The Gentle Revolutionaries

By Don Lord

The Gentle Revolutionaries is a novel based on the lives of two prominent American missionaries, Dan and Emelie Bradley, who became close friends with the famous monk, later King Mongkut. They arrived in Thailand (Siam) in 1835 and made significant contributions to Thailands medical, social and intellectual history. Their diaries and letters, as well as the Thais evaluation of them, destroys the false image of Thailand an English writer had created. The Bradleys and their missionary coworkers came from New Yorks Burned Over District, famous for its policy of accepting women as social equals. Thai nobles basically treated missionary women as their husbands did, respectfully and warmly.

Anna Leonowens, who served as an English teacher for the children and wives of King Mongkut, later fabricated two novels about him that were bestsellers. Unfortunately, these books were innocently used as the basis for Margaret Landons novel, Anna and the King of Siam, which was made into successful Broadway and Hollywood musicals.

The Thai and the missionaries were so close that two missionaries negotiated Thailands treaties with the United States and England. Missionaries also led the battle against smallpox and inspired the Thai to replace their antiquated educational system with one similar to Western schools. The best example of the Thai/missionary mutual respect came when an American ambassador to Thailand was shocked to discover at a royal dinner with King Chulalongkorn, that not he, but a missionary wife sat at the right hand of the king.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490809274

Don Lord

Don Lord holds a BA from Oberlin College and a PhD from Western Reserve University. He is a retired professor of history whose publications include Mo Bradley and Thailand, John F. Kennedy, Issues Past and Present, and Dubya: The Toxic Texan. When active, he was listed in Directory of American Scholars, Outstanding Educators, and Community Leaders of America.

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Copyright © 2013 Don Lord.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0926-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0928-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0927-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916958

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/26/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

I.   CLINTON: THE NEW CITY UPON A HILL

II.   THE CLINTON REVIVAL, 1826

III.   TEACHER

IV.   THE FIRST CALL

V.   THE COURTSHIP OF EMELIE ROYCE

VI.   MARRIAGE

VII.   THE CASHMERE

VIII.   SINGAPORE

IX.   THAILAND: THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT

X.   A NEW WORLD, A NEW LIFE

XI.   1836: A NEW YEAR; NEW CHALLENGES

XII.   EDUCTION AND SOCIAL LIFE

XIII.   EXPANDING CONTACTS

XIV.   1837: AN EXPANDING WORLD

XV.   1838

XVI.   COOPERATION AND AFFECTION

XVII.   EXPANSION/CONTRACTION

XVIII.   THE BRADLEYS’ CHANGING WORLD

XIX.   THE LOVESONG OF EMELIE BRADLEY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

I n 1944, when I was fourteen, I was an indifferent junior high school student. Fortunately, my mother, who was an avid reader, expanded my education by letting me read the many books she borrowed from the local library. One of my favorites was Margaret Landon’s Anna and the King of of Siam, which unfortunately was based on Anna Leonowens’ distorted The English Governess at the Siamese Court and her Siamese Harem Life . (In the 19th century Thailand was called Siam by Westerners.) I enjoyed Landon’s book so much that I could hardly wait for the movie version that came out two years later.

In 1946 my mother and I saw Anna and the King of of Siam twice and had a wonderful time walking home discussing it. Ten years later I also fell in love with the musical version of the King and I, also based on Landon’s book.

Later when I started my college education at Oberlin College in Ohio, I was excited to discover that there were numerous documents in its vaults that had been written by missionaries to Thailand, missionaries who knew both Anna Leonowens and Mongkut. The most famous resource in the library was the detailed 25 volume diary of Dan Beach Bradley, who served in Thailand as a medical missionary from 1835 to 1873 and twice, over extended periods, served as Mongkut’s language teacher.

When I began working on my doctorate at nearby Western Reserve University, I decided to do a study of the relationship between the missionary and the monarch. Unfortunately, I got the shock of my educational life when I discovered that the Leonowens-Landon versions of Mongkut were merely money-making fantasies and that Mongkut did not burn his concubine Tuptim at the stake as both women stated. The Chakri kings, before and after Mongkut, were rational monarchs.

I completed my dissertation on the life of Dan Beach Bradley in 1964. The manuscript was later published by Eerdmans as Mo Bradley and Thailand. Although I discussed the contributions of Dan’s wife, Emelie Royce Bradley, in my dissertation, I did not have enough information about Emelie to discover why missionaries and Thai nobles held her in such high esteem and referred to the Bradleys’ sojourn in Thailand as The Bradley Era.

