"Prepare- for follow me you must"

A simple gravestone in Longmeadow Cemetery from 1720, with a classic inscription, warns passersby to consider their own fates. It marks the final resting place for a twelve-year-old girl named Elizabeth Keep. In a time when precious few recorded details are available about individual lives, it is a gift to be able to build any sort of picture about one particular child’s life, especially a girl. But for Elizabeth Keep we can, thanks to a minister’s diary and the fact that her father served in governmental roles in town.

photo credit to Betsy McKee, Longmeadow Cemetery Association

She was born in 1709, when the houses on Longmeadow Street would have been just about a decade old, the town having decided to move “up the hill” from the meadows after a 1695 flood. Elizabeth Keep would have been approximately seven years old when her parents became Landlord and Landlady Keep to the brand-new, young minister, Rev. Stephen Williams, fresh out of Harvard and a brief stint teaching school in Hadley. This would surely have been an important honor for the Keep family to house the new minister as he was probably the most revered person in the community. That he was young and still trying to find his footing in his new role is clear in his early diary entries from the period. No doubt, young Elizabeth Keep would have shared meals and overheard conversations with the new minister.

One important life experience that surely must have been discussed in the Keep household was the attack and capture by native peoples experienced by both her father and Stephen Wiliams in their respective childhoods. Samuel Keep’s parents and infant brother were killed on their way traveling from Longmeadow to Springfield for church services in an infamous attack near Pecousic Brook in 1676 believed to have been a result of tensions between English settlers in the Springfield area and local native tribes during King Phillip’s War. More than two hundred years later, the event was recalled in the Longmeadow Centennial Book: “John Keep, the father, his wife and their child, Jabez, were slain by the Indians, March 26, 1676. As they, with other neighbors and a guard of men, were passing from Longmeadow to Springfield town, to meeting on the Lord's day, they were fired upon a little northward of the Pacousick Brook. The man was mortally wounded, but it is said he kept his horse until he arrived at the town of Springfield. The woman, his wife, it is said, sprang from the horse upon the firing of the Indians, and was carried away by them to Hadleigh and killed.” Elizabeth’s father, Samuel, was only six years old at the time and the only son of John and Sarah Keep. He was left an orphan by the attack. Elizabeth Keep would never know her grandparents as a result.

Likewise, Stephen Williams famously survived the attack on Deerfield in 1704 when he was just a child. He, too, lost his mother and several siblings and was separated from his father and other siblings during a forced march and captivity in Canada. These must have been terrifying stories for a child like Elizabeth to contemplate.

The Keep house that Elizabeth was growing up in from 1709-1720 appears to have been a busy one. Not only would Rev. Williams have been receiving visitors, both from the congregation and from the ministerial world, but her father was an important figure in town planning. Samuel Keep served on several committees that made decisions about the building of the first meetinghouse, the hiring of Stephen Williams and matters of his salary and accommodations, layout of the town’s buryingyard, and procuring funding from Springfield to establish a schoolhouse in Longmeadow. From the daily diary Williams kept while living with the Keeps as his own house was being built, it is clear that the Keep family had at least one enslaved person. Williams wrote on November 13, 1717 that, “this day I had occasion to correct my Landlord’s negro Boy for his false-hood and wickedness.*”

The fabric of Elizabeth Keep’s brief life was a fascinating microcosm of early New England life in a Western Massachusetts community along the Connecticut River.

In July of 1720, twelve-year-old Elizabeth Keep became ill. The nature of her illness is never named, though no other mentions are made of contagious illnesses like smallpox in the area. Perhaps her illness was a singular one. On July 24-28th, Williams writes of praying with the sick child at least once a day: “this day I have been to see the child twice & prayed with it twice - tis a very sick child - & the case looks very dangerous - the Lord God almighty is the best physician - I pray he would appear for its relief.”

Elizabeth’s mother, Sarah Keep, had nine other children at the time of Elizabeth’s dangerous illness, half of them ranging from just four months old to nine years old. It must have been a desperate and terrifying time for her, as illness easily carried from one child to another and it was not uncommon for a family to lose multiple children from one outbreak of sickness. The weather added extra drama to the affair. Stephen Williams mentions “a storm of thunder and lightning” on July 25th and “rain that was extraordinary indeed - with which the wind has broke down the corn considerably” on July 27th. It does not take much to imagine the situation in the Keep house on those days hot, stormy July days. Did they interpret the storms to be harbingers of God’s will towards their sick daughter?

