The Whispering Stick

Many of our readers will remember seeing a singular object in the Storrs House Museum called the "Whispering Stick." The story that was told was that this six foot long hollow tube of wood was used by young courting couples to whisper sweet nothings under the watchful eyes of a chaperone. Over the years, research on the veracity of this legend has been stymied --every mention found seemed to refer back to the stick in Longmeadow!

Longmeadow's "Whispering Stick"

hollow top of stick,

missing a ferrule?

tapered bottom of stick

In the 1884 book "Proceedings at the Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Town of Longmeadow, October 17th, 1883" edited by the Professor Richard Salter Storrs, describes the objects saved from the burning Williams parsonage house in 1846; "Among other more bulky articles in lower rooms, and hence more easily rescued, were the old oak writing table and the inkstand of Dr. Williams now in the church pastors' room, two very old bureaus and buffet pieces of furniture whose painted ornamentation includes the arabesque initials of Abigail Davenport, and extremely old and odd pistol which unbroken tradition refers to the former ownership of John Williams of Deerfield, and, most curious of all, a long, slender wooden tube, about six feet in length and an inch in diameter, octagonal at one end and round at the other and fitted at either end for ear and mouth pieces, now, however missing, which has for generations been known as the 'Courting Stick.' Whether it was really used for that purpose, as tradition has it, by young people sitting in the usual place for young people, upon opposite sides of the old-fashioned fireplace, to carry on their whispered love-making unheard by their elders more honorably located in front of the blaze, or whether it was simply used, as experiment now easily demonstrates it might have been, as a very effective ear tube for good old Dr. Williams, it is in either case a curiously unique relic of the olden time."

It is interesting that Salter Storrs (as he was known) questioned whether the device was actually an early form of hearing aid. He was a teacher of the deaf in Hartford, CT, along with his sister Sarah, who was deaf from a childhood illness. From an article from Hearing Health & Technology Matters, "Regulation of Hearing Aids in the United States, Part 1" by Holly Hosford-Dunn, PhD, speaking tubes "were another early means of channeling and conveying sound to the ear. These devices, often hand-made on the spot, offered the additional feature of enabling private communication in and across public places, which makes them somewhat analogous to modern-day telephones. Indeed, the first speaking tubes were created in Puritan times to allow courtship communication in public.

Hearing aid swan trumpet belonging to Sarah Storrs

In an article in the "Journal of American Folklore" in 1893, author Alice Morse Earle discusses 'Old-Time Marriage Customs in New England.' She writes "A more formal method of courtship is suggested by what is termed a 'courting -stick;' one is preserved in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. It is a hollow tube eight feet in length, through which lovers, in the presence of an assembled family, could whisper tender nothings to each other."

Another author, Mrs. Burton Kingsland, wrote the very useful tome in 1904 titled "The Book of Good Manners: Etiquette for all Occasions" published by Doubleday, Page and Company. In her chapter on engagements, she says: " Engaged couples might be interested to learn that young persons in their condition [engaged] in early colonial times were reduced to the necessity of using a 'courting-stick,' which was a hollow tube, eight feet long, through which lovers, in the presence of the assembled family, could whisper tender messages, unheard by the rest,--the telephone's earliest development. One is still preserved at Long Meadow, Massachusetts."

In fact, Mrs. Kingsland might have become aware of Longmeadow's courting stick by seeing photographer Clifton Johnson's image of the courting stick being used by a couple on the front porch of the Storrs House. Johnson, who was born in the village of Hockanum in Hadley, MA, was an artist, writer, folklorist and photographer, having bought his first camera in 1898. He later owned the Johnson Book Store in Springfield, MA, which was run by his younger brother Henry.

Photo of whispering stick by Clifton Johnson, circa 1910-1920

The courting stick at the Storrs House Museum is about 68" long, is hollow, octagonal and tapered. It appears that some kind of ferrule or fitting would have gone on each end. So, is this stick really a courting stick? Picture it--1846, the famous Williams parsonage is slowly burning around you, you are scrambling to save precious relics from the Reverend Stephen Williams' home, and you grab ten volumes of his daily diaries, two heavy pieces of case furniture, the precious pistol supposedly used in the infamous 1704 raid on Deerfield, family needlework, a silver cup passed down in the Davenport family made by the first American-born silversmith.....and a stick.

