waltsmusings

BQ Row 5

Row 5 – 1

Roses

signed:   Helen Mar

Age: 38

Helen Mar Hutchins, sister of Libbie and Franklin, was born in North New Portland, Maine, one of five children of Samuel and Betsey Hutchins on January 11, 1836. Like her sister, she embraced the doctrine of holiness before joining the Community with her family on March 17,1850.

After a short secession in 1851, she remained with her sister, Libbie in the Community and worked here as a dressmaker. She became the first Community member to require surgery and died as a result of an operation for a tumor in New York City on May 5, 1873, at the age of 38. She is buried in the Community Cemetery.

Row 5  –  2

 Strawberries

signed:  Louisa T. Waters

Age: 47

Louisa B. Tuttle was born in Wallingford, CT on March 1, 1826, one of several children of Mrs. Bedy Tuttle. Her siblings in the Community are believed to have included Sophronia Tuttle and Almira Tuttle DeWolfe. She was the aunt of Frank Tuttle. Louisa was a Millerite in 1843 but George Cragin enlisted her heart as a recruit for Perfectionism the next year. She joined the Putney Community in 1847 and at its dispersion, joined the Oneida Association on May 3, 1849 along with the Clarks and Sophronia Johnson. She had been a friend of Mary Cragin and had given her and her son Victor a “hearty welcome” in 1847.

Louisa married Hial Waters on February 15, 1849. They had one daughter three months before he died. She had listed herself as “sing~e” in 1855 so this may have started as a public marriage, but by 1865 she was calling herself a “widow”. Louisa moved to Niagara Falls at the breakup, and married Theodore Pitt. She came under the influence of spiritualism in 1886 and was a medium. Louisa is remembered as brilliant, vivacious, capable, loving, and kind by Jessie Kinsley. She died on May 27, 1908 at the age of 82 and is buried at Niagara Falls.

Row 5  –  3

Basket of Pansies

signed:   Sarah A. Bradley

Age: 46

Sarah Ann Summers was born in New York City on February 15, 1827. She was adopted by George and Mary Cragin in 1837 and went to Putney with them in 1840. Five years later at the age of 19 she married Lemuel Bradley who had joined the group at Putney in 1842.   Sarah Bradley had two children in the Community after joining the Oneida Association on March 22, 1848 by her husband:   Constance Bradley b Oct 23, 1849 (JHN may have been the father) Walter Bradley b July 26, 1860

She worked as a housekeeper and in general services. On August 1, 1881 she left the Community with her daughter and grandchildren, moving to Oneida. She died on October 12, 1905, at the age of 78, outliving her husband by four years. She and her husband are both buried in the Community Cemetery.

Row 5  –  4

 Bookkeepers Desk

signed:  H. E. Miller

Age: 26

Helen Miller was the youngest of three children of J. R. Miller and Charlotte Noyes, born on August 5, 1848. She was nearly two years old when she entered the Community with her family on June 14, 1849. They all had first been members of the Putney Family.

At 23, Helen was an editress in the Community, and five years later worked as a bookkeeper. She had one Community child with John H. Noyes: Miriam Trowbridge Noyes b August 19, 1877.

At the breakup she married J. Homer Barron on March 18, 1880, and they had one child after they moved to Niagara Falls where she served as office manager for the company: Norma Barron b March 10, 1882.

Her first daughter quoted Pierrepont B. Noyes as saying that (her) “every word and act revealed a fine intelligence”. She was a little, slender person with shy and reticent ways. When P. B. Noyes was told “she always saw your nobility” (some 40 years later) he replied, ‘That’s what makes nobility”.

She died at the age of 84 on July 27, 1932, of cerebral hemorrahage and is buried in the Community Cemetery.

Row 5  –  5

Red Riding Hood

signed:  Jessie

Jessie Hatch Kinsley # 3

Age: 15

Jessie Catherine Hatch (her adoptive father’s name) was born on March 26, 1858, the 18th child born in the Community. Jessie was the daughter of John Humphrey Noyes and Catherine Baker (Hatch), though Eleazer Hatch eventually claimed paternity. She grew up in the Children’s House and in early life was very religious. Several periods of her early education were spent at Wallingford where before the age of 10 she was teaching younger children as she was studying herself. At the breakup she married Myron Kinsley on February 28, 1880. They had three children, and she helped raise Myron’s daughter, Josephine:  Edith Maria Kinsley b. February 19, 1881 Albert “Ab” Kinsley b. April 19, 1883 Jessie Janet Kinsley b March 18, 1887

During child-rearing years she lived on the Kinsley farm and her early religious fervor turned into a deep humility and tolerance and respect for others. At the age of 50 she began taking painting lessons from Kenneth Miller, and began what is believed to be a truly original art form, artistic braidings. Many of these original tapestries now hang in the Mansion House and in the homes of her descendants. With a rich imagination which fascinated children, “Grandma” or “Aunt” Jessie was loved by all. In a long life, her faith had been changed from a fundamentalist Perfectionism to a faith in general goodness and character. Jessie died at the age of 79 on February 10, 1938.