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PAGE Introduction, by Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster ix The Villages xiii The Villagers xiv 1852.--Family Notes--Famous School--Girls--Hoop Skirts 1 1853.--Runaways--Bible Study--Essays--Catechism 10 1854.--Lake Picnic--Pyramid of Beauty--Governor Clark 20 1855.--Preachers--James and John--Votes for Women 43 1856.--the Fire--Sleighing and Prayer--Father's Advice 52 1857.--Truants and Pickles--Candle Stories--the Snuffers 77 1858.--Tableaux and Charades--Spiritual Seance 95 1859.--E. M. Morse--Letter from the North Pole 106 1860.--Gymnastics--Troublesome Comforts 118 1861.--President Lincoln's Inauguration--Civil War--School Enthusiasm 130 1862.--Gough Lectures--President's Call for Three Hundred Thousand Men--Mission Zeal 138 1863.--A Soldier's Death--General M'Clellan's Letter--President Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg 148 1864.--Grandfather Beals' Death--Anna Graduates 162 1865.--President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address--Fall of Richmond--Murder of Lincoln 176 1866.--Freedman's Fair--General Grant and Admiral Farragut Visit Canandaigua 200 1867.--Brother John and Wife Go to London--Lecture by Charles Dickens 208 1871.--Hon. George H. Stuart Speaks in Canandaigua--A Large Collection 210 1872.--Grandmother Beals' Death--Biography 211 1880.--Anna's Marriage 225

Caroline Cowles Richards Frontispiece FACING PAGE Grandfather Beals 8 Grandmother Beals 8 Mr. Noah T. Clarke 30 Miss Upham 30 First Congregational Church 38 Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D. 54 Judge Henry W. Taylor 54 Miss Zilpha Clark 54 "Frankie Richardson" 54 Horace Finley 54 Tom Eddy and Eugene Stone 66 "Uncle David Dudley Field" 66 Grandmother's Rocking Chair 88 The Grandfather Clock 88 Hon. Francis Granger 100 Mr. Gideon Granger 100 The Old Canandaicua Academy 124 The Ontario Female Seminary 132 "Old Friend Burling" 138 Madame Anna Bishop 138 "Abbie Clark and I Had Our Ambrotypes Taken To-day" 152 "Mr. Noah T. Clarke's Brother and I" 152

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

After this book was in type, on March 29, 1913, the author, Mrs. Caroline Richards Clarke, died at Naples, New York.

INTRODUCTION

The Diary of Caroline Cowles Richards fell into my hands, so to speak, out of space. I had no previous acquaintance with the author, and I sat down to read the book one evening in no especial mood of anticipation. From the first page to the last my attention was riveted. To call it fascinating barely expresses the quality of the charm. Caroline Richards and her sister Anna, having early lost their mother, were sent to the home of her parents in Canandaigua, New York, where they were brought up in the simplicity and sweetness of a refined household, amid Puritan traditions. The children were allowed to grow as plants do, absorbing vitality from the atmosphere around them. Whatever there was of gracious formality in the manners of aristocratic people of the period, came to them as their birthright, while the spirit of the truest democracy pervaded their home. Of this Diary it is not too much to say that it is a revelation of childhood in ideal conditions.

The Diary begins in 1852, and is continued until 1872. Those of us who lived in the latter half of the nineteenth century recall the swift transitions, the rapid march of science and various changes in social customs, and as we meet allusions to these in the leaves of the girl's Diary we live our past over again with peculiar pleasure.

Far more has been told us concerning the South during the Civil War than concerning the North. Fiction has found the North a less romantic field, and the South has been chosen as the background of many a stirring novel, while only here and there has an author been found who has known the deep-hearted loyalty of the Northern States and woven the story into narrative form. The girl who grew up in Canandaigua was intensely patriotic, and from day to day vividly chronicled what she saw, felt, and heard. Her Diary is a faithful record of impressions of that stormy time in which the nation underwent a baptism of fire. The realism of her paragraphs is unsurpassed.