Contributed by Betsy McKee, LHS Board Member

Originally published April 8, 2021

Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes: The Care of Two Longmeadow Residents

***Today's History Note is part of our Hidden Voices Series that looks to highlight the stories of people often overlooked in history. Warning: this content is about mental illness in the 19th century and may be upsetting for some people.***

1880 Supplemental Census featuring Laura Goodhue on Line 1. Suffering from "Mania"

In the generations before institutions existed to care for people with mental illness, the responsibility fell to their families and community. Towns and the state did provide some financial assistance to residents who qualified as “paupers.” A variety of reasons might have led to someone being cared for as a pauper, but one reason was in fact insanity. In the second half of the 19th century this sometimes took the form of paying for institutionalization at recently built psychiatric hospitals, or asylums as they were often called. The Longmeadow Historical Society’s archives are filled with documents dating back to the early 18th century showing selectmen ordering payments to caretakers of the town’s paupers. Several specifically show payments to “Vermont Asylum for the Insane” and to the “Northampton Lunatic Hospital.”

From 1840-1890 the Federal Census, which collected information every ten years on town populations, included a category asking residents to identify members of their households who suffered from mental health issues. The terminology on the census columns seems harsh today. You were asked to label your family member as “insane or idiotic.” Beginning in the 1830’s “asylums” for “lunatics” were opening throughout New England to provide care and treatment as the new field of psychiatry was emerging.

Vermont Asylum for the Insane Courtesy of Brattleboro Historical Society

The 1860 census identifies one such person, Alexander L. Coomes. All we know about Coomes comes from a handful of documents passing through town records. We don’t know anything about his appearance, his interests, his skills, or the nature of his mental illness. Born around 1830, Coomes lived in Longmeadow with his parents, Henry and Cornelia, and a sister, Elizabeth. Per the 1850 census, Alexander was 20 years old and working as a brickmaker with his father. Ten years later, in 1860, his father had died and Alex, Cornelia and Elizabeth were still living in Longmeadow. In a column labeled, “Is the person ‘deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict?’” Alexander Coomes was identified as “Insane Hereditary.” He was 30 years old. What did it mean for his mother and sister to care for him?

In the 1865 Massachusetts State Census, 35 year old Coomes was listed as a “Town Assisted” “Insane Pauper.” He was residing with his mother, a widowed 60 year old housekeeper, and his 38 year old sister, a domestic. Five years later on the 1870 census, Alexander L. Coomes was no longer listed in that household. Nor was there any record of his death. It turns out, the town of Longmeadow had been paying the Vermont Asylum for the Insane in Brattleboro for his care since 1859. Coomes died at the asylum in Brattleboro in 1877 and is buried in their cemetery.

Newspaper advertisement New Vermont Asylum, 1836

Another Longmeadow resident was also sent to Brattleboro, though she was eventually transferred to the Northampton Lunatic Hospital. Laura Goodhue first appeared on Longmeadow censuses in 1850 as a 28 year old wife and mother of two. Her husband, Henry, was a farmer. Ten years later, in 1860, Laura had six children and Henry was still farming. By the time the next census enumerator knocked on their door in 1865 for a state census, only three of the six children were still living. The Vital Records book in Longmeadow reveals that in a short five month period between October 1864 and February 1865, Laura Goodhue lost her young daughters Lois (10) and Almira (4) to diphtheria and son George (7) to consumption. In 1869, town selectmen ordered the town treasurer to pay $65 to the Vermont Asylum in Brattleboro for a six month period of care. The town continued to pay for Laura’s care in Brattleboro and eventually in Northampton until her death in 1893.

Like Alexander Coomes, there is nothing we can know of Laura Goodhue’s life and condition beyond what appears in these records. Was the death of so many of her young children in such a short period of time too much for her? Did the grief break her in such a way that she could never recover? What level of care were she and her husband seeking in 1869 when first she was sent away? What were their hopes for her recovery and return?

What was life like for Alexander Coomes and Laura Goodhue during their terms of care at the Vermont Asylum in Brattleboro? Unfortunately, reports indicate that conditions were far less than the ideal vision of care that the Asylum opened under in 1834 with well-appointed rooms, “kind and faithful nurses”, and “no harsh treatment will ever be for a moment allowed.” Farm work, gardening and handwork would fill patients’ days and foster recovery.

