One branch of the Fay family tree; an account of the ancestors and descendants of William and Elizabeth Fay of Westboro, Mass., and Marietta, Ohio

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JOSIAH H. BENTON rUND

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"If I were drowned in the deepest sea,

Mother o' mine, Oh mother o' mine
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
I know whose tears would come down to me.
Mother o' mine. Oh mother o' mine.

"If I were hanged on the highest hill,

Mother o' mine. Oh mother o' mine
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
I know whose love would follow me still.
Mother o' mine, Oh mother o' mine."

One Branch

-of the-

Fay Family Tree

An Account of

The Ancestors and Descendants

-oi-

fVilliam and Elizabeth Fay

of Westboro, Mass. and Marietta, Ohio

-BY-

GEORGE HENRY JOHNSON

Member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society

Columbus, Ohio

The Champlin Press

1913

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PREFACE

This account of "One Branch of the Fay Family" is not an
attempt to put a false estimate upon the standing of our relatives ;
it is the story of but one of those lines of the plain, everyday kind
of people of whom Lincoln once said, "God must love them for he
made so many of them." One of the cousins in contributing mat-
ter for this volume wrote: "we are just plain farmer folk" and
while not all the family have been farmers yet all have been among
the reliable, faithful people who in every crisis of our history have
proven the backbone of our nation's stability and who in every
day life have helped to make life worth living.

While scrupulously refraining from any attempt at family glori-
fication I cannot help bearing testimony to the substantial worthi-
ness of those whose record I have here portrayed ; they deserve
remembrance ; they have earned our respect. I trust that this
narrative of honorable fidelity in toil, of loyalty to home, of God
fearing integrity may stimulate all descendants of this family to
uprightness, to industry and to kindliness.

I have been indebted to so many helpful hands that it has be-
come impossible to name all such but they have the sincere thanks
of the writer, and all who may find pleasure and help in this volume
are indebted to them ; to care nothing for those to whose toil and
suffering we are indebted for the gift of life, the heritage of good
blood, and the disposition to serve our generation cannot seem to
me other than being "without natural affection."

None who are interested in the Fays can fail to be grateful to
the painstaking fidelity of Orlin P. Fay of Vermontville, Mich.,
in gathering the more than ten thousand names recorded in his
"Fay Genealogy" and I gladly acknowledge my obligation to him.

And so this tribute of a son and father in memory of those
awaiting him upon the farther shore goes to those who are bound
up with him in the bundle of life ; to him there is a sacredness of
love attaching to the work which forbids its being placed in the
book mart ; it is offered to history and to the family as a labor of
love and gratitude. No one can be as conscious of its imperfections
as the writer and he earnestly solicits corrections and additions to
the materials here given. He may be addressed at "The Case
School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio."

CONTENTS.

Page
Origin and varieties of Names 5

The Name Fay 8

John Fay of Marlboro 1 13

John Fay of Westboro II 20

Benjamin Fay of Westboro III 27

Benjamin Fay Jr., of Westboro IV 30

WiUiam Fay of Westboro and Marietta V 34

Rev. Levi L. Fay of Moss Run VI 38

EHzabeth C. Fay ( Mrs. Gihnan) VI 43

Beulah S. Fay (Mrs. Tenney) VI 50

Abigail A. Fay VI 53

William A. Fay of Springfield VI 54

Rev. Solomon Payson Fay VI 60

"Aunt Katy" (Mrs. Ewing) the children's friend VI 69

Eunice S. Fay (Mrs. Johnson) VI 73

Lucy F. Fay (Mrs. Guitteau) VI 80

Samuel E. Fay of Springfield VI 82

Joanna Maria Fay VI 86

Rev. Levi Lankton and his family 88

The Crane Family 100

The Stow Family 105

The Fay-Lankton Ancestry 107

Grandchildren of William and Elizabeth Fay Ill

The Poetic Gift in the Family 112

Military Records of Indian, Revolutionary and Civil Wars 117

The Family at College 125

Concerning a Coat of Arms 127

SURNAMES.

A primitive society has no more use for a surname than the
home circle; not until legal and historic needs arise are such names
used ; and as the need arises their use increases until in highly or-
ganized society they become practically universal. In the Roman
civilization each citizen had three names ; the first or personal
name marked the individual ; the second or proper name designated
the clan to which he belonged, all of whose members had the same
name and certain common religious rites ; the third name indicated
the particular family of the clan to which the individual belonged ;
Caius Julius Caesar was thus "Caius" in his own household ;
"Caesar" or "Caius Caesar" among his associates ; but the boast
of "the mightiest Julius" was in the name which showed him to
be "of Rome's great Julian line" which claimed descent from lulus,
the son of Aeneas.

Among our English forefathers only a single name was used or
even needed in earliest times ; this came to be called the "Christian"
name because it was conferred by the Church in the rite of baptism ;
the Book of Common Prayer, which had its origin in such times,
makes no provision for surnames either in its baptism or marriage
service ; and the laws made no provision for other than the bap-
tismal name until the "Statute of Additions" in the reign of Henry
V (14:13-14:22) decreed that all writs and indictments should con-
tain not only the name (that is the Christian name) of the person
but also his estate or degree, his calling or business, and the town
or district of his residence ; this law was extended under Henry
Vni when in 1538 every parish was required to keep a register
of the births, marriages and deaths within its bounds with both the
Christian names and the surnames of the persons. Even at this
time many of the common people had no surnames and to comply
with the new law the recorders had to assign such names and prob-
ably some otherwise unaccountable names were thus fastened upon
unborn generations. Such a law presupposes the growing use of
surnames and arouses interest in the origin of the custom. The
accurate and learned historian Freeman declares "there is no ascer-

6 Earliest Surnames

tained case of a strictly hereditary surname in England before the
conquest" (1066) but the germ of the surname is found in the
names of the early English kings ; from Egbert to Alfred the great
(837-871) four successive kings had names beginning with
"aethel'' (our "Ethel") meaning "noble"; for a king to bear the
name Aethelvvulf (noble wolf) is ample testimony to a primitive
and very likely a fierce state of society ; nineteen descendants of
Alfred the great had names beginning with "Ead" (meaning
'"wealth," the "e" pronounced like "y") or with "aethel" ; the
last king with the latter name Aethelred (978-1016) or "noble
counsel" certainly seems to give cause for hope that the times were
not quite so wild as when "noble wolf" was king (837-858). But
while we recognize these germs among the "noble" class it is not
until after the advent of William the Conqueror in 1066 that a
real family nomenclature arose in England and slowly spread from
the upper classes to the common people. The first thirty four
archbishops of Canterbury had no surname ; the thirty-fifth was
Ralph d'Escures in 1114 while the last to have but one name was
Boniface in 1246. The list of the bishops of London begins with
thirty-three Christian names and the first surname in the succession
is that of Hugh de Orivalle in 1075, The Episcopal city of Dur-
ham, shire town of the county of the same name which has given
us the well-known breed of short horned cattle, has preserved for
us one of the most interesting records of early days in England ;
the present cathedral was preceded by a minster known as St.
Cuthbert's church and contained the tombs of Saints Cuthbert and
Bede ; the monks of this church recorded the names of the donors
to the church in the "Liber Vitae" (See Rev. xx:13) which was
begun in the ninth century and continued until the dissolution of
the monasteries in the reign of Henry ,fVIII (1538). These names
written in alternate lines of gold and silver are at first Angle or
Scandinavian with a slight intermixture of Celtic, and there are
neither surnames or Bible names among them until the twelfth
century when Norman names begin to appear, and with them come
gradually both Bible names and surnames ; one of the earliest
of the latter is that of William Walais in the 13th Century ;
in this same century are recorded 207 names (were there but
two donors a year to this minster?) and of these but 1-1 have sur-
names ; by the fifteenth century surnames become frequent and the

The Fay Family t

earliest "trade" names are found ; the trade names were preceded
nearly a century by the "sire" names, for on folio 56 of the 13th
and 14th centuries occurs the name of Robert Johnson. The records
of the benefactors in the years immediately preceding the dissolution
of 1538 show that all the givers had surnames and mark the full
establishment of the custom. But not always were the earliest sur-
names permanent. The famous Sir Edward Coke (1553-1633)
urged that in purchases of real estate especial care should be taken
to record baptismal names as "It is holden in our ancient books
that a man may have divers names (that is surnames) at divers
times (but) not divers Christian names." An amusing instance of
the degeneration of early surnames is seen in the case of the pos-
terity of William of Sevenoaks who was Lord Mayor of London in
the sixth year of Henry V and was made a knight in 1433, for his
descendants bore the sadly abbreviated name of Snooks. Lack of
standard spelling and changes of residence or trade made many
transformations of surnames in those early days and indeed variant
spellings cause much confusion in the days of the early settlers of
New England ; the Rev. Peter Hobart of Hingham, Mass., a gradu-
ate of Magdalen College, Cambridge University, who had been a
school master before becoming a clergyman thus recorded the death
of his parents in his diary : "March 8, 1646 father Hubbeard dyed" ;
"June 33, 1649 mother Hobart dyed." These were the days before
the spelling book and the interesting spelling bees.

CLASSES OF SURNAMES.

The most numerous and perhaps the oldest surnames are sire-
names or patronymics as John-son, Robin-son, etc. Next in number
come the place-names derived from villages, estates or residence
as Washing-ton ; Johnston, which is John's town, not John's son ;
and practically all names ending in either "ton" or "ham" (home)
as well as the many names Brooks, Church, or Woods which clearly
refer to place of dwelling or toil, A third and far spread class of
names are derived from trades and run thro all the letters of the
alphabet from Abbot, Baker, Carpenter ;to Smith, Taylor and
Walker. In a fourth or miscellaneous class may be put all other
names; some derived from foreign sources (the name Smart
is said to be derived from the French St. Marte) and not a few
from nicknames, as Wilmot which means "Little Willie." If I do

8 French Origin of the Name Fay

not make a separate class of animal names as many do it is because
of my confidence that these are place-names owing their origin to
the signs that formerly marked the place of some tavern-keeper
or person who wished to have his house marked for the conve-
nience of such as might seek him. Macaulay writes of London in
the days of Charles II (1G60-1G85) : "The houses were not num-
bered (and) it was necessary to use marks which the most ignorant
could understand ; the shops were therefore distinguished by
painted signs ; the walk from Charing Cross to White Chapel lay
thro an endless succession of Saracens' Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue
Boars and Golden Lambs," and to such signs I would assign all such
names as Angel, Bull, Dove, Fish, Rose and Swan and possibly
even Green and Savage.

THE NAME FAY.

Altho' the English tongue is familiar with the word "fay" both
as a verb "to fit closely" and as a noun "a fairy" yet our family
name is not of English derivation but of French as all the family
traditions declare. It is perhaps a place-name and may have had
its origin in the region of the head-waters of the river Loire or the
vicinity of the city Lyons in which region the name is frequent
as a family name and is found also as a village name. But some
consider the name to be of Norman-French origin and definite
knowledge must await the coming of some antiquarian lover of
the family who shall have both the opportunity and the patience to
study the question upon French soil. A careful inspection of the
map of France in the Century atlas shows the following names of
places : "Fay aux Loges," "Fay le Froid," "Fayence," and "Fay-
mont." In an appendix on "French Village names" in Isaac
Taylor's "Names and their Histories" (Macmillan Co. 1896) we
are told :

"IGO names such as La Fayette, le Fay, la Fage, Fages, Feyt
and les Fayaux are from 'Fagetum' a beech wood"; and again:
"The word 'Fagetum,' a beech grove, has been a fertile source of
village names such as Fay, Fayet, Faget, and Fee in France and
Faida, Faido, and Fai in Italy."

In Lower's "English Surnames" (London 1875) is a transla-
tion of a French article on Norman Proper Names in which it is
said of the beech tree:

The Fay Family 9

"Its use in Normandy is of long standing tho' its present name
is modern ; it formerly bore one derived from the Latin 'Fagus' and
was called Fay, Fayel, Fau. Plantations of beech were called Faye,
Fayel, Fautlaie.''

Turning from places to individuals who have borne this name
we find that under its variant forms of Faye, Dufay, Fayet, Lafaye
and La Fayette the name of this family fills an honorable place in
the French records especially in the army and the church. In mili-
tary exploits the name reaches back to the days of Charlemagne
one of whose warriors named Adolph Victoire Fay was killed in
battle on the banks of the Weser in the year 783 and it reaches down
to a Plenat de la Faye, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars who in
1859 sent the Italian Patriot, Garibaldi, a present of a brace of
pistols as a mark of his esteem. While midway between these is
Godemar de Faye, who was the commander of the French troops in
1346 charged with the defence of the ford across the river Somme,
and whose defeat by Edward III of England gave the English the
advantage which enabled them to win the famous battle of Crecy
the following day. A recent English historian, R. P. Dunn-Pat-
tison, in his "Life of the Black Prince" says that the French val-
iantly defended the passage and "It was thro no lack of valor on
the part of Godemar de Fay and his force that the English effected
the crossing of the Somme. The fault lay entirely with the French
King."

Orlin P. Fay of Vermontville, Michigan, whose industry in
collecting the names and records of the family have placed us all
in heavy debt to him, has preserved the story of Victoire Faye, Mar-
quis de Latour Mauborg, who distinguished himself at the Battle
of Austerlitz for which service Napoleon made him a general of a
division of his army, and who later lost a leg at the battle of Leip-
sic ; as the surgeons were about to amputate the wounded leg he
said to his weeping valet : "Don't cry, you will have one less boot
to pull off." and such a hopeful spirit in the face of adversity we
may well seek to cultivate and make a family characteristic. A
brother of this hero, named Charles Caesar Faye, received many
honors from his native land and was the father of two sons, one of
whom married the daughter of Washington's friend, the Marquis
de la Fayette, and the other entered the diplomatic service of his
country and became the French ambassador at the courts of Con-
stantinople and London.

10 The Fays in France

In the terrible times when reUg-ious quarrels paralyzed the
courts of justice in France and men murdered each other in the
name of the religion which commands us "to love one another" a
family of Fayes were in high positions in France and are credited
with rare discretion in their conduct ; among these was Barthelemi
Faye, Sieur d'Epeisses, belonging to an ancient family of Lyons,
who served with signal ability as Parliamentary Councillor, a post to
which he was appointed by Francis I in 1541 ; his, son Jacques Faye
raised the family reputation still higher by his services to the royal
Duke who was first king of Poland and later king of France known
as Henry III ; his eloquence and courteous spirit are spoken of in
French works as of special aid to his sovereign in his difficult posi-
tion in Poland; upon the assassination of Henry III Faye joined
his fortunes with those of Henry IV and under the walls of Paris
showed himself as valiant with the sword as he had been skilful
with his pen ; among his writingSi still extant is an article on the
council of Trent urging that many of the decisions of that famous
council were prejudicial to the royal rights and subversive of the
liberties of the Galilean church. His brother, Charles Faye, Arch-
deacon of Notre Dame, was the author of a criticism upon the papal
bulls of Gregory XIV of which two editions were' published. A
son of Jacques Faye. named for his Uncle Charles, lived from 1577
to 1637 and rose to be a Councillor of State and Ambassador to
Holland ; the Imperial Library at Paris contains six volumes of his
writings.

Two brothers named Lafaye, sons of the Receiver General of
the revenues of Dauphine. won entrance into the French Academy
which has preserved their writings and eulogies; the elder (1671-
1718) was a noted soldier and military engineer; the younger (1674-
1731) was as skilled in literature as his brother in mathematics; in
the diplomatic service he rose to be his country's representative at
the English Court ; he is eulogized in one of Voltaire's brief poems.

In the annals of the church the Fays have generally been found
on the Huguenot or protestant side : Antoine de Lafaye of Geneva
was the companion and biographer of Beza ; the author of com-
mentaries on St. Paul's epistles ; translator of Josephus and of
Livy's Roman History ; he was also considered an excellent physi-
cian; he died in 1618. Jacques de la Faye, is recorded in the
"Biographic Universelle" of Paris as the Preacher of the English
Church at Utrecht and author of a volume of 250 pages in opposi-
tion to Toland, a Deistical writer.

FRENCH REFUGEES IN ENGLAND.

As all the family traditions declare that our ancestor fled from
France to England on account of religious persecutions it is neces-
sary to study the accounts of these sad pages of history. The

The Fay Family 11

famous Edict of Nantes was issued by Henry IV in 1598 to secure
protestants the right of legal existence in France ; but it did not
bring peace to the bitterly hostile factions in an age when mutual
forbearance was altogether unknown ; and it was formally repealed
in 1685. Historians estimate that more than fifty thousand Protest-
ants left their native France and sought refuge in England or other
countries sympathetic with their religious views. Their presence
and industry in England caused bitter complaints to be made by the
chartered companies and workmen's guilds ; these complaints began
as early as 1605 and increased until thq government felt constrained
to place certain restrictions upon the number of foreign born work-
men that might be employed in any one locality or industry, and
certain customs-taxes were levied in hopes of limiting the numbers
who came ; but these efforts to propitiate the chartered companies
were very unpopular with the people at large. It will be of interest
to students of present day problems to recall some of these com-
plaints by the workmen of the seventeenth century.

"Their chiefest cause of entertainment here of late was in
charity to shroud them from persecution for religion, and beinge
here theire necessity became the mother of theire ingenuitie in de-
vising manye trades before to us unknowne." Clarke's History of
Ipswich (England) illustrates the truth of this complaint by show-
ing that the making of sailcloth in any large amounts was first
begun in England by these refugees and spread so rapidly that the
importations from France were reduced from 1683 to 1733 by the
large sum of five hundred thousand pounds and England was by
them delivered from her former dependence on Brittany and Nor-
mandy for this essential to trade and traffic over seas. For this and
similar instances French intolerance in religion has been called the
killing of the goose that laid the golden egg. But the increase of
competition in England obscured the sight of this great advantage
and the complaint of the guilds against the refugees continues :
"their daylie flocking hither is like to grow scarce tolerable ; their
numbers causeth the enhauncing of the prises of vittells and house
rents so as no tenement is left to an Englishe artificer to inhabit ;
which hath made them bould of late to devise engines (machinery)
for workings of tape, lace, ribbin and such, wherein one man doth
more among them than seven Englishe men can doe ; so as theire
cheape sale of those comodities beggereth all our Englishe artificers
of that trade."

The protest of the Weavers Company declares "they live more
cheaply and therefore sold more cheaply" and asks that "the wars
and persecutions which drove them to England being over they
should be compelled to return" to France. The complaint of the

12 French Workmen in England

Goldsmiths in 1623, affirmed that their guild was "impoverished and
that meaner trades had crept into Goldsmith's row in Lombard St."
The Coopers made special complaint "of the number of aliens em-
ployed by foreign brewers" and the Clockmakers asked that their
foreign rivals "might not be allowed to work except for English
masters."

But in spite of these complaints of workmen unable to adapt
themselves to new competition the sympathy felt for these unfor-
tunate victims of religious animosity and the discernment of keener
insight, which foresaw the advantage of England's gaining such
skilled workmen and varied industries at the expense of her nearest
rival, overcame the restrictive measures of a timid government and
in 1G81 King Charles II ordered that a kind reception be given to
these Protestants, and that their goods and "household stuffe" to^
gether with their tools and instruments be suffered to pass free
thro the ports ; and by an order in Council of 28 July, 1681, the King
was pleased to give orders for collecting the charity of all well
disposed persons for the relief of the needy among these Protest-
ants, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Bishop of
London were especially charged with the administration of this
charity.

While the complaints of English workmen failed to stop or
seriously hinder the coming to England of these refugees it did
result in an order (6 Sept., 1618) requiring, an official record "of
the strangers dwelling in London'' which was later enlarged to in-
clude "all aliens resident in England" and fortunately these records
have been preserved and were printed in 1863 ; they show that
there were in London 1343 such strangers of whom there were
349 weavers, 183 merchants, 148 "taylers," 64 "sleavemakers" etc.,
etc. The goldsmiths who' had been charged with impoverishing the
English guild were found to number only 30 ; and devotees of a
present popular sport will be interested in finding "3 tennis court
keepers and rackett makers" in the. list. I have carefully examined
the names of all these persons in hopes of finding some light upon
the family history but I found only three instances of the Fay
name; at Canterbury in the reign of James I (1603-1635) a Boni-
face Le Fay is recorded ; among those "made free denizens" in the
reign of Charles II (1660-1685) was Lewis de la Faye, Mary his
wife, and Harry their son; and at Whitehall (35 M'ch, 1688) was a
James Dufay and Suzanna his wife.

The publications of the Huguenot Society of London include a
much larger number of names but among these only two Fays have
been found ; in May, 1571, is recorded an Anthony de Fay "borne in

The Fay Family 13

Burgundie; in England five years; goldsmythe and jorneyman to
Mr. Louyson, goldsmythe" and later a "Pieter de Fay, gierdel-
maker" is recorded among the names of "Duitshmen. incorporated
in the Duitsch Churche [in] one of the suburbs of this Cittie of
London."

OUR IMMIGRANT ANCESTOR.

The earliest mention of a Fay to whom we can definitely trace
our own connection is in a list of the "Pasingers abord the Speed-
well of London, Robert Lock, Master." This list, dated "Searcher's
office, Gravesend 30th May 1G56," includes 41 names, eight of which
have a "Q" against them and have been thought to be Quakers. In
the list are these names in the order of the original record: "Thomas
Barnes (age) 20 ; Shudrack Hopgood 14 ; Thomas Goodynough 20 ;
Nathaniel Goodinough 16; John Fay 8; William Tayler 11" and
farther down the list are two more boys each of whom was eight
years old. Added to the list is this record : "Theese were landed at
Boston in N. E. the 27th of the moneth 1656" ; the "moneth" was
no doubt June and indicated a most favorable voyage inasmuch
as the Mayflower was nine weeks on its course. It is of course
idle to speculate as to how a boy of only eight years of age came
to be among these passengers v^^ith none other of his name, although
we are too cautious to make the assumption that he was without
relatives on this voyage ; would that some fortunate discovery of
old time papers might throw a little light upon the many questions
prompted by our eager curiosity. All the "Pasingers" whose names
are given above seem to have gone to Sudbury, a town originally
adjoining Concord, Mass., and whose records date from 1639 ; per-
haps some or even all of them had relatives already there. An un-
fortunate error of Rev. Abner Morse the earliest historian of the
family has given rise to the statement that David Fay was the father
of this eight year old boy and that this father, who is sometimes
..said to have preceded, and sometimes to have followed, his son to
Sudbury, is the true ancestor of the family, while the entire absence
of any mention of his name in the early records is thought to be
due to his having returned to England or to an early death ; Morse's
error was due to the finding of the name of David Fay as the recip-
ient of a town lot thro a Peter Bent of Marlboro but careful re-
investigation by experts in colonial town records has shown that

14 The Settlement at Marlboro

this David Fay was the son and not the father of John Fay and
thus leaves as the name of our ancestor the John Fay who came
across the Atlantic in the early summer of 1656 at the age of 8
years.

JOHN FAY I.

Our forefather undoubtedly grew to early manhood in Sud-
bury and shared the toil, privations and danger of a frontier town
but the first record of his name is not in Sudbury but in connection
with the adjoining town of Marlboro, whose history dates from
1660 and which was settled by the adventurous among the inhab-
itants of Sudbury and other towns. If we had the earliest records
of the Marlboro church we should eagerly look for the date of his
church membership and of his marriage but these records perished
when the Indians burned the meeting house (Sunday, 20 March,
1676) and practically ruined the new town; the settlers sought
safety among their friends in other towns until the close of King
Philip's war made their return safe. John Fay took his family to
Watertown where he probably remained for two or three years.
The first mention of his name in records still remaining is in the
list of petitioners from Marlboro to the General Court of 1671 ask-
ing for a grant of land who were advised by the Court "to look for
a meete place to the westward of Conecticot river" ; but the peti-
tioners seem to have had no disposition to accept this advice. In
1675 his name appears among the proprietors of Worcester where a
lot of fifty acres was assigned him in the "eastern squadron" on
the county road to Boston ; whether he sold this claim or allowed
it to lapse owing to the outbreak of King Philip's war we know not
but certainly John Pay never lived iii Worcester.

Oct. 1, 1675 the men of Marlboro met to decide upon means
of defence against the bands of King Philip; among the twenty
five names of men recorded as present Fay's is the twenty-first,
and he was assigned to the defense of the house of William Kerley
in case of an Indian assault ; the houses chosen for defence were
naturally those of exceptional strength or position of especial need.
It is possible that John Fay had already gone to Watertown when
the Indian assault was actually made.

At the close of the war he returned to Marlboro and in 1686
his name is found in the list of the proprietors of the Ockoocangan-

The Fay Family 15

sett plantation who met Oct. 29th and voted to divide the plantation
into lots to be assigned to the individuals composing the proprietors.
This plantation had been reserved for the Indians in whose
behalf the noted Indian Missionary John Eliot labored ; Marlboro
was one of the seven principal "prayingtowns" of his Indian con-
verts; and when in 1684 John Brigham and others desired to pur-
chase this plantation of the Indians the General Court thro the in-
fluence of Eliot and his friends refused to permit such purchase ;
but Brigham and his associates were determined to secure this de-
sirable land and obtained a deed from the Indians ; this deed the
General Court promptly pronounced null and void ; yet Brigham
proceeded to survey the thousand acres of the plantation and to
divide it among the fifty-two proprietors one of whom was John
Fay. As the Court refused to recognize the titles of these pro-
prietors the latter voted in 1G93 that the grants of land in this plan-
tation "shall stand good to all intents and purposes if they be at-
tested by John Brigham." The controversy between the courts and
the proprietors was prolonged until 1719 but the death of Eliot in
1690 deprived the Indians of their chief defender, and as the pray-
ing Indians followed him the whites, as so often in our country's
history, remained in possession of the coveted soil ; the desire to
secure land was "a close second" to the desire to escape religious
persecution in the early settlement of New England. John Fay's
name also appears among those who assessed themselves for an
expedition to Canada in 1690 ; it is supposed that this was the origin
of a movement to take up land in the Northern wilderness and ulti-
mately resulted in a settlement within the limits of the present towns
of Jay and Canton in Maine ; so far as our ancestor was concerned
this association with adventurous settlers came to nothing as did his
earlier connection with the proposed Worcester Settlement ; but it
illustrates his ambition to become a land holder.

A tax list of Marlboro for the year 1688 has fortunately been
preserved and is of much interest to the present writer who finds
upon it the names of fourteen members of families from whom
he is directly descended. The total amount of the tax is 19 £. 3s.
3d. 4f., and the heaviest tax payer is John Brigham whose share of
the tax is 0-12-2-0 while that of "John fifay" is 0-4-4-0. This tax
list is committed for collection to Constables William Ward and
John "filay."

The Massachusetts archives show that on April 18, 1690
twenty-four inhabitants of Marlboro were duly made freemen of
the Commonwealth one of whom was "John fay" and his name is
recorded between those of Thomas and John Brigham, his brothers-
in-law.

16 John Fay and His Farm

The first General Court of Mass. convened Oct. 19, 1630 and
every freeman had the right to attend this court (now called the
legislature) in person and to take part in its actions ; up to this time
no one had been admitted to the political rights of the original set-
tlers; but at this Court 109 were admitted among whom were some
who were not members of any church; but at its. next session 1631
it was decreed that none but church members should be admitted in
the future ; the admission of Fay and the Brighams establishes
their church relation. Of course citizenship was not necessary
as a qualification for voting in the proprietors' meetings of the va-
rious towns nor was it a prerequisite for official position among
these proprietors, for we have already found our ancestor assigned
to a constable's and tax collector's duty at least two years before
he became a freeman and Orlin P. Fay found a county (Middlesex)
record which attested the appointment of a committee to lay out
highways for man and beast from Marlboro, Sudbury, Sherborn
and Framingham to the falls on Charles River ; the fifth name of
this committee of six is John Fay.

In pilgrimages and visits within the limits of the original town
of Marlboro I have sought the location of our ancestor's farm.
Orlin Fay says that the homestead was on "the north side of Clean
Hill" and within the limits of the present town of Southboro ; in
1908 I could not find any recognition of a "clean hill" and I fear
the family historian misunderstood the name, but Mr. John S.
Fay, then postmaster of Marlboro, was confident that the original
Fay plantation covered much the same ground as the large farm
then known as the "Sears Estate" fronting on the road leading
from the mill privilege ("Sawin's Mill") on Stonybrook to
Marlboro.

John Fay died 5 Dec, 1690, and his estate was inventoried
the following Jan'y ; it is a matter of regret that no copy of this
inventory has remained on record but on 6 June, 1695, the court
record shows that his widow made her return of an inventory of
property remaining in her possession as two cows, one horse, five
sheep and three pairs of sheets ; she declared that her husband had
disposed of the rest of his property by will ; as a search of the
Middlesex County probate records revealed no such will Orlin
Fay concluded that it might have been a verbal will ; but it is also
possible that it was an arrangement made when the father settled
his sons on their respective farms and gave marriage settlements
to his daughters, for he gave to each of them a good start in life :
and if the eight year old boy who came to New England in 1856

The Fay Family 17

had nothing but his hands and head to enable him to achieve suc-
cess his children must have felt that in spite of his comparatively
early death he had won a position that entitled him to their grate-
ful affectioi}. Tried by the standards of his age (and what right
have any of us to judge any man by other standards than those of
his own time?) he won the esteem of his sturdy fellows and left to
his descendants the record of a clean, ambitious, energetic worker,
and of a God fearing man. Few indeed are those among his thou-
sands of descendants whose names were diligently collected by Or-
lin P. Fay who will dare claim superior merit or greater advance
in forty years of life than the boy "without father, without mother,
without genealogy" who was one of the "Pasingers abord the
Speedwell — landed at Boston — the 27th of the moneth."

THE FAMILY OF JOHN FAY I.

The success of our ancestor in accumulating property was no
doubt largely due to his connection with the Brigham family.
Thomas Brigham the immigrant of 1635 settled in the edge of
Watertown on a farm since included within the limits of Cam-
bridge extending from Charles River across the present Brattle
street up Sparks street and including that part of the grounds of
Radcliffe College on which Fay House is situated. He died 8-10-
1653 (19 Dec, 1653) leaving a son, John Brigham, of marked
energy and determination, who as surveyor, doctor, miller and
land speculator had a strong influence among the colonists, and
with whom John Fay was closely associated in business. Thomas
Brigham also left an estate inventoried at 449£-0-ls-09d (a large
sum for those early days) and the Middlesex County court records
show that a law suit was begun by his heirs — three sons, a daughter
and two grandchildren, John Fay and Samuel Fay — against one
Samuel Hastings to recover possession of certain real estate in Has-
tings' possession. This quarrel concerning a bit of land would
be of slight interest to us were it not that it is the only legal evi-
dence now extant of the marriage of John Fay our ancestor ; for
most closely related to us of later days as we read of Thomas
Brigham is the fact that his oldest daughter, Mary, became the
bride of John Fay. No record of her birth or marriage has sur-
vived but it is probable that she was born in Cambridge, Mass.,
about 1638 and married our forefather about 1668; apparently

18 Children of John Fay

she was about ten years older than her husband ; she was the first
girl of the Brigham family born in New England and her marriage
with a Fay was the first of many inter-marriages between these
families. Mrs. Fay died 1676 in Watertown, whither the family
had fled to escape the Indian alarms, leaving four children, one of
whom soon followed her beyond the reach of Indian war whoops.
Two years later John Fay married, 15 July, 1678, Susanna, daugh-
ter of William Shattuck of Watertown and widow of Joseph Morse
of the same town ; Mrs. Morse was the mother of seven children
by her first husband; she bore her second husband four more, and
as he already had three living children the family at the Marlboro
homestead was surely one of a generous size, a large family of
the good old-fashioned kind, such as was needed by the new
country and a yet unpeopled wilderness. After John Fay's death,
1690, his widow took a third husband (30 July, 1695), Thomas
Brigham, Jr., brother of John Fay's first wife. I do not find a
record of her death. John Fay had eight children, four by each
wife, all born in Marlboro.

1. John Fay Jr. whose record is on p. 20.

2. David, b. 15 Oct., 1671; d. at Watertown 1676.

3. Samuel, b. 11 Oct., 1673; one of the first settlers in West-
boro where he was chosen surveyor, tithingman, sealer of leather
and town clerk ; landowner in Westboro, Southboro and Brook-
field ; married 16 May, 1699, Tabitha, daughter of Increase Ward;
he died 10 Nov., 1732, leaving seven children. His grandson, Sam-
uel Fay, had two wives, the first of whom bore him fourteen chil-
dren and the second eleven ; he was over seventy years of age
when the youngest was born ; this is the largest family recorded
in Orlin Fay's family records.

4. Mary, b. 10 Feb., 1675 ; married 26 March, 1696, her cousin
Jonathan Brigham, son of Thos. Brigham Jr., who later married
her step-mother. She died in Marlboro 9 Nov., 1751, having had
ten children.

5. David, b. 23 April, 1679, oldest child of the second wife;
inherited the homestead ; farmer, miller and weaver ; was the first
constable in Southboro and thrice served on the board of Select-
men ; his mill was, I judge, the first one on the water privilege which
was later known as Sawin's Mill. He married 1 May, 1699, Sarah,
daughter of John Larkin ; they had twelve children. Orlin Fay's
records show how far reaching and patriotic was the influence of
his many descendants ; several of them rendered notable military
service in the French and Indian war ; the Revolution ; and the
civil war; those who achieved political prominence from Massa-

The Fay Family 19

chusetts and California and other localities are too many to be
mentioned here ; while the list of prominent clergymen, successful
men of business, and honored teachers is most enviable. One
name deserves our special attention — that of Col. Francis B. Fay,
the first Mayor of Chelsea, Member of Congress from the Essex
District, Mass., and originator of the Reform School for girls at
Lancaster, Mass. Nearly three pages of O. P. Fay's book are
devoted to him ; he was of special service to the Fay family be-
cause of his interest in collecting materials for a genealogy of the
family ; the expense of the materials collected by Rev. Abner Morse,
the basis of all subsequent histories of the family, was generously
provided by this loyal and worthy member of the Fay family.