Later, I found Emelie’s diary at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, Emelie’s birthplace. I started to research their lives again and was excited by their contributions to Thai culture and their warm social and cultural relationships with Thai nobles. Not only did they introduce western medical practices to Thailand, particularly obstetrics, but Emelie became so competent that later physicians who arrived in Thailand were shocked to discover that she never had any formal medical training. The Bradleys also dined weekly with Thai nobles as equals and became language teachers as well as language students with their noble friends.

While many of the documents I used contained directly quoted discussions, others only summarized them and I translated them by using the warm, friendly discussions which were quoted directly as examples. The Bradleys’ contributions to Thailand were so significant that the Phra Klang (Prime Minister) built the Bradleys a home and dispensary that dwarfed all but the Thai noble dwellings. Furthermore, many Thai nobles, including King Nang Klao, gave financial contributions to support the Bradleys’ work in Thailand.

None of Dan’s missionary colleagues shared the Leonowens/Landon image of Mongkut. Had they read them they would have viewed them as cruel caricatures of a man who was an outstanding 19th-century Asian monarch. Furthermore, when I was doing my basic research I also used the annual reports of the American Missionary Association and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries. While the missionary associations and the missionaries were disappointed with the failure to convert many Thai to Christianity, there is no evidence that the society created by Leonowens and Landon every existed. Today there are numerous Christian churches in Thailand under its Freedom of Religion Act.

I have chosen to create a novel rather than a biography because it brings out the warmth the Bradleys had for each other and created for others; both missionaries and Thai.

I would like to thank four people, my wife, Patricia Farmer Lord, and my good friend, Lance Bukoff who read the entire manuscript and made numerous helpful suggestion; my ophthalmologist, Dr. Steve Witkin, Waterville, Maine, who made significant contributions to my research on eye surgery and Dick Williams of the Clinton Historical Society who helped with my study of the history of Clinton, NY.

This book is dedicated to my five grandchildren: Hannah Lord and Zack, Josh, Blake and Victoria West.

CHAPTER I

CLINTON: THE NEW CITY UPON A HILL

Transplanting New England, March 3, 1787

Well, for once in your life you didn’t exaggerate, Solomon. It’s really beautiful.

Solomon Hovey looked at his wife pretending shock. Certainly, Mary, you never doubted my word.

She had, of course, but pioneer women followed their husbands hoping for the best. In the Oriskany Valley of New York, Mary found it.

It’s really beautiful, she said again, as if she were talking to someone else, either far away or deep within her. Others agreed with her. A later observer once referred to the valley as A poem God wrote.

The Hoveys were part of a small group standing around cook fires on what was later to be known as Paris Hill. They had traveled for days, driving their cattle before them, surviving on milk, berries and whatever non-perishables they could carry. Starting from their home in Plymouth, Connecticut, they stopped for a while in the village of German Flats, then the westernmost settlement in New York. From there they had pushed west to the Oriskany. Although they had slept little the night before, no one seemed weary. They were excited, eager to get on with the business of establishing a town. Even before the early March sun lifted the dew from the grass, the leader of the group stepped forward.

He’s really a giant, isn’t he, Solomon? Mary said.

No, Goose, he replied, he’s just tall.

Six inches taller than the average man and much more muscular than most, Moses Foote seemed like a giant to Mary. Fortunately, his temperament and his decision-making ability were as impressive as his frame. As a result, his presence dominated the small group of eight men that had just finished breakfast.

It’s time, he said. With this simple statement, Captain Foote began the first of many dignified, unpretentious town meetings in the transplanted New England village that would become Clinton, New York. In 1787, Mary, the only woman present, could not vote. The other wives were in transit bringing the children and family goods.

Who has paper? Foote asked. When no blank paper, a rare and precious commodity, could be found, Mary gave him some of the pamphlets about the western country she had brought with her. Others surrendered similar valuable possessions so Moses could write in the margins.

What do you want included? he said.

Nothin’ strange, said one.

Just what we have always had, said another.

And so it was. The Clinton Compact was no radical document. It simply bound all the families to obey the common laws that had governed Yankees for a century and a half: open town meetings to all, voting for all men and majority rule. The compact concluded an important stage in this Yankee exodus.

