Ohio History Journal

FOREWORD

In 1921, when my mother was living in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, I suggested that she write out her recol-

lections of early life in the Middle West.

She demurred, "But I have never written anything

in my life, except letters. . . ."

"Then write letters," I said.

She consented, and in her impulsive way sat down

that very evening to see what she could do. To her sur-

prise and delight, memories flowed from her pen as fast

as she could make it go.

Night after night she wrote, and page after page

was quickly filled with her graceful, eager handwriting.

At the end of a week she gave me the manuscript,

saying, "Here are the fragments you asked for. Do

what you like with them."

I found my mother's literary style bore the strong

imprint of her personality--artless, vivid and direct.

For that alone her children treasure these "fragments."

But other readers have urged their publication, as foot-

notes to the social history of Southern Ohio. To round

out the picture, I have added a few extracts from a jour-

nal kept by my mother during her early married life,

and a few from some later letters.

Undoubtedly the life of Anna McGuffey was typical

of that of many other women of her period. Inheriting

the rushing energy and conquering faith of their pioneer

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Foreword                 247

fathers, they found their activities narrowed and limited

to the conventional domestic pattern of their day.

My mother sensed the dawn of a wider life for

women. But of her own life, retired and often bur-

dened with petty cares, she somehow made a brave and

gay adventure; and always her spirit seemed reaching

out beyond the daily round.

To those about her, to whom she gave of herself

unsparingly, her best gift was an impression of buoyant

living, fresh, upspringing, dauntless.

ALICE MCGUFFEY MORRILL RUGGLES.

Boston, 1933.

A DAUGHTER OF THE McGUFFEYS

I

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

1921

MY DEAR DAUGHTER:

At your earnest request I am writing down these

fragments of my early life, and I will begin by telling

you what you already know--that I was born in Cincin-

nati, Ohio, January 10, 1845, and my father was Alex-

ander Hamilton McGuffey, of "McGuffey Reader"

fame, and my mother, Elizabeth Mansfield Drake,

daughter of Daniel Drake, M. D., who is sometimes

called "The Father of Medicine in the Mississippi Val-

ley."

Who wrote, or rather, who compiled the McGuffey

Readers? ("Who killed Cock Robin?") There has

arisen lately in our family a discussion as to the true

answer to this question, and I would like you to know

the facts as I learned them from my father. He said he

was a young man of twenty-one, when his brother, Wil-

liam Holmes McGuffey, who was sixteen years his

senior, and a professor in the Cincinnati College, re-

ceived an offer from the publishers, Truman and Smith

to prepare a set of school-books, for which the firm of-

fered to pay the sum of one thousand dollars.

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250     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

As Father was so young and not a busy man, as yet

(he had just been admitted to the bar), your great-uncle

William gave to him the burden of preparation. But

Alexander did the work under the supervision of his

brother, and he never claimed the individual credit for

any of the first series, save the spelling-book.

The Speller and the first four Readers came out

about 1837. Two years later (1839, the year my father

and mother were married), the publisher wanted to add

a more advanced reader, and as William McGuffey had

left Cincinnati, they asked your grandfather to prepare

it. This was McGuffey's Rhetorical Guide, which was

afterwards expanded into the Fifth and Sixth Readers.

So there is glory enough (if glory it be), for both

branches of the family. To William belongs the initia-

tive, and the first four Readers; to Alexander, the

Speller and the important Fifth and Sixth Readers.

I am astonished at the continued and growing inter-

est in these old schoolbooks, and I am sure my father

and Uncle William would be even more amazed. They

must have builded better than they knew. My father

always thought the original success of the series was

owing more to the business acumen and push of Win-

throp B. Smith, the publisher, than to the inherent merits

of the books themselves. But posterity will not agree to

this.

Mr. Smith and my father were close friends and

dear, remaining so until Mr. Smith's death. Of course

there was a great deal of money made out of the

Readers, and in Uncle William's old age, the publishers

granted him a very tiny pension. Father received five

hundred dollars for the Rhetorical Guide.

252      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

He always spoke of his part in the Readers as a bit

of youthful hack work, and in the later editions asked

to have his name removed from the title-page. Of course

his interests were not primarily educational, as were

Uncle William's. Uncle William's aim was to have the

Readers instill moral lessons as well as correct English,

and two of his favorite themes were the value of tem-

perance and the wasteful wickedness of war.

Father became a busy and very successful lawyer

and man of affairs. But he was a born pedagogue just

the same, and his fondness for instructing has been in-

herited by several of his children and grandchildren, as

you know. Your own father, with his dry Yankee

humor, used to say we McGuffeys wanted to straighten

out all the crooked sticks in the world.

I can never cease to be grateful to my father for

instilling into his children a love of reading and a

pleasure in words, their exact meaning and proper pro-

nunciation. He constantly corrected our enunciation and

intonations, and would no more tolerate a slovenly

speech than a slouchy posture.  He often inveighed

against the influence of the newspapers, and the careless

English of the reporters, which he felt was demoralizing

our mother tongue. What would he say nowadays,

when the power of the press and the cheap magazines

have increased a hundredfold? Though I do think the

general standard of popular writing has been greatly

raised.

The slipshod speech of the average Middle Wes-

terner of eighty years ago must have afflicted my father

and Uncle William grievously, and they labored with a

A Daughter of the McGuffeys        253

missionary zeal to amend it. If you will turn to an

early edition of the Readers, you will find affixed to the

lessons curious little corrective exercises like this:

"UTTER EACH WORD DISTINCTLY. DO NOT

SAY OLE FOR OLD, HEERD FOR HEARD, TUR-

RIBLE FOR TERRIBLE, NARRER FOR NAR-

ROW, CANIDY FOR CANADA, MUSKIT FOR

MUSKET, CUS FOR CURSE, AT FOR HAT,

BUSTS FOR BURSTS . . . ."

I must say my father spoke the purest English I

have ever heard. He did not "burr" his R's, as Western-

ers often do, neither did he slur them, after the manner

of the New Englanders and the Southerners.  The

choice and pronunciation of words was an art to him,

but he practiced it quite unaffectedly.

I suppose one reason for the recent revival of in-

terest in the McGuffey Readers, is the current vogue for

American "antiques." But comparing them with other

readers of those early days, the "McGuffeys" really are

superior. Ruling out certain namby-pamby pieces of a

sentimental or "preachy" type (characteristic of that

period), there remains so much of the Bible, Shake-

speare and the classic English prose writers and poets,

that I believe you might safely teach your little Eleanor

out of Great-grandfather's Fifth and Sixth Readers,

even in Boston, in the year 1921.

Certainly the selections show a wide range of read-

ing and a cultivated taste for a youth of twenty-three,

brought up in rural Ohio by parents who were unedu-

cated pioneers. It always thrills me to remember that

while my parents lived in the midst of comfort and cul-

254     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ture, their parents were self-made men and women, who

as my Grandfather Drake expressed it, "in one genera-

tion changed the caste of the family."

Perhaps it is because I come so lately from pioneer

stock, that I feel so much sympathy and interest for

those whom Mr. Lincoln called "the plain people." I

enjoy talking with them, and their lives, no matter how

humble and obscure, seem to me teeming with interest.

They have always seemed to come to me freely with

their problems, and to let me share in their joys and

sorrows.

I wish that my children and grandchildren might

always keep something of the pioneer spirit, that never

fears to press on and up. Remember the motto that your

father and I chose at the beginning of our fifty years

together--"ANIMO ET FIDE," "WITH COURAGE

AND FAITH."

II

My parents told me little about their childhood. My

father was born in Trumbull County, Ohio, and brought

up there till his brother took him to Miami. Of the

McGuffeys back in Scotland, I know nothing. My

father was quite indifferent to genealogy. He said his

forbears seemed to have been decent, honest and God-

fearing people, and that was all he cared to know.

In this country we began with William and Anna

(McKittrick) McGuffey, who came over from Scotland

in 1774, and landed at Philadelphia. I never heard of a

McGuffey figuring in Scottish history, so I fancy we

were humble folk over there. Certainly the name is the

homeliest one imaginable. But at least it is uncommon

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      255

in this country, and I much prefer it to Smith, Jones,

Brown or Robinson.

Our first American ancestors made a home in York

County, south-east Pennsylvania, and tradition has it

that General Washington often stopped there during the

Revolution. These were my great-grandparents. From

York they migrated to south-western Pennsylvania,

Washington County--a rich valley land.

They had a son, Alexander McGuffey, who was a

famous Indian scout. Scouting was very dangerous

and exciting work, and I've no doubt young Alexander

loved it. He was only twenty-two when he volunteered

for this service, and he and his friend, Duncan Mc-

Arthur, afterwards Governor of Ohio, were selected

from among other candidates as the fastest runners,

best marksmen and the most unafraid of Indians.

You know the western frontier of Pennsylvania and

Virginia was overrun with Indians from the Ohio coun-

try at that time, and small parties of scouts were em-

ployed to hide in the woods and swamps to spy on the

savages and report back to the officers of the regular

troops.

