The Heathen School Read online

  There are the gifts left by scholars with local residents, following their departure: for instance, an elegantly decorated strip of “cloth made from tree bark,” brought from Hawaii (and known there as tapa), given by Hawaiian scholars to a young Cornwall woman, and then preserved to the present day by her descendants.70

  There is, in particular, an elaborate “friendship album” made as a gift for one of Rev. Timothy Stone’s children, a teenage girl nicknamed “Cherry” (sometimes “Charry”). Its contents include personal entries by no fewer than a dozen different scholars—Hawaiian, Chinese, Indian. All are handwritten; all are offered as “presents” to Cherry Stone; all express strong interest and affection. Most are of a religious nature, and many invoke the theme of remembrance. (“I will write a few lines in your book to remember me by.”) The album’s apparent compiler, and its largest single contributor, was Henry Martyn A’lan, “your friend [and] Chinese youth.” A’lan’s offerings include poetry, prayers, an elaborate acrostic built on Miss Stone’s name, and handsome calligraphic drawings of birds, flowers, landscapes, and people. Some of the writing is in Mandarin characters, one of which describes the recipient as “beautiful” and “charming.” (The connotations here include sexual attractiveness.) Several of A’lan’s poems, when translated, prove to be unblushingly romantic. For example: “My constant heart tolerates suffering / I will never forget in my heart of hearts your beautiful face / Today I leave with this image [of you].” The last of these lines stands alongside a drawing of a handsome woman with Western features—clearly Cherry Stone herself. On the opposite page is another drawing, this of a young man with Asian features—most likely A’lan himself. When the book is closed and the pages meet, the two images are perfectly aligned so as press against each other, suggesting an embrace. (Perhaps a coincidence? More likely not.) What did this outpouring actually represent? Another serious courtship? A young foreigner’s infatuation? A considerably overwritten tribute to a friend? We cannot say. But its repetitive nature (with numerous entries by the same person), and the fact that neither A’lan nor Cherry Stone tried to suppress it, suggest an enduring closeness between them.71

  Entries by other scholars are less effusive but far from perfunctory. There are numerous poems, carefully chosen and handsomely inscribed. Some are almost certainly copied from elsewhere, but others may well have been original compositions. The titles include “My Friend,” “The Wandering Pilgrim,” “A Family Hymn,” “True Happiness,” and “Rejoicing in a Revival of Religion.” (The last was “written by your respected friend George Fox, Native of Seneca,” a fairly typical salutation.)72

  Taken as a whole, the Stone album offers powerful testimony to this girl’s many friendships with Mission School students. It is not, moreover, the only such document from Cornwall in that period. Another, quite similar volume was compiled by a young woman named Martha Day, who came to the town around 1820 to care for her “infirm” sister; the entries there encompass more than fifty different individuals—fourteen of them from the Mission School. Again, the main theme is fond feeling and shared experience.73

  Members of the Stone family maintained an especially warm relation to the school, as evidenced by some correspondence between Mary Stone (the minister’s wife) and the Hawaiian scholar William Kummooolah. Soon after Kummooolah’s return home, Mrs. Stone wrote to him about “your good friend John Phelps” (another Hawaiian scholar, still in Cornwall), who “is acting a very kind part toward us. He is taking your place in our family. As you took care of Mr. Stone (who is now recovered), so Our Dear Friend [Phelps] is taking care of our dear Pierce, who is now insane.” (Pierce Stone was her son; his condition was not further explained.) The exact nature of the “care” provided by these two remains unknown. But what seems very clear is the strength and depth of their connection to the Stones, perhaps including actual residence within the household. Mrs. Stone’s letter concludes: “We remember you with much affection. We can never forget you, not one of our family.” A year later, another scholar, Thomas Zealand, was described by Daggett as having been “considerably in Mr. Stone’s family when they have been sick.… He is able to do many things as a waiter…[and] has commended himself to them very much.” Perhaps there was something of a pattern here: personal service and “care-taking” by particular scholars, in exchange for the support and friendship of the Stones.74

  Finally, there was the Sabbath—all the once-weekly occasions when school and town came together for worship in the First Church. The scholars had their own bench (perhaps more than one, if their number required) and were nothing if not conspicuous. Did they linger, after the service had finished, to chat with one or another Cornwall neighbor? Might they even have taken the opportunity to arrange more personal assignations? At the very least, a sense of familiarity must have grown—on both sides.