Adam Brown, a tall, angular stranger from New York City, had traveled with these Connecticut Yankees for part of their western exodus. He was surprised when they bypassed fertile valleys and the inviting bottom lands of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.

After three beautiful valleys were ignored, Brown asked Captain Foote, Why pass them? What’s wrong with them?

Foote’s reply was simple: Nothing, but we Yankees could not create a New England town amidst Dutch settlers. Wouldn’t work. Semi-feudal Dutchmen and independent Yankees are not hostile to one another, just very different. Foote used the term Yankees with pride.

Foote’s pride made him remember the first time he asked about the origin of the word Yankee. A Yale professor told him that no one really knew. As far as we can tell, the professor added, ‘Yankee’ was first recorded historically in a document in 1758 by a British General, James Wolfe. He wrote a note sending two companies of what he said were ‘contemptuous’ Yankee soldiers to a shorthanded colleague. Having no faith in Yankees, like most British officers, he did so willingly.

Foote reflected warmly that the contemptuous Yankees helped win the Revolutionary War against the British. The Yankee pioneers did not stop in those valleys for another reason; they knew exactly where they were going because all but Mary had been there before. At Fort Schuyler (Utica), Brown, the stranger, continued westward on his way to Ohio. The Yankees turned south along the Oriskany and traveled a few more miles to a site of breathtaking natural beauty. Solomon Hovey indeed had been correct.

When the town’s compact was completed, Mary Hovey turned to her husband, expecting to find him elated, not with his hands folded and his head bowed in prayer. When he looked up he said, Sad, isn’t it, Mary, that we should find such a beautiful place because of death and destruction.

Ironically, Solomon had been thinking about just that: death and destruction. During the Revolution, the Iroquois Confederacy, except for the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, had terrorized the American frontier in the name of King George. In the summer of 1778, Tory raiders and their Iroquois allies devastated the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and the Cherry Valley in New York. Hundreds were massacred. Mary once overheard Moses Foote tell her brother that The heathens burned captives alive at the stake, roasting them while their kinfolk watched.

Mary also listened whenever others talked about the campaign because Solomon would not discuss the Iroquois War with her. He was shocked by what the Indians did and even more shocked by how the Americans retaliated. Scalping was common on the frontier, but the beheading which took place in the Wyoming Valley was not. The atrocities on both sides continued until General John Sullivan led a force consisting mostly of Connecticut militia and brutally destroyed the power of the Iroquois.

At first, Solomon was overcome by the beauty of the valley, but now, again, he was thinking again about the death and destruction he had seen. He shivered noticeably, so much so that Mary covered his hands with hers. She thought of what a neighbor had said, We slaughtered them, just as they had slaughtered ours. They burned our villages and granaries, we burned theirs.

Americans also cut down fruit trees and standing crops of corn, squash and beans. By the time the soldiers completed their task, the Iroquois Confederacy, consisting of six tribes with a once sophisticated government, an advanced agricultural system and a proud warrior tradition, ceased to exist as a viable force in New York. More than forty Indian towns were destroyed. Ironically, the only Iroquois to escape completely were the warriors who had attacked the Wyoming and Cherry valleys. They were elsewhere continuing their plunder and destruction.

Many Clinton settlers, including all the men who had spent the night camping on the hill, had served in Sullivan’s command. Setting aside their plows for rifles, farmers fought the war. After the Americans eliminated British rule, they returned to their plows with wonderful tales of a beautiful land that once contained apple orchards with more than a thousand trees and could do so again. Their stories kindled the desire of their Yankee neighbors to leave the rocky soil of the Connecticut hill country for the gentle valley of the Oriskany.

Now, in 1787, while other more famous Americans were traveling to Philadelphia to correct the problems, Yankee veterans departed for the valleys of western New York. The tasks in Philadelphia were for politicians, those in upstate New York were for farmers. By common consent the leader of the exodus was Moses Foote. He was accompanied by his three sons and his son-in-law. When the Oriskany Valley proved to be as beautiful as the veterans had said, no one who later moved to Clinton doubted that Moses had led them to the promised land.

Immediately after the first meeting, Foote approached Solomon and said, Hovey, you’re the best farmer. Why don’t you take what and who you need and get started on the fields? We’ll have to have collective crops this year. The rest of us will start putting up some temporary shelters and then join your effort.

Solomon was pleased. He always thought his crops were the best, but no one else had ever told him so, and Mary wouldn’t let him brag.