The early settlers (except William Penn) saw noth-

ing inconsistent with their religion in the killing of

Indians, in fact they considered it a virtue to kill them

whenever and wherever they could. Their wives and

children lived in constant dread of these savages. Of

course the Scotch-Irish were fighters by nature, and by

centuries of experience in their old countries.

Alexander McGuffey was in several fights with the

Indians, and when General St. Clair made his unlucky

march from Cincinnati in ¹⁷⁹²--(you've read about

256      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

that in your American history)--it was your great-

grandfather's party of scouts who went ahead to recon-

noitre. They traveled only at night, and hid during the

day. One night they travelled forty miles. They were

able to get back in time to make their report to General

St. Clair, but three days later he was defeated, for the

number of Indians who had collected against him was

overwhelming.

The next year Alexander and two of his young

friends were sent out by General Wayne to spy on the

Indians. One evening in the gloaming, as they were

stealing along a trail, Alexander, who was leading, saw

in the path the bright-colored head-dress of an Indian.

Had he stooped to pick it up, he would have been in-

stantly shot from ambush. Then there would not have

been any you or I! Luckily he realized the trick and

that the head-dress had been placed there by Indians

who were watching from the bushes, ready to shoot the

first white man who tried to pick it up. Without stop-

ping in his march, he gave the head-dress a kick and

shouted, "Indians!" Several shots flew after him from

the bushes and one of them smashed his powder-horn

and passed through his clothing; but he and his com-

panions all got away and the Indians did not follow

them. I wish that shattered horn had been preserved

for your children to see. But probably the incident did

not seem remarkable to our ancestors--so full of perils

and hairbreadth escapes, their lives were.

Alexander remained in the scout service three years.

The wars with the Indians ended in that region in 1794,

and then Alexander, I think they called him "Sandy"

(fancy my stately father being nicknamed Sandy--

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       257

never, never--though his father-in-law did refer to him

as "Alick"), Sandy married and became a settler. This

does not mean that he settled down to a quiet life and

fixed abode. When his first child (William Holmes,

who was to compile the "Readers"), was two years old,

the parents set out with him for the Ohio frontier.

They belonged to that reckless, eager type of fron-

tier settlers, (as did my maternal ancestors, the

Drakes) who were always pushing further and further

west, in the hope of bettering their condition. The Mc-

Guffeys built a log cabin and brought many more chil-

dren into the world. The boys helped the father clear

the land, and plough and plant, and build roads and

fences and bridges. The girls helped the mother; you

can imagine how endless their tasks were.

The mother's name before she married was Holmes,

Anna Holmes, so the name Anna was on both sides of

the family. I always understood I was named for my

father's mother, but I like to think that I bear the name

--(though I don't think it a pretty one)--of two pio-

neer mothers, Anna McKittrick, who came over from

Scotland with her young husband and a little son six

years old--(afterwards Sandy the Scout)--and Anna

Holmes, who migrated with her young husband and a

little son of two--(who grew up to write the Readers)

-- to the rude Ohio country. My own life-work has

been to bring up a family and help my husband through

cares and struggles, that often seemed to me overwhelm-

ing. I am thankful that I had the strength to sur-

mount them, as my grandmother and great-grandmother

had surmounted their far greater difficulties before me.

My people seem to have been the kind who did not

Vol. XLII--17

258     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

count hardships, if they could better their condition

and win an education for their children. In the early

nineteenth century there was no chance for a child to be

educated in Trumbull County, Ohio, and Alexander and

Anna were too poor to send their children away. But

William, the eldest, had a fine mind, and his mother was

determined he should have a chance.

You already know the story of how she was praying

loud and fervently in the garden one day, when Thomas

Hughes, who had started a school for the higher edu-

cation of young men in Pennsylvania, was riding by on

horseback, and overheard her asking the Lord to open

some way for the education of her son. Of course,

(like one of the moral tales in the McGuffey Readers),

he was so struck with her plea that he dismounted, made

her acquaintance and invited her son William to enter

his "Old Stone Academy." The tuition at this school

was three dollars a year, and the board was seventy-five

cents a week. But I never heard how even that pit-

tance was procured. William used to attend school for

a while and then come back to work on the farm. So

he was twenty-six before he graduated from college, but

he took highest honors. He was ordained as a Pres-

byterian minister, but became a professor of mental

philosophy--whatever that was--I suppose the equiva-

lent of what the colleges now offer in two subjects,

philosophy and psychology. Uncle William was first

at Miami University, later at Cincinnati College and

Ohio University. Finally he was called to the Univers-

ity of Virginia, where he remained for twenty-eight

years. At Miami and in Virginia his memory is still

cherished and his work honored.

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       259

My uncle William was born in 1800, and lived till

1873, when I was twenty-eight years old. But I did

not see much of him after I was grown. He became

quite Southern in his sympathies after living through

the Civil War in Charlottesville, Virginia, and of course

my parents were ardent Unionists.   Not Abolition-

ists, however. You must remember that Abolitionists

were regarded by polite society much as Bolshevists are

now.

My maternal grandfather, Daniel Drake, had writ-

ten a series of articles for the newspapers, showing the

folly of Abolition as illegal and revolutionary. He was

in favor of the limitation of slavery, and gradual eman-

cipation by purchase. These articles of Grandfather's

were afterwards published in book form. I used to have

a copy, but it has disappeared. You children would

have found his attitude curious in the light of later his-

tory.

But Grandfather Drake abhorred slavery, as did his

father and mother before him. You may read in his

Pioneer Life, his description of the hideous cruelty to

slaves he had seen in his childhood in the backwoods of

Kentucky. At the date he was writing, (1847), their

lot had been vastly ameliorated.  Public sentiment

would no longer tolerate, at least in the cities, such

brutality as he had witnessed in the backwoods at the

end of the eighteenth century:

One of my great-grandfather's cabins was rented

to a man named Hickman, who although very poor,

owned two slaves, one a negro man in middle life, the

other a woman at least twice the age of her master. He

used to abuse them both most horribly. Although the

woman had been his nurse in infancy, he would tie her

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      261

up, strip her back naked, and whip her with a cowhide

till the blood flowed to her feet, and her screams reached

the ears of my grandfather's family at a distance of

more than three hundred yards. Great-grandfather's

blood used to boil but he had no redress except angry

remonstrance and the whole neighborhood were de-

lighted when Hickman moved away. All the masters

were not as cruel as this man, but the treatment gener-

ally of the negroes at that time was severe, "barbarous,"

Grandfather calls it as compared with that in 1847,

when he wrote. No wonder such iniquities had to be

wiped out in blood.

Of all the Jersey immigrants in Kentucky (my moth-

er's people came from New Jersey), my great-grand-

father was the only one who did not become a slave-

holder. And my grandfather Daniel Drake purchased

only two negro children, a brother and sister, Carlos

and Hannah, eleven and nine years of age, in order to

emancipate them. He brought them to Cincinnati in

1818 and had them bound over to the overseers of the

poor, till they should come of age. Hannah was then

taken into his household as the nurse of my mother,

Elizabeth Drake (McGuffey), and her sister, my Aunt

"Echo."

To go back to Uncle William McGuffey, I do not

think that his Southern sympathies led to any estrange-

ment in the family, but I do know that my father told

him when he came north directly after the Civil War,

that he must be very careful what he said. Feeling ran

very high during that Reconstruction Period. Uncle

William was sent by the publishers of the Readers to

make a tour all through the South and report on condi-

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       263

tions. When he returned he had a shocking story to

tell of the "Carpet Baggers," but no Northern paper

would print it.

Uncle William was, in build, shorter and more com-

pact than my father. He had sandy hair and large, ir-

regular features. He showed all his large teeth in his

warm smile. He had the same, keen, kind, twinkling

eyes that my father had, but in repose both the brothers'

faces wore an expression so serious that you children

would have found it stern. I think Uncle William, in

his genial moods, looked a little like Hans Christian An-

dersen. He was like him, too, in his love of children

and in his simplicity and unpretentiousness. He had

not at all the "grand manner" of my father; was more

approachable; in other words, more democratic. Wil-

liam was noted for his love of argument, whereas Alex-

ander never argued, and hated to be questioned or con-

tradicted.

My father laid down the law, and that was the end

of it. Once when he had given his opinion on some

point in pronunciation, one of his children ventured to

tell him that the dictionary held otherwise. "Then the

dictionary is wrong!" he flared back, and no one ar-

gued it any further. But we saw the humor of it, and

among ourselves, when any of us was loth to yield a

point, some one else would cry, "Of course the dictionary

is wrong!"

Uncle William's theories on education were radical

for those days. (It amuses me now to hear many of his

ideas put forth by progressive educators as new.) He

detested teaching by rote. When he was asked to pre-

pare the Readers, he gathered a group of children into

264     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

his house at Miami University, and worked out the read-

ing lessons, by careful, personal experiment. In his

college class room, after questioning the pupils, he would

turn the class over to them and let them quiz him. This

may not seem very radical to you today, but seventy

years ago, it was an original system for an American

teacher to adopt. Uncle William wanted the students

to learn to think for themselves, and nothing provoked

him so much as to have his own words, or those of the

text-book repeated back to him. From what my grand-

children tell me, I believe that even now there is too much

of that rote teaching and learning.