Beyond the personal claim of the Diary and the certainty to give pleasure to a host of readers, the author appeals to Americans in general because of her family and her friends. Her father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers. Her Grandfather Richards was for twenty years President of Auburn Theological Seminary. Her brother, John Morgan Richards of London, has recently given to the world the Life and Letters of his gifted and lamented daughter, Pearl Mary-Ter?se Craigie, known best as John Oliver Hobbes. The famous Field brothers and their father, Rev. David Dudley Field, and their nephew, Justice David J. Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, were her kinsmen. Miss Hannah Upham, a distinguished teacher mentioned in the Diary, belongs to the group of American women to whom we owe the initiative of what we now choose to call the higher education of the sex. She, in common with Mary Lyon, Emma Willard, and Eliza Bayliss Wheaton, gave a forward impulse to the liberal education of women, and our privilege is to keep their memory green. They are to be remembered by what they have done and by the tender reminiscences found here and there like pressed flowers in a herbarium, in such pages as these.

Miss Richards' marriage to Mr. Edmund C. Clarke occurred in 1866. Mr. Clarke is a veteran of the Civil War and a Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic. His brother, Noah T. Clarke, was the Principal of Canandaigua Academy for the long term of forty years. The dignified, amusing and remarkable personages who were Mrs. Clarke's contemporaries, teachers, or friends are pictured in her Diary just as they were, so that we meet them on the street, in the drawing-room, in church, at prayer-meeting, anywhere and everywhere, and grasp their hands as if we, too, were in their presence.

Wherever this little book shall go it will carry good cheer. Fun and humor sparkle through the story of this childhood and girlhood so that the reader will be cheated of ennui, and the sallies of the little sister will provoke mirth and laughter to brighten dull days. I have read thousands of books. I have never read one which has given me more delight than this.

Margaret E. Sangster.

Glen Ridge, New Jersey, June, 1911.

THE VILLAGES

CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK.--A beautiful village, the county seat of Ontario County, situated at the foot of Canandaigua Lake, which is called "the gem of the inland lakes" of Western New York, about 325 miles from New York city.

NAPLES, NEW YORK.--A small village at the head of Canandaigua Lake, famous for its vine-clad hills and unrivaled scenery.

GENEVA, NEW YORK.--A beautiful town about 16 miles from Canandaigua.

EAST BLOOMFIELD, NEW YORK.--An ideal farming region and suburban village about 8 miles from Canandaigua.

PENN YAN, NEW YORK.--The county seat of Yates County, a grape center upon beautiful Lake Keuka.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.--A nourishing manufacturing city, growing rapidly, less than 30 miles from Canandaigua, and 120 miles from Niagara Falls.

AUBURN, NEW YORK.--Noted for its Theological Seminary, nearly one hundred years old, and for being the home of William H. Seward and other American Statesmen.

THE VILLAGERS

Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS BEALS, Grandfather and Grandmother

CAROLINE and ANNA Grandchildren of Mr. and JAMES and JOHN RICHARDS Mrs. Beals

"AUNT ANN" "AUNT MARY" CARR Sons and daughters of "AUNT GLORIANNA" Mr. and Mrs. Beals "UNCLE HENRY" "UNCLE THOMAS"

Rev. O. E. DAGGETT, D.D. Pastor of Canandaigua Congregational Church

NOAH T. CLARKE Principal Canandaigua Academy for Boys

Hon. FRANCIS GRANGER Postmaster-General, U.S.A.

General JOHN A. GRANGER Of New York State Militia

GIDEON GRANGER Son of Hon. Francis

ALBERT GRANGER Son of General Granger

JOHN GREIG Wealthy Scotsman long time resident of Canandaigua

MYRON H. CLARK Governor, State of New York

JUDGE H. W. TAYLOR Prominent lawyer and jurist

E. M. MORSE A leading lawyer in Canandaigua

Miss ZILPHA CLARKE School teacher of note

Miss CAROLINE CHESEBRO Well-known writers Mrs. GEORGE WILLSON

Miss HANNAH UPHAM Eminent instructress and lady principal of Ontario Female Seminary

Mr. FRED THOMPSON Prominent resident, married Miss Mary Clark, daughter of Governor Myron H. Clark.