6. Gershom, b. 19 Oct., 1681 ; his home was in that part of
Marlboro which in 1766 was incorporated as the town of North-
boro. His wife was Mary Brigham, a niece of his father's first
wife; she was the heroine of the Indian assault of 18 Aug., 1707;
she and Mary Goodnow were gathering herbs and were the first
to discover the approach of the Indians ; Samuel Goodnow's
(father of Mary) house was palisaded as the garrison house, and
to this they sought to flee ; Mary was, however, killed in the flight
and her scalp taken as a trophy; but Mrs. Fay and her two chil-
dren reached the house where but one man was at home ; the rest
of the men of the neighborhood were at work together for protec-
tion in outlying fields ; the Indians attempted to break down the
palisade but the man kept up so vigorous a fire with guns loaded
for him by Mrs. Fay that they could not accomplish their object
before the hurried approach of the men from the fields ; in the en-
counter with the retreating Indians two white men and nine red
men were killed ; on the person of one of the dead Indians was
found Mary Goodnow's scalp ; three months after this event Mrs.
Fay's daughter Susanna was born and was a life-long nervous
invalid subject to constant tremblings. Among the many and
worthy descendants of Gershom Fay our special thanks are due to
Orlin P. Fay of Vermontville, Mich., a veteran of the Civil War,
and the painstaking and indefatigable collector of the names and
traditions of the descendants of the Immigrant John Fay. His
records with over ten thousand names were published at Cleveland
in 1898 and will be of invaluable worth to the future historian of
the family. Another of Gershom's noted descendants was Rev.
Warren Fay, a graduate of Harvard College in 1807 ; he received
the honorary degree of D.D. from Dartmouth College in 1828 and
was elected president of the Western Reserve College then located
at Hudson, Ohio, an honor which he declined ; he was for twenty
years the pastor of the First Church in Charlestown, Mass.

7. Ruth, b. 15 July, 1684 ; married 28 June. 1706, Increase, son
of Increase and Record Ward, a native of Sudbury ; their home was

20 The Settlement in Westboro

in that part of Marlboro afterwards the town of Northboro; her
husband was brother to Tabitha, wife of her brother Samuel. They
had seven children.

8. DeHverance, b. 7 Oct., 1686; married 20 Feb., 1706, her
cousing Benjamin Shattuck ; she died in January, 1711, leaving two
young children; her daughter married her cousin Samuel Fay Jr.,
thus following the examples of her mother and her Aunt Mary ; this
daughter had fourteen children and her husband had eleven more
by a second wife as mentioned before in speaking of Samuel.

John Fay had fifty-six grandchildren, a good investment in a
young nation in need of strong defenders and willing workers.

JOHN FAY II.

Our branch of the family is descended from the eldest son
and namesake of our forefather and he was born in Marlboro 30
Nov., 1669, and is recorded as uniting with the church 2-1 Feb'y,
1706. He and his brother Samuel were pioneer settlers in that
part of the town which in 1717 was incorporated as the hundredth
town in Massachusetts and was named Westboro ; Thomas Rice is
said to have been the earliest actual settler within the limits of this
town and the Fay brothers were the next. "The houses of the
Fays" or "Fay's Farm" are historic in Westboro annals by reason
of being designated on the map of Chauncy. the earliest map of
this region, and because of their being named in certain acts of
the General Court defining boundaries. These farms were included
in the five hundred acres of land granted by the General Court in
1680 to the heirs "of that worthy gent Theophilus Eaton, Esq."
who had advanced 50 £ to the colony of which he was one of the
original patentees ; they constitute the shoulder which butts into
the Shrewsbury line on the northwest side of Westboro ; they were
conveyed for 25 £ to John and Thomas Brigham (each of whom
received a third of the purchase) and to John and Samuel Fay,
sons of their sister Mary, who together received the remaining
third. DeForest's History of Westboro (1891) says that the east
line of the farm passed near a spring which supplied the Fays
with water and which is southeast of the S. A. Howe house where
John Fay built his home; Samuel's "mansion house" (was he able
to build a finer house than his brother?) was on the opposite side
of West Main Street near the North Grafton road ; both farms
were owned in 1890 by M. and J. E. Henry. It is said that John
Fay built a cabin in a hillside where it could be approached from

The Fay Family 21

one side only and thus could more easily be defended against
Indians ; as late as 1834 this place was known as "the fort" ; Uncle
Levi L. Fay wrote to O. P. Fay in 1883 that in addition to the
fort John Fay had an underground room to protect him if the
Indians should intercept his flight to the fort while at work clear-
ing up his farm ; this room was about a mile from the fort and was
entered by a trap door, and once saved our ancestor from capture
by the Indians ; near it grew a pear tree of extraordinary size
which was reputed to have been a sapling found by John Fay in
clearing up his land and which was still bearing "delicious fruit"
in 1855.

Rev. Ebenezer Farkman was the first minister of Westboro
and left a brief sketch of the town's early history in which he
says "The first families in Westboro were twenty-seven ; all the
first settlers were about forty" ; he gives the names of twenty-five
families ; the first four are : Thomas Rice, Charles Rice, John Fay,
Samuel Fay. Incorporated 18 Nov., 1717, "the hundredth town"
held its first town meeting the following 15 Jan'y ; the records show
these votes :

61y Isaac Tomblin, Thomas Newton, "John fay" chosen "a
Commete" to secure a minister and to provide for his "Comfortable
Subfestenc." 71y "John fay chosen Town Clark." 81y "Thomas
Rice sener chosen the first seelectman ; John fay and Semeion Hay-
ward Sener chosen Seelectmen."

At the next town meeting Id Feb'y John Fay was chosen one
of the committee to receive a committee of the General Court who
came to town "to Sett out the minister's lot."

In 1721 the town appointed John Fay, David Brigham, and
Thomas Ward to be the town's trustees "to go to the Province
Treasurer and take out the proportion of bills that belong to the
town" ; they were authorized to loan the money thus received "not
letting a bigger sum than four or five pounds to one man — except
there be a necessity." This refers to Westboro's share of the fifty
thousand pounds, "bills of credit," issued to the towns by the
colony to be loaned at reasonable rates to individuals to relieve the
financial distress and lack of money. This paper money, called
"The Bank" was the beginning of much financial sorrow ; the notes
depreciated until they were scarcely worth a tenth of their face
value ; a new issue had to be made to redeem them ; and the terms
"old tenor," "new tenor" and "lawful money" in documents of
this period are very confusing to readers of the present day. In
1721 the town voted John Fay 1£ 10s. to defray his charge for
defending the town at Concord against the suit of one Lenard of

22 Officers in Town and Church

Worcester who sued the town to recover the bounty offered for
the kilhng of a wolf ; but I find no record of the decision. Wolves
were a great annoyance and so were rattlesnakes, for I find a town
vote on the Marlboro records to raise thirteen men to go out to
kill rattlesnakes and to pay them two shillings apiece per day
out of the town rates. In 1738 John Fay was granted 2s. 6d. a
day "for transcribing the town's acts into the new book," a labor
of four and a half days, bringing his bill to lis. 3d. In 1730 the
town voted to call all the trustees to account for the interest money
"of both banks" and to look over Capt. Fay's accounts. As there
is no record of any error or failure in these accounts the descend-
ants of Capt. Fay are warranted in presuming that his accounts
were found entirely correct and complete. Why he is called "Capt."
in this vote is not known but his evident leadership in all matters
of church or town creates the presumption that he was likewise
leader in such military organization as the young town was able to
maintain.

John Fay, the first Town Clerk of Westboro, was annually
re-elected until 1728, holding this office eleven years, and he served
the town as Selectman for twelve years ; he was twice moderator
of the town meeting and in 1722 was chosen Town Treasurer ; these
repeated elections bear eloquent testimony to the confidence reposed
in him by his fellows. He was equally a leader in all matters per-
taining to the church ; as already stated he was one of the first
committee to secure and provide for a minister ; he was moderator
of the meeting which secured Mr. Parkman as its first pastor ; he
was one of the thirteen members of the church which was form-
ally recognized by an ecclesiastical council 28 Oct., 1724 ; the thir-
teen charter members were all men ; not until the following July
were there female members, when six women were admitted, one
of whom was Mrs. Fay. Deacons were not chosen until 12 Oct.,
1727, when John Fay and Isaac Tomblin were elected. 'When the
meeting house was completed seats on the benches were assigned
by a committee with due regard to dignity and social standing ac-
cording to the undemocratic ways of the time ; but the church voted
to sell the space around the walls "to be improved for pews."
These pew spots became private property equally with a building
lot, and the buyers built the pews as they did their houses, accord-
ing to their taste and ability ; eight purchasers secured pew spots
that their families might not have to sit upon the benches in the
center of the meeting house; John Fay bought the space "on the

The Fay Family 33

east side just north of the entrance," next beyond him was the
Forbush family and in other pew spots were the Rice, Brigham,
Maynard and other "first famiUes" of Westboro.

One more record concerning the man whom. pastor DeForest
calls "the good deacon'' should not be overlooked. The church
records show that 24 May, 1730, Deacon Fay presented to the
church his confession and apology for his irregular conduct on the
3d of May when he tried to make a speech to the congregation at
the close of the church service. In the quaint spelling of the days
preceding the spelling books and dictionaries the record states that
however zealously and innocently the attempt may charitably be
considered to have been made it was nevertheless very imprudent
for it was immediately answered by Lieut. Forbush ; whereupon
Mr. Fay replied with passion and threat, causing a disturbance
"altogether Criminall & Surprising upon the Lord's day and after
our holy imployment." While the good deacon's passion cooled
enough to bring his handsome apology in three weeks it was over
four years before Lieut. Forbush (July, 1734) confessed his part
in this "irregular conduct."

Another record may refer to our ancestor though indirectly.
In 1740 the great evangelist Whitefield began his work in this coun-
try which led to the "Great Awakening" ; he was in Marlboro in
Oct., 1740 ; perhaps he did not visit Westboro but in 1742 Jonathan
Edwards preached twice in Westboro; under date of 13 Jan., 1743,
Rev. Mr. Parkman's diary states "A number of children were sup-
posed to be much filled with the Spirit and carried out in spiritual
joy last night at Mr. Fay's. An Indian girl in great distress for
her brother and Betty Fay in terrors." I presume that Betty was
the daughter of the third John and was ten years old at this time.
Pastor DeForest speaks of "overwrought sensibilities'' in connec-
tion with this item from the diary and apparently Pastor Parkman
had some misgivings as to the "supposed" manifestation of the
Spirit.

John Fay- died in Westboro 5 Jan'y, 1747, at the ripe age of
77 years. Of his energ)^ strength and worth there can be no ques-
tion. Exceeding even the good record of his father by as much
as he was more fortunate in his youth he left a name that is still
remembered with respect in his home town and deserving of cher-
ished remembrance by his numerous progeny. From the stand-
point of heredity the family was well bom.

24 Children of John Fay

Family of John Fay II,

Like his father he had two wives but his children had all the
same mother, who was Elizabeth, dau. of Benjamin and Elizabeth
(Sweetman) Wellington; she was born 29 Dec, 1673; married 1
Dec., 1690; united with the church in Marlboro 9 Nov., 1699, and
was transferred to the church in Westboro 25 July, 1725. She
died 8 March, 1729.

Mr. Fay's second wife was Levinah Brigham, whom he mar-
ried 16 Dec, 1729; she outhved her husband and died 8 March,
1749.

Children born in Marlboro:

1. Bathsheba, b. 1 Jan'y, 1693 ; m. 4 Jan'y, 1716, John Pratt,
Jr. ; they lived in Westboro, and Hardwick, Mass., and in Ben-
nington, Vt. ; eight children.

2. Eunice, b. 2 June, 1696; m. 17 April, 1721, Isaac Pratt,
brother of her sister's husband ; three children.

3. Mary, b. 29 Sept, 1698; died 20 Nov., 1704.

4. John, b. 5 Dec, 1700; m. 17 April, 1721, Hannah Child;
their home was in that part of Westboro later known as Northboro ;
in spite of his early death, 10 Nov., 1732, he acquired a large estate
for the time. His grandson Jonathan (1754-1811) sent two sons
to Harvard College and they were the first Fays in the roll of
Harvard Alumni ; Dr. Nahuni Fay was one of the earliest gradu-
ates of the Harvard Medical School; his older brother Jonathan
studied law, settled at Concord, Mass., and rose to marked success
in his profession ; the latter's son, Samuel Prescott Phillips Fay
(1778-1856), was Probate Judge of Middlesex Co. for 35 years
and served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard College for 28
years ; two of the latter's sons were Harvard graduates, Richard
Sullivan Fay in 1825 and Rev. Charles Fay in 1829, while a third
son, Joseph Story Fay (1812-1897), became widely known as an
expert in Forestry and Floriculture by his estate in Woods Holl,
Mass. A son of Rev. Charles Fay graduated at Harvard in 1869,
and a grandson of R. S. Fay in 1881. while a number of J. S.
Fay's descendants have been students at our oldest college. One
of the scholarships annually awarded at Radclifife College bears the
name of Capt. Jonathan Fay of Westboro. Laura Matilda Fay
and Rose Emily Fay, daughters of Rev. Charles Fay were gifted
women who contributed many of the critical notices published in
the New York and Chicago Journals ; Rose was well known in
Chicago as a decorative artist and her marriage 7 May, 1890, to
Theodore Thomas, the famous orchestral leader, was a society
event.

The Fay Family 25

5. Lydia, b. 24 Nov., 1702.

6. Dinah, b. 5 Sept., 1705 ; m. 8 Nov., 1722, David Goodnow
of Marlboro; they settled in Shrewsbury; four children.

7. James, b. 27 Dec, 1707; m. 9 Dec, 1727, Lydia, dau. of
Joseph and Sarah Child of Watertown. About 1740 he moved
from Westboro to Grafton and in 1746 he settled in Hardwick,
Mass., where he died 12 June, 1777. He was a farmer and bone-
setter. He was one of the founders of the "Separate" or "New
Light" Church formed in Hardwick about 1750 which afterwards
voted to remove to Bennington where it became the First Congre-
gational Church in Vermont. In his old age he found it hard to
adapt himself to the rising sentiment against England and "Deac.
James Fay" was the third name in the list of five "tories" who
were "published to the world" in 1775 by the Hardwick Committee
of Correspondence, whom "the inhabitants of this town, county and
colony were advised to shun — and treat with that contempt and
neglect they deserve" ; they were to be arrested if they tried to
leave the town ; were forbidden to "assemble together except at
public worship and at funerals" and in town meeting a vote was
passed to have no dealings with them except that their corn might
be ground at the mill. The History of Hardwick says that one
of these five "tories" escaped to Nova Scotia but that Jas. Fay and
the other three bowed to the strong feeling of their fellows and
were socially forgiven ; the attitude taken by his children no doubt
helped this change of feeling, for two of his sons and eight grand-
sons were in the army fighting for our Independence ; one of these
grandsons, Moses Fay, enlisted when but 16 years of age, and
being judged too slender for a soldier was detailed to care for
Gen. Washington's favorite horse ; brought thus into contact with
the great commander, he cherished through life an affection for him
that almost became worship ; as the war and his age progressed he
took his place in the ranks and Orlin, P. Fay's industry in collecting
the traditions of the family preserves the tale of his fidelity to duty
when on the march toward Yorktown from Pennsylvania he was
assigned to picket duty two miles from the camp and was forgotten
by the officer in charge of the outposts ; knowing' not what the camp
w^as doing he remained loyally but wonderingly at his post until the
morning of the third day when a passerby informed the starved
and exhausted sentinel of the departure of the troops toward the
South two days previously. He hastened after his comrades but
anxiety, the sleepless vigil, and the pangs of hunger were too ex-
hausting and he was prostrated with fever while the great victory
at Yorktown was being won. After the war he was for a time in
the service of that eccentric man of wealth, "Lord" Timothy Dex-
ter of Newburyport, Mass. ; in later Hfe he was seriously crippled
by an accident and his last days were passed in want ; fortunately
his wife's brother was Prof. Levi Hedge of Harvard College, well

26 The Vermont Fays

known, in his day for his scholarship and devotion and by his help
the most promising of the sons of Moses Fay, Edwin by name, was
graduated at Harvard in 1817 ; Edwin's son, named for his uncle,
Edwin Hedge Fay, also became a graduate of Harvard. A grand-
son of Deacon James, William Fay by name, was for some forty
years editor and proprietor of the Rutland (Vt.) Herald and one
of his daughters became the wife of Silas H. Hodges, a successful
lawyer and commissioner of the Patent Office under President Fill-
more, and her sister was the wife of Solomon Foot, who repre«
sented Vermont in the Senate of the United States from 1851 to
his death in 1866, and who was President pro tem. of the Senate
for three years during the Civil War.

8. Mehitable, b. 18 June, 1710.

9. Benjamin, whose record is given on page 37.

10. Stephen, b. 5 May, 1715; m. 7 May, 1734, Ruth, dau. of
John and Hannah Child. His early home was in Westboro, where
he was Constable, Assessor and Tithingman ; in 1749 he removed
to Hardwick where he held office as Surveyor, Treasurer and
Selectman. He was an innkeeper, and served as Captain in the
French and Indian war. Before 1766 he had removed to Benn-
ington, Vt., where he built and kept the hostelry known as the
Green Mountain House, which was more popularly known as the
Catamount Tavern, because of the stufifed catamount upon its
signpost, whose teeth bared fiercely toward New York expressed
his sentiments concerning New York's claims upon the New Hamp-
shire grants. He and his famous son Dr. Jonas Fay (1736-1818)
were appointed the agents of the New Hampshire claimants in
their opposition to the New York pretensions. In Landlord Fay's
inn Ethan Allen made his home for several years, and in its rooms
met the Vermont "Council of Safety," which planned and carried
to success the battle of Bennington (16 Aug., 1777), a victory which
finally resulted in Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga ; five of
Stephen Fay's sons took part in this battle and one of them, John,
was killed. The day before the battle some British officers wrote
him bidding him have a good dinner ready for them when they
entered the town in triumph ; being brought to him as prisoners
he greeted them with the announcement that the dinner they had
ordered was all ready. Stephen's son. Dr. Jonas, was with Ethan
Allen when Fort Ticonderoga was taken and he and Allen were
the joint authors of the published account of the controversy with
New York. Dr. Jonas was a member of the convention which
declared Vermont an independent State, and Secretary of the Con-
stitutional Convention of 1777 ; represented Vermont before the
Continental Congresses of 1777, 1779, 1781, and 1782. After the
war he was a Judge both of the Supreme Court and of the Probate
Court. His prominence as a patriot in the War of Revolution
secures for him and for his son Heman Allen Fay (1778-1865) a

The Fay Family 37

place in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American biography. Stephen
Fay's daughter Mary (1743-1801) married Moses Robinson, who
became Colonel, Chief Justice, Governor and first United States
Senator from Vermont ; their grandson John S. Robinson was also
Governor (1853). Stephen's son Joseph (1753-1803) was Sec-
retary of State for Vermont, 1778-1781, and married the daughter
of Rev. Jedediah Dewey of Bennington ; their son Joseph Dewey
Fay (1779-1825) studied law in the office of Alexander Hamilton
and became well known in New York City by reason of his ability
as a lawyer, his eloquence as an orator on public occasions and his
versatility as a poet ; he was the father of Theodore Sedgwick
Fay (1807-1898), author and diplomat, and the most widely known
and honored of all the American Fays ; his career is sketched in
the various cyclopedias of our country.

11. Mary, of whom I find no record.

It may be noted that the children and grandchildren of John
Fay- became influential and creditable factors in the nation's de-
velopment and their descendants do well to cherish their memory.

CAPT. BENJAMIN FAY III OF WESTBORO.
The family homestead and influential position in town affairs
of Deacon John Fay dtscended to his son Benjamin, the only one
of his children who seems to have remained permanently in the
home town ; this son, from whom our branch of the family derives
its life blood, was born in Marlboro 15 Aug., 1713, but as the town
of Westboro, incorporated in 1717, included the family home he
had no knowledge of himself as of Marlboro ; in the new town
he was early called into public service, becoming Town Treasurer
in 1742 and 1743, an office he filled for a second period in 1766,
'67 and '68 ; he was five times elected upon the Board of Selectmen
and served in 1759, 1760, '69, '74 and '77, the year of his death.
During the French and Indian War Capt. Benjamin Fay and Capt.
Bezaleel Eager are recorded as being in command of companies
but the muster rolls are not preserved nor have I yet found any
record of the services of the Westboro soldiers. He and his wife
united with the church 26 July, 1741, and when "pew spots" were
put on sale in 1753, after the building of the new meeting house,
the town voted the first choice to "the highest payer," provided he
were a resident ; John Maynard obtained first choice of position
and Juduthan Fay (Samuel,- John^) was the second; the fifth
was Benjamin Fay, who secured "the second pew spot on the left
of the west door." As the revolutionary spirit developed among
the colonists the conduct of Benjamin was in marked contrast

28 Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

with that of his elder brother James of Hardwick ; the latter is
the only one of the Fays whom I find recorded as loyal to his
king rather than to his native land. In 1773 Westboro's instruc-
tions to its Representative in the Legislature or General Court,
and the declaration of the town's purpose to act with the Boston
Committee of Correspondence in determined opposition to the
British government, were signed by seven representative men
authorized to act in the name of the town ; of these names that of
Captain Benjamin Fay is the second and is high testimony to his
standing in the town and to his discernment of the needs of the
growing country ; but he was not spared to see the achievement of
independence; he died 6 Oct., 1777 (aged 65), the same year in
which his brother James died.

Family of Capt, Benjamin Fay,

Like his father and grandfather, Benjamin had two wives ;
the first was Martha, dau. of Samuel and Sarah (Foster) Miles
of Concord, whom he married 37 Dec, 1739, and who died 19 July,
1761 ; the second was Mrs. EHzabeth Stow of Grafton, whose
daughter Beulah later married Benjamin's son and namesake.

Children: 1. Elizabeth, b. 9 Dec, 1740; m. 7 Feb'y, 1765,
Eli Whitney ; her eldest son Eli Whitney graduated at Yale College
in 1792 and became the famous inventor of the cotton gin, whereby
one man was able to clean for market a thousand pounds of cotton
in a day in place of the five or six pounds previously cleaned by
hand labor; an invention which brought the amount of cotton ex-
ported from 189,500 pounds in 1791 to more than 41,000,000 pounds
in 1803, and which enabled our Southern States to control the
world's cotton markets and made slave labor seem so essential to
the rule of "King Cotton" that it prevented the gradual abolition
of slavery in the South as in the North and in England. The State
of South Carolina voted him fifty thousand dollars for this inven-
tion, but bitter personal opposition to him throughout the South,
vexations and accumulated law suits, of which sixty were pending
at a single time, and the opposition of prominent Southern Repre-
sentatives in Congress, caused him to return to Connecticut in
1798, where he accumulated wealth by the manufacture of im-
proved firearms for the army. Of his invention Robert Fulton, who
inaugurated the use of steamboats, declared: "Arkwright, Watt
and Whitney were the three men that did most for mankind of any
of their contemporaries." Arkwright was the inventor of the
spinning jenny and Watt of the steam engine as the motive power
for machinery; surely no others — unless we add Cartwright, the

The Fay Family 29

inventor of the power loom — have done so much as these "to
clothe the naked." The historian Macaulay said "What Peter the
great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the
cotton gin has more than equaled in its relation to the power and
progress of the United States." Of all in whose veins the Fay
blood flows no one can approach Eli Whitney (1765-1825) in
useful service to his country and to mankind. His mother, Eliza-
beth Fay 'Whitney, died 18 Aug., 1777, the year of the death of
her father and her uncle James, and while her son was but 12
years of age.

2. Martha, b. 1 Jan'y, 1742; m. 28 Oct., 1762, John Wood
of Westboro, where she d. 18 Nov., 1772.

3. Benjamin, Jr., whose record will be found on page 30.

4. Esther, b. 30 Nov., 1746; m. 10 Apr., 1766, Ebenezer
Chamberlain of IWestboro; d. 16 Sept., 1788, leaving a daughter
who married Dea. Jonathan Forbes.

5. John, b. 25 Aug. 1748 ; m. 11 Jan'y, 1776, Mehitabel Brig-
ham; d. 7 June, 1837. His home was in Westboro where his
eleven children were born ; his son Josiah married Mary W. Warren
and their son, Hercules Warren Fay, graduated at Harvard Col-
lege in 1862 and was one of my instructors at Harvard, where he
taught temporarily ; he was an Episcopal clergyman and a volumi-
nous contributor of Reviews to the Nation. He died 28 Jan'y,
1899.

6. Nathan, b. 15 Oct., 1750; m. (1) 1 Jan'y, 1771, Persis
Harrington of Westboro, who d. 15 M'ch, 1794; he m. (2) 9 Oct.,
1800, Margaret Newton of Newport, N. H. He had 13 children;
d. 8 June, 1825. He settled at Alstead, N. H., in 1770, where he
built first a log cabin and later a public house ; his place was known
as the Fay Farm, He was a Lieutenant in the Revolutionary War
and one of the original members of the church in East Alstead,
of which Rev. Levi Lankton became pastor, and of which his
family were apparently the chief supporters ; he was the deacon
of this church. Two of his grandsons, Erastus Newton Fay and
Osmer Willis Fay, were graduated at Dartmouth College ; a great-
grandson, Charles Harlon Fay, gave his life for his country in
the great Civil W'ar ; a great-granddaughter, Calista Mary Fay,
m. (1880) Joseph S. Hall, a veteran of the Civil War and builder
and first proprietor of the earliest "Tip-Top House" on Mt.
Washington.

7. Lucy, b. 31 Oct., 1752; m. 5 Oct., 1773, Capt. David
Mathews of Coleraine, where she d. 3 April, 1839. Twelve chil-
dren.

8. Stephen, b. 8 Dec, 1754; m. 28 Oct., 1779, Elizabeth, dau.
of George Andrews of Westboro. He was one of the early in-
habitants of Leverett, Mass., but later removed to New Braintree,
where he d. 11 Feb., 1828. He was a militia Captain but I find

30 Eighty-five Grandchildren

no record of any war service. His grandson Charles Fay was in
the Sixth Regiment of Minnesota Volunteers in the Civil War and
a great-grandson, George William Anderson of the Sixth Ohio
Cavalry, was wounded in battle, taken prisoner and d. 13 Nov.,
18G4, in the rebel prison at Salisbury.

9. James, b. 2U Dec, 1756 ; d. in the revolution ; his mother
is said to have said at his departure for the army, "I shall never
see him again," to which he replied, "If my grave is there, mother,
I must go to it, it will not come to me."

10. Mehitable, b. 20 April, i:58; m. 28 Mch., 1782, Asa
Forbush; united with Westboro church 30 Oct., 1791; lived in
Westboro where she d. 7 Apr., 1846. Seven children,

11. Charles, b. 31 May. 1761 ; d. 20 July, 1762. He was the
first child by Capt. Fay's second wife.

12. Charles, b. 12 July, 1766; m. Deborah, dau. of Capt.
Ephraim Lyon ; they lived in Shrewsbury where he d. 7 Sept.,
1818. Six children.

13. Joel, b. 25 June, 1769; m. (1) 4 Sept.. 1788, Anna
Harrington of Grafton; she d. 13 M'ch, 1798; (2) Hannah Rice
Wood, who d. 8 Nov., 1860. He is called "Col. Joel" in O. P.
Fay's book ; he d. 6 Jan., 1830. Fifteen children. Three grand-
sons served in the army during the Civil War, sons of his daughter
Hannah, who married Charles P. Green.

I find no record as to whether Benjamin Fay's dau. Martha
(Mrs. Wood) had children or not, but as the others had eighty-
five children he must certainly have looked upon his family with
much satisfaction in an age when large families were considered
a blessing. In his will Benjamin Fay left his widow 1114 £ for
"her thirds," various pieces of real estate, and also the north-
wardly part of the dwelling from bottom of cellar to top of garret,
dividing by middle of the chimney, together "with certain privi-
leges" ; also the north end of the barn ; and one third part of the
pew and stable at the meeting house; all the remaining real estate
being 264 acres with buildings he left to his eldest son Benjamin
as per agreement with brothers John and Stephen. Evidently our
ancestor had been thrifty as well as industrious.

BENJAMIN FAY, JR., OF WESTBORO IV.

Our family interest in the fourth generation is in the oldest
son, who was born in Westboro 11 Nov., 1744, and was given his
father's name. His granddaughter Martha J. Fay of Westboro
says that he had but six weeks of school privileges but such was
his mental ability that he could compute interest in his head more

The Fay Family 31

readily than his son with a pencil. He inherited the Westboro
homestead and also acquired large tracts of land so that he was
able to give each of his five sons a farm ; he was considered a man
of sound judgment in all business affairs; while he never united
with the church none of his family ever doubted his sincere devo-
tion to Christian principles of life and his business standards were
of exemplary morality and integrity ; at the time of his marriage
(1773) he built a new house, moving back the old that the family
homestead might remain on the same spot ; this house still stands
and is in good repair, as Uncle Solomon, Cousin William Edwards
Fay and I found on the pilgrimage made by us on Will's return
from his work in Africa ; we were courteously received by the
strangers now occupying the house and uncle found some parts
of the house in the same condition as when in the fall of 1835 he
went to it to bid his Great-uncle John (1748-1837) good-bye before
the removal to Marietta ; his account of the venerable man seated
"by the large old fireplace, his white hair hanging over his shoulder,
his long staff in his hand ; the tears in his eyes as he said in trem-
bling, tender voice: 'Solomon, be sure and take the Bible with
you and love it ; read it ; follow it,' " shows how vivid was the
scene between the old man of 87 years and the youth of 15. "The
Bible was all the book that Uncle John knew and he loved it,"
said uncle. An account of the house was published by the West-
boro Historical Society in 1908 in an interesting pamphlet on Old
Houses in Westboro, where the suggestion is made that the house
moved back probably became the ell of the new house ; the founda-
tion for the original chimney was fifteen feet square and the large
ash trees in front of the house are thought to have been set out by
Benjamin at the time of building the house. The picture of the
house in this pamphlet is marked "occupied in 1709," but this must
refer to the ell, as in the text it is said to have been built about
1771. The most lasting impression made upon me at the time of
visiting the old house was of "the bull's-eye four-glass transom"
over the front door, which probably was a remnant of the earlier
house. The house was owned in 1907 by Mrs. E. H. Moulton.

Miss Martha J. Fay's reference to her grandfather's school
privilege of six weeks relates to a time when the custom was for
the one male teacher of the town to hold school for a few weeks
in a neighborhood and then to pass to another neighborhood for

32 News of the Battle at Lexington

a similar period, and thus to continue until the town's children
all had equal privileges; the "six weeks" of Benjamin's school days
doubtless marks the length of the periods and if he had but one
such period may indicate the approximate time when the custom
was introduced into Westboro ; there could be no school houses
under this system. After the Revolutionary War the town was
"districted" ("squadrooned" is the word used by the Districting
Committee) and school houses provided and I find in the third
"squadron" of the committee's report the names of Jonathan,
Benjamin, Jeduthan and John Fay among the families accoinmo-
dated by the school house which was to be built "between the end
of Elijah Hardy's lane and the top of the hill toward Lieut.
Grout's."

Benjamin Fay, Jr., served the town of Westboro as his
fathers had done before him ; he was five times chosen one of the
town's Selectmen between 1786 and 1792. When the news of the
battle of Lexington reached Westboro he was one of the "minute
men" who started at once to defend the inhabitants of Concord
and Lexington, being one of Captain Baker's Company ; as the
British troops made no other movement at that time this company
drew pay for but 7^/2 days' service, according to the official record.
Mr. Fay lived to reach his ninetieth year and died 23 March, 1834.
His wife was Beulah Stow of Grafton, the daughter of his step-
mother.

Children of Benjamin and Beulah Fay IV.

1 and 2. Benjamin and Solomon, twins, b. 12 May, 1773.
Benjamin m. 24 April, 1796, Sarah Morse; Selectman 1813 and
from 1816 to 1819 ; in 1825 he was one of a committee of seven
to buy a farm "for a pauper establishment" ; d. in Westboro 26
July, 1851.

Solomon m. 2 Oct., 1796, Susanna Morse, sister of Benjamin's
wife; Selectman from 1805 to 1814; he is called "Captain" in the
Fay book; he d. 25 Dec, 1814. His eldest son Eliphaz (1797-
1854) was a clergyman and President of Waterville College, now
Colby University, Maine. His son Rev. Henry Clinton Fay (1827-
) graduated at Amherst College and was pastor of Congrega-
tional and Presbyterian churches for over forty years.

3. Martha, b. 5 April, 1775 ; m. 29 Nov., 1792, Lyscom Brig-
ham; d. 9 Feb., 1818; their home was in Shutesbury, Mass., where
he was deacon of a Baptist Church. Five children.