After that brief conversation, the group left the hill and followed an old Indian trail down the Oriskany. Here they turned north, following the river until they turned east, crossed some marshy flats and reached a breathtakingly beautiful higher ground. Along with the beauty, they were also greeted by the framework for a log cabin that one of the veterans, Ludim Blodgett, had built the previous autumn, a framework that was quickly finished to provide them with at least one temporary shelter. Finished meant only an elm bark roof; no windows, doors or floor, just a roof. Other temporary shelters appeared quickly as the veterans drove stakes in the ground, connected them with poles and covered them with strips of bark.

Their collective building of temporary shelters led to the next tasks; the planting of a common crop and the collective building of permanent homes on the two acres—later expanded to eight—allotted to each settler. The veterans had come in March to make sure planting and building would be done before the cold season. Then, as quickly as they could, the veterans joined Solomon and planted corn and other vegetables to expand the common crop. After generations of migrations in New England, Yankee pioneers no longer suffered unnecessarily during their first winter in a new environment as their Mayflower ancestors had.

Collective behavior in no way diminished Yankee individualism. They showed their independence by quickly naming the town after the first governor of New York, George Clinton, rather than after General Washington, as a few had suggested. Perhaps Clinton was the chosen name because hard times in Connecticut, created in part by the policies of the pre-constitutional national government, had driven these Yankees to seek a new city upon a hill. In 1787, George Washington was in no way responsible for these policies, but his advocates lost their battle.

The advance force had other immediate tasks. After a week of plowing and building, but before these tasks were completed, the Clinton church was established informally on the first Sabbath. New Englanders considered the church a body of people, not a building; thus the church was established by a simple meeting. This gathering was considered just that, a gathering.

The first official church service occurred on April 7, 1787, in the unfinished house of Moses Foote, which was without floor, chinking, or roof. Not until four years later, when most people were living in comfortable houses, did Clinton turn to the matter of a meeting house and a parson. In the meantime, church and school were held informally in Foote’s barn. In the intervening years, waiting for a pastor, the locals shared the pulpit, read famous printed sermons to their fellow parishioners, sang hymns and prayed together under a temporary religious covenant.

Shortly after their first service, Mary confided to Solomon, I’ll be glad when Samuel arrives. By Samuel, she meant their close friend whom they had known in both Plymouth and New Haven, Samuel Royce. Mary expected that Samuel, a Yale graduate who had fought in the Revolution, but not in Sullivan’s command, would be a guiding force in Clinton with his wisdom, insight and openness. Mary had no way of knowing that Samuel would not arrive in Clinton until 1810 because of his business ties. But Clinton, with its beauty and its fertile land, quickly attracted numerous other settlers.

Unfortunately, the settlers had come to Clinton believing the valley was part of the public domain. Once it had been, but a patent had been given on the land as early as 1770. Until the settlers paid ten shillings an acre to the patent holder, technically they were squatters. Ten shillings was a high price for land in the eighteenth century, but the land was fertile and the weather was usually beautiful. In keeping with the spirit of their compact and their covenant with God, the townspeople obeyed the law and paid for their lands. Thus, within a short time, the one-time squatters owned their land.

While it was a few years before Samuel Royce arrived in Clinton, the expansive force of New England was expedited by the letters sent by the first Clinton settlers to their Connecticut friends. Thus, the first settlers were followed almost immediately by thirteen other families. All the early male settlers were citizens with the right to vote and an inherent nature to cooperate, whether it be in planting, building or worshipping.

The next few years brought dramatic changes in Clinton. By 1788, 20 more families had arrived and Clinton cooperated with nearby Whitesfield to cut a six mile path to Whitesfield’s corn mill. A Clinton native, Samuel Hubbard, drove an ox team there to mill the town’s first corn crop. Captain James Cassety built Clinton’s first mill and Samuel Hubbard won the contest to be the first person to have corn milled there.

A significant problem occurred in 1789 when the population explosion of another 20 families created shortages of wheat flour, corn meal and potatoes before the fall crops were harvested. Isaac Paris of nearby Fort Plain heard of Clinton’s problem and traded a boatload of flour and grain for the famous ginseng, which, of course, was a one-sided deal in favor of Clinton.

Paris was warmly rewarded, however, when a new town was established near Clinton it was named Paris after Clinton’s benefactor. Before the end of the troubled 1789, Clinton’s rejuvenation was seen in the building of its first frame house and seven frame barns. One of the rewards for this extensive expansion was the numerous house warming parties which provided great food and warm toddies, cider and whiskey.