Uncle William was more than once in straits for

money, through no fault of his own, but owing to the

financial difficulties of the struggling colleges with which

he was connected. I know that my father, who was

prospering at the law, was glad to help his elder brother,

to whom he owed so much.

The two were always devoted and congenial, in spite

of the great difference in age--sixteen years. When

Uncle William was in Cincinnati, the brothers had long

walks and talks together. In those days, people still

walked for health and pleasure, and our southern Ohio

country is so varied and beautiful for rambles.

When my father's turn had come to be educated,

William had been able and willing to help him. So little

Alexander had an easy road compared to his eldest

brother. When he was only ten, he was placed in his

brother's charge at Miami (Oxford, Ohio), and he

learned Hebrew grammar before he did English. Uncle

William tried out all his theories on his small brother

and let him advance as fast as he could and would. The

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       265

result was that Alexander, who was a brilliant student,

was graduated from college at sixteen.

Of course the college courses of those days did not

compare with the modern standards. But Alexander

was considered a highly educated lad for his age, and

soon after graduation, he was appointed professor of

belles lettres, at Woodward College, Cincinnati (later

Woodward High School). He loved literature, but de-

cided to become a lawyer, reserving the classics for his

leisure hours.

He studied law while he was teaching, and was ad-

mitted to the bar when he was twenty-one. He prac-

ticed law for over fifty years, chiefly as a counsellor. He

was too nervous to stand the strain of court work. My

father's personality was a great asset in his profession.

His courtly, commanding manner inspired confidence in

his clients. Even if his business judgment was not al-

ways good, they thought it was.

As a young man my father must have been a dis-

tinguished figure anywhere, though not strictly hand-

some. He was tall and straight, had large features, blue

eyes and abundant brown hair and beard. His eyes re-

mained keen, and his teeth perfect until he died, at

eighty. His expression was somewhat austere, until he

smiled. Then he was delightful; his face lighted up, and

he became genial and humorous and winning.

His nature was proud, sensitive and independent. I

should say the most characteristic trait of our family

is independence, and next to that, extreme sensibility.

Apparently we get a strain of sensibility from both the

McGuffeys and the Durakes, and what a handicap it is!

My father, although the picture of health, suffered from

266      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

a weak back all his life. He always had a sofa in his

private office, where he could rest at intervals.  Un-

doubtedly his was a case of nerves, before nerves were

understood.

He read Latin and Greek and Hebrew all his life

for pleasure, and by the standards of the Middle West

in those days, was a scholar. He was interested in art,

especially painting and pottery, in a day when such

things were regarded as frivolous interests for a man of

his type, and he was a patron of the Cincinnati Art Mu-

seum and the Rookwood Pottery at their beginnings.

It must have been the aesthetic side of the Episcopal

Church that influenced him to leave the Presbyterian

Church in which he had been brought up. Of course

he was influenced too, by his wife, whose father, Daniel

Drake, had helped to start the first Episcopal Church

in Cincinnati, my beloved Christ Church. But the ritual

appealed to my father for its dignity and formality,

though he had no use for High Church practices. In

art and architecture his tastes were unerringly simple

and sincere, and throughout the worst period of Amer-

ican taste, he remained untouched by the current fash-

ions for the ornate and elaborate.  In fact he de-

nounced them as "hideous."

Whether he trained my taste, or whether it was in-

nate in both of us, and part of our Scotch love for the

plain and practical, I do not know, but I shared my

father's dislike for "gingerbread" architecture and

fussy Victorian furniture and furnishings. During the

'seventies and 'eighties, when my friends crammed their

houses with bric-a-brac on "what-nots," and gilded rol-

ling-pins and cattails, mine was sparsely furnished with

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       267

the few simple pieces of old furniture I had inherited,

or had been able to buy in second-hand shops. You

can't imagine how queer I was considered because I

didn't have plush covers with tassels on my parlor tables,

but left them bare! When I purchased that old French

mahogany set now in my guest-room, from a second-

hand dealer on Vine Street Hill, your father, who was

more conventional in taste, said, "Anna, people will

think that is some old junk that has come out of the

family attic!" You see it was the thing to have new

walnut bedroom sets with marble tops and bunches of

carved fruit and flowers gummed on. I had such a

set your father had bought me when we went to house-

keeping, but although it was expensive and fashionable

enough to delight the heart of an 1867 bride, I never

admired it.

Some years later your father's cousin, Julia Morrill,

wrote from Vermont, asking if we would care to have

the old grandfather's clock that had stood in the kitchen

of the farm where she and your father were brought up.

Your father remembered it as a plain old pine clock, and

thought it would be most unsuitable in our modern

house. But I persuaded him to have it sent out to Cin-

cinnati. When it arrived and was set in the hall and

wound up, and proceeded to strike the hour, your father

was so happy; the clear silvery sound brought back in a

rush all his boyhood life on his grandmother's farm. He

could scarcely sleep that night for listening to the old

clock's voice, and many a night in the years to follow,

the loud, friendly ticking and silvery striking cheered

him through sad and sleepless hours. Those old clocks

have much individuality, and sounds, like odors, have

268      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

a remarkable power of rousing old memories. I must

admit that in those days, Grandfather Morrill's clock

was cherished more for its associations than for its looks.

Even I had not acquired a taste for crude pine, and I

purchased a bamboo panel at the Japanese store, cut it

in two and draped it over the shabby top of the grand-

father clock's head, which could be seen as one came

down the stairs.

I am losing the thread of my story, but one thing

leads to another, and I must tell you these little incidents

as they occur to me. My story will be made up of little

things, as any woman's story must, who has lived a

purely domestic life. The only big things in my life

were inside me, my feelings. But I think you and your

children will enjoy these simple little things I tell, by

and by, when they have become a part of "long ago."

You children remember your grandfather, Alexander

McGuffey, as a stately old gentleman with a snowy

beard, and as being very active and sprightly. He would

run up the stairs to his office, just to show the younger

men he could do it, and he hated to be helped on with his

overcoat. He used to correct your p's and q's, but de-

lighted your hearts by pressing gold pieces into your

palms, on the sly, whispering, "There, run along, and

don't tell anybody about it." He never wanted to be

thanked for his favors, which he dispensed with a free

and generous hand.

He had none of the proverbial Scotch thriftiness;

indeed he detested economies.  I was brought up to

think it ill-bred to speak of the price of things. I recall

once when I went with Father to buy a traveling-bag,

the clerk volunteered to mention the price of one we

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       269

were examining. My father said in his grand manner,

witheringly, "Young man, I have not asked you the price.

The quality is all that interests me."

His tastes were fastidious and lavish, and I think

at heart his children shared them, though some of us

have had to practice economy, whether or no. George

Eliot says, somewhere, that there is a pleasure in small

economies, if practiced as a fine art. You children can

testify that your father and I practiced that art for many

years, but there was nothing in my early training to

help me. I believe I love to spend money as freely as

my father did, but I had lived to see the folly of it.

But although I have had to count the cost of living

so carefully, I cannot bear the modern fashion of es-

timating everything in terms of money. You remember

when you children were growing up, I would not allow

the cost of food to be mentioned at the table, I said it

took away one's appetite. But nowadays young people

consider their clothes, cars, gifts, even their own abili-

ties from the standpoint of what they are worth in

money.

Do you remember the quaint old offices in the Cin-

cinnati College (or Mercantile Library) Building, that

your father and grandfather occupied for so many

years? One entered an enormous, murky room, where the

younger partners and the clerks sat with their desks

carefully arranged in the order of their importance.

Your father's was next to the window, then came

the smaller fry, tapering away into insignificance and

almost total darkness. Your grandfather, the senior

partner, was not visible to the vulgar eye. In the far-

thest corner of the room was a glass door, marked

270     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ALEXANDER H. McGUFFEY . . . . PRIVATE

OFFICE. Those privileged to enter found, in contrast

to the big, bare, musty outer office, a bright, cosily fur-

nished room, where your grandfather worked or rested.

In one of the drawers of his desk, he kept a canvas bag

of bright pennies, into which his grandchildren and other

youngsters were invited to dip their hands and draw

out what they could. You were always timid, and

would take a modest two or three. But your little sister

Genevieve would plunge her hand in boldly and draw

out an overflowing fist, with pennies sticking between all

her tiny fingers. The first time she did it, her grand-

father looked nonplussed, for she had half emptied his

bag. I doubt whether any other child had shown such

enterprise, but he only smiled quizzically, instead of ut-

tering the reproof I had seen hovering on his lips.

III

Now about my mother and her people. She was

Elizabeth Mansfield Drake, daughter of Daniel and

Harriet Sisson Drake of New Haven, Connecticut. My

father married her soon after he was admitted to the

bar. Her father was one of the most distinguished men

in the Ohio Valley, and the connection must have helped

young Alexander professionally and socially. But more

fortunate for him was the fact that he had won a beau-

tiful and gentle wife. Because of her gentleness, her

pet name in the family was "Dove." You can see from

her portrait, by Thomas Buchanan Read, (it hangs be-

fore me as I write), how well she deserved the name.