The Fay Family 33

4. Beulah, b. 11) May. 1777 ; m. 12 Jan'y, 1797, Josiah Childs
of Westboro ; d. 15 June, 1869. Seven children.

5. Lydia, b. 16 May, 1779; m. 11 Feb., 1799, Alpheus Abbott
of Sudbury. Of her eight children Horace and Edwin became
notably successful business men — Horace in the iron industry at
Baltimore and Edwin as a flour merchant.

6. Lucy, b. 11 June, 1781; m. 1 Jan., 1S22, Joseph Nourse
of Shrewsbury ; d. 14 April, 1857. No children.

7. Elizabeth, b. 8 July, 1783; m. 1 Jan'y, 1805, Capt. Luther
Chamberlain of Westboro; d. 3 M'ch, 1S52. She kept a diary
from 1809 onward and inherited the paternal homestead, bequeath-
ing it in turn to her daughter Lucy, who married Geo. N. Sibley
of Grafton ; since their possession it has had a number of owners.
Another dau. of ]\Irs. Chamberlain m. Rev. Eben A. Burgess.

8. William, whose record is given on page 34.

9. James, b. 20 Dec, 1787; m. 14 May, 1829, Jane Bates of
Cohasset, whose brother Joshua Bates was President of Middle-
bury College, Vt., and for two years Chaplain of the House of
Representatives at Washington. At his marriage his father divided
with him the home farm and a new house was built opposite the
old home. ^Irs. Fay died 14 Sept.. 1844. and he m. 12 June, 1847,
Lydia Brome, widow of Rev. Otis C. Whiton ; James Fay d. 30
June, 1857, and his widow married Dr. Samuel Griggs of West-
boro. James' oldest children, like his father's, were twins and
were the object of much curiosity by reason of their diminutive
size, the boy James weighed 4^ pounds and the girl Jane 3^ ;
the latter lived but a few weeks ; the former graduated at Williams
College (1856) in the class with Pres. Garfield; studied law and
engaged in practice in Chicago where he was an elder in a Presby-
terian Church. Six children.

A second son. George Whitefield Fay (1832-1872), graduated
at Williams College in 1857, became a physician and surgeon in
Baltimore where he was an elder in a Presbyterian Church ; he
rendered good service in the hospitals during the Civil War.

A third son, Benjamin Bates Fay. entered mercantile life in
Chicago, while the daughter Martha Jane Fay extended a gracious
hospitality to such as came on a filial pilgrimage to the Westboro
shrine of the family.

10. Elihu, b. 14 Oct., 1789; m. 1824. Nancy Burnap ; Hved
in Westboro and d. 26 Oct., 1852. His eldest son, Eliot Fay (1825-
1908), married (1848) Fannie P. Johnson, whose children Charles
Ehot Fay (1850-1904), a deacon in the First Congregational Church
in Chelsea, and Emma Clark Fay, wife of William S. Powell of
Berlin, Mass., were thus in a sense double cousins to the Johnson-
Fay children ; the former left two children, Robert Ervin Fay, who
married 6 Sept., 1904, Marion Louisa Rudd, and has a son Mar-

34 A Presidential. Candidate

shall Howe Fay, b. 22 Aug., IDOG, and Edith Hyde Fay, who
married 22 Dec, 1911, Frederic C. Hill; their mother Caroline
Frances Howe was a native of Westboro, and makes her home with
her son Robert, Treasurer of the Exchange Trust Co., 33 State
Street, Boston.

Elihu's second son, Rev. Prescott Fay, graduated at Amherst
College in 1851 and married Semantha W. Eastman, a native of
Granby ; their children attained marked success, the daughters
Flora and Alice as teachers, and the son William Eastman Fay,
a graduate (1883) of the University of Minnesota and of the Har-
vard Medical School (1889), as a business man and physician in
Boston.

Elihu's daughter, Caroline Elizabeth Fay, married Lucius Tol-
man; she died 12 July, 1869; her children's home is in West
Newton, Mass.

11. EHphaz, b. 5 Sept., 1792; d. May, 1793.

12. Hannah, b. 29 April, 1796; d. 3 May, 1875; m. 13 Sept.,
1820, Rev. Roger C. Hatch ; of their seven children one, Ellen
Towne Hatch, m. 20 Aug., 1856, William Windom, who was a
Minnesota Congressman from 1859 to 1869 ; he entered the Senate
of the United States in 1870 and held the office until 1881 when
President Garfield called him to his cabinet as Secretary of the
Treasury, a position to which he was reappointed by President
Harrison in 1889 and which office he held at the time of his sudden
death 29 Jan'y, 1891, just after delivering an address before the
Board of Trade in New York City. He had been earnestly sup-
ported by the State of Minnesota as a candidate for President at
the Republican Convention of 1880.

WILLIAM FAY OF WESTBORO, MASS., AND
MARIETTA, OHIO, V.

My grandfather was born in Westboro, Mass., 21 Aug., 1785,
and in his early manhood received from his father or acquired
(I know not which) a small farm on the Grafton road not far
from the ancestral "Fay farms," very likely a part of those his-
toric farms ; here his eleven children were born ; Uncle Solomon
says that the house was "small but pleasant" ; it was burned long
ago so that when uncle took Cousin Will Fay of Africa and my-
self to visit the place, we saw only the land and the barn of his
childhood; he told us that at one time the eleven children of his
parents were all pupils in the district school ; he speaks of the
home as "happv under the watchful eye of loving parents, and with
eleven hearty, active children, taught to work and permitted to

WILLIAM FAY

The Fay Family 35

play, judiciously counseled and sincerely loved by Grandfather
Lankton, who came to live with us in his old age. Hard labor,
strict family government, and limited financial means, did not
diminish the happiness of those early days." It was a great pleas-
ure to make this visit and to hear uncle speak of the hard, cold
work done in that little barn in the winter days and the hot sum-
mer's work of getting in the hay ; even his anecdotes of the boyish
quarrels, still vividly remembered, gave me a deeper appreciation
of the health and vital energy of those boys of a day long past ;
boys that were able to assert themselves and were not afraid.
Ingrained in the whole family was a love of wisdom; it was a
subject of discussion how to educate so large a family from the
produce of so small and poor a farm ; grandfather began to talk
of going out West and locating somewhere near the young city
Cincinnati, where land was so much more productive ; providen-
tially (as it seemed to the eager children) the financial agent of
the new college at Marietta, Ohio, came to Westboro soliciting
funds for the struggling institution and was invited to preach on
Sunday ; Uncle Levi, already consumed with the desire for an
education, listened eagerly to the story of the way the eager boys
of the West were able to make their way through college; he
sought out the preacher and told him of his own desires ; heartily
encouraged by the speaker and sanctioned by his parents, he was
soon on his way to Marietta ; his letters home were such as to lead
his father to take the same journey; a farm of some 200 acres
about a mile from the college was for sale on terms within reach
and the family home was at Marietta instead of Cincinnati. To
me as to Uncle Solomon in his reminiscences, the courage and enter-
prise that dared to sever all home ties and set out upon so arduous
a journey with such a family seems altogether remarkable and
praiseworthy ; the family of thirteen. Grandfather Lankton filled
the place of Levi, left Westboro in the late autumn of 1835 ; they
went by stage to Hartford where they took a steamboat for New
York ; they went on by the Pennsylvania canal, over the mountains
to Pittsburg, and down the Ohio river to the new home ; two weeks
of constant travel were necessary to cover the eight hundred miles ;
in his final visit to Marietta uncle traversed the same distance in
twenty-four hours, a contrast indeed and evidence of the progress
seen in a single life; but perhaps greater yet was the contrast be-

36 From Westboro to Marietta

tween the easily cultivated and productive soil of the new farm
and the sandy, rock-filled land of the Westboro home ; as in the
latter town the new home was in a small house but hard work, good
health, keen appetites and the pleasant social, educational, religious
atmosphere of the community made all happy. I have often won-
dered why so few anecdotes of the journey which must have caused
so much of excitement to those ten children have come down to
us ; my mother, who told me so much of her home life, hardly ever
mentioned the journey to me; nor can I find any allusion to it in
her school-day compositions bequeathed to me ; it was perhaps
mainly a record of patient endurance of the hardships of travel
in that remote time and as such was speedily forgotten by eager
children in the more agreeable days that followed ; "when hearts
are young and life is new" the unpleasant fades away in the past
as hope and determination face the beckoning future, and perhaps
this is what is meant "except ye become as little children ye shall
in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven." In Marietta grand-
father lived and toiled and died honored and respected in no per-
functory way by the church and community ; but he never knew
the deeper value of the land of that vicinity, for not until after
his death (6 Aug., 1866) did the excitement concerning oil and
gas give the farm a money value undreamed of by its purchaser
of 1835 ; a story which belongs to other branches of the family
than mine. William Fay is credited with service during the War
of 1812, but I think he never went farther from home as a soldier
than Boston and I recall no tradition of his army experiences.

I cannot think of him as reviewing his life in any other light
than that of gratitude for many providential blessings ; his life
of hard work had been crowned with reasonable success ; his ven-
turesome removal of the home had resulted favorably; his love
for his children was permitted to see them worthy of the sacrifices
of their parents and to know many of their children and even one
of his grandchildren's children (William Ellis Oilman). He was
intensely religious in his nature and in his more active life was
always glad to conduct informal services in a barn or other con-
venient place for such as were remote from the more usual places
of worship ; my mother often said that he would not allow the
stranger who called at his house to depart until he had asked him
of his personal interest in religion ; with this nature who can

The Fay Family 37

measure his satisfaction in seeing all his children enter into the
life and work of the church he loved; in hearing two of his sons
preach the gospel he so ardently believed. His other two sons were
no less devout than their clerical brothers ; and as the good man's
prayers were daily for his children's children "unto the latest gen-
eration," who of us all, though we never saw his face, can refrain
from an exclamation of thanksgiving for our inheritance from such
an ancestor? He was buried in the Mound Cemetery at Marietta
and his children have erected a substantial monument to his mem-
ory. His faithful and worthy wife, Elizabeth Crane Lankton
(1790-1866), only child of Rev. Levi Lankton, had preceded him
to the better land (26 Jan'y, 1866), but their separation after their
union of more than fifty years was mercifully brief.

The Sixth Generation

Levi Lankton Fay, oldest of the children of William and
EHzabeth Fay, was born at Westboro, Mass., 33 June, 1813 ; with
his younger brothers and sisters he attended the ungraded village
school of whose 37 pupils all but 10 were Fays ; when nine years
old he lived for a year in East Alstead, N. H., with his grand-
father, the pastor of the village church, for whom he had been
named ; he united with the church in Westboro before going to
Marietta in quest of an education in March, 1835 ; he at once
entered the academy and pursued his studies so eagerly that he
was ready to enter the college in 1836, one year after Marietta
College had received its charter ; it was largely due to his influence
that his father was led to choose a home in Marietta instead of in
the vicinity of Cincinnati ; upon graduating in 1840 Levi at once
entered Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, where he was
graduated in 1843 ; Dr. Lyman Beecher and Prof. Calvin Stowe
were among his teachers ; soon after his arrival at Marietta he
gathered a Sunday School in the region across the river known
as Cow Creek, and this school he conducted throughout his college
course, walking nearly ten miles each Sunday to fill this appoint-
ment. He was the first person to be licensed to preach by the
Marietta Consociation (now called the Conference) and in 1844
he was ordained by the same body. A church had been organized
at Cornerville not far from Marietta in 1843 and another at Moss
Run (now Lawrence) in 1846, and the American Home Missionary
Society commissioned him to preach at these two places and also
at Cow Creek on the Virginia side of the river, giving an equal
portion of his time to each of the three places ; after a year the
work at Cow Creek was given up and for the following thirty-four
years he toiled as a missionary pastor among the rough hills and
in the valleys of southern Ohio ; his early preaching was done in
rude log school houses and his first series of revival meetings was
held in the log cabin of a settler ; in 1848 he purchased a small
farm at Moss Run, about 15 miles from Marietta, which often
was the main reliance of the family for their daily bread ; his

The Fay Family 39

mission field embraced a circuit of 30 miles and in this region two
more churches were gathered by his energetic labors so that he was
at one time pastor of the four churches at Moss Run, Cow Run,
Stanleyville and Cedar Narrows. Greatly beloved for his devo-
tion, his good nature was not infrequently imposed upon by such
as carelessly rather than intentionally took advantage of his will-
ingness to help any claimant among his neighbors. Preaching con-
stantly, conducting numberless prayer meetings, superintending
Sunday Schools, attending the funerals and marriages for a thirty-
mile circuit, visiting the public schools, and starting public libra-
ries, hunting out the promising young men and encouraging them
to fit themselves by study for useful careers, and laboring con-
tinually on his farm, it is hardly to be wondered at that in 1877
this tireless worker was prostrated by nervous exhaustion and that
not long after he conveyed his farm to his youngest son, with
whom he made his home. His last days were days of sore trial
by reason of the death of this son. the stafif of his old age, a sorrow
that was an unfathomable mystery to him ; he followed his son in
death 5 May, 1894, aged nearly 81. He was twice married ; first
at Peterboro, N. H., 18 Sept., 18-13, to Caroline E., daughter of
Job and Betsey (Perry) Hill, a gifted w^oman whose artistic tastes
and marked skill with her brush and pencil as well as her frail
vitality were bequeathed to her daughters ; she died 8 Oct., 1854,
and he married (2) at North Hampton. N. H.. 25 Oct., 1855,
Minerva, dau. of Nathaniel and Eliza (Brown) Bachelder, who
died 12 April, 1906.

His children : 1. Levi Lankton Fay, Jr.," was b. at Marietta
26 April, 1845 : united with his father's church at Lawrence when
12 years of age ; attended Marietta Academy for two years ; taught
school for several years and in March, 1868, went to Missouri as
a teacher : bought a farm near Appleton City, St. Claire County.
Mo., and married 13 March. 1870, Henrietta Adeline Hill, a native
of Ohio; was for 15 years ruling elder of the First Presbyterian
Church, Appleton City ; in 1895 he removed to a farm near Butler,
Bates County, Mo. ; for six years elder of Presbyterian Church in
Butler; in Oct.. 1903, he removed to Edmond, Okla., where he
died 24 Feb'y, 1909. His son Arthur H. Fay wrote me of the
family reunion on Christmas, 1908, when all the children were
present except Albert, who had been obliged to make his visit a
few weeks earlier when he had helped his father finish the new
house begun in February and occupied in April ; the Christmas
gathering was in the nature of a merry house-warming ; it was "a.
bright and cheerful festival" for the twelve happy hearts at the

40 A Winter in the Arctic Circle

Christmas feast; "father kept the conversation going at all times";
"there can be no more pleasant memory of my father than that
which pictures him at his last Christmas dinner surrounded by his
family and his children's families, the embodiment of the spirit
of Christmas." Fortunate family to have been allowed this feast
of joy before the utterly unexpected separation less than two
months distant. The Edmond Enterprise of March 4 gives a
large space to his obituary and to the account of his funeral ; his
death is spoken of as a loss to the entire community and his pas-
tor's characterization of him as a model Christian, an ideal church
officer, and a man for whom no apologies had to be made, is de-
clared to be the universal verdict of all the large congregation
which exceeded the seating capacity of the church in whose build-
ing Mr. Fay had labored as well as contributed ; both pastor and
paper called attention to the fact "that in his veins flowed the
blood of a noble family line" and declare his truest monument to
be the children who worthily perpetuate that line. Not many of
his cousins personally knew this eldest son of the eldest son of the
family of William Fay, and it is a happy privilege to transmit his
good record to those who were bound to him by blood if not by
personal acquaintance. His children were all present at the funeral
service :

(1) Albert Hill Fay,^ b. on his father's farm near Appleton
City, Mo., 13 March, 1871; graduated at Appleton City Academy
in 1893. riding back and forth from the farm on horseback without
being absent or tardy for five years ; after a brief experience as a
school teacher he took a business college course and did office work
in Carrollton. Mo., until 1897. when he went to Bisbee, Arizona, as
stenographer for a mining company ; becoming interested in mines
and having saved enough to pay his debts for his previous educa-
tional course and to enable him to start upon a college course he
entered the Mining Department of Missouri University and com-
pleting the four years' course in three he graduated in 1902 as a min-
ing engineer ; going to New York City he became editorial assistant
to Dr. R. W. Raymond in the publication of the Transactions of the
Institute of Mining Engineers ; in Jan'y, 1903, he united with the
historic Plymouth Church, of which Henry 'VS^ard Beecher was
formerly pastor ; as a mining engineer he has been in Mexico with
the Consolidated Copper Co., in California with the Copper Mining
Co. of Winthrop, Shasta Co., at Bristol, Tenn.. and has spent the
long arctic night on Cape Prince of Wales. Alaska, investigating
the tin deposits of that far northern region ; on his return from
this trip be traveled 1500 miles over the ice in a dog-sled. At
present he is connected with the Bureau of Mines of the Interior
Department at Washington, D. C. ; as editor of "The Mineral In-
dustry" for 1910 he won approval by the unusual promptness with
which the volume was issued and more recently the Government

MR. AND MRS. ALBERT H. FAY AND SON

The Fay Family 41

Printing Office has issued a report on Metal Mine Accidents com-
piled by him. He married at Brooklyn, N, Y., 4 Nov., 1908, Clara
Louise Constable and his son and namesake was born at Flatbush
(Brooklyn), 19 Aug., 1911.

(2) Carrie Augusta Fay^ was born 23 Sept., 1873; educated
at Appleton City Academy, where she met Leroy S. Chapin, whom
she married 1 Jan'y, 1902. Mr. Chapin was born 21 March, 1869,
on a farm in Bates County, Mo., and after his graduation from
the Academy in 1892 he returned to the home farm; in the fall
of 1901 he went to Oklahoma and under the homestead laws
acquired the possession of IGO acres of farm land near Lawton to
which he brought his bride, and here they made their home for
nine years when they removed to a farm in Bentonville, Ark. ; in
Nov., 1912, they again removed their home to a farm near Mam-
moth Springs, Ark., and there Mr. Chapin died from an attack of
pneumonia 30 June. 1913, aged 44. He was an industrious worker
and a Christian both in spirit and in deed ; he united with the
Presbyterian Church while in the Academy and both he and his
wife have continued in faithful membership to this church in each
of their homes. Mrs. Chapin was a teacher for a number of years
preceding her marriage ; she has four children : Edna May, b. 27
Nov., 1902; Arthur Rolland, b. 17 Jan'y, 1904; Harry Eben, b.
21 Sept., 1907, and Donald Fay, b. 2 Feb'y, 1910.

(3) Roy James Fay,® b. 2 Oct., 1876; worked on his father's
farm, attending the Academy in the winter months ; in the fall of
1898 he went to Bisbee, Arizona, and joined his older brother in
the office of the Queen Copper Mining Co. ; he afterwards removed
to Spokane, Washington, where he is now employed as baggage-
master by the Northern Pacific R. R. Since the death of his
father his mother and sister have made their home with him.

(4) Arthur Hovey Fay,® b. 20 Aug., 1881 ; in Sept., 1901, he
left his father's farm in Butler, Mo., and went to Bisbee, Arizona,
where his two older brothers had found employment. Being earn-
estly interested in church work he soon found himself chosen Su-
perintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday School of 140 scholars ;
from Bisbee he removed to Wallace, Idaho, where he remained
seven years. Here too he was chosen Superintendent of the Sun-
day School (the Congregational Church) and served] for four years,
receiving many evidences of the affection of the church. In Aug.,
1910, the disasters resulting from the great forest fires made it
advisable for him to seek new opportunities and he returned to
his birth place in Appleton City, Mo., where he works at the car-
penter's bench as did the Master whom it is his joy to follow in
serving his fellows. He married 7 March, 1906, Mabel Ella Clark
of Appleton City, Mo., with whom he had been iicquainted from
childhood. Two children were born to them in Wallace : Ellen
Adelaide, b. 23 March, 1907, and Arthur Clark, b. 18 April, 1910.

48 Home Missionary Work at New Ulm

(5) Ruth Ina Fay,^ youngest of the children of Levi L. and
Henrietta A. Hill, was born on her father's farm near Appleton
City. Mo., 20 March, 1889. She was educated at the Normal
School, Edmond, Oklahoma, and has been a public school teacher ;
she united with the Presbyterian Church at Butler, Mo., 4 Jan.,
1903, the same day on which her brother Albert became a member
of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn ; neither of them knew the
intention of the other at the time. Ruth and her mother make
their home with Roy, who is not married, at Spokane, Washington,
where she has a position in the public library.

2. Albert Hill Fay,^ b. 17 Dec, 1846; d. 22 June, 1848.

3. Caroline Elizabeth Fay,^ b. at Marietta 19 Sept., 1848;
educated at the College for Women at Oxford, Ohio; m. 29 Aug.,
1878, Rev. Christian Mowery, who was b. in Switzerland 22 Sept.,
1842 5 his parents came to this country when he was nine years old
and settled in West Virginia ; he entered the Union army, serving
in Company D of the Eleventh 'West Virginia Regiment from 15
Nov., 1861 to 17 June, 1865 ; after the war he studied at Marietta
College and at Yale Theological Seminary, where he was grad-
uated in 1878 ; ordained to the ministry at Coolville, Ohio ; after
four years of service here he was called by the Home Mission
Board to attempt the formation of a church at New Ulm, Minn.,
in the midst of a community who had declared that they would
permit no church in their midst ; beginning his work in April, 1882,
he patiently persevered until he had won the respect of all, built
a neat chapel, organized (1883) a church, and approved both him-
self and his cause ; he continued preaching both in English and
German until his death 1 Oct., 1887. Mrs. Mowery removed to
Northfield, ]\iinn., for the sake of educating her children, and by
her persistent energy, her unusual ability as an artist, and her
heroic courage was able to give each of her children a college
education and to re-emphasize the old truth that there are no diffi-
culties which a brave heart and the right spirit cannot overcome;
her children rise up to call her blessed and to prove her right to
a place in the foremost rank of the family :

(1) Dwight Fay Mowery .« b. 2 Nov., 1880; graduated at
Carleton College, 1905, and at Andover Theological Seminary in
1910; he began preaching in the home missionary fields of Dakota
and while studying at Cambridge, Mass., preached as supply at
West Taunton, Halifax, and North Falmouth. He was for two
years the assistant pastor of the First Church, Pittsfield, Mass.,
where he was ordained 4 Nov., 1910 ; in 1912 he accepted a call
to the Beacon Hill Congregational Church of Kansas City, Mo.,
and was installed as pastor 6 Feb'y, 1913. He m. 28 June, 1910,
Elizabeth King McGiffert, dau. of Prof. A. C. McGififert of Union
Seminary, New York. Their daughter Margaret Huntington
Mowery was born 25 May, 1911.

The Fay Family 43

(2) May Augusta Mowery,*^ b. 21 Sept., 1882; graduated
with her brother Dwight at the New Ulm High School in 1899 and
at Carleton College in 1905 ; she inherited her mother's artistic skill
and appreciation of the beautiful.

(3) Clarence Ward Mowery,^ b. 20 Oct., 1883, graduated at
New Ulm High School in 1902 ; upon the removal of the family in
1901 to Northfield he entered the University of Minnesota taking
the engineering course ; was chosen President of his class of 125
members and graduated in 1908. He married June, 1910, Alice
Melony, and their children are Thomas Eldred. b. 9 Sept., 1911,
and John Edward, b. 20 Oct., 1912.

(4) Lawrence Eldred Mowery,® b. 2 M'ch., 1887 ; graduated
at New Ulm High School 1903 ; at Carleton College 1907, and has
taken a course in architecture in the Graduate Department of Har-
vard University.

4. Selinda Holt Fay,' b. 15 Sept., 1850; pupil in the Art De-
partment of the Lowell Institute, Boston ; d. 28 May, 1875. She
graduated with her older sister in 1869 at the Western College for
Women at Oxford, Ohio.

5. Augusta Denny Fay,^ b. 13 Jan'y, 1853 ; after her mother's
death she was adopted by her aunt, Beulah Tenney ; with her
sister an art pupil in Boston ; d. 12 Jan'y, 1873.

6. Frank Jenness Fay,' b. 1 Sept., 1859 ; student at Oberlin
College 1877-1879, but obliged to give up the course by ill-health ;
married 4 Sept., 1881, Agnes Cuthbert ; he received his father's
farm on which he toiled earnestly for his parents and the family to
whose welfare he was devoted ; but his physical frame was unequal
to his ambition and his mental energy and he died 30 M'ch, 1893,
leaving both aged parents and yovmg children to mourn the loss
of a loving protector and support. Children :

(1) Daisy Fay,^ b. 17 July, 1882; d. 21 M'ch, 1900.

(2) Nellie Fay,^ b. 21 July, 1887; a capable business woman
and a faithful church worker of Marietta, Ohio ; her grandfather's
spirit of home missionary service seems to have descended to her.

(3) Edith Fay,-' b. 14 April, 1892; a mother's love and a
sister's devotion have enabled her to graduate at the Marietta High
School 1912 and she has successfully taught the rural school at
Cornersville, one of her grandfather's parishes. A student at Ohio
L'niversity (Athens) in summer of 1913.

SIXTH GENERATION.

2.

Elizabeth Crane Fay," b. Westboro, Mass., 24 Sept., 1814; m.

at Marietta, Ohio, 14 Sept., 1837, Dr. John C, son of Nathaniel

and Elizabeth (Fisher) Gilman. They returned to Westboro,

44 Outbreak of the Civil War

where Dr. Gilman practiced dentistry; his death 11 Sept., 1861,
left to her energy the maintenance of the family home and she
successfully managed a boarding house in Worcester for several
years ; afterwards she returned to Ohio for a time but finally made
her home with her sister Eunice, first in Cambridge, Mass., and
later in Amherst; after her sister's death she lived with the latter's
daughters ; she died in Amherst 27 Nov., 1894, and her body rests
in the old burial ground in Westboro, where lie so many kindred
forms. She was intensely devoted to the welfare of the mission-
aries and had a knack of procuring supplies for them that was but
little short of marvelous ; each year saw at least one barrel of
valuable supplies collected by her perseverance and sent to some
frontier worker whom she called her missionary.

Children: 1. William Lankton Oilman,^ eldest of the grand-
children of William and Elizabeth Fay, was born 11 Sept., 1838;
he was one of the first to enlist on the outbreak of the Civil War
and as he was pre-eminently the representative of this branch of
the Fay family in that memorable struggle his account of some of
his experiences deserves full record. The first Massachusetts
troops to hurry to the defense of Washington after the attack upon
Fort Sumpter (12 April) was the Sixth Militia Regiment, which
was attacked by a mob in Baltimore on April 19th, the anniver-
sary of the battle of Lexington. As there were Worcester men in
the regiment the news of the attack caused an excited crowd to
gather before the office of the Worcester Spy ; a young man perched
on a lamp post shouted, "Boys, let's go and help them; meet in
Brindley Hall at once." Mr. Gilman writes : "My name was one
of the first enrolled ; we hired our own drill master and paid our
own expenses until 12 July when we were sworn into the service
as Company D of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Volunteers and
started for Washington. When I asked mother's approval she
said with great tears rolling down her cheeks and anguish in her
look : 'William, I have tried to bring you up to do right ; if you
think it is your duty, go and God bless you and spare you to come
back to me' ; not many more heroic women than my mother can
be found among the mothers of the Revolution. I was sick in the
hospital with typhoid fever at the time of the battle of Ball's Bluff,
21 Oct., 1861, when our regiment went into the battle with 621
men and had oil killed, wounded or missing, leaving but 310 to
report for duty, but I recovered from the fever and served in the
ranks for a year, participating in the battles of Winchester, York-
town, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, the seven days' battles on the Pen-
insula under McClellan, the second Bull Run, South Mountain,
Antietam and Fredericsburg. I belonged to a fighting regiment
and a fighting brigade (Fifteenth Massachusetts, First Minnesota,

The Fay Family 45

Thirty-second and Eighty-second New York, and Nineteenth
Maine), all of whose regiments are in Fox's list of the Union regi-
ments who excelled in service to the flag; the First Minnesota lost
more men in proportion to the number engaged at the Battle of
Gettysburg than any other regiment in either the Northern or
Southern anny in any one battle. At Antietam our regiment went
into the battle with GOG men, of whom 343 were killed, wounded
or missing, and but 263 left for duty; at Gettysburg 239 of the
regiment went into the battle and 115 were killed, wounded or
missing. In the Wilderness it again lost over half its member^
ship ; from July 12, 1861, to the discharge of the regiment July
21, 1864, over four thousand men were sworn into the regiment,
but at the disbanding only 85 men remained, including those gath-
ered from the hospitals and detailed service. I was among the
wounded both at Antietam and Fredericsburg, but the worst injury
I received was from camping in the Chickahominy swamps where
for a whole month we had no warm food whatever, where we
drank the swamp water, marched all of seven nights to get across
to Harrison's Landing, fought seven battles in seven successive
days, and had absolutely no sleep for a week, all of which caused
a diarrhoea which became chronic and not until after many years
of outdoor life among the Colorado mountains was I able to escape
this disease.

"After the battle at Fredericsburg (Dec, 18G2) I was sent
to the hospital to recover from my wound and disease. Before
long I was able to act as nurse, then as hospital Steward and finally
as Acting Assistant Surgeon ; I tried hard to be sent to the front
again but was adjudged unable and was transferred to the Veteran
Reserve Corps, a transfer that was not my choice ; I was made
a clerk in the Provost Marshal's office and placed in the responsi-
ble position of granting or refusing passes permitting entrance to
the army lines ; in this connection I came into the presence of Presi-
dent Lincoln in an interview whose memory I gratefully cherish."

Before the war Mr. Gilman had taken a partial medical course
at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at the time of his enlistment was at
work earning the means to complete the course ; after his discharge
he returned to Ann Arbor and in 18G5 took his medical degree ; after
practicing first in Marietta and later in Kansas the missionary im-
pulse which has ever been characteristic of the family drew him
into the service of the American Sunday School Union, in whose
work he spent seven years in Kansas and three in Colorado ; he
was then ordained as a Congregational clergyman and served the
churches of the denomination at Red Clifif, Boulder, Denver (Boule-
vard Church) and Wellington, Colorado. His wife, who was Lucy
Elizabeth Wheeler, of Marietta, died 8 Jan'y, 1911, at Denver;

46 A Successful Physician

she was born 30 May, 1847, and they were married on Thanks-
giving Day, 1866 ; she was a faithful helper in her husband's
labors. They have no children.

2. Mrs. Oilman's second son has had an unusually successful
career in Chicago, III., and I take the following sketch of his work
from The Chicago Magazine of August, 1911, where it was pub-
lished with an excellent portrait under the heading "Up-Builders
of Chicago"; it was written by Barratt O'Hara, editor of the
Magazine :

"The paternal ancestors of John Ellis Oilman, physician and
surgeon, lecturer, author, scholar, raconteur, sterling citizen and
delightful companion, emigrated from England in 1635, settling
in the towns of Exeter and Gilmanton, N. H. He is the son of
John Calvin Oilman and Eliz. Crane (Fay) Oilman and was bom
at Marietta, Ohio, 24 July, 1841. Upon leaving the Marietta High
School he studied medicine and graduated at the Hahneman Med-
ical College in Chicago in 1871. From 1882 to 1894 he was Pro-
fessor of Physiology and from 1894 to 1904 Professor of Materia
Medica in this college ; he is a member of the medical staff of
Hahneman Hospital and of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
At the time of the great fire in Chicago (Oct., 1871), although he
had but just been graduated he was placed in charge of a district
medical board established to care for the sick ; for two weeks he
worked eighteen hours a day and so gained the respect and confidence
of Dr. Hosmer Johnson, chairman of the general committee to
care for the sick, and who was of the opposite school of medicine,
that he was given authority to use the signature of Dr. Johnson
himself to any requisition for needed supplies. What this meant
to a young physician may be comprehended even by those not in
the medical profession.

"Dr. Oilman has devoted much time to the study of thera-
peutics ; he wrote the first article ever published regarding thera-
peutic use of the X-ray ; the article was published shortly after
he had performed a surgical operation involving the reduction of
a fracture of the forearm, and concerning the manner of this
operation there was no similar article in any medical publication.
He has also rendered large service to the profession by his studies
of tuberculous indurations and the cause and growth of cancers.

"He has had large experience as an author and in earlier life
contributed to the Chicago 'Evening Post' ; afterwards he wrote
regularly for the 'Evening Journal' ; he was long the chief editor
of 'The Clinique' and has contributed many articles to the medical
journals."

The Chicago Magazine does not mention Dr. Oilman's musical
ability ; for many years he was organist in the Presbyterian
Churches of Chicago and is still in marked demand at social gath-
erings to render classical music, and to favor friends with his own

The Fay Family 47

musical compositions, although the pressure of a physician's call-
ing has long since made it necessary for him to give up regular
engagements.

Since the sketch in the Chicago Magazine a New York pub-
lishing firm has brought out a "de luxe" edition of a poem by
Dr. Oilman entitled "The Fair Elena, a Legend of the Old Fort at
St. Augustine," which was the outgrowth of a vacation visit in
Florida and has brought Dr. Oilman reputation both in his own
land and in England.

Mrs. Oilman is a descendant in the eighth generation of Wil-
liam Johnson of Charlestown, Mass., a prosperous and successful
Puritan of the earliest settlers ; she was born 7 Nov., 1841, in West-
boro, Mass. She married Dr. Oilman 26 July, 1860, and her son
William Tenney Oilman* was born in Marietta 13 May. 1861 ; he
married 19 Jan'y, 1893, Eva Raustead ; in the following August
they went to Europe, where he studied at old St. Bartholomew's
College in London, but returned to Chicago to graduate in 1896 ;
he is now practicing medicine in that city. His sister Cora Edith
Oilman* was born at Marietta 12 Sept., 1867, and died in Wor-
cester, Mass., 26 Dec, 1870.

