that wealth and the best society could give; and, in the compan ionship of friends of refined manners and tastes similar to her own, continued her literary work more for amusement than profit.

In 1811 General Wood died, and a few years after Madam Wood removed to Portland; probably on account of her son, who had become a ship captain and was sailing out of this port. He married a Miss Emerson of York, a sister to the first mayor of Portland. She also had grand-children here. William T. Vaughan, the first clerk of the courts of Cumberland county after the separation from Massachusetts, married Madam Wood's second daughter, Miss Keating. She died, leaving two children. Mr. Vaughan's second wife also came from York.

While living in Portland, Madam Wood and her family occupied the western half of what is known as the Anderson house on the south side of Free street. She was always spoken of here as "Madam Wood," and was accorded the place of honor in all gatherings of the best society. She was always, owing to her peculiar style of dress, a conspicuous figure in public places. She was accustomed to wear the high turban or cap seen in the picture, and when she went out she wore a plain black bonnet so far forward as to nearly hide her features. Although Madam Wood was a communicant in the First Parish church under Doctor Nichols, she often attended the old brick church of St. Paul's, sitting in the Vaughan pew with her grand-children. My own seat was in one of the cross pews, facing Mr. Vaughan's, so that I can testify to the correctness of the portrait. Boys went to church in those days. This portrait is from a daguerreotype, which was taken probably in 1840, as the invention of sun-painting had then first come into use. The lady was then eighty-one years old. The small original picture was photographed and enlarged by Mr. King, within the last month.1

While Madam Wood was living in Portland, she continued her literary work. One at least of her books was published here. This is a copy of the title page:

Tales of the Night. By a lady of Maine. Author of Julia; the Speculator; the Old Man's Story, EC. Portland, printed and published by Thomas Todd; 1827.

1This photographic painting may be seen by any visitor among the collections of the Maine Historical Society in its rooms in Portland.'

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I recollect the issue of this book it attracted much attention and had a ready sale. Madam Wood left some manuscript works which were never printed. She had now somewhat recovered confidence in her own ability. It is said that when the Waverly novels appeared, and she had read some of them, she was so dissatisfied with her own works that she gathered what she could of them and destroyed them.

Captain Keating, her son, was sailing a ship from the port of New York, and to be near his family, his mother concluded to go there with all her family. This was in 1829 or 1830.

In January, 1833, Captain Keating arrived in New York harbor and anchored in the stream, remaining on board. In the night, the current set the running ice against the ship with such force as to cut her through, and she sank at her anchor at once, carrying down all on board, including the captain; not one escaped. Madam Wood was now seventy-five years old. Although hers had been a life of vicissitudes, the loss of her last remaining child, an enterprising son, the stay and support of her declining years, was a severe shock to her. The following summer she had somewhat recovered from the blow. She concluded to return to Maine and spend her remaining years among her kindred. With a widowed grand-daughter, and a great-grandson, she came to Kennebunk. This great-grandson is now a leading physician of that town, Dr. Edward W. Morton. He is also grandson of the late Reuben Morton, an eminent shipping merchant of Portland, whose residence is now the Catholic school on Free street. Its grounds adjoin those of the house occupied by Madam Wood while in Portland.

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In her last years Madam Wood continued to write at the request of her friends, papers of reminiscences, which from her great age and wonderful memory, were very valuable. The one already mentioned which I obtained from Baltimore was written for Mrs. Charles Cushing, who for many years occupied the Governor Wentworth mansion at Little Harbor near Portsmouth. At her death it went into the possession of Father Waldron, her relative, from whom I obtained it. The following is Madam Wood's reply to the request of Mrs. Cushing:

It is so long since I have even thought of the persons and places you desire to be made acquainted with, my dear friend, that I had almost

forgotten their existence. It is true I have an old and rather a large volume that contains a variety of recollections, but it is very much defaced by time, many leaves torn out, many sentences obliterated, and others in as cramped a hand as I am now writing. But to gratify you, my dear friend, I will try to render a page of it legible; and if it will give you any pleasure I shall be amply repaid, and will ransack my memory to say something about Sir William Pepperell, too great a name to be forgotten by one unused to titles, unacquainted with wealth or grandeur.

At the end of her sketch of Sir William and his house, she thus closes :

Thus, my dear friend, at last, as far as was in my power, I have complied with your request. Had the wish been expressed a few years ago I could have made out a tolerable narrative of my reminiscences. I could have taken Portsmouth, Kittery Point, and old York as the scenes of my early associations.