The artist has caught her shining, brooding expression

to perfection. Buchanan Read, who was a poet as well

272      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

During those years that Sandy and Anna Holmes

McGuffey were toiling to bring up their family in a log

cabin in Pennsylvania, and praying for the means to

educate them, another brave pair, (and there were hun-

dreds and hundreds of others all over the frontier),

Isaac and Elizabeth Shotwell Drake, were going through

just such struggles in a cabin in Kentucky. They had

emigrated in 1788 from the "Jersey" country, and their

first home in the West was an abandoned sheep-pen.

The Drakes came originally from Devonshire, as

every child knows from Charles Kingsley's Westward

Ho.¹ Tradition says that the first Drake got his name

from "Drago," a dragon, because of his fiery disposition,

traces of which are still cropping up in my family, just

as the love of argument crops up from the McGuffey

side. Our branch of Drakes in America settled first in

New Jersey, and from there my great-grandparents

"pioneered" to the "Dark and Bloody Ground" of Ken-

tucky.

My great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather

and my great-great-uncle had all been soldiers in the

Revolution. No doubt they were sick of war and the

hard post-war conditions. Their hearts turned to the

frontier, where they might find wider opportunities for

peace and plenty, for their children, if not for them-

selves.

You can read all about that journey in Daniel

Drake's Pioneer Life in Kentucky, written in 1847 and

published by the Ohio Valley Historical Society in 1870.

This book has become rare nowadays, but I daresay it

1 Tradition in the family made Sir Francis Drake an ancestor of the

New Jersey Drakes, but the descent has never been traced. Ed.

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       273

will be reprinted some time, for he gives a vivid, first-

hand picture, and his style is simple and readable, sur-

prisingly modern, in fact. Your children can get the

feeling of frontier life from Grandfather's book more

truly than from a dozen histories.

There were five families who made that journey of

four hundred miles across the Alleghanies together, in

the spring of 1788. Isaac Drake was the youngest, the

poorest and the most limited in learning. Both he and

his wife could read and write and that was all. The

Drake party consisted of Isaac and Elizabeth, Eliza-

beth's sister, Lydia Shotwell, little "Dannel," aged two

and a half and his baby sister Lizzy. These five were

crowded with all their worldly goods into one two-horse

Jersey wagon. (Lydia Shotwell preferred to brave the

wilderness rather than be left behind in the power of an

uncongenial stepmother. I'm glad to say her courage was

rewarded, for she soon found a husband in Kentucky

and had some happy years, though she died later in child-

birth, poor thing, before the doctor could be fetched from

Cincinnati.)

There were few taverns along the way, and the

travelers were too poor to stop there, so they slept in

the wagons and cooked their two meals on the roadside,

at morning and night. They were in constant danger

from Indians and when they embarked on the Ohio

River in a flotilla of flatboats, one of the crowded boats

upset, but no one was drowned. Small Daniel had come

nearest to grief one day in the wagon, when he clam-

bered over the front board and hung on the outside by

his hands. He was discovered and yanked in by his

Vol. XLII--18

274     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

harassed parents before he fell, perhaps to be crushed

under the wheels.

They landed on the tenth of June near what was

later Mayslick, Kentucky. My great-grandfather had

sprained his ankle and had to be carried out of the boat,

so "he could put but one foot on the land of promise. He

was not very heavy to carry for he had in his pockets

but one dollar and that was asked for a bushel of corn!"

He found work as a wagoner, carrying goods back

and forth to Lexington, dangerous work, and he had

more than one narrow escape from the Indians. Pres-

ently he bought land, thirty-eight acres. He probably

paid for it with his horse and wagon. The next task

was to build a house, and quite time, too, for winter was

approaching. It was a log-cabin, one story high, with-

out a window; with a door opening to the south, a

wooden chimney and a roof on one side only. Neither

chimney nor roof was finished before the winter caught

the builder and stopped the work.

The floor was made of "sleepers." Daniel's first rec-

ollection was of jumping happily from one pole to an-

other, and making a sort of whooping, guttural noise

for the amusement of his sister Lizzy. The reason for

his remembering the scene was that his father came in,

and ordered him sharply to "stop that noise!" For all

their fortitude, the nerves of the pioneers must have

been often on edge with all they had to endure.

One warm day during that first summer, while they

were still living in the sheep-pen, my great-grandmother

Elizabeth made a call at a neighboring cabin, where a

woman was churning. Elizabeth was tired of a diet

of bread and meat, and fixed her heart on a drink of

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      275

buttermilk, but said nothing. When the butter was

ladled out and the churn set aside, with the delicious

beverage, for which she was too proud to ask (and

which the other perhaps did not think of giving), she

hastily left the house, went home and cried bitterly.

How I sympathize with her! She had gone through

hardships almost intolerable without complaint, but

missing that drink of buttermilk was the last straw! But

how foolish she was not to ask for it.

In the following spring, the log-cabin was finished,

with a clapboard roof above, a puncheon floor below

and one small square window without glass. On the

log wall over the fireplace hung Isaac's rifle, and under

his bed at night he kept his axe and scythe, ready to

hand in case of attack from the Indians. In the morning

small Daniel's first duty was to ascend the ladder to the

loft, and look through the cracks for Indians who might

have planted themselves near the door, ready to rush

in when the strong cross bar should be removed.

Although the children in that region were told when

put to bed "to lie still and go to sleep, or the Shawnees

will catch you!" Daniel's own home was never attacked.

But at Aunt Lydia's wedding, there was an attack re-

ported up the road and all the men guests, who had come

armed, mounted their horses and galloped off in a style

so picturesque that the little boy never forgot the pic-

ture.

At first Daniel's tasks were in the cabin, helping

his mother. She had, beside the cooking and cleaning,

brooms to make, also soap, butter, cheese and sausages.

Daniel helped her with all these and with her spinning,

carding, weaving and dyeing. As he grew older, he

276      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

went out into the woods and fields with his father,

cleared and ploughed the land, washed and sheared the

sheep, killed and cured the hogs, hunted and fished.

Through all Grandfather's account runs an intense love

of this frontier life. He never tires of describing the

trees and flowers and animals, and the beauties of the

changing seasons. He never dwells on the hardships,

only the delights of that outdoor life, and the only re-

gret he expresses is that he was given so little "book

learning." Aside from that, he says no child could have

had a richer, happier life than his.

Now Dan Drake's parents, like that other pair of

poor, backwoods settlers, Sandy and Anna McGuffey,

were determined that at least one of their children should

have an education. Little Daniel, the eldest, was des-

tined, from the time he was five, to be a doctor. He had

been promised as a student to a certain Dr. Goforth,

who had been one of the party to cross the Alleghanies

with the Drakes. He had attended them in the fevers

and accidents that fell to their lot during the first years

in Kentucky, and now he had settled in Fort Washing-

ton (Cincinnati).

To study medicine was an unheard-of ambition in

the backwoods of that day. But to strike out new paths,

to begin things, was a passion with Grandfather all his

life. The idea of being the first student of medicine in

the Middle West attracted the lad by its novelty and

difficulty. To "pioneer" in the study of the diseases

peculiar to that new country became his dream, which

he lived to realize in his monumental work, Diseases of

the Mississippi Valley.

Daniel's family worked and saved, and when the boy

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       277

was fifteen, (in 1800, the year William Holmes Mc-

Guffey was born), they were able to send him to Fort

Washington "to be made into a doctor and a gentleman."

Fort Washington (Cincinnati, or Cin., as it was some-

times called then), was a village of four hundred souls.

To the lad from the backwoods, it seemed the centre of

learning and elegance. His mother had fitted him out

grandly, with hand-knitted socks, coarse India muslin

shirts (instead of the tow linen ones he wore at home),

a couple of cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, and as the

crowning glory, a boughten white "roram" hat, which

to his great grief, was stolen less than a month after he

reached Cincinnati.

In those days the doctor was apothecary, too. Young

Drake slept under Dr. Goforth's counter, swept out the

office, put up and distributed the medicines. For the

patients' sake, let us hope the prescriptions were simple.

Between times, the apprentice taught himself enough

Latin to be able to understand the medical text-books.

He had had no education beyond the three R's of the dis-

trict school, and the reading of stray books his good

father had picked up for him by hook or by crook.

Among these Grandfather remembered Pilgrim's

Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, Franklin's

Life, Dickinson's Farmer's Letters, and the Letters of

Lord Chesterfield. Not a bad collection, but it is touch-

ing and amusing to me, to think of Daniel's parents, poor

and ignorant and aspiring, counselling their son to

model his manners on the maxims of Chesterfield, as

Grandfather said they did. Truly American.

After three and a half years of study, Dan was taken

into partnership by Dr. Goforth, and wrote to his father

278      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

that business was increasing rapidly, and they charged

from three to six dollars a day, though he doubted

whether one-fourth of it could ever be collected!

The next year the lad decided to go to Philadelphia

to study at the University of Pennsylvania under the

famous Dr. Benjamin Rush. How he managed it finan-

cially, I cannot imagine, but he had saved something

and his father helped him a little. He wrote home, "I

only sleep six hours in the twenty-four, and when awake

try never to lose a single minute. I had not money

enough to take a ticket at the Hospital Library, and

therefore had to borrow books." He saved on food to

buy candles for study at night, as many another poor,

ambitious youth of that period had to do.