  Years afterward, a longtime Cornwallite remembered the following about her own household: “We always laid aside all our work when the scholars came. They talked and prayed from the heart. It would revive us, so solemn and yet so joyful. It was a great wonder to them why every one in the town were not Christians, when they had heard of Jesus all their lives.” Religion was the bridge to contact; but perhaps, too, there was something more. One feels an openness, an eagerness here, even a sense of delight (“so joyful”). The scholars were particularly welcome. Their arrival created great excitement. And they left behind a lasting impression.75

  In May 1825, a young Massachusetts woman named Cynthia Thrall stopped at the school with her parents, en route to missionary work among the “western Indians.” Like so many previous visitors, she was charmed by what she found there. She “conversed with youths of different nations”; all appeared “polite and manly.” She watched a group “preparing for the examination next week,” at which they were to enact “an Indian Council…[on] the subject of [removing?] the Cherokees and other tribes into the west.” She was invited to the room of one of the assistant teachers, who showed her “some specimens of Chinese painting” done by the scholars; moreover, on the same occasion “a young Chinese brought in a very curious lantern of his own making … it is beautiful … of very light construction…[with] flowers printed on fine white cambric in imitation of chinaware.” She “walked the distance of half a mile to visit the grave of Obookiah and the graves of the other heathen youths.” She “received much attention from the principal of the institution.” Everything seemed in order—hopeful—promising. There was no sign at all of another crisis, just then building beneath the surface, and soon to shake the school to its moral and physical foundations.76

  The year before Cynthia Thrall’s visit—and several months after the marriage of John Ridge and Sarah Northrup—a group of town leaders signed an open letter, refuting “frequent assertions … that there is a kind of intercourse subsisting between the families in the ‘valley of Cornwall’ and the ‘foreign scholars’ which is highly improper”; one of the signers was Col. Benjamin Gold. The letter was published in the Connecticut Journal; clearly, it was meant to calm a still-raging storm. But what it promised, it could not deliver. Indeed, within the Gold household itself—at that very moment—events were pointing toward a virtual repetition of the previous difficulties.77

  The Golds were longtime, deeply devoted supporters of the school; the colonel had been directly involved from the beginning. It was he, moreover, who took the significant step of inviting the Ridge-Northrup pair into the family pew on the Sabbath immediately following their wedding. Two of his daughters had married men who were part of the school’s operations—in one case an agent, in the other an assistant principal. Very likely, given this pattern of close involvement, many of the scholars were well known in the Gold household. Perhaps—as was true with the Stone family—some were guests or friends of a quite personal sort.

  There were eleven surviving Gold children as of 1825. (Three others had died in childhood.) The youngest of the daughters, born in 1805, was named Harriet;* she and three of her br
others were still living at home. Years later, she would be remembered as “one of the fairest, most cultured young ladies of the place, a very pious, amiable girl, the nearest [to] perfection of any person I ever knew…[and] the idol of the family.” Her older sisters were all “married in high rank”; now it was her turn. Family members took a lively interest in her prospects, as evidenced by the letters they wrote to (and about) her. “Poor Harriet,” teased her brother-in-law Herman Vaill, “I am sorry that you are so attractive, that every old bachelor who owns land near you, & every old widower that comes along in search of minerals, should fix their eyes, on you.” At that point, she seems to have had two known suitors: a much older “Colo. [colonel]” seeking “the nearest road to a Second Youth,” and a certain “Mr. H. [who]…wished for gold to mend his fortunes.” (No doubt the pun here was intended.) In spite of “poverty,” the latter man apparently had an inside track. “Dost thou affection him, verilie and trulie [sic]?” Vaill asked? Then “marry him, & let others talk.”78