3. Oeorge Augustus Oilman was born in Westboro, Mass.,
16 Sept., 1847 ; his father died five days before he was fourteen
years old and he was obliged to make his own way in life; his
early business experience was acquired in the ofifice of a foundry
in Worcester ; but he soon entered the service of our great rail-
road systems ; first in the employ of the Chicago and Northwestern,
later as car accountant of the Blue Line and Canadian Southern,
and finally as general cashier of all the Vanderbilt lines ; twenty
years of faithful service in these responsible positions brought him
a wide experience and acquaintance with practically all the great
railroads in our own land and in Canada; his fidelity and success
in directing the work of a large office corps naturally attracted
attention and the City of Rochester, N. Y., which has been his
home since 1880, called him into the work which his friends re-
gard with just pride, and the record of which here given is taken
largely from Peck's "History of Rochester," published in two
volumes in 1908. In 1900 he became chief clerk and deputy to
the Commissioner of Public Safety in Rochester and two years
later he was promoted to be the Commissioner and was twice
reappointed, holding the position for six successive years in spite
of changes in municipal administrations. The office of Commis-
sioner ranks next in importance to that of the Mayor and has
direct control of the fire, police and health departments, of hospital
districts, erection and care of voting booths, granting of building
permits, guardianship of telephone and telegraph wires, and in
general all details of providing for and securing the safety of the
people of a city of 200,000 inhabitants. In this responsible situa-

48 An Upright Public Official

tion Mr. Oilman successfully passed through three crises in the
city's history and earned the respect of all students of municipal
government; these crises were caused by "graft," by fire and by
an epidemic of smallpox. At the close of the last century a wide-
spread feeling of hostility to the custom of using political positions
for personal enrichment by a misuse of power and perquisites was
rapidly spreading throughout our land and bringing into bitter
conflict the corrupt elements, who make their living not by official
service but by official favors, and the public spirited citizens who
insisted upon raising the standard of municipal honesty. Mr. Gil-
man's long and arduous struggle against petty pilfering was far
too manifold to be related in detail but is well illustrated by what
was locally known as ''The spanking of the blacksmiths" ; finding
that favored horseshoers were not only charging the fire depart-
ment nearly double the price charged citizens but were shoeing
the horses when the blacksmiths needed a job rather than when the
horses needed new shoes, Mr. Oilman quietly equipped a wagon
with a forge, anvil and tools; secured a stock of adjustable shoes
and calks ; appointed a fireman who had been a blacksmith to have
charge of it with a suitable helper, and sent this outfit on a round
of the fire houses to do all the city's work of keeping the horses'
feet ready for service ; the blacksmiths cursed fiercely under their
breath but the citizens applauded loudly and the wagon still makes
its rounds in Rochester seven years after the retirement of its
originator. This is but one instance of what was continually re-
curring during the six years of Mr. Oilman's service and needs
to be multiplied several times to portray the aid given to the cause
of righteousness in the struggle with "grafters'' which has resulted
in so great a quickening of the public conscience all over our
country ; the struggle is not yet over but the increase of honest
administration is beyond dispute and when the final record of the
contest is made it will be found that our family was creditably
represented in the good fight.

During his term of service Rochester was visited by one of
those terrible conflagrations which from time to time afflict our
large cities, and which caused a loss of three million dollars in
Rochester. The fire came in a time of extreme cold with the tem-
perature below zero. Mr. Oilman early realized the peril to the
city and his appeal for assistance to Buflfalo and Syracuse was
promptly answered by those cities ; for thirteen consecutive hours
he directed the efforts of the heroic firemen and the plans which
finally saved the city from entire destruction. The necessary re-
organization of the fire department and its present efficiency are
the real monuments of his service; fortunately for the city he had
already begun this work before the great fire but before he retired
from office he had successfully installed a fire alarm telegraph
system, built two new fire stations, bought six new fire engines.

Geo. a. Gilman

Rochester, N. Y.

The Fay Family 49

two water towers, four combination hose and chemical wagons and
a modern quick raising aerial truck; a building on Central Avenue
for fire headquarters was constructed at an expense of $46,270 ;
the numbers of the firemen were increased ; a fire department re-
pair shop established ; and in general the city's fire department
was changed from that of a third-class city to the efifective disci-
pline and capable methods of a thoroughly first-class organization.
Similar extension and increase of efficiency was brought about in
the police department under his supervision ; five new police sta-
tions were opened, a police gymnasium established for drill pur-
poses, the outfit of the police formerly left to each officer's discre-
tion was provided and controlled by the city. An ordinance regu-
lating the city traffic was drawn by Mr. Oilman, enacted by the
City Council, and enforced by an increased police squad to the
great increase of the safety of those using the city streets. The
theatres were rigidly inspected as a precaution against fire panics
and one of them was peremptorily closed on account of its menace
to safety of patrons. But it was the epidemic of smallpox which
caused the Comimissioner his greatest anxiety and revealed his
ability to form and execute emergency methods without delay or
failure. At the time of the scourge the deputy in charge of the
Health Department was in Europe on vacation leave and Mr. Gil-
man was forced to assume full control in person ; rapid develop-
ment of six hundred cases of the disease necessitated extreme
action ; an isolated camp hospital was opened ; and when panic-
stricken laborers refused to construct needed shelter Mr. Oilman
seized the voting booths of the city and used them ; and when at
last the disease was abated by medical skill and police vigilance
he persuaded the city government to allow the burning of the camp
to guard against the danger of future infection ; while as a
precaution against recurring epidemics a municipal hospital was
built and provision made for the care of tubercular cases in ac-
cordance with the medical science of today ; the city was divided
into twelve districts with a responsible city physician in each and
medical inspection of the city schools was secured. While these
details illustrate rather than enumerate Mr. Oilman's service to
his home city students of municipal government will recognize that
they reveal an ability to wisely plan and vigorously execute the
reforms made necessary by the great increase of the complex
problems of our modern cities, and will appreciate the task of the
officer who found all reorganization and reform concentrated in
a single period and upon the same official instead of being gradually
brought about by successive administrations.

Upon Mr. Oilman's retirement from office after six years
of wearing responsibility he was the recipient of many evidences
of popular gratitude on the part of those who knew of his mani-
fold services and unfailing courtesies which the History of Roches-

50 The Tenney Home

ter summarizes by the statement: "No department of the city
government has had greater responsibihty than the Department of
PubHc Safety during Mr, Gihnan's administration and he has met
every emergency with such common sense and executive ability as
to merit pubhc praise." And his brother in conversation with the
writer added with evident pride: "Best of all he retires from an
office in which many have secured large increase of their wealth
as poor as he entered it."

Mr. Oilman's executive ability and approved fidelity secured
a due reward in his present position as the responsible Superin-
tendent of the safety deposit vaults of the Union Trust Company
of Rochester. His wife, Ella Weston, is a native of Worcester,
Mass. They were married 1 Feb'y, 1875, and have one daughter,
Jennie Elizabeth, born 22 Nov., 1877 ; married 18 April, 1907, John
N. French, electrical engineer, Medford, Mass.

4. Edward Fisher Gilman, youngest of the children of John
C. and Elizabeth Gilman, was born in June, 1850 and died in
Aug., 1851.

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

3.

Beulah Stow Fay was born at Westboro, Mass., 2 July, 1816 ;
as her older sister had received the name of the maternal grand-
mother that of the father's mother was given her ; she united with
the church in Westboro before the removal to Marietta in 1835 ;
in the new home she became acquainted with James A. Tenney, a
teacher in the Academy of which his brother Lionel was the Prin-
cipal, and they were married 19 Dec, 1838 ; her husband (born in
Wendell, Mass., 28 April, 1812) obtained a medical education after
his marriage and was for a short time located in Worcester, Mass.,
but in 1848 he returned to Marietta, where they built a home near
that of Mrs. Tenney's parents, who made their home with the
Tenneys when age compelled them to withdraw from active work ;
in this house the parents died ; it was the writer's great good for-
tune to visit Marietta in Oct., 1910, and in company with Cousin
Louise to visit these scenes of her childhood ; the Tenney house,
of olden style with overarching second story, was yet spared from
the encroaching factories and tenement dwellings ; something of
Aunt Beulah's flower garden yet remained but with faintest re-
minders of the floral wealth of days before the growing city had
swallowed up this former farming locality ; in the rear of the house
was the one room addition built on when the parents came there

The Fay Family 51

from their home across the road about 125 yards away ; the home
these parents left had been swept away by the city improvements
but the old well, which provided the large family with the ever
needful water supply still remained and yielded its refreshment to
the visiting grandchildren as it had to the grandparents who abode
there. After the death of the parents Dr. and Mrs. Tenney in 1870
removed to Toledo, Ohio, where their children were then living
and there they died, Dr. Tenney on the 14th of Dec, 1891, in his
80th year, and Mrs. Tenney on the 10th of June. 1899, aged 83.
Dr. Tenney was a man of genial nature and a sunny disposition ;
he had the happy faculty of making friends and adding to the
cheer of any company ; a faithful Christian he left a pleasant
memory of himself in each of his Ohio homes and among the
many family relatives. His wife was a woman in whom practical
wisdom and energy, such as were necessarily developed in the
older daughters of a large family on a farm, were happily united
with an artistic temperament and skill which she inherited from
her mother but which was largely increased by her love of art
and her appreciation of beauty ; always a busy woman and usually
with several more than her immediate family in her hospitable
home, she yet found time to cultivate her gift and seemed to have
ever ready some product of her pencil and brush to be the appro-
priate gift to the large circle of those who loved her so well.

Children: 1. Arethusa Louise Tenney, best known and best
loved of all the forty-one cousins, grandchildren of William and
Elizabeth Fay, was born 29 May, 1840 ; as her grandmother Fay
lived in the house with her she came under her influence to a
greater degree than any of her cousins and was taught to sew
neatly by one who excelled in exquisite needlework, and the grand-
mother who yet cherished the lessons learned from her father
taught the quick minded girl both the Greek and Hebrew elements
and entertained her with many a tale of the earlier New England
Hfe.

Dec. 19, 1860, Louise married Albert Tillotson Babbitt, who
was born 17 April, 1838, at Pultney, Steuben County, N. Y., where
his father. Rev. T. L Babbitt was the Presbyterian pastor. He
entered Knox College but left to go into business with an older
brother in Dayton, Ohio. In July, 1862, he enlisted in Company
C, Ninety-third Ohio Volunteers, and was made Second Lieutenant ;
in the Tullahoma campaign of 1863 he was severely wounded by
a gun shot which so shattered his leg as to preclude the possibility

63 Cousin Louise

of farther service and left him to suffer from its effects the rest
of his life ; his wife hastened to his bedside and her care and cheer
became important factors in his recovery ; while still in the hospital
he was promoted to be First Lieutenant ; he was mustered out by
an honorable discharge from the service in Jan'y, 1864. He
entered mercantile business in Toledo, Ohio, in 1864, and remained
until 1878, when the home was removed to Cheyenne, Wyoming,
and he became interested in stock raising; the firm of Babbitt,
Blanchard & Co. was later merged into the Standard Cattle Co. of
which Mr. Babbitt became the General Manager. His ability and
friendly spirit naturally led to political success and he was for two
years a member of the Territorial Council under the administra-
tion of his friend Gov. Warren ; his name was prominently men-
tioned for Governor to succeed Warren but the exigencies of his
business required all his attention and he forbade the use of his
name; strenuously endeavoring to meet all the demands of his
complicated business he was stricken with malarial fever and died
14 June, 1889. His wife returned to Toledo and made her home
with her mother until the death of that good woman, when she
joined her home with that of her only brother and was a third
time bereft by the latter's untimely and lamented death. Among
my family writings I find the following estimate of Cousin Louise
written some years ago by one who knew and loved her ; an
estimate with which I am confident each of the cousins except
herself will fully agree :

"In the western life Cousin Louise proved her great ability
and worth and was known and loved by a host of cattle men ; a
skilful manager of horses she became expert with the rifle ; was
relied upon as the equal of a surgeon in cases of ordinary accident ;
in her husband's political career she was of the greatest assistance
both on the cattle ranch where she was loved for her worth as
a woman and at the capital where her courtesy and refinement
marked her as the natural queen among women; her ability to
adapt herself to any circumstances ; the kindliness of heart and charm
of womanly sympathy, felt alike by the roughest cowboy and by
the Governor in the capitol, will cause her memory to linger in the
hearts of those who have been indebted to her care or have ex»
perienced the charm of her social gifts; the many cousins who
have named a child after her are the natural witnesses to the love
felt for her within the family circle."

Mrs. Babbitt has served the First Congregational Church in
Toledo for several years as President of the Women's Benevolent
Society.

2. 'William Augustus Tenney was born in Marietta 8 June,
1850; he married 19 Jan'y, 1877, Ada Bennett of Adrian, Michi-

The Fay Family 53

gan. Entering business rather than professional Hfe he rose step
by step until he became one of the most successful and trusted
salesmen of the large firm known as The Alexander Black Cloak
Company of Toledo, Ohio, and had acquired a pleasant and well
arranged home on Robinwood Avenue in that city. He was a
member of the order of the Elks, by whom he was pronounced
a just and charitable brother. He was taken ill while on a busi-
ness trip for his firm and not recognizing the symptoms of his case
at their full importance he continued his trip even while in ex-
treme pain ; upon his return his physician found that what Tenney
had supposed to be sciatica was a bad case of blood poisoning and
in spite of medical skill and loving care it speedily came to a fatal
termination on the 9th of Feb'y, 1911. His funeral was largely
attended and the tributes of his business associates and friends
was a warm testimonial to his worth and the confidence which
he had won.

3. Augusta Denny Fay, child of Rev. Levi L. Fay and his
wife Caroline, was adopted by her Aunt Beulah upon the death
of the child's mother, and was tenderly cared for and carefully
trained for a life which she seemed rarely fitted to adorn ; but
with her mother's gift of artistic skill she had inherited her mother's
frailty and fell a victim to consumption on the day preceding her
twentieth birthday ; I remember her as a member of our house-
hold while a pupil in the Art School of the Lowell Institute in
Boston and as a formidable competitor in many a game of chess,
(Born 13 Jan'y, 1853; died 12 Jan'y, 1873.)

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

4.

Abigail Augusta Fay was born in Westboro 13 Feb'y, 1818,
and united with the church before the family went 'West. As
they passed through New York an opportunity to earn wages was
opened through some acquaintance and it seemed best that Abbie
and one — perhaps both — of her older sisters should remain in
New York and thus assist in the expenses of the removal ; as they
w^ere about to rejoin the family in the following spring Abbie
fell sick of a fever and died 17 May, 1836; her form was buried
in the old graveyard at Elizabeth, N. J. That her memory was
lovingly cherished is evidenced by Joanna's poem "My Sisters,"
written in 1840:

54 One Who Did Not Reach Marietta

" I know that she is beautiful

And I know her form is bright.
And that her happy home is made

In the spirit world of light ;
And yet she often visits us

In the quiet evening hour,
And sometimes when the stars keep watch

I feel her spirit's power ;
Yet ever when the morning comes

She seeks her home above,
And thus our angel sister wakes

A deep but holy love."

In my mother's "Composition Book," begun in Westboro 29
April, 18;34, I often regret the entire absence of personal allusions;
indeed the only one I recall in the 150 copied pages is this extract
from a composition on "Home," dated 23 June. 183!) : "Oh how
often have I communed with one, the chosen companion of my
early home, of things that should be in distant days and laid foun-
dations deep and large for future happiness. Little did we then
think that ere a few days had passed away we should have left
our childhood's home, she for the dark, cold grave and a brighter,
happier home above, and I for the far distant West."

Her brother William named his oldest child in memory of
this sister.

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

William x\lexander Fay was born at Westboro 9 Feb'y, 1819,
and like his older brother and sisters joined the church before the
removal to the West ; unusually tall and strong he became his
father's right-hand man on the Ohio farm and the farm became
his when his parents went to live with the Tenneys ; he paid to
each of his brothers and sisters their share of its worth in money
and he retained it until 1869, when he removed to Springfield,
Ohio, for the sake of being near his daughter, Mrs. Jenkins ; his
payments to his brothers and sisters made it necessary for him
to incur a debt for the farm he bought on the outskirts of Spring-
field and kept him at work at a pace that wore out his strength,
an efifort which his devoted and energetic wife attempted to rival,
and the consequences of which were evident in their children's

The Fay Family 55

failure to inherit the vigor of heaUh which such parents might
naturaUy have imparted ; both at Marietta and at Springfield Mr.
Fay was chosen a deacon in the church and after his death the
address of the pastor at a memorial service was printed ; a few
paragraphs show the esteem in which this "noble Puritan" was
held:

"His first apprehension of Christianity was in its laws, pre-
cepts and dogmas to the very least of which he yielded uncom-
promising obedience ; in maintaining family religion he was a
successor of the colonial New Englander; in his earlier family life
his sympathies were possibly a little more with Christianity than
with childhood, but certainly he grew more and more into the
spirit of the gospels and of the Epistles of St. John ; and now for
many years his stately figure has bended reverently and very
tenderly to childhood. He was always influential as a peacemaker
and when the peace of the church was disturbed years ago it was
the lot of 'the tall deacon' on more than one occasion to arise in
the midst of troubled waters and so command the spirit of prayer
that the waves of passion subsided and there was a blessed calm ;
he always helped us when he prayed. Conservative in his theories
of religion, he was not narrow ; petty bigotry was contrary to his
nature ; he was so full of the mind of Christ that he knew he could
not serve Christ by persecuting Christians ; he was tolerant,
catholic, liberal, Christian."

Of his wife the pastor says : "Mrs. Fay counted nothing her
own ; scores, yes hundreds, of poor in Marietta and in Springfield
have called her blessed ; she would have divided her last loaf with
a hungry stranger ; she was not here to be ministered unto but to
minister ; finding any one, relative, friend or stranger, in trouble
of any kind her characteristic question was, 'What can I do for
you?' In doing for her loved ones she may often have been too
weary to sleep well ; but she was always happy ; she had entered
into the deep joy of her Lord. None but the great have ears to
hear the majestic call of God into service."

Mrs. Fay was a descendant of the Huguenots of France ; she
was the daughter of Adoniram Judson Guitteau and his wife Sarah
White; born 8 Oct., 182?, she was named Patience Priscilla ;
married at Marietta 4 Sept., 1844:; her husband died at Springfield
11 March, 1892, and she followed him in death nine days later.

The Springfield farm is now the location of the Odd Fellows'
Home, but the house where Uncle William and Aunt Patience
lived and died was still standing at the time of my visit in 1909.
Children :

56 Rev. Josiah H. Jenkins

1. Abigail Augusta Fay^ was born in Marietta 10 June, 1845,
and married 6 August, 1864, Josiah H. Jenkins, who was born at
Buffalo, N. Y., 23 Feb'y, 1836, and graduated at Marietta College
in June, 1862. His military career is given on page 123. He was
granted a furlough from his regiment that he might graduate with
his class in college ; he entered Lane Seminary in the fall of 1862,
but was called into the service of the State in the following sum-
mer; although his seminary course was interrupted by this duty
and by a call to fill a tutor's place in Marietta College from March
16th to commencement day 1864, and although his Sundays were
regularly given to the charge of a Kentucky church during the
winter and spring of 1862-3, Mr. Jenkins graduated with his class
in 1865. He had been prostrated with typhoid fever in the sum-
mer of 1864 and was married that he might have his wife's care
during his recovery. He was Hcensed to preach by the Miami
Conference 26 Oct., 1864, and took charge of a Congregational
Church in Lebanon, Ohio, where he was ordained to the ministry
the following year, 21 Nov., 1865. He continued at Lebanon until
1868, when he was recalled by Marietta College and placed in
charge of its preparatory department ; in 1870 he was called by the
Marietta Conference of Congregational Churches to do the work
of an evangelist among their churches ; his enthusiasm in this work
led to a self-forgetfulness whose natural consequence was a year's
sickness, but in 1872 he was able to become pastor of the church
in Harmar, which he served for nine years ; in 1881-2 he had a
brief pastorate in Springfield and for three years following he
served as City Missionary and as Y. M. C. A. Secretary in Toledo ;
while acting as pastor of the Washington Street Church in Toledo
he was closely associated with Marion Lawrence, the noted Sunday
School worker, with whom he has since maintained close friend-
ship ; in 1885 he was called to a pastorate in Leavenworth, Kansas,
where one of his strongest supporters was Hon. David J. Brewer,
afterwards of the Supreme Court of the United States and teacher
of a notable Bible class in the Congregational Church of Wash-
ington, D. C. In 1887 health considerations required a milder
climate and two years as pastor at Mt. Dora, Florida, were fol-
lowed by a similar service at San Bernardino, California, where
he remained until 1893, when he returned and undertook the pas-
torate of the Falls Church, Virginia, but in 1897 it became neces-
sary to return to the western air and he took charge of the church
at Buena Vista, Colorado. They have had two children, a daughter
named for Louisa Babbitt, born 3 June, 1874, who died at Harmar
2 Aug., 1874, and an older daughter, Helen Fay, who was born
at Marietta 24 July, 1869, and who was married 17 Aug., 1893,
by her father to Daniel Fritche Summey, whose father had been
an officer in the troops who in 1862 took Lieut. Jenkins' regiment
prisoners of war ; as Mrs. Jenkins says : "Daughter's father was

The Fay Family 57

captured by her father-in-law." Mr. Summey is a native of North
Carolina and is at present Manager of the Cable Piano Company,
with headquarters at 174 West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio,
in which city Mrs. Summey has a high standing as a teacher of
vocal music ; she is the organist and musical director in one of the
Episcopal churches of the city ; her parents make their home with
Mr. and Mrs. Summey on Edwards Road.

2. Lucretia Moore Fay,^ second daughter of Wm. A. and
Patience M. Fay, was born 16 March, 1848; it was her unhappy
lot to meet with a serious accident in childhood, a fall from which
she barely escaped with her life, and which left her subject to
severe spasms, and to a life-long impairment of her mind. I sup-
pose that Pastor Dunlap's allusion to her father's "stately figure
bended reverently and very tenderly to childhood" refers to his
devotion to this sufferer; she was his life-long care, and in death
his one anxiety was as to what would become of her. She was
tenderly cared for after his death by her sisters but her separa-
tion from her parents was mercifully shortened by her death in
the summer of 189-i.

3. Solomon Payson Fay^ was born at Marietta 29 July, 1851 ;
he married 10 April, 1880, Lovira Elizabeth, daughter of Lloyd L.
and Elizabeth Lewis, who was born 28 Feb'y, 1851, at Windsor,
Wisconsin. Mr. Fay was named for his ministerial uncle but
has been known in the family circles as "Payson" ; he followed
his father's calling and has been a successful farmer at Minong,
Wisconsin, and also somewhat interested in the fisheries of that
State. My own knowledge of this cousin is unfortunately limited
to a family pleasantry concerning the "Fay cream pie" with which
the family is wont to celebrate any occasion calling for a festal
dinner, especially the Thanksgiving dinner ; for the older Fays
were wont to make more of this annual festival than of Christmas
or any other anniversary ; it was the home festival ; the reunion
as far as possible of the family ; it was observed religiously but
very joyously and always with a well laden table. The brides who
came into the family were initiated into the making of the pie by
some older member of the family, for the sons and grandsons felt
an annual yearning for the toothsome pie. which became less fre-
quently possible as the many pans yielding their rich cream in
the dairy were supplanted by milk bottles on the back steps of
city homes. Payson had lived for a time with Aunt Lucy Guitteau,
and between the aunt and nephew there was a close affection and
it was to this aunt that Mrs. Payson owed her initiation into the
mystery of successfully making this pie on the Thanksgiving fol-
lowing her marriage ; not with careless cooking or "near" cream
can the real Fay pie be made, but Aunt Lucy was assured that it
could annually be found at Payson's home.

58 The Jov of the Lord

4. Maria Elizabeth Fay' was born in Marietta 8 Nov., 1856;
in her soul the strong religious faith characteristic of the family
ripened into an intense yearning "to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge" and to bring others into the '"peace and joy
in believing" which she has herself experienced ; she has been
closely associated with her sister's husband, Mr. Jenkins, in some
of his pastoral work and religious faith but the more part of her
activity has been in connection with reformatory institutions as a
teacher and as matron or superintendent. Nearly seven years of
work among the young women of Denver, Colorado, resulted in
the rescue of many unfortunate lives and turned not a few from
sin to the Savior from sin. Among the gifts of the Spirit bestowed
upon her is a peculiar power of personality, persuasion and prayer
which leads those to whom she appeals to accept the offer of for-
giveness and to consecrate themselves to the righteousness that is
of faith. Her own trust in the power of the Holy Spirit is abso-
lute and unquestioning and her faith anticipates a coming unity
of religious devotion which will fill the earth with the knowledge
of the Lord.

From Denver she went to Tacoma. Washington, to have
charge of a rescue mission for fallen women ; recently she has
gone to Los Angeles ; but ever she has the spirit of the loyal sol-
dier, and obedient to the whisper heard by the spiritual ear, when
made sensitive by sincerity of consecration and familiarity with
the "still, small voice" of the quiet hour, she is ready at any mo-
ment to go whithersoever the Spirit may lead. She writes: "If
you want to know the real joy — inexpressible — of our Lord and
His salvation, you want to break loose and plunge out where the
deep tides flow ; where you have nothing to depend upon but God,
and where you are walking in actual, practical obedience to His
word."

5. iWilliam Judson Fay" was born at Marietta 7 Feb'y, 1858 ;
he was eleven years old when the family home was removed to
Springfield, and he grew up well used to the toil of life on a farm ;
his earliest adventures for himself included a somewhat prolonged
tour through southern Indiana with two cousins as canvassers for
a book firm. He married 13 Nov., 1883. Rachel Jane Gelevicks,
who was born 21 Dec, 1861, In 1912 it was my pleasant experi-
ence to be the guest of these cousins and to recognize in the son
the tall form and sturdy faith of the father whom I had once
visited in Springfield. We compared the providential dealings in
our lives and I counted it a privilege to hear from his own lips
the story of the struggles and vicissitudes, the ups and downs, of
a father striving hard for the maintenance of a growing family
and not always finding it easy to provide for even simple needs,
and yet in all the varied experiences ever acquiring a stronger
character and maturer power for service until he had won the

The Fay Family 59

confidence and respect which caused him to be ofifered the Super-
intendent's position in the Home for the Care of the Aged and
Infirm in the District of Columbia. Here his tried abihty and
ripened experience found a large field of service and his success
in developing the partly formed plans of the large farm and in
broadening the usefulness of the Home, until he has so won the
confidence of successive committees of Congress that it has almost
come to be an axiom even with the committee bent on reducing
expenses that Fay asks for nothing that is not really needed and
will use whatever is granted without waste or loss, was a source
of no small pride to a lover of the good name of the Fay family ;
going among the inmates with the Superintendent it was pleasant
to see continual evidence of their confidence in him and of his
patient interest in them ; and accompanying him to his home church,
the large and strong First Congregational of Washington, the cor-
dial respect felt for him by his fellow church members gave con-
vincing evidence that the promises to "the children's children" of
those that fear God were abundantly fulfilled in the case of this
son of the "noble puritan" of Pastor Dunlap's memorial address.
His children:

(1) Beulah Stowe Fay,« b. 26 Dec, 1884; married 20 April,
1909, Edward Fillmore Anderson, who is in charge of the railroad
telegraph at Roberts, Minn.

(2) Abagael Jeannette Fay.^ born 30 Sept., 1880 ; married
8 Dec, 1909, Royal Hayes Kingdon ; their home was for a time
in Oklahoma but Mr. Kingdon's failing health made necessary a
removal to Denver, Colorado, where after prolonged suffering he
died in 1912. An infant son lived but six months ; Mr. Kingdon
was an upright man of high purpose and was honored by his
church associates in being chosen a deacon when he was but twenty-
three years of age.

(3) Mary Marguerite Fay® was born 28 April, 1888, and
married 21 April, 1911, Vincent Tabler ; their home is in Wash-
ington, D. C. where Mr. Tabler and his brother are the proprietors
of a restaurant. They have one child.

(4) Charlotte Marie Fay,^ born 28 Dec, 1889, was educated
at the Bible Training School in Rochester, N. Y., and was married
2 May, 1911, to her schoolmate. Rev. Henry P. King; their first
settlement was at Butler, New Jersey, where Mr. King was pastor
of the First Baptist Church. They have a daughter, Charlotte,
bom at her parents' home in Washington in 1912.

(5) A son born in May, 1895, who died the following July.

(6) William Judson Fay,« born 14 Dec, 1900.

6. Benjamin Childs Fay,'^ youngest of the sons of William
and Patience Fay, was born 4 Dec, 1860, and is a farmer in Wheat-

60 Rev. Solomon P. Fay

land, Wyoming, with a wife (Louise Huntington) and a son, Ralph
Huntington Fay.^ His farm is said to be the only one for miles
around on which the Lord's day is conscientiously and regularly
observed. Before marriage Mrs. Fay was a teacher in Cheyenne
but her birthplace was in New Jersey.

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

(3.

Solomon Payson Fay's record is thus summarized in the
official year book of his denomination : Born in Westboro, Mass.,
21 June, 1820 ; graduated from Marietta College 1844 ; Andover
Theological Seminary 1847 ; resident licentiate at Andover 1848 ;
ordained to the Congregational ministry at Hampton, N. H., 6
Sept., 1849; Pastorates: Hampton, N. H., 1849-1854; Dayton,
Ohio, 1854-1859; First Church, Fall River, Mass., 1861-1863;
Salem St. Ch., Boston, Mass, 1863-1865 ; Hammond St. Church,
Bangor, Maine, 1866-1879; Village Church, Dorchester, Mass.,
1880-1889; Plymouth Church, Minneapolis, 1890. Trustee of
Bangor Theological Seminary, Died 28 July, 1911, at Dorchester,
Mass., of cystitis, aged 91 years, 1 mo., 7 days.

This record does not speak of his work in behalf of the
American Tract Society nor his service in the Christian commis-
sion during the Civil War. All who knew the faithful labors of
this good hearted man will rejoice that he has left in manuscript
the story of his life which clothes the dry bones of official records
with suitable garments, and which pictures an age so rapidly pass-
ing that liberal extracts from its story will prove both interesting
and instructive. Of his school days in Westboro he writes :

"My first teacher was a Deacon Fay of Berlin ; he was a
sturdy believer in the doctrine 'Spare the rod and spoil the child' ;
I was required to sit upright on a bench too high for my feet to
touch the floor; and if we got tired and restless, as who would not,
down came the ruler on our heads from that old deacon. I sus^
pect it is the grace of God alone that has kept me from such a
dislike of deacons as to be a source of trouble in all my ministry.
But even now some of the old fossils remain who want to make
progress backward to 'the good old times' which may the good
God prevent. In the old red school house all of us eleven children
were present at one time."

Of church attendance in Westboro: 'T well remember how
on Sabbath morning all the streets were filled with carriages on the
way to church, for a man who did not go to church in those days

REV. S. P. FAY

The Fay Family 61

was held in disgrace ; even in the coldest days of winter we had
no fire in the church. I remember one bitter cold day our min-
ister, Rev. Mr. Rockwood, came into church with cloak and gloves
on, and not stopping to sit down or to remove cloak and gloves
said: 'Sing the 4J:th Psalm, two verses'; he then offered a few
words of prayer and said: 'My text is in Psalm 147:17: He
casteth forth his ice like morsels, who can stand before his cold!
Receive the benediction.' I always remember that as the most
timely sermon I ever heard ; but so deeply rooted was the custom
of having preaching that many felt they had been cheated in not
having the full service."

He briefly alludes to a boyhood memory: "Brother William
and I left our work and ran out to see the first car that passed
over the Boston and Worcester Railroad," and I well remember
that he told me of their plan "to catch hold behind" and ride a
little way ; a plan that was not carried out when they saw the car
pass.

Of his conversion in 1837 : "For several days I had been
thinking seriously of my personal relation to my Heavenly Father;
I knew that I ought publicly to confess him but I was held back
by a shameful fear of companions ; one Sunday night I had a
dream ; it seemed the judgment day ; I saw vast multitudes going
through the golden gate of the redeemed ; I distinctly saw father
and mother ; I ran to them and besought them not to leave me ;
with a look of resignation and grief that has never faded from my
mind father said : 'My son, I have often pleaded with you to
come with the people of God and you would not; now the day
of mercy is over and you must go with your own chosen people,'
I woke with sobs but felt great joy that it was not the judgment day ;
I then resolved that my father's God should be my God ; the scrip-
ture 'I call you not servants but friends' came to my mind ; I felt
that I needed such a friend ; a voice seemed to say : 'Come, trust
all to this friend,' and I believe that I accepted the invitation ; I
told my father and made him very happy. One day I went into
the barn and heard father's voice in the hayloft ; I found that he
was praying that I might become a preacher of Christ ; I could not
easily get away from the influence of that prayer ; and I felt my-
self willing to do this for Christ who had done so much for me.
I entered Muskingum Academy under the instruction of Lionel
Tenney, the Principal, and in 1840 I entered Marietta College, and
took my degree in 1844.