In 1806 he returned to Cincinnati, and having settled

down to practice medicine, he promptly married. He

was twenty-two, and the bride, Harriet Sisson, twenty,

and as poor as himself. To marry and to marry young,

has been the custom of all my people. This may not be

always wise from a worldly standpoint, but the fact

remains that our homes, our mates and our children are

the things we care about most.

Dan Drake and Harriet began the world, as Grand-

father puts it, "in love and hope and poverty." Harriet

was an orphan who had spent her girlhood as a de-

pendant in an uncle's family.²  She was intellectual

rather than domestic. Her favorite authors were Dr.

2 This uncle was Colonel Jared Mansfield, professor of mathematics

at West Point, sent by Thomas Jefferson to survey the Northwest Terri-

tory. Ed.

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      279

Johnson, Bacon, Milton, Homer and Ovid! "To Virgil

she was not partial in any palpable degree." (!)

She and her husband were inseparable. Grand-

father travelled all over the West and South for con-

sultations and for research, and his wife always went

with him. When she died at the age of thirty-eight,

they had travelled more than five thousand miles by land

and sea, and often under the roughest conditions. I

have sometimes wondered if the hardships of those jour-

neys were not responsible for my grandmother's com-

paratively early death. At any rate that was better than

to be worn out by incessant child-bearing, as my own

mother and so many thousands of women were in those

days.

Daniel and Harriet had only three children, and while

my grandmother was a good mother, it is evident that

she put the claims of her brilliant and temperamental

husband first. He himself wrote after her death, "After

her husband, all her solicitude, her ambition and her

vanity were for her children. She loved them as can-

didates for excellence, hence her affections were chas-

tened with severity."

My mother, Elizabeth Drake, though only a tiny girl,

was away at boarding-school when her mother died. (I

have seen the letter she wrote home to her father at the

time. It begins, "I greatly regret to learn of the death

of my dear mother." I have always wondered whether

those formal words covered deep feeling, or whether my

grandmother was not a warm-hearted woman, and so

the little daughter away at school had only "deep regret"

and not an aching heart.)

When Daniel Drake was not travelling, his wife

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       281

went with him on his professional rounds, by day and

night, in all weathers. When asked where she lived,

she would answer, "In the gig." She often carried a

book, and read while her husband was in the sick-room.

When he rejoined her, they would go on to the next call,

admiring the scenery on their way, the sunsets and the

stars, or discussing business, family affairs, philosophy

and literature. It was indeed a marriage of true minds,

and if the children took second place, perhaps it was

none the worse for them.

After his wife's death, Daniel Drake worshipped her

memory as that of a saint. He never thought of re-

marrying, and always observed the anniversary of Har-

riet's death, alone in his study, fasting. Both of his par-

ents had had step-mothers and had been unhappy with

them. Perhaps this influenced him against re-marriage.

IV

At the time I first remember Grandfather Drake, he

must have been about sixty-five years old. He died at

the age of sixty-seven, when I was seven. He had been

for many years the most eminent medical man west of

the Alleghanies, and patients came from all parts of the

western country to consult him. It was to Dr. Drake

that the young Abraham Lincoln travelled for advice

when he was sick in body and soul after the death of

Ann Rutledge. But that I only learned a few years ago

in reading an article about Mr. Lincoln's early love-

affair. Grandfather died before Mr. Lincoln became

famous, but I wonder if he did not feel more than a pass-

ing professional interest in that homely, melancholy,

young patient who had come all the way from Illinois

282      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

for help. I hope he was able to help him. Grandfather

had great charm and magnetism and a genius for

diagnosis.

To get material for his great work, Diseases of the

Mississippi Valley,³ Grandfather travelled as far south

as New Orleans, and north to what is now Michigan,

Wisconsin and Minnesota. He went all over the Great

Lakes region to study diseases of the Indians. Travel

was slow and difficult. The work of collecting and ar-

ranging material could not be done by skilled secretaries,

as now, and there were no reference books to draw

from. Daniel Drake gathered his material first-hand,

and wrote his books in the moments he could snatch

from active medical practice. It seems a pity that the

material he so laboriously collected should be useless

now, but no science changes its conclusions as quickly

as medicine. Happily many of the diseases Grandfather

described have disappeared, and the custom of bleeding,

which he employed, in common with other doctors of the

day, was long ago given up.

Grandfather was working on this book when I re-

member him, and he loved to have us children run in and

out of his study while he wrote. Our homes adjoined and

the communicating door was never closed. Mother was

afraid we would disturb him, but Grandfather said he

could work better to the sound of our young voices. He

had learned concentration at an early age in the crowded,

noisy, one-room school which he attended in the wil-

derness.

Grandfather had the opposite of the "single track

3 The exact title of this book is A Systematic Treatise on the Principal

Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America. Ed.

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       283

mind." His was rather a net-work of tracks, with no

end of little side-tracks and shuntings. He was always

writing, lecturing, travelling, founding colleges and

"institutes" and societies, some of which flourished and

some didn't, for his dreams always ran beyond his

means. You can read all about his activities in that un-

satisfactory life of him by his wife's kinsman, Colonel

Edward Mansfield. But Daniel Drake's biography has

never been properly written, and I'm afraid never will

be now, for the people who knew him are dead and

gone. My Uncle Edward's Life is too eulogistic. Grand-

father's was a character rich in color, and one would

need a brush that dashed and splashed to paint him

truly.

An old resident of Cincinnati once told your father

that he recalled seeing Dr. Drake engage in a contro-

versy on the street, in which both contestants came to

blows and blood trickled down their faces. Whether

this be true I do not know. But I do know that my

grandfather was wilful and high-spirited, and was all

his life battling for some cause or other. He never al-

lowed opposition to divert him from the goal he set out

to reach, and while he was always calm and self-con-

tained at home (as I remember him), I can well believe

that if a hand was laid on him, he would have struck

back. I doubt if he believed literally in turning the

other cheek. And although well-bred people were more

formal in their manners in those days, they at times let

themselves "go" with a freedom that would not be per-

mitted now. I am speaking of men in their relations to

each other in politics and their professions. Manners

have certainly improved there.

284      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

My mother kept house for her father even after she

married, for he took all his meals with us, though he

lived and worked in his own house, adjoining. He was

very hospitable, and delighted to fill the houses with in-

formal guests. Distinguished visitors to Cincinnati al-

ways found their way to our doors, and Grandfather had

a habit of rising early and going forth to see whom he

could secure for breakfast guests. Delightful for him,

but sometimes trying for my mother who was his house-

keeper. When she would mildly remonstrate, he would

reply, "Daughter, all we want is coffee and a baked

apple." But it is not always convenient to supply un-

expected guests with even coffee and baked apples.

Audubon, the great naturalist, on his journeyings

through the West, stopped for some weeks at my grand-

father's house.  (This was before my mother's mar-

riage.) He was a marvellously interesting guest, and

he was so charmed with Dr. Drake's old parents, who

were then living with him, that he drew crayon portraits

of them both. These portraits of Isaac and Elizabeth

Shotwell Drake are now in possession of a remote branch

of the family, but excellent copies made by Benjamin

Drake, Daniel's brother, are hanging in my dining-

room. The frames of pine were carved by hand by

Benjamin. I am very fond of these portraits. Daniel

Drake said this crayon profile of his mother was made

by Audubon when she was sixty years old, and is correct

in its anatomy, but the expression is too sad.

Cincinnati in those early days had a very delightful

social atmosphere, and something of the flavor reached

down even to little me. More knowledge of it came to

me afterwards from my mother's tales. The city, as I

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       285

remember it, in 1849-'50, was a countrified small town,

with frame houses set behind shabby picket fences, much

like those seen in parts of old Cambridge, Massachu-

setts, where I am now living. Ashes and garbage were

thrown into the streets, and pigs, yes, droves of real,

live porkers roamed at will, rooting in the refuse. I

well remember the day my mother came in and an-

nounced to my father, in her emphatic manner, "Alex-

ander, we are forbidden to throw ashes or garbage into

the street. Now what shall we do ?"

My Grandfather Drake wrote a book called The

Picture of Cincinnati. I have a copy of this quaint

little work, and there you can read about the city in his

day. His brother Benjamin also wrote, Tales of the

Queen City, but that book I have never seen. In 1837,

when my Uncle William McGuffey came to Cincinnati,

it was the largest city in the West, except New Orleans,

and had the best schools of any city west of the Alle-

ghanies.

Mrs. Trollope published a very unflattering descrip-

tion of Cincinnati about that time, and I have heard my

parents say it was very ill-bred in her, when she had

been most hospitably entertained there. Much that she

said of our civilization was true, but she failed to see

that beneath the crudities lay an earnest love and aspira-

tion for the finer things of life.

My Grandfather's home was known as "Buckeye

Hall," and he used to dispense a mild punch from a

great bowl made of the smooth white wood of the Ohio

Buckeye. It was from small bowls of this same wood

that he and his brothers and sisters had eaten their mush

and milk in the log cabin of their childhood. The punch

286      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

must have been a temperance drink--at least my par-

ents were strictly "temperance."