  But Harriet had her own plans. At some point before the date of Vaill’s letter, she had formed an “attachment” to the Cherokee scholar now called Elias Boudinot. This young man, like Harriet herself, belonged to a prominent family (the Waties) within his own community. John Ridge was his first cousin; like John, he was of mixed-race heritage. He had been schooled from a young age by missionaries in the Cherokee homeland—first by Moravians at Spring Place, then by Congregationalists at Brainerd. There he was marked as “promising,” even “superior”; this made his elevation to the Mission School plausible, and likely. Though initially regarded by Daggett with some skepticism, he soon gained a place among the most favored of all the scholars—both for his fine academic gifts and, at least as important, his strong “spiritual concerns.” Within weeks of his arrival, he became “quite anxious for the salvation of his soul; he could not speak on the subject without tears.” After much internal struggle, he achieved a full conversion and was admitted to membership in the town’s First Church. At this point, he appeared “mild, gentle, and conciliatory in his manner”—in short, a model youth. Over time, the principal would come to see him as “worthy of a finished education”—meaning something more than what was offered at Cornwall. In the spring and summer of 1822, preparations were made for his transfer to the Andover Theological Seminary, an important training ground for New England ministers; he went there in the early autumn. But almost immediately he was felled by illness—a “bilious complaint”—that forced his withdrawal, and then a return to his family and nation. At the end of October, he joined the travel party that included John Ridge and three others; fortunately, his health improved en route south. During a stopover in New Haven, he led a prayer meeting, after which a participant described him as “a manly, good-looking Cherokee Indian (who bears the name of his patron the immortal Boudinot).” His safe arrival home was mentioned in a Cherokee mission journal in mid-December.79

  Elias’s stay in Cornwall had been a little more than four years from start to finish. Exactly when he and Harriet began to develop their special feelings for each other it is impossible to say exactly when. They seem not to have expressed themselves openly (even in private). But after Elias had gone, they kept in touch by exchanging letters, and, with the passage of time, romance blossomed. (Their letters have not survived.) Most of what is known about this largely hidden process came from Harriet’s family and friends, in whom she would eventually confide. In July 1825, she allowed that “her mind had been made up for more than two years.” This put the crucial moment back at least to the summer of 1823. It was then that she had received from Elias a letter containing “some things … that convinced her that she must stop short—or continue to correspond & be ready to meet the consequences.” Apparently, this was less than a full proposal, but enough to make her “confident of his attachment.” She, for her part, “knew that she should be unhappy if she stopped there”; hence “she made up her mind to marry him, should he propose it, & she did not doubt but that he would.”80

  She was not yet prepared for public disclosures, but she took the further step of asking “a good many Christian people, if they thought it could be any injury to the school, or do any hurt, in any way, if any one of the scholars (Cherokee youth) should return and marry one of our gir[ls &] they all said, no!” Perhaps these inquiries stirred curiosity—and, when set alongside her ongoing correspondence with Elias, something more. Her brother Stephen, “long before the other marriage took place…[had] frequently expressed his fears that sister H. would, some time or other, marry one of the Indians.” Later, when “that marriage” (Ridge-Northrup) did take place, “rumours were abroad that H. had similar intentions, [and]…we [in the Gold family] all became somewhat suspicious.” At about the same time, her brother-in-law Vaill “put the direct question … whether she thought she should ever marry an Indian; [and] she gave a direct reply, I don’t think I ever shall.” Nonetheless, according to her sister Catharine, their mother “used to tell Flora & me that she believed that Harriett loved Elias…[and] that she might marry him.” Clearly, the members of her family felt much concerned and were pressing her hard. However, she remained unwilling to open up; hence she “did endeavor to allay all such suspicions in the minds of her relatives & friends.… More than once or twice she declared that people had no occasion to say what they did with regard to her; That no indian had ever said a word on such a subject to her; & That she herself had never thought of such a thing.” (At least this was how some of her siblings remembered it—and why, later on, they would blame her for “deception.”)81