School Boys

WILLIAM T. SCHLEY HORACE M. FINLEY ALBERT MURRAY S. GURNEY LAPHAM Residing with parents in CHARLES COY Canandaigua ELLSWORTH DAGGETT CHARLIE PADDOCK MERRITT C. WILLCOX

WILLIAM H. ADAMS Law Students GEORGE N. WILLIAMS

WILLIS P. FISKE Teachers in Academy EDMUND C. CLARKE

School Girls

LOUISA FIELD MARY WHEELER EMMA WHEELER LAURA CHAPIN JULIA PHELPS MARY PAUL BESSIE SEYMOUR LUCILLA FIELD MARY FIELD ABBIE CLARK SUSIE DAGGETT Residing with parents in FRANKIE RICHARDSON Canandaigua FANNY GAYLORD MARY COY HELEN COY HATTIE PADDOCK SARAH ANTES LOTTIE LAPHAM CLARA WILSON FANNIE PALMER RITIE TYLER

VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA

Anna and I go to school at District No. 11. Mr. James C. Cross is our teacher, and some of the scholars say he is cross by name and cross by nature, but I like him. He gave me a book by the name of "Noble Deeds of American Women," for reward of merit, in my reading class. To-day, a nice old gentleman, by the name of Mr. William Wood, visited our school. He is Mrs. Nat Gorham's uncle, and Wood Street is named for him. He had a beautiful pear in his hand and said he would give it to the boy or girl who could spell "virgaloo," for that was the name of the pear. I spelt it that way, but it was not right. A little boy, named William Schley, spelt it right and he got the pear. I wish I had, but I can't even remember now how he spelt it. If the pear was as hard as the name I don't believe any one would want it, but I don't see how they happened to give such a hard name to such a nice pear. Grandfather says perhaps Mr. Wood will bring in a Seckle pear some day, so I had better be ready for him.

Grandmother told us such a nice story to-day I am going to write it down in my journal. I think I shall write a book some day. Miss Caroline Chesebro did, and I don't see why I can't. If I do, I shall put this story in it. It is a true story and better than any I found in three story books Grandmother gave us to read this week, "Peep of Day," "Line Upon Line," and "Precept Upon Precept," but this story was better than them all. One night Grandfather was locking the front door at nine o'clock and he heard a queer sound, like a baby crying. So he unlocked the door and found a bandbox on the stoop, and the cry seemed to come from inside of it. So he took it up and brought it into the dining-room and called the two girls, who had just gone upstairs to bed. They came right down and opened the box, and there was a poor little girl baby, crying as hard as could be. They took it out and rocked it and sung to it and got some milk and fed it and then sat up all night with it, by the fire. There was a paper pinned on the baby's dress with her name on it, "Lily T. LaMott," and a piece of poetry called "Pity the Poor Orphan." The next morning, Grandfather went to the overseer of the poor and he said it should be taken to the county house, so our hired man got the horse and buggy, and one of the girls carried the baby and they took it away. There was a piece in the paper about it, and Grandmother pasted it into her "Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises," and showed it to us. It said, "A Deposit After Banking Hours." "Two suspicious looking females were seen about town in the afternoon, one of them carrying an infant. They took a train early in the morning without the child. They probably secreted themselves in Mr. Beals' yard and if he had not taken the box in they would have carried it somewhere else." When Grandfather told the clerks in the bank about it next morning, Mr. Bunnell, who lives over by Mr. Daggett's, on the park, said, if it had been left at some people's houses it would not have been sent away. Grandmother says they heard that the baby was adopted afterwards by some nice people in Geneva. People must think this is a nice place for children, for they had eleven of their own before we came. Mrs. McCoe was here to call this afternoon and she looked at us and said: "It must be a great responsibility, Mrs. Beals." Grandmother said she thought "her strength would be equal to her day." That is one of her favorite verses. She said Mrs. McCoe never had any children of her own and perhaps that is the reason she looks so sad at us. Perhaps some one will leave a bandbox and a baby at her door some dark night.

We asked him what their names were and he said he did not know. We went to see Mr. Munson, who runs the mill at Chapinville. He took us through the mill and let us get weighed and took us over to his house and out into the barn-yard to see the pigs and chickens and we also saw a colt which was one day old. Anna just wrote in her journal that "it was a very amusing site."

I threaded a dozen needles on a spool of thread for Grandmother, before I went to school, so that she could slip them along and use them as she needed them. She says it is a great help.

Grandmother says I will have a great deal to answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever I say is "gospel truth." The other day the girls at school were disputing with her about something and she said, "It is so, if it ain't so, for Calline said so." I shall have to "toe the mark," as Grandfather says, if she keeps watch of me all the time and walks in my footsteps.

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