More convenient for my mother than Grandfather's

impromptu breakfast-parties were the tea-parties at

which she and my father entertained their friends.

These were not the kind of teas we women have now-

adays. "Afternoon teas" were unknown, and I was

amused when I went recently to the play "Abraham

Lincoln," to see the English author, Mr. Drinkwater,

making Mrs. Lincoln serve afternoon tea in her Spring-

field home. Our teas resembled the English "high teas,"

or our present day informal supper-parties.

The guests were all seated at the dining-room table,

which could be enlarged at short notice for unexpected

arrivals. The food, though simple, was abundant and

it caused no flurry when, at a whisper from Mother, I

ran to Mary the waitress, or Anne the cook, to say that

two, three or a larger number of extra guests were to be

provided for. My mother had four maids, who did the

work of six or seven modern servants. I shall tell more

about them later. In my mother's cook-book (Miss Les-

lie's Guide to Cookery), which I still have, but cannot

use, I am struck by the extravagant quantities of eggs,

butter fruit and all ingredients that the old recipes call

for.

The old gentlemen of my Grandfather Drake's gen-

eration drank their tea from their saucers. No tea-cups

then had handles, and it was good manners to pour the

tea into the saucer and put the cup on tiny plates pro-

vided. In my father's time, such a custom was out-

lawed, but every once in a while an old gentleman named

Mr. Symmes would come to our table and pour out his

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       287

tea in the saucer. We young ones would smile as if to

say, "How grotesque!" Mother said to us once, "You

smile at Mr. Symmes because he carries papers in his

high hat and pours his tea into his saucer. Know well,

you youngsters, that when he was a young man, these

habits you smile at were permitted, and no one was

better-mannered for his time than Mr. Symmes." A

sharp reproof for our youthful arrogance!

Our first home was on Fourth Street, between Race

and Elm. This was when Grandfather was living. This

property has become the most crowded business section

of the city, and had my father held it, it would have

been a valuable heritage. Later we lived at Third and

Pike Street, in the "East End," which had become the

fashionable residential section.  I was married from

that house. Our summer home was "Oakwood," at

Morrow, on the Little Miami river, and our cousins the

Mansfields, had a place there, too, called, "Yamoyden."

What glorious times we had on that hot, dusty, Ohio

farm! I learned to swim in the muddy river, which we

thought a delicious stream, as we had never seen any

other.

V

And now, my dear daughter, I think it is time that

I began to tell you of my own first recollection for that

is what people always tell, when they write the story of

their life. My first memories are concerned with a very

sad time, when I was about three years old and the terri-

ble cholera broke out in this country, coming to Cincin-

nati by way of the Atlantic seaboard.

Nearly every family lost at least one member. In

my father's family the one taken was my little sister

288      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Etta. She was about a year and a half old and my

mother lifted me up to kiss her cold little face as she

lay in her coffin. That kiss and that baby face are the

first things I can remember.

There followed sorrowful days, when the citizens, in

their ignorance, blundered in frantic attempts to con-

trol the plague and to cure the sufferers. Great coal

fires were kept burning in the streets by day and by

night, to purify (?) the air. The mistaken treatment

of the sick and dying was pitiable. They cried for

water, water, and it was always refused. All the medi-

cal men, including my grandfather, Dr. Drake, were

agreed that no water should be given. My mother, in

after years, said that no physician should ever again

persuade her to refuse water to a sick child, as it was

against her reason and common sense.

And happily when later (I think it must have been

about 1866), we had a milder epidemic of cholera, the

doctors changed their views; and my younger brother

Edward who was thought to be dying of cholera, was

allowed all the water he craved, and was brought safely

to recovery by Dr. Dandridge, of Cincinnati.

My parents had nine children, but besides Etta, little

Daniel, the first-born, also died in infancy. We who

grew up were seven. And except for my darling sister

Alice, who died at the birth of her baby, Agatha, we

have all lived to advanced age, and have had wonderful

constitutions, like our father, troubled only by our over-

sensitive nerves.

Charley, the eldest (named Charles Drake, for my

mother's brother), was a dreamy, romantic lad, preco-

cious at books, with a heart of gold, and a mind full of

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       289

visions. He was quite unfitted to cope with this practical

world. I think it was you, my daughter, who called him

in later life a combination of Don Quixote and Colonel

Newcome. He studied law and settled in Chattanooga,

where his courtly manners and kind heart made him a

favorite with the Southerners, except for one thing. He

would insist on giving his seat in the street-car to a

colored woman as readily as to a white woman. In this

Brother Charley showed himself a true Drake-Mc-

Guffey, for we always carry out our convictions with

complete indifference to convention or opposition.

Next after Charley, came myself, Anna. I was un-

like my mother and my elder brother in being naturally

practical, and I cannot remember the time when I did not

help with the house and the children, and enjoy doing it.

Then there were Edward Mansfield and Fred, lively

mischievous boys; Alice, gentle and lovely (like our

mother); Helen Byrd; and last, but not least, dear little

William Holmes, your "Uncle Billy." I was thirteen

years old when Helen was born and fifteen when William

came. He has always been more like a son than a

brother, and no one could have been dearer to me as

either.

Helen grew up a perfectly beautiful creature. She

was named for my mother's friend, Helen Byrd, of the

famous Virginia family. Her future husband, Robert

Parkinson, fell in love with her when she was posing,

in a tableau vivant, as Hiram Powers' statue of "Gala-

tea." William, of course, got his name from Uncle

William of the Readers. My mother told me before

their birth of their coming, and as is usual in large fam-

ilies, we all were delighted at the prospect of a new

Vol. XLII--19

290      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

baby. In those days babies were passed freely from

hand to hand, and rocked and jounced in cradles and

laps.

My little brother was born in January into a cold

house, oh, so cold! No furnace, only open grate fires

in one or two rooms. I watched the nurse dress him.

First she put on a flannel band over his tiny abdomen,

then a very fine cambric shirt; over this went a long flan-

nel shirt, and then a fine muslin gown; the gown and

petticoat reached down to the floor as he lay on the

nurse's lap. All the undergarments, even the diaper,

were fastened by pins--not safety pins, they were un-

known--but long common pins! It was quite an art

to weave these pins in and out, leaving the points (sharp

and cruel), as far as possible from Baby's skin. Hence

you see why even nowadays mere man will suggest, when

a baby cries, "Perhaps a pin is pricking."

Did I say that the baby's dress was always short-

sleeved and low-necked, no matter what the season,

though as a great concession to the little one's age, a

woolen shawl was wrapped round him. But the neck

and arms were so blue, I can see them yet. The babies

nursed at the breast continually. When I lay in my

trundle-bed in the night I would be awakened by the

baby's wailing, and Mother would say, "Never mind, go

to sleep! Baby has only lost the nipple." Regularity in

feeding was quite unknown.  No wonder babies had

colic. And how the poor little things suffered in our hot

Cincinnati summers!

In the matter of clothing, it seems to me our dress

was scarcely more hygienic as we grew older. We girls

wore our frocks off our shoulders in all weathers, until

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       291

we reached our teens, and I never saw a knitted or

woven undergarment until I was a grown woman. There

were no overshoes or rubbers. I never even heard of

them until I was quite a big girl. My father said one

day, "Elizabeth, I have heard that one may buy a new

kind of shoe made of rubber. I think I will bring home

a pair for you to try. They are too expensive for the

children, and moreover, they may not be what is claimed

for them, waterproof."

When evening came, my father appeared with a

beautiful pair of over-shoes, made of pure elastic rub-

ber. There was no fabric in them, they were as soft and

frail as the surgeon's rubber gloves are nowadays. How

we children admired and wondered. Could Mother now

go out in the rain and come home with dry feet? Yes,

we were assured she could, and perhaps we children

would some day have rubber shoes, too, when people

had learned to make them stronger. The new shoes were

placed on the closet shelf, and all evening we continued

to discuss them.

But alas for my mother's dry-shod feet! Next

morning when she looked at her new shoes, the toe of

each had been neatly bitten off, and there were marks

of childish teeth, whose I do not to this day know. Soft,

gummy rubber is pleasant to chew, and we had no

chewing gum in those days! But I never knew which

one of my small brothers or sisters had succumbed to

temptation. And my wise mother lamented, but did not

ask who had done the damage. She never asked the

younger children leading questions, fearing it might

lead to falsehood or tale-bearing. She used to say Saint

Peter should never have asked that leading question of

292      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Ananias and Sapphira, which led to their death. Had

Peter remembered his own history, he would have been

more lenient.

I fancy that because I am a grandmother, and even

a great-grandmother (to Johnny Edward's little son,

Jean-Jacques) you may expect me to praise "the good

old days," and to claim that the ways of 1851 were bet-

ter than the ways of 1921. No indeed, I shall do no

such thing. In 1851 we had cold houses, insufficient

clothing, dirty streets, lack of inside toilet facilities, no

inspection of drinking water or of milk, very little

oversight of children's teeth; how could I claim that

children were as well cared for as they are today? We

little McGuffeys had the best that the intelligence of

the day could suggest, but there were many things that

might have been improved.