Sadly, by 1877 when Alexander Coomes died at age 47 in the asylum, serious overcrowding resulted in a situation far worse. When institutions like the one in Brattleboro began to open in the 1830’s and 40’s, severely mentally ill people who had long been cared for at home at great financial and emotional toll to their loved ones, as well as those who had been sent to local prisons for lack of any other alternative, appeared on their doorsteps. The demand for care far outweighed the ability and resources of the hospitals to care for them. Add the fact that each patient brought with him or her the promise of cash payments from their sponsoring town and a disaster was brewing.

Vermont Asylum Cemetery in Brattleboro Final Resting place for "Alex L. Coomes 1877" (image courtesy of Find A Grave)

The book, "The Vermont Asylum for the Insane: Its Annals for Fifty Years" published in 1887, shows that the period of years in the early 1870’s when Coomes and Goodhue were in residence were particularly troubling. A visiting committee reported a hospital built for 300 patients housing 485. They wrote, “About 75 of the patients were at the time of our visit confined in underground apartments, which are damp, unwholesome, and entirely unfit for occupation by human beings. The sleeping apartments in this underground portion were small, poorly ventilated, warmed and lighted. About midway of the length of one of these lower wards and at the end of another ward, are sinks which receive the urine and slops from the ward above, and at all seasons of the year must impart unwholesome odors. On the occasion of our first visit, although disinfectants have been freely used, your committee found the odors extremely unpleasant. ...We believe the confinement of any person sane or insane, in these underground departments to be cruel, and the officers and employees of the Institution should be prohibited under heavy penalties from hereafter placing any insane person in these apartments.” It’s hard to know why Longmeadow chose to send Alexander L. Coomes to Brattleboro over a Massachusetts facility, but it is likely that similar overcrowding was a problem in-state.

Selectmen's Orders to pay Vermont Asylum

for support of A.L. Coomes and Mrs. Laura Goodhue

Longmeadow Annual Report, 1870

In 1880, Laura Goodhue was sent to the Northampton State Lunatic Asylum, as it was then called, and the Federal Census published a supplement to the standard information collected. As a result, we have another small glimpse into Laura Goodhue’s situation. Per the “1880 Federal Census: Schedule of Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes,” Laura Goodhue had been at the Northampton Lunatic Hospital for 2 ½ months. The specific form of mental disease ascribed to her is “dementia”, though that diagnosis seemed to mean different things to different people (and on another form that same year her form of insanity is listed as “mania”). Per the census, the ‘duration of present attack” was twelve years and the age of onset was 46. She did not require restraints, did not need to be kept in a locked cell, was able-bodied, not habitually intemperate (drunk), not epileptic, not suicidal, not homicidal, not convicted of a crime, but was insane.

It seems this move could have been a good one. The 1881 Annual Report from the Northampton Hospital lists the number of residents as 446, and an active entertainment schedule of chapel services, lectures on topics such as prose, poetry and a variety of geography and history topics. The hospital had a busy farm tended to by patients and a sewing room that produced a variety of clothing and mattresses. The daily menu consisted of plenty of nourishing foods, such as a breakfast of “coffee, cold roast beef, potatoes and warm rye and indian corn brown bread.” One can only hope that Laura Goodhue was able to live out the remaining thirteen years of her life in peace and comfort. In a sad twist of fate, her only remaining daughter, Harriet Goodhue, appears on the 1930 census as a patient in the same hospital. Like her mother, Harriet died at the Northampton State Hospital.

Contributed by Melissa Cybulski, LHS Board Member

Originally published April 1, 2021

Westward Bound

"The Connecticut Settlers Entering The Western Reserve” by Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

Who among us hasn’t dreamed of moving to somewhere new and making a fresh start? When he had the opportunity to do just this, Harvey Stebbins seized it. Harvey Stebbins, who was born in 1793, was the youngest child of Medad and Sarah Stebbins of Longmeadow. Medad Stebbins, who had served in the local militia, was one of the minute men who marched upon the Lexington Alarm from Springfield on April 20, 1775. When Medad died on September 9, 1804, Alexander Field, a prominent citizen of Longmeadow, became Harvey’s guardian. In this capacity, Alexander Field turned to John Robinson, a man in Granville, Massachusetts with close ties to Longmeadow.