Of his education he writes : "I have nothing of special inter-
est to record of my college life ; I lived at home a mile from college;
I walked back and forth often three times a day ; I did work about
the farm mornings and evenings and vacations ; social duties and
attractions took a part of my time but were helpful ; a healthy body
and a social nature go far in a minister's work ; I went through

62 Experiences at Andover

the years very pleasantly ; my professors were able and thoroughly
educated men, greatly loved by the students ; they were aided in all
their plans by the leading men of Marietta ; together these men
created a strong religious influence such as will be hard to find in
any college now." (Upon graduation from college) "A strong in-
fluence was urged in favor of Lane Seminary, of which my brother
was a graduate, but I felt the need of the discipline of the older
eastern institutions and the influence of men trained in older col-
leges ; thus I was led to Andover Theological Seminary in Massa-
chusetts. The expense was the most difficult question ; my father
could give me only eleven dollars ; this was my capital. Provi-
dentially a neighbor had thirty horses to take to New York City
for sale ; I engaged to help him ; this paid my passage to Andover
and a little more ; on the way I made a visit to my dear old home
in Westboro. I shall never forget the feeling of loneliness as I
reached Andover, not knowing an individual nor where to find a
night's lodging; Samuel Fairbanks, a Senior, afterwards for fifty
years a missionary in India, was the first man I met ; he gave me
the kindness I needed and begot in me a love which fifty years has
not weakened; my class (28 in number) was under the instruction
of the celebrated Afoses Stuart in Greek and B. B. Edwards in
Hebrew ; the latter the most devoted Christian I had ever met ;
Prof. E. A. Park began with our class his brilliant lectures in
theology ; among the students were such men as Storrs, the bril-
liant Brooklyn preacher ; Swain, the noted preacher of Provi-
dence ; Clapp of New York and others well remembered ; the in-
struction of such teachers and stimulus of such students has been
a great blessing to me for fifty years ; most pleasant is the memory
of the evenings when I was invited to read to Prof. Stuart and
the long walks I was permitted to take with him ; and I value also
my acquaintance with Rev. Dr. S. C. Jackson, pastor of the West
Parish, in whose family I boarded one year.

We also had opportunity to hear some of the most distin-
guished preachers and orators of the country ; here I twice heard
that greatest of statesmen, Daniel Webster ; no one who has had
my privilege of a close look into his face and eyes can ever forget
them ; they carried such marks of greatness as I never expect to
see in any other man ; I also heard Edward Everett and Rufus
Choate."

Concerning pastoral experiences : "The day after graduating
at Andover in 18-17 I went to Dixfield, Maine, under the appoint-
ment of the Maine Missionary Society ; in four months I learned
what I most needed and returned to Andover for farther study ;
was soon invited to the Lsland of Nantucket ; the winter was very
cold and the island was shut off for five weeks by the ice ; but the
work was pleasant, the social life interesting, the large congrega-
tion (mainly women, as the men were at sea) stimulating and re-

The Fay Family 63

sponsive. but I could not get the conviction that it was the place
for me and so I left. I was invited to preach two Sundays at
Milford, N. H., where the church was waiting the arrival of its
chosen pastor ; his coming was delayed and I remained three
months ; here I see a marked indication of the Divine leading giving
shape to all my future life ; a stranger came to visit her cousin
with whom I was boarding ; I became well acquainted with her ;
the acquaintance ripened into true love ; and in due time she be-
came my wife ; we have spent more than fifty years of happy life
together ; and with sincere gratitude to God I bear witness to her
faithfulness as a wife, her influence as a mother, and her helpful-
ness in the social life of the people : I am profoundly grateful to
God who led me to Milford.

''After spending a few weeks with my sister Johnson in Wor-
cester I received an unexpected invitation to preach in Hampton,
N. H. ; after a few weeks I received a unanimous call to that
church and was ordained as pastor 6 Sept., IS-tO ; it was the oldest
church in New Hampshire (organized 1638) and of the eight
pastors preceding me five had died in the work and were buried
in the old graveyard of the town. This church has ever been very
dear to me ; the people were kind-hearted and attentive to preach-
ing; here I began housekeeping with my wife and here my first
child was born.

"At the end of five years I took a vacation trip to the West
with my classmate. Rev. John M. Steele ; I spent a Sunday in
Dayton, Ohio, where I preached to a congregation worshiping in
a hall ; receiving a unanimous call to this church I preached my
farewell sermon in Hampton 3 Sept. and reached Dayton 27 Sept.,
1854. I found 31 families worshiping in a hall up two flights;
I found also much secret opposition from the strong Presbyterian
Churches ; but we soon moved into a more convenient hall ; the
congregation increased and we built a church into which we moved
with glad hearts. Dayton was a good place for the growth of a
minister ; I had the opportunity of hearing the most distinguished
speakers of the time. I never lost the chance of hearing 'Tom
Corwin,' Governor, Senator and the most successful lawyer that
I ever heard ; I had a delightful personal acquaintance with him and
also with Gov. Chase, afterward Chief Justice of the United States.
One of the best specimens of successful oratory that I ever heard
(next to Daniel Webster) was by Hon. Thomas Ewing. then an
old man ; I sat three hours in a crowded court room, on the hottest
day in my memory, chained to him by the skill with which he wove
into his plea scripture, anecdote, literature and wit, although the
case was one in which I felt not a particle of interest ; from such
speakers I sought to learn the secret of gaining my hearers' will
and enforcing the truth.

64 From Dayton to Bangor

"In the fall of 1859 it was clear to me that I ought to return
to New England and with my family I went to Father Brigham's ;
the managers of the American Tract Society invited me to present
their cause to the New England churches and I accepted, making
my home in Newton, Mass., for some eighteen months ; the society
was divided as to the question of slavery ; the conservatives opposed
the publication of anything that would excite the country or ofifend
the South, but all ni}^ sympathies were with the radicals, and I
felt that it was the time to speak the strongest words against the
sin of slavery. I went to the First Congregational Church of Fall
River, Mass., to present the cause of the society and after one
Sunday's preaching the church gave me a call, which I accepted,
and being installed in 1861 I remained until 1863 ; I soon found
that there were two parties in the church ; the men of wealth who
controlled the manufacturing interests and the laborers ; to interest
the wealthy was to lose the people ; this made this settlement the
only unpleasant one of my ministry and in Aug., 1863, I resigned
and returned to Boston, where I was invited to preach at the Salem
Street Church ; as the people were pleased I agreed to continue
with them ; for three years I had as united and warm hearted a
people as 1 had ever found ; but the church members were fast
leaving this part of the city and their homes were filled by a foreign
population and it became necessary to sell the church, and this
closed my work with the church where Dr. Lyman Beecher had
labored.

"At this time I made a visit to my parents in Marietta ; on
my return I was invited to supply the Hammond Street Church,
Bangor, Maine ; I received a unanimous call and was installed
8 Nov., 1866 ; the sermon was by Rev. Alexander McKenzie, and
Dr. Field, who had been my predecessor in the Salem Street Church,
gave me a cordial right-hand of fellowship ; his friendship grew
stronger and purer until his death, and I hope for its happy re-
newal in heaven. My people in Bangor were united and helpful ;
the relations with all the other churches were most friendly ; the
social life of the city was undisturbed by jealousies; and in my
family we did not have to call a physician for the thirteen years
of life in Bangor ; I received many into the church, fifty-five by
confession at one time ; I was chosen Trustee of Bangor Theolog-
ical Seminary and was absent from but three meetings in the 27
years of my membership.

"The most celebrated of all the church councils which I have
attended came when this church accepted the invitation to partici-
pate in the great Beecher Council of 343 members from all parts
of the United States ; I went with Prof. L. L. Paine as delegate ;
the council lasted nine days and returned a clear and unanimous
verdict for Mr. Beecher.

The Fay Family 65

"After 13 years of hard work in Bangor I decided with great
reluctance to request dismission, and leaving my family I went
to my dear sister, Mrs. Johnson, in Cambridge, with whom my
sister Oilman was living ; I had constant employment in the
churches near Boston and I especially recall six pleasant Sundays
in the large church at Wobui n ; at length I received a unanimous
call to the village church at Dorchester and was installed in Oct.,
1880 ; my faithful friend Dr. Field of the Central Church, Bangor,
preached the sermon. The people seemed satisfied with my preach-
ing and the smaller congregation was quite welcome after the hard
work at Bangor ; I worked on for nine years very happily ; but
'behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth' ; among those who
were to examine candidates for church membership were three
men who determined not to admit one who would not solemnly
promise never to dance or play cards and never attend the theatre;
I felt that this was laying a yoke upon God's children ; the only
rule should be to ask, 'Is it your honest purpose to obey Christ in
all business and pleasures?' and leave individuals to decide accord-
ing to their own conscience. When some were kept out of the
church, heated discussion arose ; I was too old to enter into a church
quarrel and resigned ; a large council agreed with the position I
had taken and gave me unqualified approval.

"This was my last settlement and I can say with a clear con-
science and mature judgment that I have never regretted my
calling; if asked if I regret having entered the ministry, my answer
is distinct and positive ; NO.

"At the close of my work in Dorchester I went to Minneapolis
to visit my sons ; providentially I was invited to supply the pulpit
of the Plymouth Church, with a membership of over eleven hun-
dred, until they should find the right man for pastor ; my engage-
ment was at first for three Sundays but was continued for ten
months ; I was very happy in this work, which took all my time
and strength, and when at last the new pastor came I left thankful
for the opportunity of knowing this most delightful people and
grateful for my experience among them.

"In 1891 I returned to my home in Dorchester and supplied
vacant pulpits from Sabbath to Sabbath until I was 82 years old ;
since then I have preached but little ; on the fifty-fourth anni-
versary of my ordination at Hampton, N. H., I preached and had
a most enjoyable season of reviewing the past; I was filled with
gratitude to God for His leading and care ; for my education and
especially for the religion taught me in childhood. I have had my
doubts and fears but a clear, steadfast faith in the central truths
of that religion has never left me."

I have quoted largely from the paper written for his grandson
and after the sad death of that dearly loved boy given to me by
the uncle who has been as a father to me ; it is the story of a calling

66 The Gospel Ministry

held in highest esteem in the family ; a calling which from Grand-
father Lankton descended to Levi and Solomon Fay, and has been
continued by the cousins, Wm. Edwards Fay, Wm. Lankton Gil-
man, Geo. H. Johnson, and participated in by Carrie Mowery and
Abbie Jenkins as faithful helpers ; and it has come into the younger
generation in the persons of Dwight Mowery, Charles and Gordon
Gilkey, and of Mrs. Charlotte Marie King; and undoubtedly these
twelve have not exhausted the apostolic tide in the family veins,
and those yet to continue the succession will be glad to read the
story of one who stood high among the earnest and successful
preachers of the gospel ; the Congregational Church which Uncle
Solomon sought to found in Toledo failed to gain a permanent
foothold, and the parish of the old Salem Street Church was sub-
merged by the incoming f^ood of a population hostile to his faith ;
but these are the Providential dealings of infinite wisdom rather
than human failures and no one can have known of the devotion
to Christ and the kindly spirit toward men manifested in each of
the fields of effort here described without exclaiming:

" Servant of God. well done !
Rest from thy loved employ ;
The battle fought ; the victory won ;
Enter thy Master's joy."

A personal reason aside from the love and confidence between
us has entered into my desire to quote at length from this auto-
biographical sketch ; I do not suppose that a more earnest Chris-
tian or a deeper devotion to the Lord than was exhibited by his
grandfather, Levi Lankton, was ever known to Solomon P. Fay,
and yet no one can possibly read the sketch of his life left by the
former and contrast it with that of the latter without some realiza^
tion of the wonderful progress of Christ's gospel in our land ; from
many a long talk with my uncle I know his entire concurrence with
me in this judgment ; the stern severity of the older time was not
due to the gospel, it was the evidence of the difficulties produced
by the hardships of a pioneer age grappling with harsh surround-
ings ; the sanity and helpfulness of the later day shows the success
of the gospel in overcoming not only the obstacles of a rocky soil
but in modifying temperament and leavening school, work, and
pleasure with the Spirit of Christ. Grandfather and grandson
were alike the children of our heavenly father ; constrained equally

The Fay Family 67

by the love of the same Christ : both experienced the indweUing
of the same Spirit striving against sinful tendencies ; both drew
their personal hope and their sublime message from the same
scriptures ; if we of the later century have taken larger treasures
into the granaries of the church it is because we reap with joy the
harvest sown in tears by our forebears ; and if our children do not
go forward to larger hope and broader vision it must discredit
the sowers, not the seed ; but even in such a case the cause will
not fail nor the song of the redeemed cease ; struggling humanity
shall yet "attain unto the unity of the faith — unto a full grown
man, unto the stature of the fulness of Christ." May our family
never cease to be helpers — "God's fellow workers."

Solomon P. Fay married 22 Sept., 1850, Lydia Maria, daughter
of Abraham M. and Mindwell (Brigham) Brigham of Northboro,
Mass. Their golden wedding was pleasantly celebrated at their
home in Dorchester when fully three hundred friends called to
pay respect and offer congratulations ; among the guests was one
(Mr. Henry Shepherd, aged 89) who was at the ceremony of fifty
years previous ; for nearly eleven more years husband and wife
were spared to one another until the former passed to his eternal
home. Children :

1. Henry Brigham Fay,' born Hampton, N. H., 18 May,
1853, graduated at Harvard College 1877 ; studied for a season at
Bangor Seminary and preached one summer at the Second Con-
gregational Church, Deer Island, Maine ; through the influence of
his father's friends, Hannibal Hamlin and Jas. G. Blaine, he was
for a session Clerk of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations ;
he was then transferred to the Library of Congress ; while thus
engaged he pursued the medical course of the Howard Medical
School at 'Washington, graduating in 1881 ; took a post-graduate
course at the Columbian Medical College ; and was for a time in
the Department of the Surgeon General at Washington ; in 1886
he was appointed physician on the Sisseton Indian Reservation in
Dakota ; he finally located in Minneapolis, where he practised medi-
cine until his death from acute Bright's disease 11 Feb'y, 1905.
He was deeply interested in the socialistic movements of the new
century and gave much time and strength to writing and speaking
in behalf of the political party of the time known as Populists.
He was twice married; (1) to Mary C, daughter of John C. and
Augusta E. Talbot of Milton, Mass.; (2) to Mary Agnes, dau. of
Michael and Elizabeth Malone of Minneapolis. He had no
children. ,

68 A Devoted Daughter

2. Ella Maria Fay" was born at Dayton. Ohio, 18 Nov.. 1856,
and was for a time a student at Wellesley College, where she par-
ticipated heartily in athletics, helping to arrange and competing in
the boat races of the girls. A nervous trouble compelled her to
leave her studies and by the advice of physicians her father took
her to Europe in a sailing vessel for completeness of rest and the
tonic of the salt water ; the trouble proved incurable but it was
unable to daunt her brave spirit ; she became an expert teacher of
music and of drawing and in the schools of her father's native town
she was popular with the entire community and wuth class after
class of pupils. She had charge of the church music on Sunday
and of the annual musical entertainment of the young people of
the town ; and was the personal conductor and business manager
of several tours of her pupils to Washington ; by her great ability,
her dauntless energy, her tireless devotion to her parents, her
brave, patient, uncomplaining spirit she seems to me to be entitled
to a place in the Fay Hall of Fame and to the respect of the entire
family. None have excelled her in family devotion.

3. Louis Payson Fay^ was born in Newton, Mass., 24 Jan'y,
1861 ; he lived for some time with cousins on a western ranch but
inheriting from his mother's father an aptitude for hotel manage-
ment his life has been that of a hotel clerk, a position in which he
has retained the confidence of many friends for whose comfort
he has provided ; he married in 1890 Henrietta Guthberz, a native
of Memphis, Tenn., whose parents came from Zurich, Switzerland.
They had one child, Solomon Payson Fay,^ born 27 May, 1892,
whom his fond grandfather regarded as a well-nigh perfect child ;
it was for him that he wrote the autobiography so often quoted
in these pages which is filled with love and counsels for one of
whom he expected so much ; frequent references in it to the bless-
ings of long continued family^ health show how small was the prepa-
ration for the sad disappointment of his old age. I cannot but
close with his own cry of bitter anguish: "O sad conclusion of
this story of my life written for my beloved Payson, the most
beautiful, the most promising, the dearest boy I ever knew. He
was a beautiful specimen of bodily health ; in the Roxbury Latin
School he stood among the very first in scholarship and deport-
ment ; of a most attractive presence and manner, and a remarkably
affectionate nature ; in short he had every quality of body, mind
and heart to make him a marked man and most influential in the
world. A tumor formed at the base of the brain ; it partially
paralyzed one side ; affected his speech and hearing, and finally
made him totally blind. 'This,' he said, 'made him so lonesome
that he wanted to die' ; he lay thus nearly two months while all
our hearts were torn into pieces. Feb. 11, 1904, he quietly went
to sleep and his beautiful spirit passed into the heaven Christ had
prepared for him.''

The Fay Family 69

By a strange coincidence exactly one year later while at dinner
with company a telegram came announcing the death of his eldest
son Henry, of whose sickness he had not heard a word and to
whose funeral service only Ella could possibly go. Strange that
both the ministerial brothers, Levi and Solomon, were forced to
drink of so bitter a cup !

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

7.

Catherine Amelia Fay, the most lenergetic .and determined
member of the family, was born at Westboro 18 July, 1822 ; after
the removal to Marietta her health became such as to arouse the
gravest fears of a short life; but her vigorous will refused to yield
to disease and believing firmly that there was some service of love
awaiting her she offered herself to the American Board for Foreign
Mission work among the Indians, who were at that time included
in the field of the Board's activities ; she was but eighteen years
of age when she left home and became a mission teacher among
the Choctaw Indians, who had been removed in 1830 from their
haunts in the South to the Indian Territory in the far West of
that day. Her salary as a teacher was $100 a year and her board ;
for ten years she labored among these Indians ; much of the time
the only white person among them and forty miles beyond the
nearest post-office ; her health had improved at first in the open
air life among these primitive people but malaria and nervous ex-
haustion finally compelled her return to Marietta, where her life
work awaited her. The story of that work is given with her por-
trait in Dr. Henry Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio" (Co-
lumbus, 1891), Vol. HI, pp. 517-522, and was prepared by the
editor himself after personal inspection and interview with the
woman known to all the vicinity of Marietta as "Aunt Katy."
The account begins: "The greatest charity of Ohio, the Children's
Home, greatest because in behalf of the weakest and most helpless
of the population, owes its origin to one single determined woman
with a clear mind and a heart inspired by the Divine Spirit, Mrs.
Catherine Fay Ewing of Marietta. It would be difficult to find
in our land another woman who has been the author of such great
good. She began in poverty, her only capital 'love, faith and
works' ; it is her all but it is huge."

70 The Children's Friend

The story of her interest in neglected children begins with
her taking care of a babe on the frontier whose deserted mother
had died leaving five children ; to this babe Miss Fay became deeply
attached but she was forced to yield its care to relatives who de-
manded it ; and from the brutal kick of a drunken man the child
soon died ; it was the sight of this act which brought on the ner-
vous prostration which compelled her return to Marietta. In the
County Poor House near her father's home she found) little orphans
herded with the vicious, the insane and the wretched for whom the
community was forced to care. She resolved to devote her life
to these helpless waifs ; to get money she became a teacher in a
private family in Kentucky and carefully saved every cent; sym-
pathetic friends offered aid and borrowing $150 to make her re-
sources amount to $500 she purchased in 1857 twelve acres of
land on Moss Run a dozen or more miles east of Marietta ; in a
cottage of two rooms she received from the County Poor House,
1 April, 1858, nine children, all under ten years of age ; the county
agreed to pay her one dollar a week (The Marietta Register says
the sum was seventy-five cents a week) and half the expense of
medical attendance and burial m case of death ; each child was to
have a new suit of clothes when brought to her ; but for all other
needs she was herself to be responsible. Public opinion was di-
vided as to whether she was crazy or bent on making money by
"baby farming" and the ridicule and opposition encountered would
have deterred a less resolute spirit. Five of her nine children were
of school age and she took them to the district school ; sixteen men
met her at the door, three of whom were Trustees of the school,
and all were resolute that the "paupers' brats" should not con-
taminate the school ; thirteen of them she could defy but the three
Trustees were legally in control of the school and the teacher re-
fused to admit the children ; the next week she went to the court
and had herself appointed legal guardian for the children ; again
she took them to the school and once more found men gathered
at the door to resist her ; but it was encouraging to find that there
were but thirteen this time and but two of them were Trustees ;
moreover the law was now on her side and she boldly said to the
proud boasters of their respectability: "I am not afraid of you;
I know I am right," and her spirit was unconquerable ; their spirit
revealed itself when in her absence some of them opened her

The Fay Family 71

garden gates and let in the prowling hogs of the vicinity ; on her
return she found fifty-two of her sixty chickens had been killed.
Needing lumber for the larger building required she purchased
fourteen hundred feet and gave a three months' note in payment ;
in a fortnight the holder of the note appeared and notified her that
unless it were paid in three days he should begin suit against her ;
insisting upon the terms of the note she found that the word
"months" had been skilfully altered to "weeks" and that the note
was legally due. In her perplexity she had no recourse except to
prayer and on the following day an entire stranger knocked at her
door, gave her a sealed envelope, and went away without leaving
any clue to his identity ; the envelope contained the exact sum of
the note, which was duly paid, but she never knew who "the Lord's
agent" was. The greatest of all her trials came when epidemics
broke out in her home and frightened helpers refused to remain
with her ; an especially hard instance was in June, 1860, when
diphtheria prostrated the children and she herself fell sick ; know-
ing that one child at least could not live until morning she sent a
child to beg a neighbor to stay with her just for one night; the
answer was, "Tell old Kate she is paid to take care of the children
and she may do it." This heartless answer caused the sick woman
to break into tears of anguish, when one of the children put an
arm about her neck and said, "God will take care of us," and her
spirit regained its confidence and before night closed in a doctor
came and with him his good wife to help.

The two-room cottage in which she opened her home was
replaced before the ensuing winter by a building with twenty rooms,
a picture of which is given in Howe's history ; its cost was $3000,
and in five years $4000 had been expended on the property. "God
raised up friends for her," says Historian Howe, "and every debt
was cancelled."

The war brought to her home many orphaned soldiers' chil-
dren, and her home cared for thirty-six at one time ; her allowance
for the increased cost of living was made $1.25 a week and in
response to her appeal for such children the State opened at Xenia
a home for soldiers' orphans. The insulting epithets applied to her
proteges in the district school had made it advisable for her to
have a school room and teacher of her own ; and the many threats
to burn her buildings and even to mob herself were finally discon-

72 Children's Homes

tinued ; for ten years she successfully managed the home and cared
for one hundred and one needy children of Washington County ;
but she knew that the need of other counties was as great and some
even greater and as early as 1862 she began an agitation for a State
law in behalf of neglected children ; she personally went to Colum-
bus and pleaded with the Legislature and finally in 1866 a bill pre-
pared by Hon. S. S. Knowles of Washington County was passed,
authorizing the County Commissioners throughout the State to
established children's homes. Washington County was one of the
first to act under this law and a farm of 100 acres was purchased
for this purpose. When all was ready for the children's coming
she was asked to take the Superintendency of the home ; but this
offer she declined as she had now married (9 Aug., 1870) Mr.
Archibald S. D. Ewing, who had been one of her most efficient
helpers on her farm. But while she had thus succeeded in pro-
viding for the children not only of hei"' own county but of the entire
State her interest in helping the young did not sufifer her to cease
her efforts. The historian who interviewed her tells us of her :

"Mrs. Ewing, a woman of sixty-four years, with the assistance
of her niece, Hattie, a young, smiling, slender girl, was doing the
cooking for a club of twenty college students who each paid fifty
cents a week ; at times very weary from labor but happy because
she was able to help struggling young men to get an education.
She had on Sundays a class of sixty scholars and on Saturday
afternoons another class of twenty-six young girls, mostly children
of washerwomen, whom she taught to sew. Mrs. Ewing is rather
large in person, a blonde, with a face full of benevolence : although
she never had a child of her own she has adopted five of the neg-
lected and forsaken and has had 600 under her care."

Mr. Howe estimated the number of children in Ohio suffering
from the want of parental love at twenty thousand and adds that
the criminal class largely comes from these neglected and aband-
oned children and it is this consideration which moved him to
bestow upon the woman who provided homes for these children
the strong words of approbation, with which he opened his account
of her work and his estimate of her services.

Mr. Ewing was born 22 March, 1828. and died in June, 1900;
she preceded him into the eternal life, having died 4 April, 1897.
The Marietta Register of the following day contained her portrait
and an obituary of a column and a half under the caption, "A
Noble Life Ended." It closed with these words: "Marietta has

The Fay Family 73

had many honored sons and daughters but none with a purer fame
than that of Catherine Fay Ewing. It was a Christ-hke hfe ; she
rests from her labors and her works do foUow her."

The women of Marietta have erected a substantial monument
upon her grave, thus inscribed:

Catherine Fay Ewing

b. July 18, 1820; d. April 4, 1897
She received into her country home the chil-
dren from the Washington County Infirmary,
thus organizing the first children's home in the
State of Ohio in 1857.

Her example and influence secured the enact-
ment in Ohio in 1866 of the first children's home
law passed by any State acknowledging the
State's responsibility for dependent children.
Mrs. Ewing left her little property by will to the Missionary
Society of the women of Marietta but this society had but a tem~
porary existence and had disbanded at the time of the death of
her husband, and by direction of the Probate Court it was divided
among her brothers and sisters and their heirs.

SIXTH GENERATION.
8.
What shall a son say of his sainted mother?
" Mother, thou art mother still,
Only the body dies.
Such love as bound thy heart to mine
Death only purifies."

Eunice Sophia Fay was born in IWestboro 15 March, 1824 ; I
cannot remember that I ever heard her speak of the journey to
Ohio, nor do I find but one slight allusion to it in her composition
book of 150 pages begun in Westboro 29 April, 1834, with a letter
on The Bible. Another on the same theme is dated 1836,
but contains no hint of the change of location ; the only allusion
to the removal is in a composition on "Home," dated "Munroe Co.,
Ohio, 23 June, 1839," and I cannot understand this date; I know
that she was at school in Barnesville in 1841-2, and Barnesville

74 Dr. H. F. Johnson

now in Belmont Co. may have been in Munroe Co. in 1839, but
of her Hfe there I know nothing. She was in school in Marietta
when Henry F. Johnson, a young man from Southboro, Mass.,
came as school master ; his parents and hers had been acquainted
in the eastern homes and naturally he found a welcome in the
family. The keen eyes of Lucy, who had been the constant com-
panion of Eunice as they walked to and from school, soon showed
their resentment when the new teacher assumed the right to bid
her "run along'' while he walked with her sister ; brother Solomon
also looked doubtfully at the increasing attention paid his favorite
sister, but the young teacher shrewdly addressed his religious con-
versation to the aged grandfather, whose wish was supreme in the
family circle and won the favor of the clergyman ; he returned to
his medical studies after a term as teacher but came back in the
fall of 1842 and on Thanksgiving Day, 1842, married his chosen
pupil and took her to Worcester, Mass., where he began medical
practice and where he had for a time as a student and associate
his brother-in-law. Dr. Jas. A. Tenney.

In 1845-6 Dr. Johnson was a student of the famous Baron
Louis in the hospital in Paris and his wife kept house in the French
capital for the medical term ; if her privilege of travel and study
seemed enviable to some at home it was because they knew not the
hardship and bitter sickness thai was her portion for at least a
part of the time. They returned to Worcester in 1846 and con-
tinued there until they went to Philadelphia, where the experience
acquired abroad caused the doctor to be invited to lecture in the
Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania ; at the
close of the year they again returned to Worcester and remained
there until 1854, when the death of father Johnson brought the
farm into possession of his son ; the family home remained on the
Southboro farm until its sale in 1867, when they removed to Cam-
bridge, Mass. Dr. Johnson died 20 July, 1877, but the home was
maintained, the children educated and the daughters given a credit-
able wedding by Mrs. Johnson's industry and business ability ; her
sister, Mrs. Oilman, made her home with her and for a time their
brother Solomon lived with them. After the last of her children
were married the Cambridge home was rented and afterwards sold
and in 1886 Mrs. Johnson bought a home which she called "Peace
Cottage" in North Amherst, Mass., where her two eldest children
were then living and there she remained with her sister Elizabeth
until her death, 15 Feb'y, 1891. She became a member of the

The Fay Family 75

church in North Amherst on New Year's Sunday, 1887 ; her elder
son was pastor of the church at the time and it was the fiftieth
anniversary of her first uniting with the church in Marietta; as
she was but twelve years of age at that time some doubt was ex-
pressed as to the advisability of accepting one so young and she
was required to stand upon the platform before the church meeting
and answer whatever questions might be asked by any of the church
members ; at the close of the ordeal she was accepted by vote of
the church.

My mother's strength of character was in her intellectual and
spiritual inheritance ; she had nothing of the fine artistic ability
which belonged to her sister Beulah ; nothing whatever of the mu-
sical ability of Lucy and others of her sisters ; she was wholly
lacking in the positive, assertive will of Catherine ; but in the care-
ful consideration of her son's affection she is regarded as having
the finest and strongest mental endowment of any of the family ;
to study, to write either verse or prose, to appreciate the beauty
and power of literature was the natural gift which she could not
forbid expression even when wellnigh overwhelmed with hard
work, family anxiety and sickness. Her sorrow at the death of
her two older sons is heart-touching even to the stranger who may
turn the leaves of the book wherein she wrote in 1850 of her first
born son :

" Sweet, happy boy ; we knew not then
One-half the love we gave again
For that gay shout and joyous smile
So cheering and so glad, the while
His little soul was full of love
For all below and God above;
And often when he knelt to pray
For blessings on our earthly way
We felt how sweet the answer came."

And of his baby brother she wrote :

" Not joyous with his brother's shout

But ever calm and full of thought"
'' A fair, sweet babe of thoughtful mood

Of loving heart so fond and good"'
" From the hour

His brother left their childhood's bower

He seemed that gladsome voice to miss.

That sweet caress and heartfelt kiss.

I know not. yet sometimes I aeem

76 Literary Productions

This cherished thought not all a dream,
That still his spirit hovered near
And sought, unheard by mortal ear.
To win the one on earth so loved
To dwell with him in realms above."

In her private book is found more than one of these poems
of the mother heart and also an account of a vision which she
believed was granted to her prayer of anguish wherein she seemed
to be in communion with her first born son who comforted her
bleeding heart with assurances of his own happiness and of his
eternal love for his mother.

" And when I heard his earnest voice
So full of priceless love
I bade my mourning soul rejoice
I had a son above."

Her literary gifts were well known and she was frequently
called upon for verse and prose at family ceremonies ; among her
papers I find "The Family Meeting," written for a Westboro re-
union held 2 July, 1851, which her father came from Marietta to
attend, and which is referred to in the pamphlet published by the
Westboro Historical Society upon the Old Houses of the town.
Here too are "Lines to Elliott [Fay] on Uniting with the Church"
in 1848; Lines to Mrs. R. C. Hatch of Warwick on the marriage
of her daughter in 1850 and a bridal hymn which was sung as a
part of that ceremony. Another marriage hymn for Jane White
and Alden B. Knight in 1852 is of peculiar interest, as a son of
that marriage thirty years later married her youngest daughter.
There are several hymns of comfort to those in affliction, one of
them to her sister Lucy on the death of her little Joanna. Of special
interest to her children are the penciled words on the back of a
letter apparently the first copy of some lines to her mother, closing

" I only ask that I may trace
Within my children's hearts a place
As bright as that within my own
Is consecrate to thee alone."

A prayer which was duly and fully answered in the hearts of
six children. Mrs. Johnson's most prolonged literary work was
upon a book published in Worcester in 1851 and entitled "The
Military Adventures of Charles O'Neil, who was a soldier in the
army of Lord Wellington — from 1811 to 1815, including full his-

The Fay Family 77

tories of the bloody battle of Barossa, together with a graphic de-
scription of the Battle of Waterloo, in all of which he was an
actor." It is unnecessary to say that my mother did not write
the title page, but she listened to the long tales of the soldier, made
the necessary historical researches, and spent long months upon
the composition of the book for which the illiterate but gratified
Irishman paid her an hundred dollars. My mother did not wish
her name to appear and I judge the soldier wished to be consid-
ered the sole author rather than the mere narrator. In 1912 I
preached at the church in Brecksville, Ohio, and being invited to
dinner I saw a copy of this book, which was presented to me when
I sought to purchase it.

But however marked my mother's intellectual gifts her real
strength was spiritual ; to her religion was a life not a creed ; it
was reality, a strengthening power not a form or ceremony. She
faithfully accepted and cherished the ''form of sound words" which
she had been taught, and looked with much anxiety at the tendency
of her own son to take unconventional and independent views on
doctrinal matters, but her religion did not rest on any of these
things ; it was a real and vital communion with an unseen but actual
Father, who gave her actual help day after day ; help that not only
upheld her in her bitter need but that enabled her to comfort and
uphold not a few who well knew the form of godliness but hardly
realized its power ; such came to her for the strength they lacked
and she knew how to help them as only those who have been driven
by fierce storms to the Rock of Ages can help fellow sufiferers. In
Cambridge she was for years the life and pillar of the female prayer
meeting which met regularly at her house ; at North Amherst she
had the same spirit and though the number that came to "Peace
Cottage" on the appointed day was at times limited to one good
saint (Mrs. Stearns) yet the meeting was always held and won the
respect of the entire church. I think her last days were her hap-
piest days since her childhood and I have good reason to know the
satisfaction it was to her that she was permitted to enjoy and
approve the work of her pastor, who was also her son.