Within five days it was over. On July 29, 1720 twelve-year-old Elizabeth Keep died. Williams wrote, “this morning I hear the child is dead - the will of the Lord is done. The Lord give patience & resignation to his will unto the parents & friends. At night the funeral was attended - the Lord grant that those of us that attended at it may find that tis good for us to go to the house of mourning - far better than to go to the house of feasting.”

Elizabeth Keep’s is one of the oldest gravestones in Longmeadow Cemetery, and is perhaps carved by Samuel Bartlett II (1677-1746). The burying ground, as it was called, had only been established a few short years before her death. For many, many years she had no neighbors, but for 84-year-old Nathaniel Burt who died in September 1720. It is likely that others would have been buried without permanent markers as strong as hers. The image of her final resting place sitting so lonely in a grassy field just off the town green is a somber one.

This inscription on her gravestone is typical in many ways of early New England epitaphs and features a warning for passersby to not forget that they, too, will meet the same fate. The stonecutter was more concerned with making use of available space rather than being a stickler for spelling or form. It is important to note that even though it says “Mrs. Elizabeth Keep” we must read the “Mrs.” as “Mistress” as she was not married at twelve years old. It reads:

Here Lyes

The Body of

Mrs. Elizabeth keep

Who died the 29

Day of July anno

1720 in the 12 year

Of her age [H?] ear you

young so Am i Ther

Fore al prepare to die

The finest flesh is but dust-

Prepare,-for follow me you must.

In his book, Reading the Gravestones of Old New England, author and scholar, John G.S. Hanson writes, “Obviously this verse was not created by poor twelve-year-old Elizabeth. These words were put in her mouth by someone else as a lesson to the living. It might have been the minister, to judge by their tone - these are words of someone accustomed to deference on matters of religion. Indeed, the first line commands the attention of young readers in particular” (49).

Three hundred years later the small monument to her life remains.

*Spellings and punctuation from Stephen Williams' Diary have been modernized for clarity.

*Spelling and punctuation from Elizabeth Keep's gravestone appear as they are

-Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Longmeadow Historical Society

Sources:

Hanson, John G.S.. Reading the Headstones of Old New England. North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2021. 49.

Storrs, R. S. The Longmeadow Centennial. Hartford, CT: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co, 1884.

Williams, Stephen. “Stephen Williams Diary Online.” Storrs Library, September 23, 2019. Vol. 1. https://www.longmeadowlibrary.org/stephen-williams-diary-online/.

Let it Snow

Do you remember the thrill of a new snowfall, a snow day, and your parents saying "let's go sledding?" This author remembers dragging a wooden sled with runners down the street to the sledding hill. There we would join other children on sleds, toboggans and flying saucers. As connoisseurs of sledding equipment, we appreciated the pros and cons of the various types. The toboggans were great for a group--pile on and try not to get the front position so you wouldn't get a face full of new powdery snow. The flying saucers--the hard plastic discs--were the fastest down a polished hill, but completely impossible to steer. All you could do was hold on tightly to the straps and hope that the slope wasn't too bumpy. Then there were the Flexible Flyer wooden sleds with metal runners. They were heavy to lug up the hill, and could get bogged down in wet snow (we would wax the runners with candle stubs), but they were steerable--either with your feet on the two "ears" up front, or with your hands if you dared to go down on your stomach, face first.

The Longmeadow Historical Society was recently gifted with a number 5, Junior Racer model, measuring 63" long. That was big enough to pile on several friends for the exhilarating run down the hill.

Flexible Flyer sleds were manufactured by the S. L. Allen & Company out of Philadelphia, PA, and shipped all over the country. Samuel Leeds Allen patented his design in 1889, but sales didn't take off until he started marketing them to toy companies.

Springfield Republican, December 4, 1910

A store called The Toy Shop operated on Worthington Street in Springfield and advertised "We have the Real Flexible Flyer Sleds in sizes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5" and also advertised "Barney and Berry Skates" and "Bradley's Games" in December 1910, just in time for Christmas shopping.

Even Johnson's Book Store sold Flexible Flyers!

Next door to The Toy Shop was another store owned by S. B. Call & Sons. They advertised a variety "of holiday goods that will delight the children. Rocking horses, velocipedes, wheelbarrows, desks, blackboards, wagons and small automobiles are only a few of the things which are carried by this store for the boys. 'Flexible flyer sleds that steer without the need of scraping shoes and are the pride of a boy's heart, because they beat the other sleds on the hill, are to be found at this store."