John Robinson

Naomi Bliss Robinson

John Robinson had married Naomi Bliss from Longmeadow and the couple had been blessed with six daughters but they had no sons. Daughters were able to assist Naomi with the housework but, in an age when work was strictly gendered, daughters couldn’t help John with heavy farm work. John Robinson needed an assistant, and he found one in Harvey Stebbins.

The archives of the Longmeadow Historical Society include the apprentice indenture for Harvey Stebbins. Indentures apprenticing children to learn a trade were commonplace in New England. Following the accepted custom, Alexander Field indentured Harvey to John Robinson to learn the “art, trade or mistery of husbandry” until he turned age 21 on September 22, 1814. At the end of the indenture, John Robinson promised to pay Harvey $120 and provide him with a good Bible and two suits of clothes.

Harvey lived with the Robinson family during his indenture in Granville and, according to a family memoir in our archives, “As Grandpa had no sons and six daughters, they were all very fond of Harvey Stebbins.” Perhaps not surprisingly, Harvey became romantically attached to one of John’s daughters, Julia.

In the collections of the Longmeadow Historical Society are a number of samplers created by these daughters as they learned needlework, one of the skills needed by a properly educated girl at that time.

Sampler by Naomi Robinson created in 1816

A family story relates that when his indenture ended, Harvey and a friend, Elijah Hall, joined the migration of New Englanders to the Connecticut Western Reserve to seek their fortunes.

The Connecticut Western Reserve, also known as New Connecticut, is land that was claimed by the colony (then, the state) of Connecticut which was located west of Pennsylvania. Comprising what is now northeastern Ohio, New Connecticut was bordered by Lake Erie on the north and Pennsylvania on the east, and it extended west to the Sandusky Bay. Indigenous peoples had deep roots in this land, of course, and their claims clashed with those of Connecticut. Click here for additional information about the many claimants to the Connecticut Western Reserve land. Connecticut’s claims prevailed and the state sold the land to a group of speculators known as the Connecticut Land Company; the company surveyed the land and sold it to settlers for new development.

Western Reserve in 1826

Family legend says that Harvey and Elijah walked from Granville, Mass. to Ohio. In 1817, Harvey used most of his $120 to buy land in the just-opened township of Brunswick in Medina County, Ohio. Harvey was one of the first white settlers in Brunswick, and he was one of 19 men who voted in the first town election on April 6, 1818.

Harvey spent a year clearing the land of heavy timber and building a snug cabin. The Connecticut Western Reserve at this time was rife with wild animals such as bears and rattlesnakes, and he must have faced daily challenges while he was establishing his homestead. Sometime between April and November of 1818, Harvey and Elijah walked back to Granville. Both men married their sweethearts in November, 1818, and then both couples honeymooned as they returned to Ohio with wagons full of household effects and yokes of oxen. According to family lore, the return trip took six weeks.

Julia Robinson Stebbins

Harvey and Julia lived in Brunswick, Ohio, raising a family and farming, until they died – Harvey in 1875 and Julia in 1878. Harvey was active in early Brunswick politics, serving as clerk in 1834 and trustee in 1836.

Two of John and Naomi’s daughters married Colton men of Longmeadow; Clarinda married Jacob Colton and Naomi married Newton Colton. By 1830, John and Naomi Robinson and their two unmarried daughters, Sophia and Eunice, had relocated to Longmeadow, living in the western half of town near their married daughters. Their home was probably 679 Longmeadow Street, which is located just north the Richard Salter Storrs Library.

1831 Map of Longmeadow The sixth Robinson daughter, Irene, married John Noble of Blandford, Massachusetts and became the mother of Lester Noble, a dentist who lived in Longmeadow from 1860–1905. John Robinson died in 1835 and his wife, Naomi, died in 1847. Sources

1. Brunswick Area Historical Society

2. Longmeadow Historical Society archives

3. Massachusetts, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991

4. North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000

5. 1831 Longmeadow Map

6. Find a Grave

7. Brunswick: Our Hometown, by “Sam” Boyer

Contributed by Elizabeth Hoff, LHS Board Member

Originally published March 25, 2021