Children: 1. Abbie Sophia, born and died 1 Jan., 184-4.

2. Louis Williston, born 26 Nov., 1846 ; died 6 Aug., 1849.

3. Henry Lankton, born 29 Nov., 1848; died 23 May, 1850.

4. George Henry, b. Worcester, Mass., 29 Dec, 1850 ; gradu-
ated at Harvard College 1873 ; studied for the ministry at Andover

78 A Clergyman and His Children

and Bangor Seminaries ; preached his first sermon 12 July, 1874,
at Kenduskeag, Maine, under the auspices of the Maine Missionary
Society ; after graduating at Bangor in 1876 acted as temporary
pastor at Freetown and Uxbridge, Mass., was ordained without
installation at his home church in Cambridge 6 July, 1877 ; pastor
of North Church, Amherst, Mass., 1878-1888; of Peabody Me-
morial Church, Georgetown, Mass., 1889-1892; of the John Street
Church, Lowell, 1892-1902; of the Union Church, Taunton, Mass.,
1903-1909 ; was chosen Professor of History and High School vis-
itor for Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio, and
began work there Sept., 1909. Is a member of the Sons of the
American Revolution and of the New England Historic and Gen-
ealogical Society. Married 1 May, 1879, Clara Mahala. daughter
of Jonathan and Sophronia (Stoddard) Crocker of Uxbridge, Mass.
Their children are :

(1) Arthur Robert, b. 15 M'ch ; d. 22 M'ch, 1880.

(2) Bertha Louise, b. 6 Feb'y, 1881; graduated at Smith
College 1903 ; a teacher in Taunton, Mass., and in the High School,
Hartford, Conn.

(3) Lucia Belle, b. 8 Nov., 1883; graduated at Smith Col-
lege 1906 ; Secretary of the Faculty Committee on Recommenda-
tions 1910-1913. Spent the spring and summer of 1913 in study
and travel in Europe.

(4) Marian Christine, b. 15 Aug., 1887; graduated at Ho-
meopathic Hospital, Boston, 1910; is Superintendent of Nurses at
Mt. Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.

(5) Helen Georgia, b. 16 June, 1890; spent two years at
Smith College; graduated at Western Reserve University 1911; is
private Secretary for Mr. H. T. Loomis, proprietor of the Prac-
tical Text Book Company, Cleveland, Ohio.

(6) Ruth AHce, b. 20 Sept., 1892; member of the class of
1914 Western Reserve University.

(7) Margaret Hilda, b. 3 Nov., 1893; member of the class
of 1916 Western Reserve University.

5. Nelhe Sophia, b. Worcester, Mass., 25 June, 1853 ; m. 1
Jan'y, 1885, Frank Warner Harrington of Amherst, Mass. ; d. 29
Sept., 1895. Her children:

(1) Beulah Sophia, b. 3 June, 1886; d. 30 March, 1892.

(2) Robert Warner, b. 12 April, 1888; m. 21 July, 1909,
Daisy Brown of Amherst ; a bookkeeper at Northampton, Mass.
Has two children : Nellie Frances, b. 16 Dec, 1910, and Olive
May, b. 1 Dec, 1912.

(3) Elizabeth Fay, b. 31 July. 1891 : m. 28 June, 1912, Ervin
Leslie Maynard, a farmer at Rutland, Mass.

The Fay Family 79

6. Minnie Arabella, b. Southboro, Mass., l-i Nov., 1854 ; m.
25 Sept., 1879, Augustus Story of Cambridge, a photographer who
died at Uxbridge, Mass., 18 April, 1907. Her children :

(1) Chester Bradstreet, b. Boston, 28 Nov., 1882; graduated
at Tuft's College 1903 ; was for three years assistant in the Eng-
lish Department of his Alma Mater ; is now at head of the same
department in High School, Wilkinsburg, Pa. ; m. 29 May, 1908,
Mrs. Margaret Hertzog; has two children: Chester Bradstreet,
b. 24 Aug., 1909, and Winship Whittemore, b. 30 Oct., 1910.

(2) Eunice Fay, b. Somerville, Mass., 8 July, 1888; gradu-
ated at Emerson School of Oratory, Boston, 1910, Teacher of
Elocution Maine Central Institute, Pittsfield, Maine.

7. William Louis, b. Southboro, Mass., 23 Oct., 1856 ; gradu-
ated at the Harvard Medical School 1878 ; physician at Uxbridge,
Mass. ; m. 12 Sept., 1883, Catherine Adelaide, dau. of Col. John
W, Capron. His children:

(1) Dora Catherine, b. and d. 6 July, 1884.

(2) Dora Lucile, b. 22 Jan., 1886; graduated at Smith Col-
lege 3 908; m. 12 April, 1911, Donald V. Richardson of Providence,
R. I. A daughter Doris b. at Uxbridge 5 Sept., 1912.

(3) Grace Capron, b. 16 July, 1887; graduated at Mt. Hol-
yoke College 1909; m. 15 June, 1910, Edward N. Sheffield; a
daughter Barbara b. at Uxbridge 18 May, 1913.

(4) Beulah Messinger, b. 26 Aug., 1892; m. 23 Oct., 1912,
Charles Earle Funk of New York City.

Dr. Johnson has had a creditable success as a family physician
and has been Aiedical Examiner for the Seventh Worcester Dis-
trict since 1898 ; he has served the town of Uxbridge on the School
Committee, as Trustee of the Public Library and as Chairman of
the Board of Health ; he has a high standing and pleasant acquaint-
ances among Masonic circles in New England.

8. Mary Lottie, b. Southboro 8 April, 1859 ; m. 10 May, 1881,
James H. Gilkey, son of Dea. Royal Gilkey of Watertown, Mass.,
where she lived until 1912, when the home was removed to Ithaca,
N. Y. Children:

(1) Charles Whitney Gilkey, b. 3 July, 1882; graduated at
Harvard College, 1903 and at Union Theological Seminary 1908 ;
studied in Europe and visited the Holy Land 1908-1910. Pastor
of Hvde Park Baptist Church, Chicago.

(2) Royal Gilkey, b. 17 March, 1886; graduated at Cornell
University 1908 ; is instructor in the Agricultural Department of
his Alma Mater.

(3) James Gordon Gilkey, b. 28 Sept., 1889; graduated at
Harvard College 1912 ; was class poet at graduation and received
prizes for poetical composition during his college course; studied
in Europe 1912-1913. (See page 113.)

80 Aunt Lucy Guitteau

(4) Gladys Fay Gilkey, b. 25 Nov., 1897.

9. Elizabeth Lankton, named for her grandmother, b. South-
boro 7 Feb., 1861 ; m. 36 Oct., 1882, Herbert B. Knight of Wor-
cester, Mass., where they have their home. Children:

(1) Fred Johnson, b. 1883.

(2) Mary Adelaide, b. 4 July, 1884.

(3) Lucy Knight, b. 17 Sept., 1886; m. 24 Sept., 1906, Burley
Frank Moore of Worcester ; they have two children, Frank Her-
bert, b. 1907, and Elizabeth Grace, b. 21 May, 1911.

(4) Henry Lankton. b. 29 Nov., 1888.

THE SLXTH GENERATION.
9.

Lucy Fandaca Fay was born in Westboro, Mass., 1 May, 1825,
and was ten years old when the family home was removed to
Marietta, Ohio. So near in age and size was she with her sister
Eunice that the two vi^ere generally taken for twins by such as
knew the family but slightly, and for fifty years the family con-
tinued to smile at the story ot one who was told that they were
not twins and who vigorously asserted, "Well, then, there isn't
three months' difference in their ages, Fm sure." For five years
the two were dressed alike and weighed in the same notch and
when the elder sister finally weighed one notch more the younger
wept bitter tears.

On her birthday in 1850 she married Judson Adoniram Guit-
teau, who was born in Marietta 15 July, 1818, and died in Aug.,
1891 ; he was a brother of her brother William's wife and for a
time these brothers and sisters were united in carrying on the
farm of father Fay after he and his wife went to live with the
Tenneys ; but the western fever took possession of Mr. Guitteau
and they went to a farm in Pleasant Valley on Rush River three
miles out of Maiden Rock, Pierce County, Wisconsin, not very
far below Minneapolis. It was indeed in the wilderness when
they took possession of it and for many years the Indians were
their principal neighbors, and the hardships of pioneer life were
plentifully experienced without the consolation of knowing that
a family home and inheritance were thereby secured for children.
After nearly forty years of hard toil, mainly unremunerative, Mr.
Guitteau died and the farm was sold ; Aunt Lucy declined the in-
vitation of her son to come to his home in far away Washington

The Fay Family 81

and returned to Marietta, where she made her home with her sister
Ewing; after Mrs. Ewing's death she kept house for Mr. Ewing
until the latter's death in 1900, The missionary spirit in her blood
took the form of special interest in the blind and when Mrs.
Ewing's house was sold in accordance with her will, which vainly
sought to leave it to the Missionary Society, Mrs. Guitteau joined
with Mrs. Holmes, the blind widow of a soldier, in purchasing a
small house on Warren Street on a hillside some distance from the
business portion of the city ; a small garden and some cows with
the help of Mrs. Holmes' pension sufficed for their simple wants
and here they lived often with other blind friends sharing their
little home until the New Year season in 1913 when she fell in
going downstairs and broke her hip ; it became necessary to remove
her to the hospital where she was kindly cared for but failed to
recover from the shock; she died 28 Jan'y, 1913, having outlived
all the inmates of her childhood's home and being past 87 years
of age. The kindness of Miss Nellie Fay to Aunt Lucy in her
age and sickness, and the efficiency with which she as the nearest
relative met the responsibilities of her death and funeral entitle
her to the gratitude of all who loved the aunt ; that the number
of these was not small was evident at the funeral service held in
the Presbyterian Church, of which she became a member on her
return from Wisconsin, alike by floral emblems, the tribute of her
pastor, and the large attendance of those who knew her kindly
nature and sincere faith ; to the few relatives present it was evident
that the family of which she was the last survivor was still held
in affectionate respect by the older people in Marietta.

When Charles W. Gilkey visited her in 1904: he wrote to his
mother : "Aunt Lucy is a stooping old lady with a very kindly
face, remarkably active and energetic for her years ; she hears
perfectly, moves about briskly and carries her 79 years lightly."

Like many other members of the family Aunt Lucy was greatly
indebted to the generous and continual affection and care of her
niece, Mrs. Louisa Tenney Babbitt.

Children: (1) Joanna Maria, b. 7 April, 1851; d. 30 June,
1852 ; her mother's aft'ection for this babe was life-long and thanks
to Mrs. Babbitt and Miss Nellie Fay her wish to be buried "beside
my little girl" in the old Mound Cemetery was gratified after some
hindrances had been overcome.

(2) William Putnam Guitteau, her son, was born at Mar-
ietta, Ohio, 1 May, 1853 ; he married 2 June, 1880, Emma Josephine

83 Samuel E. Fay

Smith of Anoka, Minnesota, dau. of John Wesley Barrett and his
wife Hannah PhilHps, who was born near Lake City, Minnesota,
13 June, 1858 ; her parents died within three weeks of one another
when she was but three years old and she was adopted by Mr. and
Mrs. Andrew J. Smith, who gave her their name. In Nov., 1895,
Mr. and Mrs. Guitteau removed from Wisconsin to Seattle,
Washington ; here their children were educated and became mem-
bers of the Calvary Presbyterian Church and have been much in-
terested in the work of the Christian Endeavor Society ; their
father is a stone mason by trade and also owns a small farm at
Oak Harbor on the shore of Lake W^ashington ; the children are
George Fay, b. 27 July, 1882 ; died 1882 ; Florence Bayley, b. in
Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, 1? Sept., 1885, a public school teacher
at North Bend, Washington; Otella Marie, b. 25 Jan'y, 1887, a
nurse; Emma Virginia, b. Nov., 1888, died 1889; Lucy Fandaca.
b. on Mercer Island in Lake Washington. 29 Nov., 1891.

(3) Laura Maria, b. 29 Dec, 1854; died at Rush River,
Wisconsin, 3 Nov., 1862.

SIXTH GENERATION.

10.

Samuel Edwards Fay was born at Westboro, Alass., 7 Oct.,
1827, and was but eight years old when he was taken to Marietta,
Ohio. He learned the stonecutter's trade and became a dealer in
monumental stones and memorials ; he married 17 Oct., 1854, at
Louisville, Kentucky, Mrs. Miriam Elizabeth Hamilton, dau. of
Rev. William Crawford Long and his wife Elizabeth Ann Crutcher,
who was born at Ohio City, Kentucky, 18 Dec, 1829, and died at
Springfield, Ohio, 27 Nov., 189(5. Their home was for a brief
time at Louisville, where he had learned his trade, but was soon
removed to Marietta and later to Springfield. Ohio ; in both places
he was an active worker in the Congregational Church and at
Springfield he and his brother William were both chosen deacons.
It was one of the curiosities of family resemblances that his
daughter Joanna resembled his sister Mrs. Johnson, while the
latter's son George bore a marked resemblance to his Uncle Samuel.
Mr. Fay died at Springfield 4 Aug., 1908.

His children: (1) William Edwards Fay,^ b. Louisville,
Ky., 8 Nov., 1855; graduated at Marietta College 1878 and at
Oberlin Theological Seminary 1881 ; was ordained to the Congre-
gational ministry in Springfield, Ohio, 28 July, 1881. as a foreign
missionary ; after six months' experience as a home missionary in

REV. WILLIAM E. FAY

The Fay Family 83

northern Michigan he was appointed by the American Board to
the Httle band of pioneers who were to found the West Central
African Mission and sailed from Boston 9 March, 1882, arriving
at his station the following July ; in 1881 the intrigues of Portu-
guese traders caused the African King to turn against the mis-
sionaries and they were forced to flee for their lives; returning to
the United States he improved the opportunity to study medicine,
as his experience of the great need of this art in his African field
had shown its necessity. Correspondence between the State De-
partment at Washington, directed by Hon. Thomas F. Bayard and
the Portuguese government, at last made possible the safe return
of the missionaries, and he went back to Bihe, twelve degrees south
of the equator, where he superintended the erection of the mission
buildings ; attended the sick who thronged about the station seeking
relief from pain, and acted as Secretary and for a time as Treas-
urer of the mission ; as the only circulating medium in this part
of Africa was then cotton cloth the latter position was far from
being an easy task. He was again obliged to return to this country
that his wife might undergo a surgical operation and on his third
journey to Africa he paused in London for a brief course in the
new school for tropical diseases and the value of this opportunity
soon approved itself by his medical success at Bihe and Bailundu.
In 190? it became necessary for him to return home a third time
that he might himself submit to a surgical operation ; his case
proved to be more serious than was anticipated and though he
partiall}'' recovered from a first operation, a second became neces-
sary and his weakened system was unable to endure the strain.
He died at the Lakeside Hospital, Cleveland, 13 Oct., 1907, in his
fifty-second year. Obituary notices were published in The Con-
gregationalist of 2 Nov. and The Missionary Herald of Dec, 1907 ;
an excellent portrait accompanied the latter article.

He married 10 March, 1886, at Watertown, Mass., Annie
Marie Resoux, dau. of William Paul and Louise (Erni) Resoux,
who had been left an orphan and been brought up by Mr. and
Mrs. William Kimball of Watertown, and though not legally
adopted was known as Annie Kimball. With her children she
made her home after her husband's death in Marietta, Ohio. Their
children : John Means Fay,^ born at Bihe, West Africa. 12 Jan.,
1887, died 26 May of the same year ; Jeannette Kimball Fay,^ born
8 Feb'y, 1892 ; William Erni Fay, born 17 June. 1893, who won
a silver badge for a drawing of the heads of cattle which was
published in the St. NicJwlas for Jan., 1909 ; he is now a pupil
in the Cincinnati Art School; Albert Edwards Fay, born 21 May,
1895, who was killed by accidental contact with a live electric wire
at Marietta 9 June, 1909 ; Charles Ernest Fay, born at Bailundu
12 March, 1898; Annie Miriam Fay, born 17 June, 1900. It is
of interest to note that while some in the Congregational Church

84 Edgar A. Fay and Family

of Marietta in 1837 objected to receiving children of twelve into
church membership there was apparently no objection in 1908 to
receiving Charles and Miriam Fay into the same church though
the latter was not quite eight years old at the time.

(2) Joanna Elizabeth Fay^ was born at Marietta, Ohio, 1
Nov., 1857 ; to assist her brother and sister in their college course
she kept a students' boarding house at Oberlin for a time ; was
a nurse at Springfield for some years and as such cared for her
father in his last sickness ; is at present living with her sisters
on Long Island, N. Y., and is engaged in ministering to the sick.

(3) Edgar Augustus Fay" was born at Marietta, Ohio, 19
June, 1860. A bookkeeper by profession he became the Secretary
of the Merchants' and Mechanics' Savings and Loan Association
of Springfield, Ohio, which was organized in 1893 and in 1909 had
assets of over a million and a half dollars. Not only is his busi-
ness sagacity relied upon in Springfield matters of real estate and
finance but he has actively served the church and Sunday School ;
he was for a number of years Superintendent of the Lagonda
Avenue Sunday School and at present holds the ofiice his father
formerly held of deacon in the First Congregational Church. He
married at Springfield, Ohio, 3 Oct., 1889, Alice Wilbur Guthrie,
who was born 6 April, 1865.

Their children are: [1] Eunice Mary, born 1 April, 1891,
and named for her great aunt, Mrs. Eunice Johnson ; she took a
partial college course at Wittenberg College but left before gradua-
tion and married 28 Dec, 1910, Raymond Ellsworth Boiler; their
home was for a time in New York City, where a son was born
13 Sept., 1911, who received his father's name. The following
year they returned to Ohio and a second son, William Daniel
Boiler, was born 25 M'ch, 1913, in Springfield, Ohio.

[2] Benjamin Guthrie Fay,^ b. 19 Feb'y, 1893; a graduate
of the Springfield High School and student of agriculture at the
State University.

[3 and 4] Harriet Louise and Cyril Edgar Fay^ were born
11 Dec, 1894 ; both are graduates of the Springfield High School,

[5] William Samuel Fay,« b. 2 Jan'y, 1897.

[6] James Lankton Fay,« b. 16 Oct.. 1899.

[7 and 8] George Augustus and Miriam Alice Fay^ were
born 28 July. 1903.

[9 J Allen Utley Fay,* born 19 Aug., 1905.

(1) Lucy Kate Fay^ was born in Marietta 7 Aug., 1862; she
graduated at the Springfield High School in 1883 ; taught for a
year at the Clark County Children's Home ; and for the four fol-
lowing years in the Springfield public schools. After the death
of her mother she joined her younger sister in the South and was

The Fay Family 85

a member of the Christian Commonwealth Colony in Georgia until
its disbanding in 1900; she came with her sister to Long Island
and married 20 Nov., 1903, Charles H. Aldrich of Mattituck, Long
Island. Mr. Aldrich has five children by a former marriage and
is an enterprising and successful farmer; as President of the
Cauliflower Growers' Association of Long Island he has been
of much assistance to the farmers, managing with great success
the collective buying and selling of this edible for the growth of
which the soil and climate of Long Island is especially favorable.

(5) Sue Ella Fay,'^ b. Itt June, 1867, was named for one of
her mother's sisters ; after graduation at the Springfield High School
she taught for several years in the city schools with marked success
until a prolonged illness necessitated her resignation and she went
to the mountain region near Asheville. North Carolina, to regain
her strength. The strong religious and missionary impulse of the
family, which had sent her oldest brother into darkest Africa to
help his fellow-men, in her soul became an intense interest in the
welfare of the laborers under modern industrial conditions ; thor-
oughly convinced that these conditions are not built upon a basis
of social justice she joined heartily in the effort to establish at
Commonwealth, Georgia, a community that should be both Chris-
tian and Socialistic ; for a time the colony prospered but finally fell
a victim to dissension such as in all the ages since the Apostle Paul
"resisted Cephas to the face" have vexed the progress of Christ's
kingdom. In 1900 the colony disbanded and its members dis-
persed. Miss Fay had married 17 Oct., 1898, Daniel Taylor Hink-
ley, a graduate of the Agricultural Department of Harvard Uni-
versity, upon whom the colony was dependent largely for its agri-
cultural support. Mr. Hinkley was soon engaged to superintend
the farm of a railroad magnate on Long Island and for several
years their hospitable home at Wading River has amply illustrated
the possibility of the successful union of goodness of heart and
intelligent industry.

(6) Louise Babbitt Fay' was born 9 October, 1869, and was
graduated in the Literary Course at Oberlin College in 1894. She
accompanied her brother William to the West Central African
Mission and was for six years in the service of the American Board
for Foreign ]\Iissions. Since the death of her father and brother
she has made her home with her sisters.

(7) Ernest Lankton Fay^ was born 17 Feb'y. 1872; he was
for a year a student at Oberlin in the Preparatory Department,
living with his sisters Joanna and Louise. During the Spanish
War he served in the Hospital Corps of the First Ohio National
Guard which was stationed at Tampa, Florida. After the war he
was for a time in the book business at Columbus, Ohio ; at present
he is a traveling salesman with headquarters and home at Chicago.

86 A Teacher With a Poetic Turn

He married 24 June, 1903, Leona M. Longsdorf. They have one
son Ernest Lankton Fay,* Jr., who was born 4 Sept., 1909.

(8) Charles Andrews Fay^ was born at Springfield 18 Oct.,
1874, and married 27 June, 1899, Frances Louise Wade ; he is an
electric engineer with home in Indianapolis, Ind. His children are
Charles Robert Fay,^ b. 13 Oct., 1900; Miriam Louise Fay.^ b. 7
Jan'y, 1906, and Ruth Elizabeth Fay,* b. 18 Nov., 1911.

During the Spanish War of 1898 he served in the Third Ohio
National Guard which was stationed at Tampa, Florida; during
the brief service of this regiment his energy and ability were rec-
ognized by his promotion from the rank of Sergeant to that of
Adjutant and by a commission as Second Lieutenant; but neither
his regiment nor his brother's reached the scene of actual conflict.

THE SIXTH GENERATION.

11.

Joanna Maria Fay was born in Westboro, Mass., 18 July,
1830 ; she became a teacher in a Kentucky family in the days pre-
ceding the era of public schools ; her writings show that it was
a disappointment to her that she could not attend her sister Lucy's
wedding 1 May, 1850 ; she died suddenly in Kentucky 21 Sept.,
1852 ; there has come down a rude form of the poetic mood which
sought to express itself through her pen ; it was evidently sent
to her sister Eunice as the literary member of the family for cor-
rection such as might make the lines flow more smoothly and it
is largely interlined in the latter's handwriting ; it was written at
Mt. Pleasant, Kentucky, and was probably written in the autumn
of 1850 or early in 1851 ; it was evidently inspired by an attack
of homesickness :

I am wandering now alone,

Alone in the stranger's land,
Where I hear not love's soft tone

Nor feel the pressure of its hand ;
And my heart will turn to thee, mother,

And my thoughts I cannot hide
I. like a weary child, mother,

Long to nestle at thy side.

She speaks of each of her sisters, praying for grace to submit
to Elizabeth's approaching death with little thought that "The
spoiler. Death," was far nearer herself than her older sister ; she
is evidently proud of Catherine, "a woman pure and noble," but

The Fay Family 87

her lines have been much changed to increase the expression of
the family pride ; of Eunice she says : "A noble mind hath set
its stamp, On her pure forehead fair," and in this she doubtless
voiced the opinion of the family ; she portrays Beulah "with a bright
and hopeful smile" and tells us "Mournful thoughts come never
wreathing With the mention of thy name, Fondly hope is ever
breathing" and surely it is pleasant to be thus chronicled as the
cheery, hopeful spirit in the home circle ; to Lucy her heart goes
out in love: "My dearest playmate hath she been, All through
our childhood's joyous time," and she tells of her regret at her
own absence from this sister's marriage :

1 stood not by thee when thou knelt

To breathe the wife's low vow.
Nor was it mine to bind the wreath

Of orange on thy brow ;
But in the stranger's home I knelt,

Alone with throbbing breast
To pray that with love firm as mine

Thou might be ever blest.

Her lines on her "angel sister" have been given in connection
with Abigail's record. Pleasant indeed it is to look on these sisters
through the eyes of the youngest of their number.

The Lankton-Langton-Langdon Line

Few names are more memorable in English History than that
of Stephen Langton, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, con-
cerning whom Dean Milman in his History of Latin Christianity
declares : "Of all the high minded, wise and generous prelates
who have filled the see of Canterbury none have been superior to
Stephen Langton." The contest between pope and king over his
election, a contest between the least worthy king who has ever
filled the English throne and the most vigorous and successful
claimant of papal authority who ever wore the triple tiara, re-
sulted in King John's amazing and disgraceful surrender to the
pope of "all our kingdom of England and all our kingdom of Ire-
land," a deed which was declared "irrevocable" and any successor
who should attempt to annul it was declared to have thereby for-
feited his crown; in return for this abject submission the pope
permitted John and his heirs to reign as his vassal upon the pay-
ment of a thousand marks a year as sign of vassalage and a vassal's
oath of allegiance to the authority of the pope. As another result
of his humiliation the king, who had sworn his favorite oath "by
the teeth of God" that he would never allow Langton to set foot
in his kingdom, was compelled to acknowledge him as Primate of
England and to find him at once the leader of his rebellious barons
and the head of the notable conspiracy which wrested from the
king the Magna Charta of 15 June, 1215, the Palladium of English
liberties ; the first of the attesting witnesses to this charter was
Stephen Langton, who was suspended from office by his former
champion and boyhood schoolmate, the pope, but whose popularity
in England was such that his brother, Simon Langton, was elected
Archbishop of York.

When the historian of the Lankton family shall search out the
antecedents of the many of this name who came to our shores in
search of religious liberty, it will be especially incumbent upon him
to ascertain whether there is any connection of the family with this
early champion of English liberties or whether the likeness of
names is a mere coincidence ; as those who have the blood of Eng-
lish Lanktons in their veins we may at least claim the right to lead

The Fay Family 89

in the applause which is the due of one of the name who in the cause
of freedom dared to lead the opposition to a king, and who as an
Englishman dared to act contrary to the will of the pope to whom
he was under such great personal obligations. While his fame is
due to his civil and political acts it should not be forgotten that he
was a man of great learning and industry in his ecclesiastical pro-
fession and is commonly regarded as having been the first to divide
the Bible into the chapters of our present versions ; the previous
editions were printed as books without either chapter or verse
divisions.

George Langdon or Lankton/ the immigrant ancestor of the
wife of William Fay is first recorded as living in Wethersfield,
Conn., where he had a family of one son and four daughters ; in
1648 he was living in Springfield, Mass., where he married a second
wife (29 June), Hannah, widow of Edmund Haynes. Some ten
years later he is found as a resident of Northampton, Mass., where
he died 29 Dec, 1676.

His only son, John Lankton,^ was probably born in England ;
he made his home in Farmington, Conn., where he was made a
freeman in Oct., 1669 ; his membership in the church of that town
dates from 12 July, 1653, and he became one of the deacons ; he
seems to have been a man of some prominence and was elected
to the Legislature by his fellow citizens. When Farmington be-
came sufficiently populated to think of forming a new settlement
John Lankton was one of the active supporters of the movement;
in 1661 he had a grant of 20 acres in that part of Farmington now
known as Bristol, and it is of interest to note that his name in this
grant is spelled "Lankton," as it is also in a petition to the General
Court in 1673 of 26 men from Farmington for a plantation at the
place "called by the Indians Matitacoock," which is now in Water-
bury ; his was the second name on the petition and the endorsement
shows that John "Lancton" paid the required fee of ten shillings ;
the petition was granted but it was not until 1677 that there is any
record of action ; in that year a committee to consider concerning
n town site was appointed and the second member of the committee
was John "Laughton" ; but evidently he lost interest in the settle-
ment for in 1680 Deacon Lankton was among those whose grants
were declared forfeited by reason of their failure to move their
families to the new settlement ; he remained in Farmington and

90 A Soldier in the Revolution

died in 1G89. Three sons and a daughter are recorded. The
youngest of these sons was named Joseph-^ and was baptized in
IGGO. In Oct., 1683, he married Susanna, dau, of John and Mary
(Kilbourn) Root; she died 5 Dec, 1712, and he survived until 8
April, 1749. Of their nine children the second* received his
father's name and was born in March, 1G88; he married 24 Dec.,
1713, Rachel, dau. of Samuel and Rachel (Porter) Cowles ; their
home was in Southington, Conn.

The fourth of their six children was born 23 July. 1720, and
was named Giles" ; he married 4 Nov., 1751, Ruth, dau. of Stephen
and Ruth (Barnes) Andrews; their home in Southington was in
the possession of his grandson, Rodney Langdon, in 1875 ; he died
in 1777 and his widow married 19 Dec, 1793, Jonathan Langdon
of Kensington; on her death in 181G she was buried beside her
first husband in Southington. The family name had for some time
been spelled Langdon, but Giles insisted on the spelling "Lankton"
and so did his brother Thomas, whose granddaughter, Chloe Lank-
ton, was often alluded to by the preachers of fifty years ago as
a model of Christian fortitude during a lifetime of suffering.
Giles and Ruth Lankton had eleven children, of whom the eldest
was :

Levi Lankton,*^ b. in Southington 31 Dec, 1754; his boyhood
was spent on his father's farm but his pastor became urgent that
he should become a clergyman and offered to fit him for college
himself ; having a scholarly interest the youth accepted the offer
and studied with Rev. Mr. Chapman ; entered Yale College in 1773
and graduated in 1777 ; during his college course he and other Yale
students responded to an emergency call for recruits for the revo-
lutionary army ; he was assigned to duty in the commissary de-
partment and served three months as a cook ; probably his service
in the army did not greatly exceed this period as his college course
was uninterrupted and he never deemed his participation in the
war sufficient to justify an application for a pension; his position
as cook was of course a soldier's assignment which he was obliged
to obey as others were ordered to charge the opposing forces, but
very likely there was some especial fitness for the duty in his case ;
unfortunately he left no record of his military experiences save
the statement, 'T performed some short tours in the army where
there are temptations to give loose reins to every evil propensity

The Fay Family 91

more than in almost any other circumstances ; but here I did not
deviate from the course I had hitherto followed" ; what "the
course" was may possibly be illustrated by his account of his man-
ner during the intermission between the two Sabbath services of
the old days: "Living at such a distance from meeting that I
could not go home at noon, I sometimes spent the intermission with
boys that talked of things very unsuitable for the Sabbath, and
sometimes indulged in play ; such things always gave me pain ; to
avoid this evil, I generally spent the intermission in some retired
spot, when the weather would permit it, with a kinsman older than
I who was fond of books and we spent the time in reading religious
books." I find but a single allusion to his college life in the papers
which have come down to me: "At college I was strictly obedient
to the laws ; the Freshman laws were an occasion of much lying
and the general feeling of the scholars was that it was not wrong;
I could not do as they generally did and with some difficulty kept
myself ignorant of those things about which they were tempted to
lie." After his college course he "paid some attention to the
studies necessary for a minister and after a while offered myself"
to the East Haven Association in 1781 and was duly licensed to
preach as a candidate for the ministry ; "I continued to preach a
little more than a year and a half," but without settlement. A
period of extreme depression overcame him and he felt such fear
lest he had entered the ministry without being himself thoroughly
converted that he suffered mental anguish such as modern days
find wellnigh incredible; he speaks of himself as "fixedly opposed
to the terms of salvation" ; he "began a new and more violent con-
test with God" ; "I left preaching and assigned as a reason that I
was unwell, and this was true, but the state of my mind was the
principal difficulty ; the exceeding agitation of my mind operated
on my constitution naturally weak so as to bring on considerable
debility ; loss of sleep and loss of appetite must have some efi'ect on
the state of the body." In this condition he continued "about three
years and eight months ; during this long period I do not remember
enjoying ease one-half hour ; I had never known or heard of any
person being so long and so constantly distressed under conviction
as I had been ; . . . under these circumstances the thought occurred
to me that I should suffer less to put an end to my life; this occa-
sioned frequent thoughts on the subject but I never made any

92 The Pastor of East Alstead

attempt on my life." Remembering that the prayers of the wicked
are an abomination to the Lord he even ceased to pray for reUef.
"I knew it would be mere mockery to attempt to pray." At last
relief came; "The last struggle was to acknowledge I deserved to
be sent to hell ; at length this point I also yielded ; I knew I did
deserve it." The fear of hell was intensely strong in his mind ;
even as a mere child he had wakened from sleep with a cry of
terror at dreams of hell and all his life he had seasons of anxious
self-examination lest he incur "the torments of the damned," of
which he considered his own agony and distress a faint but awful
illustration. "The day I submitted and turned to God was Wednes-
day, June 6th, 1787," and this day he vividly remembered as the
time when the fear of hell was swallowed up in the desire to be
like Christ and now "I could not help praying with earnest crying
and tears, continued for some time, that God would give me a
humble heart." After this experience, though he would have pre-
ferred to be a passive hearer and even found it "painful to think
of leading in the devotions of the day," he felt it his duty to return
to the pulpit. His account of the means taken by God to humble
his heart includes a pathetic account of his only pastorate which
was at East Alstead, N. H., where one of his principal supporters
and deacon was Nathan Fay, a native of Westboro, Mass., son
of Benjamin and Martha (Miles) Fay; the latter were the grand-
parents of William Fay, who was to marry the pastor's only
daughter.