I'm not sure I would consider wheelbarrows and school items as toys that would delight the children, but the rest sounds good!

Sledding wasn't completely a carefree adventure though. The papers published stories of sledding mishaps, including this one where one Thomas Ryan crashed his sled and ended up with a broken leg. His other 3 companions were less injured.

In fact, there was at one time in 1926 a motion to prohibit sledding on Mulberry Street. The petition failed, and the children "have forgotten the gloomy days when the petition talk first went the rounds. Daily rippers and flyers zip down the incline, high banked on either side by walls of new-fallen snow."

Let it snow, let it snow!

- Contributed by Betsy McKee, Longmeadow Historical Society

Sources: Genealogybank, Longmeadow Historical Society collections

Sarah A. Coomes Colton's Paintings

Two charming folk art paintings in the collection of the Longmeadow Historical Society bear the hallmarks of the kind of work educated young women in mid-19th century America produced.

Chatsworth: Home of the Duke of Devonshire by Sarah A. Coomes Colton

oil on canvas, 24" x 34"

Biblical Scene by Sarah A. Coomes Colton c. 1855-1856

oil on canvas, 30" x 39"

We are lucky to know the name of the artist of both pieces: Sarah Amelia Coomes Colton (1836-1922). Residing all of her life in Longmeadow, MA, her obituary does mention that she was educated in public schools and at Thetford Academy in Vermont. Though it is unclear how old Sarah Coomes Colton was at the time she attended Thetford Academy, her curriculum at the school would have included painting. A school advertisement from the era mentions, “The School is divided into two departments, English and Classical. Instruction is given in the Elementary and Higher English Branches, Latin, Greek, French, Drawing, Painting, and Music. Students are fitted for College, for professional teachers, or business.” Music, painting, and drawing added an extra $8 to the $4 tuition charged per term. That seems like quite a financial commitment.

So who were Sarah’s parents? Her father, Elias Coomes, was featured in an earlier History Note after we acquired his picture from eBay recently showing him wearing his militia uniform. He was a farmer in town whose real estate was valued at $5000 on the 1850 census, about double what the average farmer’s real estate value was. His unexpected death in 1851 at the age of 44 following a fall from the roof of a brick kiln left his wife alone to raise three young children. It is unclear if his daughter Sarah, who was fourteen at the time of her father’s death, attended Thetford Academy in Vermont before or after his loss, though his death surely must have been a significant financial hardship on the family She does appear on the 1850 register of the District 1 Schoolhouse in Longmeadow.

Chatsworth: Home of the Duke of Devonshire

Both paintings are on canvas. One piece, “Chatsworth - Home of the Duke of Devonshire” features a faux-painted wood background and border around a bucolic British scene featuring a bridge, a river, hills, and various estate buildings. These sorts of scenes were popular subjects among schoolgirl painters, even though most had never traveled abroad.

The second piece bears two interesting labels on the back. One shows that it was donated to the Historical Society by J.D. Colton, the son of the artist, and identifies the subject as a “Biblical Scene.” Like the Chatsworth painting, it seems unlikely that young artist would have traveled to any place that looked anything like the scene of the columned building in the painting. For sure, Sarah Coomes Colton would have been familiar with hills and sheep and trees, both in her hometown and in the Vermont area around Thetford Academy.

Biblical Scene

The other interesting label on the back of the “Biblical Scene” is the canvas maker's mark: “From N.D. Cotton, 7 Tremont Street, Boston.” This mark helps to date the painting to circa 1855-1856. Newspaper advertisements show that N.D. Cotton was in the business of art supplies and stationery for many years in Boston, but only at that location in 1855 and 1856. Sarah Coomes Colton would have been 19 or 20 years old at that point, perhaps too old to be a student at Thetford Academy, but did she continue to practice the skills she learned in her earlier schooling? It’s hard to know, but many young women who attended Academies did so to receive a more refined education to make them better teachers. Perhaps Sarah was working as a teacher at the time she completed these works of art.

English Prepared Canvas from N. D. Cotton

7 Tremont St, Boston

In 1861, at the age of 25, Sarah Coomes married Alvah Colton, Jr, also of Longmeadow. Surely, her days of painting would be behind her at that point as she became a successful farmer’s wife and a mother. Did Sarah bring these paintings with her to decorate her new home as she began married life? It is nice to know that her children held onto her paintings, and even nicer that they have found their way into the collection of the Longmeadow Historical Society.

-Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Longmeadow Historical Society

all images from the collection of the Longmeadow Historical Society