MADAM WOOD, THE FIRST MAINE
WRITER OF FICTION.

HER RESIDENCE IN PORTLAND IN THE EARLY PART OF THE CENTURY.

Read before the Maine Historical Society, February 22, 1889.

BY WILLIAM GOOLD.

THE topmost ornament of this fine building, where the sessions of the Maine Historical Society are held, and for which it is indebted to the munificence of its president, is an emblematical statue of Literature. It therefore becomes us to make known the achievements of the earliest votaries of Literature in the state; not only in the department of history, but those of "most excellent fancy" writers of entertaining fiction. I think the first who attempted this walk in literature in our state was Madam Wood. I will therefore trace her family, which has been one of the most noted in the old county of York, which when she was born comprised the then entire District of Maine.

The grandfather of Madam Wood was Jonathan Sayward. His grandfather came from England and settled in York. In an Indian attack, while he was absent at Cape Neddick, his wife and several children were murdered, and a little daughter was carried to Quebec. This was probably the attack of 1692 when the Rev. Shubael Dummer and seventy-five others were killed, and eighty-five of the inhabitants of York were taken captive. Forty years afterward Mr. Manuel Beal of York, a relative of the Saywards, visited Quebec on business, and being anxious to see the interior of a nunnery, he asked to visit, and was admitted to one. The lady abbess inquired of him where he was from, to which he answered, York. She told him that was her own birthplace that she was Hannah Sayward; captured in her childhood, carried to Quebec and ransomed by a French lady. The lady educated her in a nunnery. Hannah continued in the insti

tution and became a nun. Before her death the lady who rescued her from the Indians gave half her property to the nunnery, and the other half to Hannah, who in time became the lady abbess. To Mr. Beal she was very friendly. When he left for home, she sent sixteen small silver porringers by him, one for each of her nephews and nieces. Before his death, Judge Sayward purchased all of them and had them made into six larger ones. One of the porringers is still owned in York by a descendant.

The father of the murdered children married a second wife and had two more sons, Jeremiah and Jonathan. This Jonathan was the father of Judge Sayward, who in his time was one of the most noted men of the province. He was born in York, November 9, 1713, and died there in 1797. His wife was Sarah Mitchell, who died in 1775.

Jonathan Sayward at one time before the war of the Revolution, was, next to Sir William Pepperell, the richest man in Maine. He was an active merchant and man of all business. He had the confidence of his townsmen and was for seventeen years elected to the office of representative to the general court. He was judge of the court of common pleas and judge of probate for York county. These offices he held at the beginning of the revolutionary troubles. Judge Sayward refused to sign papers censuring the home government, which he had repeatedly taken an oath to support, and became unpopular among the people, but they had too much respect for him to drive him from his home. In his diary he wrote as follows:

December 31, 1775.

I am now arrived at the close of the year, through the forbearance of God. It hath been a year of extraordinary trials. Aside from the death of my wife (the greatest of all), I have lost a new sloop cast away this month, and suffered the loss of one or more cargoes in the West Indies, and largely by the death of one and another. But this is small compared with the hazards I have had, and am still in, on account of my political sentiments and conduct. I have been confined upon honor not to absent myself from the town, and a bondsman, Jotham Moulton, Esq., often threatened; afraid to go abroad; have not been out of town for nine months through fear, though my business greatly required it. The loss of trade, the scorn of the abjects, slight of friends, contin ually on my guard; all of my offices, judge of probate, judge of the common pleas, justice of the quorum, justice of the peace, taken from me. In constant danger of being driven from my habitation; so much that I have con

stantly kept £200 lawful in gold and paper currency in my pocket for fear of being suddenly removed from my abode. I have been examined before committees and obliged to lay open my letters from Governor Hutchinson, to swear to my private correspondence. All the above I have suffered from principle.

The same house where the judge was imprisoned is still standing, unaltered, with the same furnishings, and owned and occupied by one of his descendants. It would give one a better opinion of the sturdy old Loyalist to visit that house and see the expression of his countenance in his full length portrait, hanging on the wall. There are also portraits of his wife and daughter by Blackburn. These portraits were painted between 1750 and 1765, as Blackburn left Boston for England in the latter year. Judge Sayward was master of an armed transport sloop in the Louisburg expedition of 1745, and brought home many rich house furnishings from that city, including porcelain table ware of odd design, and fire sets of brass, that still occupy their position where they were placed in 1746.

The reason of my writing so much of Judge Sayward and his home is that in her grandfather's house Madam Wood was born, and here was her own home until her marriage.