I remember one cold winter's day, when we were all

house-bound with colds and were being vigorously dosed

with ipecac. My Aunt Echo came into Mother's room

where we children were sitting with pasty faces and red

noses, trying to entertain ourselves with breathing and

rubbing on the frosty window-panes as so to see into the

street. She looked us over and then said sharply, "Sis-

ter, do you know why your children have so many

beastly colds and racking coughs? It is that vile trundle-

bed!" My mother looked mildly surprised. It was

heresy to arraign the trundle-bed.   Everyone had

trundle-beds for children, and what everyone does must

be right. But my aunt went on, "Rolled under your bed

all day, with no ventilation to dry out the bedding, then

at night it is brought out for the children, and they sleep

so near the cold floor, where draughts are sure to catch

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       293

them!" And so forth and so on! My aunt ran on at

length.  Mother disliked her sister's criticisms, but

whether the trundle-beds were banished as a result I

cannot remember. I do think as I look back now that

my Aunt was ahead of her time, and that trundle-beds

were horrid.

VI

The same four maids were in the family from my

babyhood till my mother's death. They were dearly be-

loved by us children, and I shall mention them here, be-

cause they were so much a part of our home life. They

were four Marys (like Mary Queen of Scots' four maids

of honor), but to prevent confusion we called them

Mary Anne, Mary, Maria and Anne. They all came

over from Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, and

many a thrilling tale they told us. Mary Anne is the

only one of whose history I will write.

She was an ardent Orangewoman. When she spoke

of her troubles, she would drop her voice and whisper,

as if she feared that even over here in America, "Thim

Catholics" would hurt her. We children loved Mary

Anne next to our mother. Patiently she sat for over

twenty years by my mother's front window, sewing,

always sewing--(she was the resident seamstress and

ladies' maid)--and incidentally sharing our childish joys

and sorrows. In those days there were no ready-made

clothes and Mary Anne made most of ours, and did our

large mending.

This was her story. Her mother, widowed in Ire-

land, had taken ship for New York with her nine chil-

dren, to join a prosperous brother in Cincinnati. The

ship was wrecked in mid-ocean, and the passengers with

294      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

difficulty rescued by another vessel in the midst of a

terrible storm. Fancy Mary Anne's satisfaction when

she told us, "All we saved was our Bible!"

The ship which took them aboard was not bound for

New York, but for Nova Scotia, and so the poor mother

was landed among strangers with no money, and all

those children, little and big, to care for. It took quite

a long time before help came from the brother--time

enough for a young man, Robert Glasgow by name, to

fall in love with Mary Anne, who was about sixteen

years old. Robert Glasgow was much older than Mary

Anne, and was ready to marry her at once, but as she

was the oldest child she would not consent to leave her

mother yet. After weary months of waiting, they all

arrived in Cincinnati. Robert Glasgow was to come for

Mary Anne in a year. Alas, he never came! It was

almost more than we McGuffey children could bear, to

hear this part of the story without tears.

A long, long time passed before Mary Anne learned

why he did not come. You know communication was

cruelly slow in those days. A time had been set for the

marriage, a letter had been received telling when they

might expect him, but he never came! After a year

or so, it was found that he had started in good faith,

after preparing a little home for Mary Anne in Nova

Scotia, but had been seized by cholera on the train. He

died and was buried in a nameless grave in an obscure

grave-yard by the roadside.

Poor Mary Anne! She was a beautiful woman, even

at the age that I remember her. She had brown curls

which we children loved to twine about our fingers, a

bright color and exquisite features. We never heard

A Daughter of the McGuffeys        295

an impatient word from her beautifully formed lips, and

to her we ran with all our childish woes. She comforted

us in her gentle way, and charmed us with her stories

of the Old Country days.

Even after fifty years and more, as I write of Mary

Anne, I find tears filling my eyes, tears of sympathy for

her sorrow, tears of joy for her release into her longed-

for Heaven, and tears of thankfulness that into the lives

of the McGuffey children entered the influence of her

sweet nature.

VII

After my first recollection of my sister Etta's death,

things seem to grow misty in my mind, and the next in-

cidents I recall are connected with my school-days, which

must have begun when I was about five.

The schools, both public and private, were very in-

ferior, and because I was delicate, I never completed a

whole year's work at any age. If it had not been for my

parents' instruction at home, I should say that I never

received any real education.

There was a little school almost next door to our

house, kept by a Miss Bennett, and to that school I was

sent in my little low-necked and short-sleeved frock--a

timid child who wanted to be "good," but was often

very "bad" indeed. This Miss Bennett was proud of her

very long and sharp finger-nails. She was ill-natured

with us tiny ones, and when we vexed her, she would

seize us by our naked arms and shoulders, cutting us

with her nails as she dragged us from one place to an-

other.

I think it was while I was attending Miss Bennett's

School, that I gave my first party. As May Day fell on

296      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Saturday, I had proposed to my schoolmates that they

come to our big garden on that afternoon, and we would

have a celebration with a king and queen and all. Very

happily they agreed, and I went home and forgot all

about my hospitable thought. Not so the others.

On Saturday, after our midday dinner, I was play-

ing outdoors with my brothers and sisters, all in our

"mud-lark" clothes, when glancing over the fence, I

noticed a perfect procession of children coming down

the street. As they drew nearer, I recognized them as

all my friends from Miss Bennett's School. They were

dressed in their best bibs and tucl ers, and as they began

turning in at our gate, the recollection of my invitation

flashed over me!

Mother was out, the maids were off duty or busy,

there were no refreshments, no preparations whatever

for a party, and we McGuffeys were hot and dirty and

not fit to be seen. But after one distracted moment, I

gathered myself together, and greeted my guests. No

one seemed to notice that we were not in party clothes.

If they did, I dare say they thought us very sensible.

After a few minutes, I made an excuse to run into

the house and thence, next door to my aunt's, where I

knew Mother was likely to be found. There she was,

sitting in the parlor, with Aunt Echo and other forbid-

ding-looking ladies. I whispered my trouble into Moth-

er's ever-sympathetic ear. She looked at me thoughtfully

for a moment with her big, brown eyes. I doubt if she

really took in the situation, her mind was still on adult

subjects. But she said kindly, "Never mind, this will

make it all right," and opening her purse she gave me

a dime!

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       297

Now the strangest part of this story is that the dime

did somehow make it all right. I ran to the corner

candy-shop, bought the very most I could for the money,

then returned to our garden and found the king and

queen had been chosen and all was going merrily. At

the proper moment, I dispensed the "refreshments,"

which seemed to meet with complete approval, and for a

long time after that, at school. Anna McGuffey's May

party was spoken of as a great success. So little do

children require for happiness, if left to their own re-

sources!

As my father thought highly (in theory) of the

democratic idea, as developed in the public school system,

I was sent for a while to a public school on Race Street,

between Fourth and Fifth, not far from home. My

teacher there was a Miss Clancey, a beautiful and ami-

able girl. I loved her and was happy at this school,

though it did seem a bit odd to have the little girl who

was my desk-mate, ask me, "How many coats and vests

does your father make a week?" I could not answer, of

course, nor understand, not discovering till years after

that her father was a "slopshop" worker. Nor could I

understand what the children meant at recess when they

called me a "stuck-up thing." I myself was not con-

scious of superior clothes or position.

Miss Clancey, though she was lovely, had no dis-

cipline, and she devised as the highest reward for good

behavior, the honor of scrubbing the platform floor. It

was quite a number of weeks before I attained this

honor, but at last there came a happy day when I was

sent with another tiny girl, a big bucket between us, to

the Fire Engine House next door to get hot water. Just

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      299

Fourth and Plum Streets. All the girls in my set went

there at a certain age. Miss Appleton was a New Eng-

land girl who had come to Cincinnati to make her way

and her fortune, and she had made both.

When my mother and I returned from our first in-

terview with Miss Appleton, father asked, "What did

you think of Miss Appleton, Elizabeth?" My mother

replied, "She is a very affable lady."  "Affable, affable,

what does that mean?" I wondered. The word fitted

her perfectly. She never under any circumstances lost

her pleasant manner. Her discipline was remarkable,

her school a model of good behavior, yet she had only

one rule, "Only one young lady allowed in the dressing-

room at a time."

Otherwise we were allowed to move about the school-

room when we pleased, and to talk to each other in a

low tone, and only when Miss Appleton thought we were

inclined to impose on her leniency, would she call us to

order by a very gentle rap with her pencil on the desk.

We were always called "young ladies," never "girls,"

and always ceremoniously addressed, even the young-

est, as "Miss So-and-so." I think this custom is a good

one, as in school hours it impressed us with a sense of

dignity and responsibility.

When the school grew larger an assistant was

needed, and a Mr. Moses Hazen White, a middle-aged

gentleman, appeared. It was not long before the girls

found that he was excitable and easily teased. I think

we were very crude and unkind in the way we took ad-

vantage of his weakness. But we did not reason about

it, or if we did, we thought that a man old enough to be

our father ought to control his temper better.

300      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

One day, during recess, a girl scribbled on the black-

board in Mr. White's room that bit of time-worn dog-

gerel,

"Walk up, gentlemen, take a glass of grog,

D'ye ever see a tad-pole turn into a frog?"

