed tears 
 of sorrowful sympathy when we read of your sitting by her dying bed 
 and helping her trembling hands to assort and arrange her last bequests 
 to her friends. Indeed, sir, I do not see how you could endure the 
 anguish of those last weeks ; and I pray you may not be long parted. 
 Miss Lane joins me in the most affectionate and grateful friendship and 
 sympathy for you. From your old friend, 
 
 C. A. Baker. 
 
 Buffalo, January 8, iSjg. 
 
 Madam : I am but one of the multitude who admired and esteemed 
 Elizabeth E. Atwater. She has left her husband, my friend, in an 
 enduring grief, which is, however, not the grief of those who are without 
 hope. For myself, I deeply sjTnpathize with him, and feel that I have 
 lost a friend who was very dear to me. 
 
 Mrs. Atwater's intellect was strong, her sense of beauty in all of its 
 manifestations was admirable, her acquisitions of science great and diffused. 
 Above all, she was in the truest sense a lady. Without effort, she com- 
 manded admiration, and won friends wherever she went. She was, to the 
 utmost of her means, a promoter of science. She studied nature in a 
 devotional spirit, and not as its cold self-seeking anatomist. I was more 
 grieved than I can tell you at her departure, and I am glad that I have in 
 the herbarium of our society so many and so precious memorials of her. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 G. W. Clinton. 
 Mrs. Mary Clemmer.
 
 ■a