Not until September 1793, when the community was more stable, did Clinton hire a minister, the Reverend Asahel S. Norton, a pious and gentle Yale graduate, as its first pastor. Dr. Norton was paid a salary of $333.33 a year. As was the custom of the period, Norton supplemented his income by farming, becoming nearly as famous for his new and improved varieties of grains and fruits as he was for his preaching.

Samuel Royce and Family

The Samuel Royce who arrived in Clinton in 1810 was much as Mary had described him and quite typical of the open, interesting breed that had been attracted to the beautiful Oriskany Valley. Excited by the descriptions of Clinton given him by Solomon and other veterans, he happily joined the western exodus. Samuel and Abigail Royce’s household contained an extended family including his daughters Eliza, Sophia and Nancy; his son Phineas; and his daughter-in-law Deborah. Because of ill health, Sophia did not remain long in Clinton. She left in 1817 to seek treatment in a hospital that used warm baths and other methods to restore one’s health.

All of them shared in the bounty Samuel found in the valley. The family was close in every way, particularly intellectually. Everyone shared Samuel’s deep non-Calvinist religious convictions and his belief in education for all. He eagerly shared his extensive library and intellectual gifts with his family and neighbors. Eventually, he also shared both with the young women of the Oriskany Valley by creating the Royce Female Seminary.

In some communities, Samuel Royce would have been considered a radical, but not in Clinton. Overall, churches, and their parishioners, had moved away from the High Calvinism of the Puritans without much squabbling. Furthermore, except for a handful of villagers who remained conservative Federalists, the townspeople were predominately Jeffersonian Republicans famous for their friendly, boisterous and humorous squabbles. In another change from the past, like Samuel, many of his neighbors educated the women in their families as well as the men.

When Samuel’s son, Phineas, got their farm started and Samuel got his frame house built on the village green, the Royces renewed their social ties with the Hoveys. Family dinners became common and the two men often shared a toddy, a warm rum with sugar and spices, as well as their good humor.

One day after the town house was finished, Samuel and Solomon Hovey sat in the living room enjoying their toddies. Their wives were preparing dinner in the kitchen and Samuel’s daughters were conducting classes in the Royce Female Seminary, then held in Dr. Seth Hastings’ house. The men were discussing what some people were calling inconsistencies. In early 19th-century America, two significant developments that seemed inconsistent were the warmer, changing interpretations of religion and the vast increase in the use of alcohol.

While both had always been common in America, these changes were significant. Religion expanded because it became warmer, more intellectual and less doctrinaire. Drinking, which had always been popular, became more common for a simple reason: it became much less expensive. In 1810, anyone in Clinton with a dollar could buy a gallon of whiskey. Fortunately, the same dollar could also buy 16 pounds of beef, pork or cheese.

As they sat drinking their toddies, their discussion, as usual, was both serious and humorous. Samuel’s conversations usually enlightened and uplifted people, but not today. Instead, he was asking questions.

He asked Solomon, Do you think my ideas on religion, which are significantly removed from the Calvinism of our ancestors or my use of toddies make me ‘quaint’? Some of my Connecticut neighbors often referred to me as ‘his quaintness.’

That statement made Hovey laugh so hard he spilled some of his warm rum on his trousers and said, Quaint? How could you be quaint compared to Governor Clinton? My brother worked for him and after one of his parties the servants had fun totaling up the empties. One hundred and twenty guests consumed 135 bottles of Maderia, 36 bottles of port, 60 bottles of English beer and a large supply of rum punch. You, Samuel, according to your wife, usually have three a day, one in midmorning, one at lunch and one before bed when Abigail has hers. Many of us have toddies, cider or whiskey four times a day. Quite a few of our friends have even more to drink because it is much cheaper than tea or coffee. Can you name any town drunks? Do you think alcohol has had a negative effect on our town?

Samuel just shook his head no.

Besides, Solomon continued, alcohol has contributed to Clinton’s well being. Our number one crop is corn and we produce far more than we can eat. We could ship it to other villages, but it is difficult and bulky to move. Corn travels much easier in jugs than it does in bulk. The water is good here, but if you live in Albany or New York City, drinking water is dangerous. After my first day in Albany, most of which I spent in the outhouse, I never touched that dangerous stuff there again. They simply don’t have the clean water we have.

Samuel laughed and nodded his head in agreement.