  It was not until “about 5 months after Ridge was married…[that] proposals were accordingly made [by Elias]…. [She] was then ready to answer him, & did.” (This would have been June 1824.) Still, she kept matters to herself; the controversy over the first “intermarriage” was just then peaking. But when autumn came, she told her parents and asked for their consent. At first, they “gave a decided negative to it,” and “brought up every argument … to dissuade her & prevent the connection.” They had “previously felt that marriages of this kind were not sinful…[but] now they had a severe trial in the case of their beloved daughter.” Her father wrote Elias a letter, declaring his refusal. But as winter came on, Harriet took sick; for a time, her life seemed in peril. Perhaps this was a stratagem, perhaps not. One of her brothers-in-law later accused her of “craftiness by making them [her parents] believe that she should die if she did not have her Indian.” (Sarah Northrup had played a similar part the year before. And both gained the desired result.) As a consequence, her parents reconsidered, feeling that “they might be found fighting against God…[and] told her they should oppose her no longer.” Her father sent Elias a second letter, stating his willingness “that H. should do as she pleased”; fortunately, it arrived before the first one. This, in due course, was “acknowledged with gratitude” by Elias.82

  Harriet’s parents decided not to inform others in the family so long as “H. was in a delicate state of health.” They knew that her brothers and sisters “would prevent it if they could,” and (as her sister Catharine subsequently wrote) that “our opposition would do no good.” Suspicion, however, remained strong, and rumors continued to circulate. Some of her siblings took refuge in willful denial; Catharine remarked, “[W]e heard & saw enough to convince us of the fact [of Harriet’s engagement], had we not been determined, not to believe it.” Clearly, the family was suffused with worry and tension as winter yielded to spring, and spring to early summer.83

  Finally, there came a point at which the secret could be held no longer; a series of jarring episodes in June would mark it indelibly. The first, involving Harriet’s brother Stephen, was recalled years later by a young relative who helped make Harriet’s wedding dress. Among all the siblings, these two were closest in age and in feeling; “what one knew, the other knew.” Harriet was sure that Stephen “would feel worse over her marriage than anyone else.” How, then, to tell him? She decid
ed to write a letter revealing the truth. Then: “One evening they were as usual together in the parlor conversing when she handed him the letter; there were two doors; one she locked before they went in; she went out and locked the other, and gave the key to her mother, telling her not to let him out until he became quiet. He screamed and called ‘Harriett! Harriett!’ like a madman. She locked herself in her room upstairs and would not come out until he promised to behave. This was before it was publicly known.” (Locked doors, screams, a madman’s reaction. And it was only the beginning.)84

  Apparently, Stephen was the first of the siblings to be told. Those who lived outside Cornwall received the news by letter—some from Stephen (“The dye [sic] is cast, Harriett is gone …”), others from Harriet herself. Their reaction ranged across a bitter gamut—from sorrow, to hurt, to shame, to fury. One of the brothers-in-law, Rev. Cornelius Everest, minister in the town of Windham, Connecticut, was particularly outraged: “We weep; we sigh; our feelings are indescribable,” he wrote. “Ah, it is all to be summed up in this—our sister loves an Indian! Shame on such love.” Moreover, he was quite ready to assign blame: “Sad was the day when the mission school was planted in Cornwall. What wild enthusiasm has been cherished by some in that place!” Like many others, he singled out Lydia Northrup, mother of Sarah and wife of the former steward, for special condemnation. Somehow this “Jezebel of a woman” had engineered not only her own daughter’s marriage to John Ridge but the Harriet-Elias “connexion,” as well. “Her art, her intrigue, her selfishness, & her deviltry” had brought “ruin” in both cases.85