The most interesting of the reminiscences is that of a visit to "Long Lane" with her mother, when she was twelve years old [1770]. This was the home of Madam Ursula Cutts, the widow of John Cutts, the first president of New Hampshire. It is on the left bank of the Piscataqua, three or four miles above Portsmouth. "Madam Ursula" as she was called, was murdered in her own meadow where she had gone with a maid servant to carry refreshments to her men in the hay fields, when she and her haymakers were shot down and scalped. This was in 1694. At the time of Madam Wood's visit the place was owned by an old lady, a relative of her mother, who kept the place up in the original style. It is described as seen by her childish eyes in 1770. It is pleasant reading for an antiquarian.

Dr. Morton, in whose family Madam Wood spent her last years, says: "At the age of ninety-four she could be a delightful companion to her great great grandchildren, or to her nephews, George B. Emerson, or George B. Cheever, versed as they were in much of the science of the day." She died January 6, 1825, at the uncommon age of ninety-five years and three months.

ASHUR WARE.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Read before the Maine Historical Society, May 20, 1887.

BY GEORGE F. TALBOT.

AMONG the persons named as corporators in the act incorpo- · rating the Maine Historical Society is the name of Ashur Ware, who resided in Portland from the year 1817 to the year 1873, the time of his death. He was the first secretary of state of the new state of Maine. He was a tutor and afterward a professor in Harvard College. He edited a political paper in Boston, and afterward the "Eastern Argus" in Portland. He is best known as the judge of the United States District Court, having by his eminent talents, learning and integrity adorned that high position for the unusually long term of forty-four years, or from 1822 till 1866. He was an easy and graceful writer, equipped with accurate and comprehensive erudition, and possessing warm, benevolent and popular sympathies; and his felicitous style gives grace and dignity to some of the earlier publications of this Society to which he contributed. The "Introductory Remarks" at the beginning of the first volume of the Society's collections are from his pen, and are an exhibition of his powers of literary expression.

Judge Ware was born in Sherburne, Massachusetts, February 10, 1782, and was the third child of Joseph Ware and his wife Grace Cooledge.

His grandfather was John Ware, a descendant in the sixth degree from Robert Ware, who in 1640 emigrated from the eastern part of England, near Boston, to Dedham, Massachusetts, the first home in this country of the family.

Robert had espoused the Puritan cause with so much zeal as to make his emigration a matter of prudence, at a time when the fortunes of his party had suggested the same course to such leaders as Hampden and Cromwell. Of John Ware, who moved to Sherburne, Joseph, father of the judge, was the eldest, and Henry,

the eminent professor of divinity at Harvard, was the youngest

son.

Joseph Ware was a conspicuous personage in his town, filling · several municipal offices, and having the honor of having served as a soldier in the war of the Revolution, and of losing an arm in the battle of White Plains.

The personal traits of Judge Ware seem largely due to hereditary influence, and furnish a striking confirmation of the law of intellectual and moral descent; for in his early years his father Joseph Ware, the farmer of Sherburne, had a taste for literature and particularly for scientific culture. He had partially fitted himself for college, but for lack of means was compelled to forego his ambition for the career of a scholar. He never however lost his interest in mathematics, astronomy and philosophical studies, which he pursued from a genuine enthusiasm during such leisure as a working-man's life afforded. His mainly self-acquired edu. cation and his well-known probity gave him just consideration among his neighbors, and fitted him well for the many municipal offices he was called to fill. Sometimes he was employed as a teacher of the public schools, and in that employment he acquired a wide reputation for the thoroughness of his discipline and the excellence of his methods.

In the religious controversy that agitated New England in his day, and broke the unity of its faith, he took the liberal and more rationalistic side, cherishing, somewhat in advance, the reformatory and innovating ideas begotten of a more modern spirit.

Fathers are very apt to pass to their children their own unfulfilled ambitions; and Joseph Ware, though a poor farmer, was willing to make sacrifices to give his son the educational advantages that he had desired himself. He not only did this but he aided his own brother John in paying the collegiate expenses of their younger brother, Henry, and so in giving to the country that brilliant line of teachers, preachers, scholars and writers of which he was the ancestor.

It did not greatly grieve Joseph Ware to find that his third child showed little skill and less interest in the manual labor of the farm, and devoted to a greedy and appreciative reading of every book that came within his reach the nights and days that farmers' sons are usually called upon to give to the care of crops and