"The church with whom I was settled as their pastor had
separated from the church in Alstead on the professed ground that
they could not conscientiously walk with a church that allowed
some things they thought forbidden in the gospel ; some of the
measures they took to be separated were thought by neighboring
ministers and churches to be quite unjustifiable ; and the old church
and a great majority of the town were greatly displeased with
them; they were, however, formed into a church (20 Nov., 1788)
by some ministers and churches at a distance and received their
fellowship. Under such circumstances it was with considerable
reluctance I went among them at first ; contrary to my wish they
invited me to take charge of the church ; their number was very
small and the proposals they made me for support were such that
I must be poor and have to labor a considerable portion of the time
with my hands and incur the displeasure of a great portion of the
town and of neighboring towns. I thought it duty to settle with
them contrary to inclination and interest; whether I judged rightly

The Fay Family 93

I dare not say ; I think, however, I regarded duty rather than
interest. Not long after I was ordained some things took place
that I could not foresee which rendered my support of consid-
erable less value than I expected and made it necessary for me to
labor with my hands almost all my time ; I could not dress like
others nor purchase books, nor read them if I had them. Min-
isters are generally estimated by the place where they are settled,
by the support they receive, or the popularity they possess, and
as the church with which I was connected was probably the least
Congregational Church in New England, and as I am destitute of
popular talents, I suppose I was generally viewed as a poor, weak,
contemptible, party fellow. I had prayed to be humble; God in
allotting these circumstances to me, took good measures to humble
me."

In a sketch of his life in the history of his native town we
are told that his salary was "only about ninety dollars" a year and
that he supplemented it by taking students into his family and by
working on his farm. The History of the New Hampshire
Churches, by R. F. Lawrence, tells us that the dissatisfaction which
led to the formation of the church in East Alstead was due to
the "unsettled and erroneous sentiments" of the pastor of the old
church, who was dismissed in 1789 ; his successor was even worse
and was severely censured by the council which dismissed him in
1797 ; a third remained with the old church for but a single year
and then for 18 years the church remained without a settled pas-
tor. The seceders from the old church were refused letters when
they asked them for the sake of forming the new church, but "by
importunity and perseverance they at length" obtained letters to
churches in other towns and from these other churches they were
dismissed to form a new church which was organized 20 Nov.,
1788, with 18 members and Mr. Lankton was ordained and in-
stalled as pastor 2 Sept., 1789, after having supplied the pulpit
ever since the organization of the church. In the History of the
New Hampshire Churches the following account of his pastorate
is given :

"On account of a feeble voice and slow delivery his manner
was not regarded as interesting but the matter of his sermons was
always good ; practical, discriminating, biblical his public discourses
and private conversation ever seemed to flow from a heart over-
flowing with love to God and love to man. Thus he scattered the
seed of divine truth, watering it with his tears and following it
with his prayers ; yet it apparently yielded but little fruit in his
own time ; only 93 were admitted to the church during his ministry

94 Pastoral Experiences

of a third of a century ; but the precious grain was not lost ; it was
found after many days ; his holy example and godly conversation
were ever an excellent comment on the doctrines he inculcated and
thus he became what his people denominated, 'an everyday
preacher.' "

The church had a hard struggle to exist after his departure
and was at one time reduced to 25 members ; for a season it
arranged with the pastor of the old First Church to give them
one-fourth of his time ; but in the pastorate of Rev. Moses Gerould
(1826-1844) there were large additions and the church acquired
a strength which has enabled it to continue until the present day ;
in writing of the revivals in Mr. Gerould's pastorate a later pastor,
Rev. B. Smith, says "Thus the seed which was so carefully sowed
and faithfully watered by that man of God, their first minister,
produced an abundant harvest." At the one hundredth anniver-
sary of the formation of this church the first pastor was represented
by his grandson, Rev. Solomon P. Fay, who writes: "I saw the
house in which my mother was born, still unchanged, and saw as
I mingled with the people how strong and precious was the mem-
ory of grandfather's character and ministry." At present the
church in East Alstead has a much larger membership than the
older church at the center of the town.

The loneliness of his ministerial relations at the beginning of
his pastorate has been already emphasized and it is pleasant to
recall the change that followed :

"I found it necessary to labor with my hands for part of my
support during my whole ministry ; but it gradually grew less as
years passed ; after six or seven years I lived comfortably. About
this time some ministers came into the neighboring towns with
whom I agreed in sentiment and they condescended to have me
meet with them. . . . To be in the neighborhood of such friends
was a great comfort to me."

Concerning the death of his wife he writes : "A little more
than two years after my settlement my wife died ; my afifection for
her was exceeding strong and I became sensible after her death
that she occupied much too high a place in my heart, a place I
ought to have given to God alone ; I also placed my trust for
happiness far too much on her and I wronged God of what alone
was His due ; seeing no hope of her life some time before she died
it seemed as if I could not endure the thought of parting with her ;
I never found it so difficult to submit to the providential dealings

The Fay Family 95

of God with me. . . . Her death produced a change in my views
of creatures and worldly enjoyments ; it cured me in a great meas-
ure from trusting in them ; they all seemed like vanity."

Of her successor he writes : "About five years aifter the
death of my wife I was married to a woman who has helped me
to work the work of God ; one who has been a very agreeable com-
panion to me; but I fear she has enjoyed less in me than I in her;
she has much alleviated my afflictions. Bless the Lord, O my soul."

Of the close of his ministerial labors in June, 1823. he tells us:
"When I was about sixty-nine years old it pleased a righteous God
to send sickness and to take away my voice so that I could not
discharge the duties of a minister ; but he mercifully spared my
life and so far restored me to health as to be able to do some busi-
ness. It appeared to me plainly that God now called me to serve
Him as a farmer ; in this way I could do something that would
turn to a valuable account ; being satisfied I was in the path of
duty I have felt the same satisfaction in this business as when 1
labored as a minister ; it is a service attended with much less diffi-
culty than that of a minister ; I consider myself bound to set the
same holy example as when I attempted to fill the place of a min-
ister. A person is worthy of honor not by the business in which
he is called to serve but by the fidelity with which he serves."

I know of no truer sentiment with which to close these ex-
tracts from the writings of my great-grandfather than that
embodied in the last sentence ; however the modern mind may
regard his views there can be no doubt that he served faithfully ;
and he received his reward in the honor and love with wdiich he
was regarded by the grandchildren who grew up around him and
in the love of Christian service transmitted to his children's chil-
dren of the third and fourth generation ; however stern and severe
his self-requirements he knew well how to win the afifection and
confidence of the grandchildren who allowed his counsel to sway
their decisions even in their love afifairs. For their sakes I have
been glad to give him much space in this family record, well know-
ing that less regard would not have satisfied their love and sense
of his desert ; historically his writings deserve preservation because
their form is that of a type of religious expression now largely
outgrown but their heart and soul rings true ; it is the genuine
and sincere spirit of loyalty and service ; and even those who dissent
most violently from the way in which his spirit expressed itself
may well ask in all seriousness if as true a spirit is found in them-
selves. God help us to be as faithful in our privileges as he in
his privations.

96 Elizabeth Lankton

After his retirement from the ministry and from Alstead Mr.
Lankton "served God as a farmer" on the farm of his son-in-law,
William Fay, in Westboro, Mass., and in Marietta, Ohio. He was
subject to much sickness and pain in his age but his strong char-
acter and deep faith prevented any complaint ; the sketch of his
life in the History of Southington affirms that not one of his
grandchildren could recall a single impatient word or act. The
same sketch is authority for the statement that in 1816 a sermon
on Baptism was published by him and if any one who may read
these lines chances to have a copy of this sermon it would be a
great pleasure to the present writer if he might be allowed to
read it.

Rev. Levi Lankton died in Marietta, Ohio, 23 Nov., 1843,
having nearly completed his 89th year. He was twice married ; his
first wife and the mother of his daughter was Elizabeth Crane of
Berkley, Mass., where he preached for a brief period, probably
before the depression and illness which kept him from the pulpit
for more than three years. Mrs. Lankton died 8 Oct., 1791, aged
27. His second wife was Eunice, dau. of Rev. Elijah Fish of
Upton, Mass., who was born 4 Anarch, 1758; married Sept. 1796,
and died 2 Nov., 1834.

ELIZABETH LANKTON.
In the document from which I have quoted so much of
Pastor Lankton's record of himself, nothing seems to strange
to me as the complete absence of any allusion to his chil-
dren, the younger of whom received his father's name upon
his birth in Sept., 1791, but whose frail hold on life ended in the
following month; his daughter was born 23 July, 1790, and lived
until 26 Jan., 1866; she received her mother's name, but as that
mother died when she was but a little more than a year old she
had little of her motherly care. She was taught by her father,
who supplemented his inadequate salary by taking theological stu*
dents into his family in accordance with the custom of the days
that preceded the opening of theological seminaries ; naturally her
studies followed the theological directions of her fellow students;
how far her education progressed I do not know, but when she
and her husband retired from active work and went to live in
the house of their daughter Beulah (Mrs. Tenney) the grand-

The Fay Family 97

mother taught her grandchild Louise both the Greek and Hebrew
alphabet as well as the more practical knowledge of needle work
in which she particularly excelled ; perhaps her "exquisite needle
work" was the expression of an artistic skill which was bequeathed
to her daughter Beulah and which has reappeared from time to
time in the younger generations. One of her limbs was somewhat
shorter than its mate and made it necessary for her to wear a shoe
with a raised sole, and by a singular coincidence her daughter
Eunice married a man who was afflicted with a similar misfortune.
One of her father's most influential parishioners and deacon was
Nathan Fay, whose large family of thirteen children had many
cousins in Westboro, Mass., one of whom we may safely suppose
visited these New Hampshire cousins and there met and fell in
love with the minister's only daughter ; his suit met with no known
rebufif and on the third of Sept., 1812, Elizabeth Lankton became
the wife of William Fay. By a very peculiar and strange combi-
nation of circumstances during my pastorate in Taunton, Mass.,
I came upon a bundle of letters, heirlooms in the Crane family, in
one of which I found this allusion to the marriage :

"Alstead, 11 Sept., 1812. — Tuesday Betsey bade adieu to
Alstead and steard her course to Westbury ; she was married to
Mr. Fay last Sabbath. Her goods went away on Monday. Mr.
Fay waited upon her down last spring to visit his friends at
Westbury and from their to Cambridge and Boston ; they talked
of going to Berkly but finally concluded not to ; Betsey thought
when she went away from here she should go to Berkly some
time this winter."

From another letter dated 20 Nov., 1813: "Probably Betsey
told you when she was at Berkly last winter that Mrs, Lankton
was threatened with blindness ; she has been a doctoring for this
year past and her eyes had gotten considerably better ; but the Dr.
thought it would be beneficial for her to have blisters on her tem-
ples and accordingly she had them put on in August. She is
troubled with a scrofulous humour in her neck and they drew the
humour into her face and head so that she is swel'd very much
and has been confined to her room ever since September." This
letter was not finished until 28 Feb'y. 1814. 'T shall now attempt
to finish my letter, having begun it the year past but having so
much to do I could not get time to write more. Mrs. Lankton
has so far recovered that she gets about the house and tries to do
some light work, but she is troubled with a hard pain in her head
for the most part of her time; so that it keeps her feeble. Her
eyes had gotten so much better that she began to sew some; now

98 Family Correspondence

her eyes are weak but we are in hopes that she will recover her
sig-ht as usual."

These letters were written by Lydia Perin to the Crane family
of Berkley, who were of course uncles, aunts and cousins of
Betsey Lankton. Lydia seems to be housekeeper in the Alstead
parsonage and we naturally wonder who she was and if she had
the care of little Betsey after her mother died. Who can tell us?
Betsey's life subsequent to her marriage is the story of the William
Fay family elsewhere recorded in this narrative ; but among my
heirlooms is a long letter to her from her father, perhaps saved
because it was the first written to her after her marriage ; it is
dated 23 Sept., 1812. It begins:

"My dear daughter : To make your calling and election sure
is a matter of very great importance. Rest not satisfied with a
hope — with a profession of religion ; but see to it that you have the
reality." With this as a text he writes a lengthy sermon-letter;
the only family allusion is at the close : "Present my cordial re-
spects to Mr. Fay ; I hope to feel towards him and treat him as
my own child. Your mother sends her love also to you both.
To your parents we wish to be cordially remembered." In this
connection I cannot refrain from quoting from a letter of Uncle
Solomon concerning a letter I had found from this same grand-
father and sent to him: "I have just received and read my grand-
father's letter ; he preached the old sermon which I used often to
hear when he and father were digging potatoes and I picked them ;
I wish the dear old soul had shortened his sermon a little and told
what kind of children I and the rest of us were — but he did love
us and wanted with all his soul to set us in the right direction."

Often have I echoed this wish in reading page after page of
his writing; it was not that the good man was not interested in
other things, for Uncle Solomon, who read Virgil to him, testifies
that he could repeat whole passages of the text from memory, but
it was the intense devotion of his consecrated spirit and his habit
when he put pen to paper to write in sermon form. Among my
own cherished keepsakes is a letter from his daughter, my grand-
mother, who writes of her own sickness but quickly passes on
to say :

"I must tell you some incidents of this sad war; Mr. Albert
Babbit, your cousin Louisa's husband, was in the front of that
terrible battle at Murf reesboro ; a friend at his side was wounded;
he put his arm around him to help him to a safer place when a
ball struck him passing thro' from his breast to his backbone.
Albert is sick in the hospital now but we cannot hear from him

The Fay Family 99

because the telegraph lines are all down in the late storm." Of
Lucretia, her son William's child, she writes. "Poor, dear child,
how much I pity her; her spasms are all in the night now and are
very bad ; she is very anxious to attend church — a privilege she
has never had."

She speaks of Lankton and Will Tenney in their school and
hopes that I may graduate at Marietta College. The earnestness
of religious interest is not lacking in the letter ; it never was from
her life; but it did not exclude the items of family interest. Her
last message to her son Solomon was : "Put all your trust in
Christ Jesus." She was true to her father's spirit of consecra-
tion ; a faithful and helpful wife ; and a mother who held the
deepest love of all her children's hearts. She died 36 Jan'y, 1866,
and it was long a secret between my mother and myself that on
the following morning she told me of her mother's death ; as we
had no telegraphic privileges on the Southboro farm I asked her
how she knew and she told me of a vision of the night ; her mother
appeared to her and spoke of her affection for her and of visiting
sisters "who were not here" ; there was no mention of death but
my mother's deep love and sensitive spirit realized the purport of
the vision as she had that of her earlier life when her son appeared
to comfort her. She bade me mark the date; it was just one
week later when the letter came from Marietta giving the details
of the death and my mother called my attention to the exactness
of the date marked. I recall yet the awe with which as a boy
I regarded this knowledge, but when long years later I began to
hear telepathy talked about it was less of a marvel to me than to
the many who ridiculed the suggestion. My mother was the last
person who could be called visionary, but the strength of her
affections was unusual, and the sensitiveness of her being to spir-
itual impressions was like that of the Aeolian harp to the wind.

The Crane Family

The mother of Mrs. WilHam Fay was EHzabeth Crane of
Berkley, Mass.. and her name was given to the oldest daughter
of the child who had no remembrance of her mother. My cousin,
Mrs. Hinkley. has a writing of Pastor Lankton which is inscribed
"In Memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Lankton."

"She was born 8 Feb'y, 1TG5, and died of a consumption 8
Oct., 1791, aged 27; she was born again as she thought in 1783;
she professed religion, led a life of very exemplary piety and
appeared to fall asleep in Jesus filled with joy unspeakable after
repeating 'Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.' Favor is deceitful
and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall
be praised. She was not more than the middle size in height ; her
body was rather larger than middling for her height, her limbs
were short and a good deal tapering ; her feet, ankles, hands and
wrists were very small and handsome ; her skin was not a clear
white, but had a reddish-brown cast and its grain was fine and
soft ; her face was not fleshy ; the color of her hair and eyes was
of a dark brown, nearly black; her hair was middling for length,
thickness and fineness and when it fell loose about her shoulders
always hung in ringlets ; her eyes expressed a discerning mind,
extraordinary vivacity, and a great degree of pleasantness ; the
emotions of her mind were pretty strongly impressed upon her
countenance ; she was straight and walked exceeding erect ; her
constitution after she was grown up was slender; she was often
afifected with nervous difficulties, was subject to many pains and
was unable to endure hardship. Scrofulous humors seemed to
hang about her before her marriage but soon after she rode some
long journeys which seemed beneficial to her health."

Following" this is the detailed account of her illness and death.
During my Taunton pastorate I met a number of the Crane family,
one of whom bore the name of Levi Lankton Crane ; I preached
several times in the adjoining town of Berkley and gave the Me-
morial Day address in the town hall in 1905 ; I visited the cemetery
and sought to become acquainted with the representatives of the
old families ; no one was left to remember my great-grandfather
or his bride but I was fortunate enough to obtain a package of
letters concerning his wife's family; I did not learn the precise
date of his ministry in Berkley, as he was not settled and did not
long continue as pulpit supply. In a letter to his future wife,

The Fay Family 101

written 30 July, 1787, he speaks of "our long and intimate acquaint-
ance," and I doubt not he preached at Berkley some part of that
year and a half of preaching between his licensure in 1781 and the
period of depression when he abstained from preaching. Her
husband's testimony, "she was esteemed by all her acquaintance as
uncommonly amiable and pious," doubtless includes the estimate
of her Berkley associates as well as of her parishioners in Alstead ;
and his own feeling is : "We took sweet counsel together ; our
conversation was much on divine things and helped me to grow
in grace."

She was the daughter of Capt. Abel* and Jemima (Burt)
Crane ; her father, like others of his name and kin, was a seafaring
man and became Captain of a merchant ship. Mrs. Babbitt re-
members tales of her grandmother about her sailor kindred and
especially of one who was exceedingly fond of animal pets and
brought home many strange ones from the ports he visited ; is it
not natural to suppose that this was Capt. Abel, grandfather of the
grandmother? Beyond a doubt the little, inlaid shell, patch box
brought from France as a love token was the gift of Capt. Abel
to his Jemima ; it was among the cherished keepsakes of Mrs.
Fay and of her daughter, Mrs. Tenney, and is now the property
of Lucia B. Johnson as the gift of Mrs. Babbitt ; it has thus been
owned by six successive generations of the family. It was the
custom of the successful colonial sailors to follow the sea during
their years of vigor and robustness and then to buy a farm with
their savings and spend their maturer years in tilling the soil. As
Abel Crane rose to command his ship I have no doubt he was at
least part owner of the same and able in due time to retire from
his severe calling with a sense of success in life. He had four
children, John,^ Luther, Elizabeth and Hannah. The letters from
Alstead to Berkley quoted in the sketch of Mrs. Fay's life were
addressed to Capt. Luther Crane-^ and his daughter Sophia ; and
among Pastor Lankton's papers is a letter of condolence to Capt.
Luther upon the death of his daughter Jane ; Capt. Luther named
one of his sons Levi Lankton Crane^ and it was a nephew of the
latter, whose name was also Levi Lankton Crane,'' who called me
to a funeral in his family when his own pastor's absence from the

102 The Crane Family)

city made it necessary for him to call a stranger to render this
service, which proved the beginning of friendly relations with the
family.

Capt. Abel Crane's father was Gershom Crane,^ who married
27 Feb'y, 1716, Susanna Whitmarsh ; Gershom was the son of
Ensign John Crane,^ who was born in Dorchester, Mass., in 1658-9,
and married 13 Dec, 1686, Hannah Leonard of Taunton ; John's
father was the Henry Crane^ who came to New England in 1618-9
and who married Tabitha, dau. of Stephen Kinsley; in 1654 Kins-
ley with his two sons-in-law, Anthony Gulliver and Henry Crane,
were settled on adjacent farms in that part of Dorchester now
called Milton ; Crane's farm included about 120 acres, and he
bought and sold other parcels of land ; he was for three years,
1679-81, one of the Selectmen of Milton, incorporated as a town
in 1662, and he was one of the Trustees of the first meeting house
in the new town ; a letter addressed to the General Court on 7
May, 1677, is yet on record and both composition and spelling as
well as the fine, clear penmanship show that he must have had
some scholarly training ; he was twice married and died 21 March,
1709. He had six sons and four daughters, several of whom
settled in Taunton ; quite an army of descendants look back to
him as their immigrant ancestor and there are three or four other
armies of this name who are not connected with him so far as is
known. A claim of descent from the early French kings is some-
times made in behalf of this family but it has not yet been sub-
stantiated.

It is understood that a genealogy of all the descendants of
Henry Crane is being prepared and it will be eagerly welcomed
by the family. Among the family legends is the story of

Crane's Angel,
which I give as nearly as memory serves as it was told me in the
winter of 1876-7 by the oldest member of the family whom I have
met, the aged mother in the home of Dr. Nichols of Freetown,
Mass. : A Berkley farmer was threshing out grain in his barn
when a stranger came to ask food ; as this was supplied with primi-
tive hospitality the conversation passed from personal matters on
which the stranger declined to talk to religion, in which the farmer
was deeply interested ; as his guest proved unusually intelligent
and interesting Mr. Crane pressed him to stay with him through

The Fay Family 103

the approaching night ; they conversed pleasantly until an unusually
late hour upon the themes evidently dear to each. The next morn-
ing farmer Crane called his guest to breakfast and receiving no
reply entered the room, which he found unoccupied and the bed
undisturbed ; eager to see again the guest whom he had found
so far above his usual friends in intelligence, Crane rode along the
highway on horseback but failed to overtake him ; he inquired at
all houses if he had been seen to pass but could find in all the
village either then or later not one who had seen any stranger
enter or leave the town ; Crane's eagerness to ask for one who
seemed to have gone through the village unseen by any one save
himself made the occurrence town talk and "Crane's angel" be-
came a subject of derision to the irreverent and of curious awe to
the friends to whom he spake of his heavenly wisdom.

At a meeting of the descendants of Henry Crane I heard the
ingenious theory suggested that possibly Crane's angel was no celes-
tial visitor but the famous regicide, William Gofife, Major General
in Cromwell's army, who was excluded from the act of indemnity
of 1G60 by reason of his part in the execution of King Charles ;
he with his father-in-law, Edward Whalley, escaped to this country
and lived in concealment for almost twenty years ; most of this
time they spent in the house of their ardent sympathizer. Pastor
Russell of Hadley, Mass., then a town on the far frontier. It is
probable that during this long concealment business matters in-
volving property made it necessary for Gofi'e to go to Boston even
more than once, and to avoid implicating others in case he should
be apprehended, as well as for his own security, he traveled by
unusual routes through outlying towns largely by night ; he was a
favorite exhorter in the circles of Cromwell's adherents, the son
of a puritan rector, and received the degree of Master of Arts
from Oxford in 1649 ; if Crane's angel was iWilliam Gofife it is no
doubt strictly true that Crane never heard any minister speak so
convincingly on religious themes as did this mysterious guest ;
Gofife's diary would no doubt have enabled us to test this theory,
but in 1T65 this century old document of inestimable historical
value was in the possession of Governor Thomas Hutchinson of
Massachusetts and with other priceless treasures of this eminent
man was consumed by the fire which destroyed the Governor's
house when it was attacked by an angry mob of drunken rowdies

104 A Sad Riot

26 Aug., 1675 ; in the verdict of history this riot's villainy was
exceeded by its utter stupidity ; as magistrate certain depositions
charging popular men of Boston with smuggling had his signature
and the riotous spirit engendered by the stamp act selected him
as its victim ; to students of American history the loss of Hutch-
inson's valuable library with its priceless documents collected
during the thirty years of research is irreparable.

Readers of New England's early history know well that "in-
teresting but doubtful" is stamped by the prudent on the story of
Gofife's appearance to save Hadley from an Indian assault and no
doubt they will apply the latter of these adjectives to the legend
of Crane's angel. The story has come down to us of an ancient
English family of this name who were told that God provided for
the wants of the crows in the fields and at once chose as their
family motto a Latin sentence meaning, "He who feeds the crows
will not forget the cranes."

The Stow Family

As William and Elizabeth Fay gave their first daughter the
name of the mother's mother, the second daughter was named for
the father's mother, Beulah Stow^ of Grafton. She was the child
of Solomon^ and Elizabeth (Taylor) Stow and was born 27 June,
1754 ; married 14 May, 1772, Benjamin Fay, Jr., of Westboro, who
was her mother's step-son, as after the death of her first husband
4 Nov., 1763, Mrs. Stow had married 28 Oct., 1765. Benjamin
Fay, Sr. Thus the son and daughter appear to have lived in the
same home for seven years preceding their marriage ; they built
a new home on the site of the old house which was moved back
and there the twelve children were born, all but one of whom grew
to maturity and were married. Benjamin Fay was not a church
member but his wife united with the church in Westboro 30 Sept.,
1781 ; she is remembered by her grandchildren as a most devoted
Christian, who spent many hours of sleepless nights in prayer for
her children and for their posterity. It was from her that her son
William learned the prayer which his children remembered so well :
"May ours be a godly generation to the latest time." The lives
of the children both of the mother and the son show that these
prayers were not in vain. Mrs. Fay died 18 April, 1834.

Her father, Solomon Stow,^ was born 10 Oct., 1714; married
19 Nov., 1741, Elizabeth Taylor of Shrewsbury, Mass., and died
4 Nov., 1763, leaving to his wife the care of seven children, the
youngest of whom was but a little over two years old. He had
served the town as Constable, 1750; as School Committee, 1752;
and was one of the Selectmen of Grafton the year he died. Two
of his sons served in the revolutionary army.

Solomon's father. Samuel Stow,* was one of the original pro-
prietors of Grafton ; his share of the seventy-five hundred acres
purchased from the Indians was 177 acres and 39 rods, apparently
the largest amount of any of the earliest allotments (1728) and
he served the young town on a number of committees. He was
born in Marlboro, Mass., 2 May, 1680, and married 19 Dec, 1704,

106 ' The Stow Family

Sarah, dau. of James and Sarah (Jaquith) Snow of Woburn ; their
married Hfe continued nearly sixty years; Mrs. Stow died 20
Feb'y, 1762, and her husband 13 Feb'y, 17G8. They had seven
children.

Samuel's* father was Samuel Stow,^ Sr., an early settler of
Marlboro, Mass., where he became a prominent citizen ; he served
in the war against King Philip; the records show that in 1768 he
bought twenty acres of land of two Indians for six pounds, half
of which was paid in money and half in corn. He died 9 Feb'y,
1721, aged 76. He was the grandson of John^ and Elizabeth
(Bigg) Stow, who arrived in New England, according to Pastor
Eliot's record, on the seventh day of the third month, 1631 ;
according to the custom of the New England fathers, whose new
year began March 25, this would be in May; he came in one ot
the six ships which brought over the goodly company of Gov.
Winthrop's colonists who contributed so materially to the settle-
ment of New England. He located in Roxbury and at once be-
came a prominent citizen, being a member of the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company in 1638 and Representative in the
Legislature in 1639. He was undoubtedly a man of more means
than many of the early colonists and his sons inherited property
from their Uncles John and Smallhope Bigg of Kent County,
England. The youngest of John's sons was the Rev. Samuel
Snow who graduated at Harvard in 1645 and became pastor of
the church in Middletown, Conn. Two other sons located in Con-
cord, Mass., and from one of these the Marlboro and Grafton
Stows were descended. John Stow died 26 Oct., 1643, and as
Pastor Eliot's record calls him "an old Kentish man" we know
that he was a mature man at the time of his emigration and also
from what part of England he came and the record of his mar-
riage to Elizabeth Bigge 13 Sept., 1608, has been found in the
registers of All Saints' Church, Bidenden, Kent Co., England,
where his name is spelled "Stowe."

The Fay-Lankton Ancestry

The writer has sought to learn whatever can be found by
dihgent research among ancient records concerning all the New
England ancestry of our parents ; in this pursuit he has found
fully as much pleasure and probably as much profit as is found
by the hunter who eagerly tracks his quarry through the forests
or by the fisherman who seeks the speckled and toothsome beauties
of the stream and lake. This quest will no doubt be continued
as health and opportunity permit. The details of such success
as has been already attained do not seem necessary to the com-
pletion of the present work, though it will be a pleasure to corre-
spond with any whose interest in the following names may prompt
them to ask for more information. The student of colonial settlers
will note the different numbering of the generations due to the
age of the immigrants ; the Fay generations begin with a boy who
was not born until 1648, while the Stow families trace their
ancestry to a man with a family who reached Boston in 1634 and
died "an old man" five years before the Fay ancestor was born.
Corrections and additions to the following lists are earnestly re-
quested from students of family history. Dates when known are
placed against the husband's name, the place of the family home
ifter marriage against the name of the wife.

I.
William Fay, 1785-1866.
Elizabeth Lankton, Westboro, Mass.

11.

Benjamin Fay, 1744-1834.
Beulah Stow, Westboro.
Rev. Levi Lankton, 1754-1843.
Elizabeth Crane, Alstead, N. H.

IIL
Capt. Benjamin Fay, 1712-1777.
Martha Miles, Westboro.
Solomon Stow, 1714-1763.
Elizabeth Taylor, Grafton, Mass.

108 Fay-Lankton Ancestry

Giles Lankton, 1720-1777.

Ruth Andrews, Southington, Conn.

Capt. Abel Crane.

Jemima Burt, Berkley, Mass.

IV.

Dea. John Fay, 1669-17-17.

Elizabeth Wellington, Marlboro, Mass.

Samuel Miles. 1681-1758.

Sarah Foster. Concord, Mass.

Samuel Stow, 1680-1768.

Sarah Snow, Marlboro.

William Taylor, 1692-1775.

Elizabeth Hapgood, Shrewsbury, Mass.

Joseph Langdon, 1688-1719.

Rachel Cowles, Farmington, Conn.

Stephen Andrews, 1690-1756.

Ruth Barnes, Southington, Conn.

Gershom Crane, 1692-1787.

Susanna Whitmarsh, Berkley, Mass.

Thomas Burt, 1689-1774.

Elizabeth Axtell, Taunton, Mass.

V.

John Fay, 1648-1690.

Mary Brigham, Marlboro.

Benjamin Wellington, d. 1710.

Elizabeth Sweetman. Watertown, Mass.

Jonathan Miles, d. 1693.

Susanna Goodenow, Concord.

Samuel Foster, d. 1730.

Sarah Keyes, Chelmsford, Mass.

Samuel Stow, d. 1721.

(Unknown), Marlboro.

James Snow.

Sarah Jaquith, Woburn. Mass.

William Taylor.

Mary Johnson, Marlboro.

Thomas Hapgood, 1669-1764.

Judith Barker, Marlboro.

The Fay Family 109

Joseph Langdon, d. 1749.
Susanna Root, Farmington.
Samuel Cowles, 1661-1748.
Rachel Porter, Farmington.
Benjamin Andrews, 1659-1727.
Mary Smith, Farmington.
Thomas Barnes.
Mary Jones, Southington, Conn.
Ensign John Crane, 1659-1716.
Hannah Leonard, Taunton, Mass.
Samuel Whitmarsh, 1665-1718.
Hannah Barker, Dighton, Mass.
James Burt, 1659-1743.
Mary Thayer, Taunton.
Daniel Axtell, 1673-1735.
Thankful Pratt, Berkley, Mass.

VI.
Unknown parents of John Fay.
Thomas Brigham, 1603-1653.
Mercy Hurd, Watertown, Mass.
Roger Wellington, 1610-1698.
Mary Palgrave, Watertown.
Thomas Sweetman, 1610-1683.
Isabel Cutler, Cambridge, Mass.
Unknown parents of Jonathan Miles.
Thomas Goodenow, d. 1664.

Jane , Marlboro.

Samuel Foster. 1619-1692.
Esther Kemp, Chelmsford, Mass.
Solomon Keyes. d. 1702.
Frances Grant, Chelmsford, Mass.
Nathaniel Stow.

Elizabeth , Concord, Mass.

Unknown parents of Mrs. Samuel Stow.
Richard Snow, d. 1711.

Anis , Woburn, Mass.

Abraham Jaquith, d. 1676.
Ann Jordan, Charlestown, Mass.
Unknown parents of William Taylor.

110 Fay-Lankton Ancestry

Solomon Johnson, d. 1687.

Elinor , Marlboro.

Shadrach Hapgood, 1643-1675.

Elizabeth Treadway, Sudbury, Mass.

John Barker, m, 1668.

Judith Symonds.

Dea. John Lankton, d. 1689.

, Farmington, Conn.

John Root, 1608-1684.
Mary Kilbourn, Farmington.
Samuel Cowles, 1639-1691.
Abigail Stanley, Farmington.
Thomas Porter, m. 1644.
Sarah Hart, Farmington.
John Andrews, d. 1681.

Mary , Farmington.

Unknown parents of Mary Smith.
Thomas Barnes, d. 1688.
Mary Andrews, Hartford, Conn.
Richard Jones, d. 1670.

, Farmington, Conn.

Henry Crane, 1621-1709.
Elizabeth Kinsley, Taunton, Mass.
James Leonard, 1643-1726.
Hannah Martin, Taunton.
Nicholas Whitmarsh, m. 1658.
Hannah Read, Weymouth, Mass.
Jonathan Barker.

James Burt, d. 1680.
Anna Gilbert, Taunton.
Nathaniel Thayer, m. 1660.
Abigail Harvey, Taunton.
Henry Axtell, 1641-1676.
Hannah Merriam, Marlboro.
Elder William Pratt, 1659-1713.
Elizabeth Baker, Weymouth.