Solomon wasn’t through yet. Laughing heartily, he added, And how could you be called ‘quaint’ with your single minded spinster daughters sharing your roof? They do good work for which they are respected. With their intensive approach to life, the daily wearing of black dresses and their serious demeanors, they are ‘quaint.’

Samuel quickly responded, They are mine, Solomon. I didn’t give birth to them, but I helped create them and encouraged them in the direction they wanted to go because their goal was to help other women. Samuel knew they were different from the rest of the family and other townspeople, so he quietly refilled Solomon’s drink and changed the subject.

Speaking of quaint, Samuel said laughingly, Judge Jones said when you found a nearly hollow basswood tree full of bees you moved the queen bee to your property and have been enjoying honey and beeswax every since. He also said you carved a beautiful basswood into fancy furniture for your wife to fill every room, knowing few people had your carpentry skills and that Mary would be the envy of every other woman in Clinton.

To which Solomon replied, Don’t you try to keep your wife happy Samuel?

Samuel smiled, nodded, and sipped his toddy.

Quaint or not, Samuel Royce would have a significant, direct effect on the early history of Clinton. He was so open that it never upset him that his daughters chose careers over marriage. He loved them for what they were and was content that Nancy, Sophia and Eliza remained spinsters and dedicated their lives to fulfilling Samuel’s idea of education for everyone in Clinton.

Samuel never knew that one of his Connecticut neighbors had said to his wife that he was quaint. Abigail’s response was simple and direct. "He is not quaint. I am proud of my husband. He brings happiness and warmth to the family and the community without asking for rewards. Young people love to borrow the great books in his expansive library. They also enjoyed discussing what they had learned when they returned them.

Furthermore, hardly a day goes by that someone didn’t ask him for advice, including family members. I don’t participated deeply much in the daily intensive family discussions, but I am always nearby, cooking, sewing or baking and listening intently. At bedtime, we always discuss his most interesting conversations of the day while we enjoy our toddy.

Happy as he was with life in Clinton, Samuel exploded with joy in 1811, his fifty-fourth year, when his daughter-in law Deborah gave birth to a daughter, Emelie. Most men, especially those with three daughters, might have wanted a grandson. At least Nancy and Eliza thought so. They knew their father was different, but they did not believe he was that different. Sophia was sitting between her sisters as they sat knitting in the kitchen waiting for Deborah to give birth when Eliza whispered, He wants a boy. Nancy giggled quietly and nodded yes, but Sophia gently shook her head and formed her lips in a No.

The three of them had waited in the kitchen with Samuel for what seemed like hours to hear from either Abigail or the midwife announce the birth of the baby, or for the baby to inform them by crying. Phineas had been running in and out of the birthing room for this and that for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, Samuel sat in the kitchen with a book in his lap, but his daughters noticed he hadn’t turned a page. The tension ended when Phineas ran to the top of the stairs and yelled, It’s a girl.

The sisters’ argument was settled quickly when Samuel shouted with joy, jumped to his feet and gave each of them a passionate hug.

As his granddaughter developed, Emelie Royce brought joy and excitement to Samuel. He was impressed first with his granddaughter’s beauty, and then with her brain. At age three, Emelie spoke mostly in short, complete sentences and knew her alphabet. At four she could read the shorter sentences of the Bible; at five she could discuss it intelligently from a child’s perspective. Samuel was the proudest of grandparents. Had Nancy and Eliza had their way, Emelie would have remained a spinster teacher like them, but fate would dictate otherwise.

As a youngster, Emelie loved to sit in her grandfather’s lap and hear stories about the family and about Clinton’s early days. The history of their church, which was called The Old White Meeting House because its members came from different denominations, was told in small segments. Emelie learned that because of the shortage of educated ministers at the end of the eighteenth century, Presbyterians and Congregationalists often united congregations and shared ministers. Many of these men of God became men of the earth to supplement their incomes. In doing so, they discovered that farming was much more profitable than preaching and some resigned their church commissions, while others continued to do both. Nonetheless, success in farming created a shortage of pastors; thus the need for more non-denominational selections continued. Because the pay was so small, communities willingly allowed ministers to be involved in other occupations.

The tolerant nature of its church members earned Clinton great respect among idealists. Throughout New England, it was very common for Congregationalists to settle on one side of a river, Methodists on the other, with Baptists and Unitarians settling just north or south of them. Within a generation, however, Clinton had Methodist, Baptist, and Unitarian churches on the same green as the Old White Meeting House and Samuel had warm, close friends in all of them.