Nathaniel Barrell, son of John Barrell, a prominent shipping merchant of Boston, was first a clerk in charge of Judge Sayward's store, and married his only child, Sally Sayward. During the excitement for volunteers to capture Quebec, Mr. Barrell accepted an ensign's commission, and was in the assault and capture of the city and was promoted to be captain for gallantry. After the fall of Quebec Mr. Barrell went to England, and was at the coronation of George III, in 1760. By this monarch he was appointed councilor for New Hampshire, and served at the council board at Portsmouth with both Governors Wentworth. He, too, adhered to his oath and became a Tory.

The subject of this memoir, Sally Sayward Barrell, was the daughter of Captain Nathaniel Barrell, and his wife Sally Sayward. She was born at the house of her grandfather Sayward in York, October 1, 1759, in the midst of the colonial rejoicings over the fall of Quebec, where her father was doing gallant duty. In time her parents had a family of eight children. Sally Barrell remained with her grandfather until she was eighteen years old. Judge Sayward had a clerk six months only older than the

grand-daughter, named Richard Keating, who had been a schoolmate with Sally Barrell. It was the most natural occurrence in the world that these young people should form a mutual attachment. They were married November 23, 1778, during the Loyalist persecutions of which Judge Sayward so bitterly complains. Notwithstanding his losses, he felt able to build for his granddaughter a fine house near his own for a wedding present, and adopted the new married pair as his own children.

The married life of the Keatings was a brief but very happy one. Both were young and of happy dispositions. Of their intellectual powers we only know of those of the wife. They were surrounded with friends and influential relatives, and enjoyed intercourse with the best families of York, Kittery and Portsmouth. At that time the mansion of Sir William Pepperell at Kittery contained all the original portraits, furnishings and silver plate; just as the first baronet had left it at his death a few years before. In a manuscript of reminiscences written by Madam Wood, she describes the service of silver and the silver table on which it was displayed, which was presented to Sir William Pepperell by the city of London. She says, "I have seen it." This manuscript was sent to me from Baltimore by Father Waldron - the same who gave to our society the "Jesuit's strong box."

In the confiscation act of 1777, the Pepperell plate was allowed to be taken from the Kittery mansion, and transported by land under military guard to Boston, where an armed ship was waiting its arrival to take it to its owner, the second baronet, who was a refugee. Madam Wood describes the departure of Colonel Moulton, sheriff of York, with his squad of troopers for Boston with the plate. This was when she was seventeen years old. Her relatives were Loyalists, and of course she sympathized with the refugees.

I have described the state of society at York and Kittery during the war of the Revolution. These towns joined, and were the most populous of any in the State. The Sparhawk house at Kittery Point was a rendezvous of the Portsmouth and Kittery Tories. In the attic are still shown several small rooms which were the refuge of fugitive Loyalists. My own ancestors lived in the same town, and the description of the Tory gatherings at the Sparhawk house has been a tradition in our family.

Thus was life in York and Kittery during the first four years of Mrs. Keating's married life. Mrs. Keating's first child, a daughter, was born November 7, 1779; then another daughter. The husband, Mr. Keating, was robust and had every assurance of a long life, but after a short sickness he died of a fever in July, 1783, the year of the closing of the war, when he was hoping to retrieve his lost fortunes. Mr. Keating's death was a terrible blow to his wife. Their affection had been almost from childhood. Their only son, Richard Keating, was born four months after the death of his father. Fortunately for Mrs. Keating, God had endowed her with a cheerful spirit, ever looking on the bright side of life. She with her little family of two daughters and a son continued to live in her own house at York, over twenty-one years. It was these long years of widowhood which brought out our heroine's talent for authorship, and the incidents of the war, the traditions of her family, and occurrences under her own observation furnished subjects for her pen.

Her first work which has come to my knowledge is entitled "Ferdinand and Elmira: a Russian Story, by a lady of Massachusetts; author of Julia, the Speculator and Cornelia. Baltimore, Samuel Butler, 1804"-(311 pages). It seems by this title page that our author had written at least three books which had been published previously to this.

The year of the publication of "Ferdinand and Elmira,” 1804, Mrs. Keating was married to General Abiel Wood of Wiscasset, a gentleman of wealth and a prominent citizen of the then District of Maine.

At the beginning of this century the only place of commercial importance east of Portland was Wiscasset. It was in fact 'the seaport of the Kennebec, and the market town of all that section of country now comprising the counties of Lincoln, Kennebec, Somerset, Franklin, Androscoggin and Sagadahoc. A coasting trade in small vessels was maintained, sailing between the Kennebec and Massachusetts towns, but all the exports to foreign countries entered the cross river at Bath and passed through a section of Sheepscot to Wiscasset. This with the other legitimate trade centering there, made Wiscasset the seat of a large export trade, carried on by enterprising merchants, who had a world wide reputation. Here Mrs. Wood enjoyed every comfort