Why this should have thrown Mr. White into a

passion I do not see. Any sensible teacher would

ignore such silliness. But in those days some members

of the teaching profession took themselves very seri-

ously, and were absurdly touchy. As soon as Mr.

White's eye rested on the blackboard, he flew into a fury.

The blackboard was no blacker than his face.

Pointing a sharp pencil at each girl in turn, he de-

manded, "Do you know who did this?" I was about in

the middle of the class, and until he reached me, no one

knew. Unluckily I did know. A dear friend had done

it, and true to my home training, "Never tell tales," I

refused to give her away, though I admitted I knew who

was the sinner.

"Go home," thundered Mr. White, "Take your books

and go!" I cannot remember any emotion as I took my

books, put on my Shaker bonnet and went out the back

door to my home. I may have recalled that a similar

experience had befallen my brother Charley in the public

school not long before. He had been expelled for re-

fusing to give away a school-mate, and my father had

taken the matter to the trustees and had Charley re-

instated.

This sort of thing seems to have been always hap-

pening to the McGuffeys at school. We always knew

everything that was going on in the way of mischief,

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       301

even if we did not take part. But wild horses wouldn't

have made us betray our school-mates.

Years afterwards my younger brother William

stood up fearlessly against the Principal of his public

school in a somewhat different matter. The Principal

had called the pupils together and said reports had

reached him that he was accused of treating the pupils

from the Orphan Asylum unfairly. He defied any

pupil who believed such charges to stand up and prove

them.

The man was a bully and everyone in the school

knew he vented his cruelty on the orphans who had no

"influence" to protect them. But only one child dared

to stand up. That was William McGuffey. The Prin-

cipal was furious.

"You McGuffey," he thundered, "do you say I treat

the orphans unfairly?"

"Yes, sir."

"Prove it!"

"Well, sir, on such and such a day, you did so and

so to such and such a boy or girl." William calmly gave

instances, which could not be contradicted.

The Principal glared, stamped up and down the plat-

form, and suddenly interrupting with, "That'll do. Sit

down, McGuffey!" he marched out of the room.

William had no need to seek support at home, but

when I was sent home by Mr. Moses Hazen White, of

course my first refuge was my mother. She listened to

my story, made no comment, but put on her bonnet, and

as school was closed by this time, we went back to Miss

Appleton.

"Now, Anna," said my mother, "tell Miss Appleton

302     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

what you have just told me." I remembered I trembled

a little before Miss Appleton, of whom I stood in whole-

some awe, but when my tale was told, she merely said,

"Let Miss McGuffey return tomorrow as usual. I will

arrange to hear her recite myself."

And so I was quietly reinstated. Mr. White's reign

came to an end (to the good of the school), at the end

of the school year.

IX

Though my mother was so just and loving, she was a

strict disciplinarian, and I am glad of it. One of my

duties was to make my own bed and make it well. Now

you must know that making a bed in 1850 was a much

more difficult affair than in 1920, for the bedsteads were

high and the beds were all of feathers. To reach up, to

beat, to smooth, so as to meet the standards of a fas-

tidious house-keeper was no light matter. The bed had

to decline gently from top to bottom, there must be no

hollows nor wrinkles, and the last finishing touch was

to put in place the long heavy bolster and balance two

pillows upon it.

I knew how to do it, and generally did it well, but

had been growing careless and had been warned that

something unpleasant might befall, if I did not mend my

ways. One morning, into the quiet of the school-room

came a summons for Miss McGuffey's immediate return

to her home. Thrill upon thrill! What could it mean?

Never before had such a message been sent me. Per-

haps Mother was going to take us to the country. Per-

haps some exciting legacy had been bestowed upon me,

perhaps a thousand other things--certainly something

important and delightful. As I left my seat my desk-

A Daughter of the McGuffeys      303

mate whispered. "I'd give my head for a football to be

in your place, Anna."

A sad downfall of happy hopes awaited me when I

reached my home. Mother's face was stern as she

greeted me with, "Go up to your room and make your

bed properly." The most mortifying part of this exper-

ience was that I was sent back to school as soon as the

bed was properly made. Of course I did not tell my

schoolmates the reason for my recall.  This was a

wholesome lesson in doing thoroughly whatever I had

to do, and I thank my mother most heartily for the

trouble she took to teach me. It would have been far

easier for her to send Mary the maid to re-make the bed.

As I told you, it was from my father and mother that

I received the only real education I ever had. It is very

difficult to give you any adequate idea of the flimsy, su-

perficial education that was provided for the young "fe-

males" of 1850. If a girl wanted very much to learn she

could pick up some knowledge, but no one thought it

necessary that she should be thoroughly taught. My

father had more than one serious talk with Miss Apple-

ton on the subject. He urged her to give the girls a more

thorough intellectual training. Her reply was full of

worldly wisdom. "Mr. McGuffey," she said, "I can only

offer to the parents what they desire, and that is not

thorough training. Offer anything that the market does

not desire and your goods remain on the counter."

So my parents tried in every way to supplement the

faulty teaching of the day. My mother trained me by

having me read aloud to her, requiring a proper accent

and definitions of unusual words. To train my voice,

she would send me to a distant room and I was obliged

304      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

to read slowly and distinctly so that she could under-

stand without straining her ear.

My father dearly loved to teach us, but he was a

busy lawyer, and we were active, restless children, hard

to corral, so he bethought himself of this method. He

had a blackboard fixed to the wall in the dining room,

and every night he put an illustrated lesson on this

board; at breakfast next morning he charmingly ex-

pounded the lesson. I was never bored by these lessons,

but I remember the boys squirmed and wriggled and

made faces when Father was not looking.

In this way he taught us the rudiments of "Natural

Philosophy," now called by the simpler name "Physics,"

and told us of the structure of our bodies, especially of

the eyes and the other delicate and wonderful organs,

and impressed upon us the need of caring for these.

Do you wonder how our busy mother could bear

this lecturing at breakfast? But never in my memory did

my mother appear at the breakfast table, so you see even

in those early days, wise mothers with large families

knew how to conserve their strength.

Every little girl was supposed to sew beautifully,

that was a branch of her education that was thoroughly

taught, and it was one that I found very irksome. Memo-

ries of the misery I endured on long, hot summer after-

noons, hemming napkins and handkerchiefs, made me

very indulgent in later years to my own little girls (you

and your sisters) in the matter of sewing.

The little girls in our neighborhood used to gather

under the big catalpa trees in our back-yard to sew.

When our work was finished we were required to sub-

mit it for inspection, and if it were not well done, out

A Daughter of the McGuffeys       305

it had to come, rip, rip, rip, stitch by stitch. We Mc-

Guffeys were conscientious and did our best, in spite

of pricked and perspiring fingers, rusty needles and

aching backs. I remember how shocked we were when

one small neighbor sneered at our pains, and said, "Be-

fore I'd bother so! I hem one napkin carefully and the

others I just gobble. Then I show the well-done nap-

kin to my mother day after day and she never knows

the difference!"

I do not think this drudgery of forced sewing did

us any good. Few of us were good needle women when

we grew up, and those of us who became experts learned

of our own free will, by constant willing application.

X

I should like to say something of my religious train-

ing, since that phase of education seems a perplexing

one to your generation of parents. My mother's teach-

ings were very strict, very old-fashioned and true to

Calvin's doctrines. But the residuum of all she taught

me, as I now experience and cherish it, is an abiding

faith in God and a deep, deep down comfort in my spirit-

ual life.

Old historic Christ Church of Cincinnati was or-

ganized in my Grandfather Drake's house, and to the

Sunday services, morning and evening, we all went with-

out question. I have been told by my mother's friends

that it was an imposing sight to see Mr. and Mrs. Mc-

Guffey, followed by their seven children, march into

church. I fancy one reason we attracted attention was

that we were always late. Mother was constitutionally

unpunctual. My father would labor with her and sug-

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306      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

gest that she start her preparations earlier. "Certainly,

Alexander," she would acquiesce graciously. And she

would begin her preparations a half hour earlier, but

it made no difference, we started for church just as late

as ever. My youngest brother William was so small

when he began to go with us, that we older ones had to

hold him up, one on either side. Sometimes the wisdom

of taking such a young child was questioned, but Wil-

liam would set up such a howl at the thought of our

leaving him, that he was never left behind.

The Sunday-School of those days must have been

excellently managed, for only pleasure is associated

with it in my mind. My first teacher was the charming

and beautiful Lily Lytle, afterward Mrs. Broadwell.

She seemed an angel of beauty and light to us little ones.

My second teacher was Miss Nain Mcllvaine, daughter

of the Bishop of Ohio, and she prepared me for con-

firmation when I was fifteen years old.

Historic old Christ Church in Cincinnati is very dear

to me, for there I was baptised, confirmed and married.

It is to me a great regret that zealous souls conspired to

improve (?) the interior in about 1870, or was it later?

They spoilt the quaint old pews and the severe but beau-

tiful chancel.

Although I have no criticism of the strict religious

training of my youth, I have not, of course, retained the

doctrines of that day. Times change, and with them

our interpretation of the Bible. I think we are happier