The Fay Family 111

Grandchildren of \Vm. and Elizabeth Fay in Order of Birth
WITH Residences.

William Lankton Gilman, Denver, Col 44, 121

Louisa Tenney Babbitt, Toledo, Ohio 51

John Ellis Gilman, Chicago, 111 _ ^ 46, 112

Abbie Sophia Johnson, d, 1 Jan., 1844 77

Levi Lankton Fay Jr., d. 24 Feb., 1909 _ 39

Abbie Augusta Jenkins, Cincinnati, Ohio 56

Louis Williston Johnson, d. 6 Aug., 1849 77

Albert Hill Fay, d. 22 June, 1848 42

Geo. Augustus Gilman, Rochester, N. Y _ „ 47

Lucretia Moore Fay, d. June, 1894 57

Caroline Eliz, Mowery, Northfield, Minn 42

Henry Lankton Johnson, d. 23 May, 1850 77

William Augustus Tenney, d. 9 Feb., 1911 53

Edward Fisher Gilman, d. 20 Aug., 1851 50

Selinda Holt Fay, d. 28 May, 1875 43

Geo. Henry Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio 78

Joanna Maria Guitteau, d. 30 June, 1852 81

Solomon Payson Fay, Minong, Wis 57

Augusta Denny Fay, d. 12 Jany., 1873 53

William Putnam Guitteau, Oak Harbor, Wash 82

Henry Brigham Fay, d. 11 Feb., 1905 67

Nellie Sophia Harrington, d. 29 Sept., 1895 , 78

Minnie Arabella Story, Uxbridge, Mass 79

Laura Afaria Guitteau, d. 3 Nov., 1862 .". 82

William Edwards Fay, d. 13 Oct., 1907 83

WMliam Louis Johnson, Uxbridge, Mass 79

Maria Elizabeth Fay, Los Angeles, Cal 58

Ella Maria Fay, Boston, Mass.. 68

Joanna Elizabeth Fay, Wading River, N. Y 84

William Judson Fay. Washington, D. C 58

Mary Lottie Gilkev, Ithaca, N. Y „ 79

Frank Jenness Fay, d. 30 March, 1893 „ 43

Edgar Augustus Fay, Springfield, Ohio 84

Benjamin Childs Fay, Wheatlands, Wy , 60

Louis Payson Fay, Minneapolis, Minn 68

Eliz. Lankton Knight, Worcester, Mass 80

Lucie Kate Aldrich. Mattituck, N. Y 84

Sue Ella Hinckley, Wading River, N. Y 85

Louisa Babbitt Fay, Wading River, N. Y „ „ 85

Ernest Lankton Fay, Chicago, 111 85

Charles Andrews Fay, Indianapolis, Ind „ 86

The Poetic Gift

Mention of the poetic strain in the Fay blood calls for some
illustration and from Dr. J. E. Oilman's poem, "The Fair Elena,''
published in a dainty booklet of some sixty pages by Fitzgerald
of New York (1911), the following tribute to Florida's attractive-
ness for winter tourists will prove interesting :

Oh summer land ! upon thy shores the sea
Unstinted casts its treasures, boundless, free,
And gently woos with many a soft caress,
In blandishment of murmured gentleness ;
Then rageful, foaming, towers with savage roar
In angry passion beating at thy door,
Only to sink again, appeased with smiles
From thy fair land and verdure crowned isles.

Fair flower land ! The realm of lotus dreams ;

Romance in all thy varied history gleams,

And gilds each page with ventures strange and bold

Of knightly search for conquest and for gold ;

A gorgeous pageantry of burnished arms,

Of sieges, sorties, ruthless war's alarms.

Of pirates' raid and bandit buccaneer.

And valorous deeds of mailed cavalier.

Oh queenly land ! Enthroned on summer seas,

How many nations suitors at thy knees

Have woven fair the richly bannered page

And claimed thy realm as richest heritage !

DeSoto's hosts entwine with lilied France ;

With these combine DeLeon's sad romance;

And England's lion banners wave amain

With close companioned lion flag of Spain ;

Till Freedom's starry ensign rules serene

The standard of thy throne thou mighty queen ;

And merged in sisterhood among the states.

Art guardian charged to keep these southern gates.

The Fay Family 113

Oh land mid summer seas in emeralds drest !

To dwell within thy realm is blissful rest.

There closely twined in warmth of nature's heart,

And flower crowned with all her choicest art,

Are fragrant groves, with white and gold o'erlaid

That laughing bear the fruit the sun has made

In likeness of himself. The golden globes.

The jeweled ornaments upon thy robes,

Are regal gifts thy bounty sends to all,

Like benedictions shed, where'er they fall.

This poem won the Garrison prize of $100 and a silver medal
in the annual competition at Harvard College in 1911 ; the follow-
ing year the author was chosen class day poet by the class of 1913.

Boston as Seen From the Harvard Bridge,
by james gordon gilkey.

A dozen spires against the sky —

A plain of roofs — the circled glow
Of one great dome — a canyoned street —

The prisoned river far below ;
Shrill echoes of a teaming way —

A whistle's iron throated cry —
The clatter of a road of stone —

Unnumbered steps that murmur by.

The savage knew thy triple hill,

The dauntless Pilgrim turned to thee,
Thy snowy street was first to bear

The crimson flower of liberty.
Thy sons were champion of the slave,

Thy children fashioned Cuba's fate —
And still a mighty work is thine

Staid guardian of our northeast gate.

From lands where sunset is the dawn
The nations bring their gifts to thee

On double roads of ringing steel
And laden pathways of the sea.

114 The Poetic Gift

Oh wake in pleasure stifled ears

The challenge of unsorted spoil —
Give us a task, and guard our lips

From boasting in another's toil.

Across thy stream our fathers came

To find the knowledge born of men ;
With thee they tracked the circling stars

And heard the songs of Rome again.
Thou gavest them the seeds of strength,

The glimpses of a world unwon —
Oh give that power now, reveal

The father's vision to the son.

Awake the buried soul that cried

For justice from a haughty king,
And bid our later monarchs share

With all the spoil that all may bring.
Oh touch our drowsy hearts with shame

For sunless homes where sin is piled.
And call us from the shrines of gold

Built on the ruins of a child.

Now fades the day behind the stream,

The quivering lights begin to glow,
A thousand footsteps eager come,

A thousand others weary go.
On toiling tide and plundered hill

The ageless challenge rings again —
Each light a shrine for sacrifice.

Each step a trumpet call for men.

That the poetic strain in the family blood finds expression
even in so prosaic a channel as a family letter is seen in the extract
from a private letter dated at Chartres, France, 23 July, 1913:

"We arrived from Orleans late in the afternoon and went at
once to the Cathedral ; it had been trying to rain and the sky was
a dull gray, full of rain clouds ; as we stepped into the Cathedral
it was as if we had entered a forest at night and could only dimly
discern the great tree trunks while the tops were cjuite lost in the

The Fay Family 115

darkness above ; glints of light came through the high windows of
old stained glass, just enough to make us realize the vastness of the
Cathedral, the huge size of the pillars, and the great height. It
was far better to realize the glory of it gradually as our eyes be-
came accustomed to the light. The beautifully fluted columns rise
so high that they seem to climb on endlessly and to carry one's
thoughts upward with them ; the stone is a lovely soft gray that
seems hallowed by all the ages it has stood there in the presence
of God, and when one thinks of all the thousands of suffering
mortals who have sought help in hundreds of years within that
holy place, it seems like one tremendous prayer to God ; the Cathe-
dral is full of prayer ; at the prie-dieux the faithful are kneeling
in supplication, while the great silence c[uivers with devotion, and
the many shadows hovering under the faraway arches seem to be
full of prayers not yet ascended. As I stood by the great entrance
door and looked down the immensity of distance to the altar, self
and the petty thoughts of every day were forgotten ; the very
curve of the distant choir was full of love in the way its semi-
circle embraced the altar, while above, very high up, were the
glorious glass windows through which a very soft and kindly light
came down like the assurance of God's mercy. Such a building
is an inspiration ; it is so big and high ; so beautiful and harmo-
nious ; that it could contain hundreds and hundreds of finite mortals
and transcend all their pettiness, their sins, and their bickerings
and unite them as one soul that only knows the seeking after God.
Do not think me insincere if I say that to live within the influence
of such a building would seem to me a better chance to live
worthily." L.

Military Record of the Family

I.

Indian Warfare.

William Fay's grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor (wife of Solo-
mon Stow*), was the great-granddaughter of Shadrach Hapgood,
who came to ISlew England when a boy of fourteen years in the
Speedwell in its voyage of 30 May to 27 June, 1656, and was thus
a fellow passenger with John Fay our immigrant ancestor. Both
these boys grew to manhood in Sudbury, Mass. 16 May, 1683,
the town of Stow was incorporated with twelve proprietors, each
of whom had a lot of fifty acres in the new town ; one of these
twelve was Shadrach Hapgood, whose lot was on the south side
of the Assabet River and at the close of the nineteenth century
was the home of his descendant, Nathaniel Hapgood ; before Hap-
good had completed his home on this lot he was called to battle
with the Indians as a member of the mounted troop of twenty men
led by Captains Hutchinson and Wheeler ; they advanced into the
territory of the Nipmuck Indians as far as the garrison village of
Brookfield; the Indians agreed to meet them for treaty proceed-
ings at Quaboag, three miles distant ; arriving there no Indians
were found and the troop proceeded in single file towards Wika-
baug pond; as they were passing between a swamp and a hill (sup-
posed to be on the south side of the present railroad between
Brookfield Depot and West Brookfield) they fell into an ambush
and eleven of their number lost their lives ; among the killed was
Shadrach Hapgood. This was 2 Aug.. 1675 ; in the autumn of
the same year the new house on the Stow lot of an appraised
value of some 40 £ was burned by the Indians. Mrs. Hapgood
(Elizabeth Tredway) married in 1677, Joseph Hayward of Con-
cord, to whom she bore a son. Ebenezer Hayward. who was killed
by the Indians in another battle near Brookfield 24 July, 1710, and
in the same fight the husband of her step-daughter (Sergeant John
White) was killed ; so that three of her family were victims of
the Indians.

Her son, Thomas Hapgood- (1669-1764), bought in 1699 a
thirty acre right of land from John Fay- and Nathan Brigham,

118 Sufferers From Indian Wars

showing that the children of the boys who had crossed the ocean
together still had dealings with each other ; in 1703 Thomas pre-
sented a petition for aid to the General Court of Massachusetts,
pleading :

"Having in 1690 been detached into the service against the
Indian enemy, he was engaged in the bloody fight near Oyster
River, N. H., wherein Capt. Noah 'Wiswell and divers others were
slain ; that he then had his left arm broken and his right hand much
shot so that he endured great pain and narrowly escaped with his
life ; that he was thereby much disabled for labor and getting his
livelihood ; that he was forced to sell what stock he had acquired
before being wounded to maintain himself since; and that in the
fight he was necessitated to leave and lose his arms with which he
w^as well furnished at his own charge.''

In answer to this plea the Legislature granted him 5 £ , a
goodly sum for colonial days. An English newspaper had this
notice of Thomas Hapgood's death -t Oct., 1704: "Died at Marl-
boro, New England, in the 95th year of his age, Mr. Thomas Hap-
good. His posterity were very numerous ; viz., nine children,
ninety-two grandchildren, two hundred and eight great-grand-
children and four great-great-grandchildren, in all three hundred
and thirteen ; his grandchildren saw their grandchildren and their
grandfather at the same time."

His daughter Mary married the great-grandson of the Capt.
Wheeler who was in command at the fight in which her grand-
father was killed. The military record of the family should in-
clude the names of two women. Mrs. Gershom Fay- (dau. of
John Brigham) and Mary Goodnow, mentioned on page 19.

Mary Goodnow's Aunt Susanna Goodnow married John
Rediat of Marlboro, who was killed by the Indians in 1676 (King
Philip's W'^ar), and 10 April, 1679, she married Jonathan Miles of
Concord ; their granddaughter, Martha Miles, became the wife of
Capt. Benj. Fay'^ and the grandmother of William Fay\ Another
Goodnow to suffer at the hands of the Indians was Mrs. John
Goodnow, whose husband was an uncle of Mrs. Goodnow-Rediat.
Mrs. John Goodnow's first husband was Thomas Axtell (1619-
1646), brother of Col. Daniel Axtell of Cromwell's army, who
was executed in 1660 for his part in condemning King Charles
to death and her son, Henry Axtell (1611-1676), was killed by
the Indians in King Philip's war. Henry's granddaughter Eliza-
beth married Thomas Burt (1689-1774), and their granddaughter,

The Fay Family 119

Elizabeth Crane (1765-1791), was the mother of Mrs. WiUiam
Fay. Another victim of the battle of April, 1676, between Sud-
bury and Marlboro was Sergeant Thomas Pratt (1628-1676),
whose granddaughter, Thankful Pratt, afterwards (1702) mar-
ried Henry Axtell's son Daniel (1673-1735) and became the
parents of Jemima Burt, who married Capt. Abel Crane and be-
came the mother of Elizabeth Crane, through whom the blood of
both the slain soldiers, Henry Axtell and Sergeant Thomas Pratt,
descends to the Fay family.

Many military titles scattered through old time documents
concerning the Fays show that they held responsible positions in
the "train bands" or local militia of the colonial days and it is to
be remembered that every man had to be more or less of a soldier
in the days of Indian alarms but in the brevity of ancient records
it is mainly the tragic and the unusual that is written down for
posterity to read.

II.

The Revolution.
That the Fay family did its full share to achieve the independ-
ence of our country is amply demonstrated by the names of one
hundred Fays on the public archives of Massachusetts as having
served in this war ; no doubt some of these hundred names are
repetitions but as the evidence to separate two persons having the
same name from one name twice given is wholly indecisive the
State honors each name as that of an individual warrior. Those
whose acquaintance with military matters is limited to modern
regulations for troops far from their homes may need the reminder
that the warfare of 1775 to 1781 was right among the homes of
the colonists who ran to arms to defend themselves and neighbors
as to help a family whose house was on fire and returned to their
firesides when the danger was past ; a service of one week like that
of our ancestor Benjamin Fay (see page 32) following the
battle of Lexington is no less real for being brief ; at the battle of
Bennington, 16 Aug., 1777, Capt. Stephen Fay's five sons were
in the thick of the fight (see page 26), and when the dead body
of his son John, whom he called "the darling of my soul," was
brought into the father's presence the sturdy old patriot washed
the blood and dirt from the gaping wounds and said : "I thank
God that I had a son who was willing to give his life for his

120 The Revolution

country" ; when told that his son had "contended mightily" in the
battle he bowed his head and said : "Then I am satisfied." His
words are from an account published in the papers of 17T7 soon
after the contest. The death of James Fay soon after joining the
army is recorded on page 30, and the grief of the mother of James
and heroic pride of the father of John show us alike the love
of the home and the courage of the patriot, the two basic qualities
of our nation's permanence; the sacrifice of love is the white stripe
on our nation's flag as its alternate is "the red badge of courage"
in those who count it sweet to die for the fatherland.

It is a matter of much personal regret to the author that the
revolutionary record of our ancestor, Levi Lankton (see page 90),
has received no adequate memorial. The special form which his
piety took in later years prevented him from recounting a service
which his descendants would have gladly cherished; perhaps the
fact that he was assigned to a place in the commissary department
robs him of martial prestige in the eyes of the thoughtless who
forget that even the bravest cannot long win battles on empty
stomachs ; probably it was because he enlisted as a college student
that he was not credited to any town and so failed of mention
in the book of revolutionary soldiers published by the State of
Connecticut; but to the writer the matter of keenest regret is that
his name fails to appear upon the tablet erected by the D. A. R.
on the gate of the Mound Cemetery in Marietta ; the preparation of
such a tablet was unknown to the members of the family then far
separated from the old Marietta homestead and it was not until
a pilgrimage of great-grandchildren to his tomb revealed the omis-
sion that it was noticed, when authoritative evidence of his right
to have his name included with the others was deposited in the
keeping of the Marietta Historical Society.

HI.

The War Between the States.
1.
The fiercest of our country's struggles in warfare found the
Sixth Generation of our branch of the family above the age of
martial ardor and the Seventh, while full to the brim of the soldier
spirit, scarcely attained the age recognized by the recruiting officer.
William Lankton Oilman, oldest of the grandchildren of William

The Fay Family 121

and Elizabeth Fay, creditably represented the family as a member
of one of the "fighting regiments" of the Northern armies ; twice
wounded in battle and weakened by disease which has crippled
years of endeavor in peaceful days, he surely has paid the large
share of what one family owed to the preservation of the country's
welfare ; his record is given on pages 44-45, but for such
as know not a battlefield a portion of his account of the battle of
Fredericsburg 13 Dec, 1862, is here added from a letter written
while in the hospital to the Worcester Spy :

"We expected that we were to spend the winter on the east
bank of the Rappahannock and we had just completed a building
to partially shelter us from the winter storms when we were
awakened on the 11th and ordered to move at daylight; as the
sun came up we were on our way ; presently bang ! bang ! bang !
we counted the heavy booming of a full battery ; we felt then that
we had work to do and cast anxious glances across the valley to
see how hard a job it was to be. Then came the whiz! bang! and
flutter ! that we had learned to know so well at Antietam ; we found
cover under a hill directly opposite the upper part of Frederics-
burg and there we lay all day listening to the quick, heavy boom
of the cannon that swept back and forth across the valley that
echoed and rolled and echoed back again ; in all my experience I
have not heard any such cannonading ; it seemed one continued
sound throughout the livelong day.

"Just at night came the order 'Attention,' and our brigade
was quickly in motion towards the pontoon bridge which had just
been completed ; the enemy saw us as we emerged from shelter
and sent the swift messengers of death ; thank God they went over
our heads and we crossed the bridge and formed in line at the
water's edge. Dana's brigade bad preceded us in boats and were
engaging the enemy in the streets ; the rattle of their rifles was
fearfully distinct and the humming of the enemies' balls reminded
us of the time when we stirred up the bees in childhood. 'Twas
ticklish business laying there in the dim evening ; was Ball's Blufif
to be re-enacted and we driven into the river ? Such thought would
intrude itself upon the bravest heart; but as night deepened the
firing died away and tired with the day's excitement we lay down
on the river bank and slept, some in the sleep that knows no
waking. Morning came cold and cheerless ; we felt sure that this
was to be the day of battle but we were mistaken, for the day was
spent in getting troops across the river and placing them so as to
be handy, as the old lady said of her broom that lay in the middle
of the floor. One of my comrades was blown to atoms by a shell
that exploded in front of him as we advanced through the streets ;
his head flew up and came down on the pavement with a heavy

12S Battle of Fredericsburg

thud, while one of his arms passed over our heads to the opposite
side of the street. That night we slept on the sidewalks of Freder-
icsburg, but not on the icy stones, for the boys seized the warm
feather beds and soft mattresses in the adjoining houses and slept
on them. Before the sun had dispelled the fog on the morning of
the 13th we moved forward and took our position as pickets; our
torn and bloody banner that has never been disgraced is again to
be borne to the front in the midst of bloodiest scenes ; that banner
looks far more beautiful to us today, albeit so mangled and ragged
that it can scarce be unfurled without losing some of its parts,
than when we received it from the fair hands of its generous
donors, and should we ever be permitted to bear its ragged rem-
nants through the streets of Worcester it should be returned as pure
from dishonor as the fame of its fair givers. Following that
emblem we pass rapidly down the street, halt for a moment to
breathe, and then 'Forward !' to our part in the battle. And now
my narrative must stop, for just as we were entering the engage-
ment I felt a quick, sharp sting in my hand (these buzzing bees
have stings) and I look to see the crimson tide flowing over my
disabled hand ; it is what I see more than what I feel that tells me
I am wounded. It don't hurt much to be shot ; indeed I scarcely
sufifered at all until inflammation set in, when every movement re-
minded me of the old saying, 'A' sore finger is always in the way.'
Trying to get my disabled self out of the way of others I came
upon our Surgeon (Dr. Haven) lying dangerously wounded; poor
fellow, he had ventured too far in his anxiety to have the wounded
speedily relieved and in a little while he was gone, another victim
to this dreadful war ; next I remember meeting one who had been
thus far kept from the battle by sickness. 'Och and are yees
hurted,' he exclaimed in the rich brogue that showed him a country-
man of Meagher of the fighting brigade ; the sight of my crim-
soned hand seemed to give strength to the sick man ; seizing his
musket he rushed into the fight; in a short time he rejoined me.
having left a part of his right hand upon the field ; as our wounds
were being dressed he turned to me and said, 'Faix. I gave 'em
a round or two anyway,' and this seemed to comfort him. We
crossed the pontoon together and came to the Lacy house in front
of which stood Gen. Burnside directing the progress of the fight ;
I tried to read the story of our success in the face of the com-
manding general but it was so calm and still I could detect no sign
of either pleasure or pain. As daylight faded into night the rattle
of rapid musketry died away ; only the booming of the heavy gims
told of the bloody work : I passed a sleepless night but the next
day took the cars for Aquia Creek and the hospital, glad to get
away from the sound and sight of war."

This letter, dated 23 Dec, is signed "Lankton" ; how precious
would be a letter as vividly relating experiences of the earlier war

The Fay Family 123

from the elder Lankton ! Both these Lanktons after war was over
became preachers of the gospel, one in the rock-bound East, the
other in the hills of the far West.

2.

How different the experience of soldiers equally devoted to
their flag and alike ready for any toil, suffering and death is well
illustrated by comparing Gilman's case with that of Lieut. Josiah
H. Jenkins, who married Abbie A. Fay (page 56). Like Grand-
father Lankton, Jenkins was in college when the call of duty came ;
he enlisted in May, 1862, and became Second Lieutenant in Co.
A., Eighty-seventh Ohio Volunteers. The entire regiment was
taken prisoners within a few weeks after their entrance upon mili-
tary duty in the field. A bitter suspicion that they had been be-
trayed by the incompetence or treachery of their superior officers
long rankled in the breasts of these eager soldiers and mars the
memory of their service ; they were paroled at Harpers Ferry, Va.,
15 Sept., 1868, and the regiment was mustered out of service 2
Oct., 1862. An expected exchange of prisoners which would have
released them from the obligation of the parole was frustrated by
a disagreement as to the right of colored troops to share in the
exchange and Lieut. Jenkins was prevented from accepting a
Captain's commission tendered him. He was appointed by Gov.
Todd of Ohio as Post Adjutant of Camp Putnam near Marietta,
where the Militia of southeastern Ohio were assembling to resist
Morgan's invasion of Ohio ; organizing, drilling, directing and
(later) disbanding this militia force; preparing the official reports
and making the necessary settlements with the State and National
authorities the Adjutant's time was fully occupied until March,
1864, when his military service came to a close, and like Grand-
father Lankton and Cousin Gilman, the soldier spirit carried him
into the Lord's army as a clergyman ; possibly the two callings are
not so far separated from each other as we sometimes think.

The military record of Lieut. Babbitt is briefly referred to
on pages 51 and 98. The Official Roster of the Ohio Regi-
ments shows that he entered the army 18 Aug., 1862, as a private
in Co. B of the Ninety-third Ohio Volunteers ; he was mustered in
as a Corporal, and 1 Dec, 1862, he was promoted to be second
Lieutenant of Co. C in the same regiment ; the date of his dis-
charge is 1 Feb'y, 1864, but how little does an official record show

124 The War With Spain

of the gallantry, patient fidelity, the spirit of comradeship, the
weary marches, the stern reality of battle, the dreadful sufferings
in the hospital, the life-long weakness as the result of wounds,
which constitute the reality of the soldier's heroism and sacrifice !
Surely we owe it to them to cherish their memory and sacredly
guard that which they preserved at such a price.

Mr, Mowery, page 42, is another whose loyalty during the
war was followed by devoted service under peculiar difficulties
as a missionary clergyman ; surely the soldier spirit characterized
his ministerial labors as well as his military service ; and we thank
God for the spiritual victories in his Minnesota parish.

IV.

The family was represented in the brief but eventful war with
Spain by the sons of Samuel E. Fay; if their service (see page 85)
was brief and unheralded by fame it was not because they were
not ready to do the full part of brave soldiers ; not theirs to choose
a place or duty ; theirs but to be ready for any call whether it be
as cook or hospital attendant; and the honor of final victory is
credited not to the conspicuous few alone but to all who did their
part with willing spirits and faithful obedience. The true repre-
sentatives of a family not conspicuous in the day's lime-light but
always industrious, kind hearted, loyal to high ideals and righteous
standards, are found in these extracts from the military records
of the family.

The Family at College

A single year (as 1777) indicates the year of graduation; two or

more years (as 18'47-8) indicate years of study without graduation; the
word "seminary" refers to theological seminaries.

Page.

Levi Lankton— Yale College 1777 90

Eli Whitney— Yale College 1792 28

Levi L. Fay— Marietta College 1840 38

Lane Seminary 1843

Solomon P. Fay— Marietta College 1844 60

Andover Seminary 1847

Prescott Fay— Williams College 1847-8 34

Amherst College 1851

Bangor Seminary 1853-4

Andover Seminary 1855

Josiah H. Jenkins— Marietta College 1862 56

Lane Seminary 1865

William L. Oilman — Ann Arbor Medical 1865 45

Caroline E. Fay — 'Western Col. for Women, Oxford, O. 1869 42

Selinda H. Fay— Western Col. for Women, Oxford, O. 1869 43

S. Payson Fay — Oberlin Preparatory 1868-9 57

J. E. Oilman — Hahneman Medical, Chicago 1871 46

Oeo. H. Johnson— Harvard College 1873 77

Andover Seminary 1873-4

Bangor Seminary 1876

Nellie S. Harrington— Mt. Holyoke 1872-3 78

Christian Mowery— Marietta College 1875 42

Yale Seminary 1878

Henry B. Fay— Harvard College 1877 67

Ella M. Fay— Wellesley College 68

William E. Fay— Marietta College 1878 82

Oberlin Seminary 1881

William L. Johnson— Harvard Medical 1878 79

Frank J. Fay — Obeiiin Preparatory 1877-9 43

Elizabeth L. Knight— Mt. Holyoke College 1878-9 80

Daniel T. Hinckley— Harvard (Agriculture) 1882 85

William Eastman Fay — University of Minnesota 1883 34

Harvard Medical 1889

Ernest L. Fay — Oberlin Preparatory 1890-1 85

Louise B. Fav— Oberlin College 1894 85

William T. Oilman— Hahneman Medical 1896 47

Albert H. Fay— University of Missouri 1902 40

Columbia University 1907

136 The Family at College

Page.

Bertha L. Johnson— Smith College 1903 78

Charles W. Gilkey— Harvard College 1903 79

Union Seminary 1908

Chester B. Story— Tufts College 1903 79

Dwight F. Movvery— Carleton College 1905 42

Andover (Cambridge) 1910

May A. Mowery — Carleton College 1905 43

Lucia B. Johnson— Smith Cojlege 1906 78

L. Eldred Mowery — Carleton College 1907 43

Harvard (Architecture)

Marian C. Johnson — Simmons College 1905-7 78

Clarence W. Mowery — University of Minnesota 1908 43

Royal Gilkey— Cornell University 1908 79

Dora L. Richardson — Tufts College 1904-5 79

Smith College 1908

Grace C. Sheffield— Mt. Holyoke 1909 79

Helen G. Johnson— Smith College 1907-09 78

Western Reserve 1911

Eunice F. Story — Emerson College 1910 79

Eunice F. Boiler— ^Wittenberg College 1909-10 84

Jeannette K. Fay — Marietta College 83

J. Gordon Gilkey— Harvard College 1912 79

Ruth A. Johnson — Western Reserve 1910 — 78

Margaret H. Johnson — Western Reserve 1912 — 78

A Coat-of-Arms

Some disappointment may be felt that no Fay "Coat-of-Arms"
is illustrated in this family record, especially as our cousin, Ernest
L. Fay, has found and kindly given me such a device. To all
such I can only present my regrets that as a student and teacher
of history I feel myself strictly limited by the facts. I have heard
several speak of "the arms of a family," whereas all students know
that there is no such thing any more than there is a family pair
of shoes. Heraldic arms are individual ; only the eldest son may
bear the father's arms unaltered ; other sons must bear them
'"differenced" ; otherwise the entire purpose of the arms would
be frustrated, for the purpose was to enable the knights to recog-
nize each other when encased in armor which was essentially alike
for all the knights ; the arms were therefore emblazoned on the
shield as the most conspicuous place in the knight's armor. Even
then if we could find a Fay Coat-of-Arms; even if it could be
proven that it rightfully belonged to an uncle ; it would give us
no right to claim it as a family possession ; nay if grandfather or
father possessed it. only one son could rightfully claim it. It is
then a matter for congratulation that whereas the older genealo-
gists frequently printed a coat-of-arms as if it were the common
property of all who bore the name, the more accurate family
historians of the present day announce that they are but the pri-
vate property of those long since passed away.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society appointed a
committee of scholarly standing to consider and report on this whole
matter of Heraldic devices and I heartily subscribe to their report
which was made in 1898, and after due consideration adopted at
the annual meeting of 1899 as the expression of the society ; the
report concludes :

"A coat-of-arms did not belong with a family name, but only
to the particular family to whose progenitor it had been granted
or confirmed ; it was as purely individual a piece of property as a
homestead. It is as ridiculous to assume arms without being able
to prove the right as it would now be to make use of a representa-
tion of the Washington mansion at Aft. Vernon and claim it as
having been the original property of one's family."

128 A Coat of Arms

Having thus paid our respects to historical accuracy it may-
be added that there is no law in our country to forbid any one
from adopting any device or so-called ''coat-of-arms'' that he may
desire ; even in England the Herald's College, which once had legal
jurisdiction in such matters, has now no compulsory authority.
The Library of Congress had a recent visitor who asked to be
shown the coat-of-arms of the English nobility, and carefully ex-
amining them the wife of one who had acquired much wealth by
speculation pronounced, "That is the best of all and I will have an
engraver call tomorrow to copy it for my coupe" ; upon being told
that it bore the device of the reigning monarch and indicated royal
blood the woman exclaimed, "Why — then it suits me all the better !"
a few days later she was seen riding down Pennsylvania Avenue
with this coat-of-arms upon her carriage.

In Burke's "Encyclopedia of Heraldry" I find but one entry
under the name of Fay, and that reads thus:

"Fay (Ireland) Ar. Six roses gu. Crest, a dexter arm hold-
ing in the gauntlet a dagger, all ppr." The translation of this in-
dicates six red roses on a white field ; above the field an arm toward
the right (of the shield, which would be the spectator's left)
holding a dagger in a steel glove, all in natural color.

INDEX.
See Also Contents, List of Grandchildren and Family at College,

Page

Aldrich, Chas 85

Allen, Ethan 26

Amputated Leg 9

Anderson, Edw 59

Axtell Family 118

Babbitt, Albert 51, 98, 123

Beecher Council 64

Bennett, Ada 52

Bennington, Battle of 26, 119

Boiler, Raymond 84

Brigham, John 15, 17

Burgess, Eben A 33

Capron, C. Adelaide 79

Catamount Tavern 26

Chapin, Leroy 41

Children's Homes 69-72

Citizenship in Mass 16

Clergy in Family 66

Colby University 32

Cotton Gin 28

Crane's Angel 102

Edwards, Jona 23

Eliot, Indian Apostle 15

Families, Large 18, 20, 30, 118

Farmer's Calling Divine 95

Fay Cream Pie 57

Fays : Eliot 33, 76

EHphaz 32

Frank B 19

Dr. Jonas 26

Martha J 31, 33

Prescott 34

Robert E 33

Samuel P. P^ 24

Theo. Sedgwick 27

Warren 19

Wm. Eastman 34

Foot, Senator 26

Fredericsburg. Battle of 121, 122

French and Indian War 27

French Refugees 10

Funk, Carl E 79

Gilkey, James H 79

Goodnow 13, 19, 118

Goffe, the Regicide 103

Hapgood Family 117

Harrington, Frank 78

130 Index

Page.

Hatch, Rev. Roger 34

Hill, Frederic 34

Hinckley, Daniel 85

Immigration Opposed 11

Indian Assaults 14, 19, 21, 117

Infirm, Home for 59

Jenkins, Rev. J. H 56, 123

Tohnson, Fannie 33

Mary D 47

King, Rev. H. P 59, 66

Kingdon. Royal 59

Knight, Herbert 76, 80

Labor Trouble 1]

Lincoln, Pres 45

Magna Charta 88

Maynard, Ervim 78

Missionaries 69, S2, 85

Mt. Washington 29

Nantes, Edict of 11

O'Neill, Military Adventures 76

Parkman, Rev. E 21, 23

Patch Box 101

Powell, William 33

Rattlesnakes 21

Regicides 103, 118

Revolution 25, 26, 30, 32, 119

Richardson, Donald 79

Robinson, Governor 27

School Houses 32

Teacher 60

Shefifield, Edward 79

Sibley, Mrs. Lucy 33

Slavery Question 64

Spanish War 85, 86, 124

Story, Augustus 79

Summey, Dainiel 56

Sunday, Cold Day 61

Tabler, Vincent 59

Tolman, Lucius 34

Twins 32, 33, 84

Washington's Groom 25

Webster, Daniel 62

Western Reserve College 19

Whitefield's Preaching 23

Whitney, Eli 28

Windom, Sec'y of Treasury 34

Boston Public Library
Central Library, Copley Square

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Reference and Research Services

The Date Due Card in the pocket indi-
cates the date on or before which this
book should be returned to the Library.

Please do not remove cards from this
pocket.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

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