When Samuel described stories about churches, Indians or animals to his granddaughter, they were usually in the kitchen with Abigail present working on chores; he had a dutiful audience. Nothing fascinated Emelie more than the stories of the Oneidas who roamed the streets of Clinton throughout her life and often slept on the floor of her home, wrapped in blankets before the great fireplace. Her favorite story was about the Oneidas’ theft of a fat steer during the first year of the Clinton settlement. As Samuel told the story, it had drama, humor and justice.

Well, Em, after the loss of a steer was discovered, Captain Foote and the militia took off in hot pursuit. They caught the Oneidas easily. The silly fools had stopped to slaughter and quarter the animal. Hid the pieces in their packs, they did. Beech Tree, their leader, insisted that the white men were crazy, deceived by demons. ‘Use your eyes,’ Beech Tree said, ‘where is your steer?’

You know, Em, our Moses was a man of few words. He thought Beech Tree’s reference to ‘demons’ was sacrilegious. Captain Foote said nothing, picked up a sturdy branch, and knocked Beech Tree to the ground. The Oneidas were shocked. Our leader opened Beech Tree’s pack and produced some bloody beef. The militia led the thieves off to jail. The next day they received a trial before the town leaders and the Oneida chiefs.

Guess what, Em? Even the Oneidas said their tribe members were guilty. What was left of the steer was returned to Farmer Harder. The villains apologized and the Oneidas gave the militia a gift of ginseng to pay them for the time lost chasing the thieves.

Samuel told the story with elaborate gestures. He ended by throwing his hands in the air and proclaiming, The Indians had their revenge, Emelie. The ginseng made the militia go wild.

Emelie always rewarded his stories by exploding into peals of laughter. When Grandmother Abigail reminded her husband that ginseng was a valuable medicine as well as a stimulant, she did so stifling her own laughter. Her restraint made Emelie laugh harder.

The moral of the story was never forgotten. Samuel emphasized that in many communities the Indians would have been called savages and dealt with much more harshly. But Clinton, he told the child, has always had a special relationship with the Oneidas."

Indeed it had. In 1792, the Reverend Samuel Kirkland, a missionary to the Oneidas in western New York, established the Hamilton-Oneida Academy. Because the academy also served as the town school, Kirkland received much local support for his project in the form of labor or donations of food. Eventually, in 1812, the year after Emelie was born, the academy became Hamilton College. While few Indians attended the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, the spirit of Kirkland’s enterprise still dominated the relationship with the Oneidas, who were welcomed into Clinton homes.

Traveling Oneidas often ate at the Royce table, bartering with Samuel after supper. Emelie loved their visits. Samuel’s closest friend among them, Long Arrow, who spoke English well, always held Emelie on his lap and told her about life in the wilderness, stories she found as exciting as Samuel’s.

The trade improved what already had been good relations. Once during the late spring of 1816, Emelie came down early for breakfast and discovered that after she had gone to bed, Long Arrow had spent the night sleeping before the Royces’ fire. He repaid grandfather’s kindness by shooting a fox that had invaded the chicken coop, skinned the animal, and left the meat and valuable pelt for the family. Later, when Emelie attended school at the Royce Seminary for Young Women, Oneidas were among her classmates.

The Cold Season

Emelie Royce was enjoying the snow. It had been a beautiful snowfall, soft and moist, ideal for snowballs, castles and sledding.

Let’s go, Abby! Let’s slide down again!

Her cousin Abby, a waif of five, shouted eagerly, I’ll beat you to the top again, Em!

And off they flew. The weather was great for winter sports, lots of snow but warm enough for long stays outdoors. Winter was the time for fun and games in Clinton. Social gatherings were more common in winter because traveling was easier in horse-drawn sleds than in wagons on muddy roads. But winter was not supposed to come in June and July as it did in 1816 in Clinton, New York.

As an adult, Emelie’s recollections of her own early days in Clinton often merged with the wonderful, humorous tales of her grandfather. Her first vivid personal memory, however, was of sledding in June 1816, a month before her fifth birthday. The cold season of 1816 was the infamous Year Without Summer, the coldest summer in the recorded history of the Northeast. It also became Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death in the stories Samuel Royce later told to Emelie.

But there was no humor in the situation on the morning of June 6 when Samuel Royce