Susanna Rowson, of "Charlotte Temple" Fame, and her British Grenadier
OVERLOOKING Nantasket's white beach, and guarded, as it were, by the little hills of Hull, is a dwelling, now entirely changed, where Susanna Haswell spent her girlhood. A quarter of a century ago it was still as the Haswells left it when they were forced to remove to the neighboring town of Hingham, practically prisoners of war. Then it was described as a large one-story wooden building with a huge chimney in the centre, one of a type to be found in hundreds of old New England villages. In the days when the English maiden conned her lessons as her father painted quaint stilted landscapes on the doors and mantel-pieces of his abode the house was approached through a line of fruit-trees, and close to the gray walls that the sea-mist loved to kiss grew the multitude of flowers that flourished in the sweet plots of the descendants of the Puritans.
Somehow it is with the garden of her early home that we associate the young Susanna. Tradition says that it was her especial care, and she helped the seeds her stepmother brought from Boston to perfect bloom and watched each season for her fairy children. There we know, in the autumn of 1768, when her last garden inmates were dying, she saw the British fleet of six men-of-war enter Nantasket Roads, little dreaming that they were to affect her life. Later in the day she helped her father receive some of the officers. It is easy to picture her, a simply garbed child, listening to the talk of the circle about the fireplace. How her eyes must have glistened at the tales of the theatres,—the sprightly new comedy "The Perplexities," which was put on at Covent Garden; "The English Merchant," with its witty prologue by Garrick. Then there was chatter of the new tea-gardens that were springing up everywhere on the skirts of London Town. Wonderful they seemed with their grottos of mystery and Chinese lanterns that rivalled the stars. The talk of war she would not listen to, and we see her leave the company to creep to the door and gaze out on the silent night. Very lonely her home looked in the darkness, and off in the distance she could hear the dull boom of the surf telling her that London Town was far away.
A strange child was this Susanna Haswell. When the "quality maids" of her day spent a large part of their time perusing the "Boston News Letter" for the latest falafals and fashions,—thinking only of fine brocades, the newest talematongues to make high their head-dresses, and the Sweet Royal Honey Water for their fair faces,—Susanna's mind was always with her few treasured books or dwelling on the pleasure she gave her father in their journeyings near their home. They would wander off over the nearby hills in search of the first wild fruits. Sometimes he would bring his box of colors and they would linger until nightfall in some spot that had caught his fancy.
At an early age she began to write verses, and all through her life kept up this pastime. Her whisperings to birds, flowers, and sea-shells helped to fill up her days. She was happy, we know, for "The Roses of Life," written at a later period, show a brave and intrepid spirit that feared neither isolation nor the daily trials allotted to mortals.
The years flew by until after the battle of Bunker Hill, when most of the inhabitants of Nantasket left their farms and fled to Boston. It is recorded that the grain was left standing in the fields and that the Haswell family were eventually left the sole occupants of the place. Ex-Lieutenant Haswell was loyal to his king, and his house was a constant resort for the British naval and military commanders. Small skirmishes sometimes took place near the village, and one day, during an action in the vicinity, a wounded redcoat, a member of Major Tupper's brigade, was brought to the door on a stretcher by some of his comrades, with the request that he be given shelter. Into the southeast room the family had him carried and laid on the great four-poster. There Susanna tended him through the morning hours, bandaging his wounds with soft homespun and ministering to his wants. It was a never-to-be-forgotten day, often referred to in after-years, and it made a deep impression on the heart of the sensitive girl. Bending over him, she received his last confidences. He was Daniel Carnagon, twenty-six years old, the only son of a clergyman in the north of England. When his breath grew feebler her stepmother brought out the family Bible and read in a low voice words of comfort. Death came to him as he dreamed of his native heath and a happy boyhood. When the dusk began to fall Susanna helped her father dig a grave in the garden. There they laid him to rest with the last sunbeams staining his poor clay like a heavenly benediction. Some rose-bushes and an apple-tree covered his resting-place. The latter is still standing alone, a faithful watcher over dust neglected and forgotten. Little has been written of Susanna's grenadier, but we know that she who made the whole of her generation weep with "a tale of truth" wept over him in the twilight of a long-dead day.
When the Revolution was nearing its close the Haswell family removed from Massachusetts to Halifax, a favorite gathering-place for loyalists. Susanna was then nearing womanhood, and, owing to the low state of her father's pecuniary resources, she was forced to separate from dearly loved brothers and sail for England. There she obtained a situation as governess in a noble family, which she retained until her health failed. In 1786 she married Mr. William Rowson in London. This gentleman was then engaged in the hardware business and also acted as trumpeter in the Royal Horse-Guards. He was the son of an armorer to George III., and was noted for his personal beauty and accomplishments. It has been recorded that no one who heard could ever forget "the sublime and spirit-stirring tones" of his trumpet when he played for the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. When he trumpeted "The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised" he thrilled his hearers into imagining the last hour was close at hand.
Shortly after entering the bonds of wedlock Mrs. Rowson published her first work, "Victoria," under the patronage of the Duchess of Devonshire, the famous Carlton House beauty known to history as the friend of Charles Fox. Among the subscribers are such names as Sarah Siddons, General John Burgoyne, Sir Charles Middleton, and our own Samuel Adams. The duchess seems to have conceived a warm attachment for her, and arranged that she should be presented to no less a personage than "Prince Florizel." Soon she found a place in the brilliant galaxy of ladies headed by "The Blue-Stocking Club," and in 1790, when "Charlotte Temple" was published, she became one of the leading literary lights of the day.
"Charlotte Temple" was the heart-toucher of her generation, and countless thousands sorrowed over her fate. Her story, as Mrs. Rowson gave it to the world, was the greatest success of the day, and it is said that more editions were printed of it than of any other novel written in the eighteenth century. About the life of the real heroine the years have woven a web some parts of which can never be unravelled. Tradition says that she was Charlotte Stanley, a young lady of great personal beauty and the daughter of a clergyman related to the Earl of Derby. Mrs. Rowson wrote of her that
Montreville, her lover, was in reality Colonel John Montrésor, an engineer in the service of the British army. His name is given as one of the managers of the famous Meschianza. It is said that he was a connection of the Haswell family, and it is a significant fact that the author's youngest brother, who distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli, bore his name.
The story on which Mrs. Rowson founded her romance was that Colonel Montrésor persuaded Miss Stanley to leave her boarding-school and elope with him to America at the opening of the Revolutionary War. She sailed in his companionship some time in the year 1774. On the same vessel was his brother, a fellow-engineer. Arriving at New York City, Montrésor secured a small cottage for her at Morrisania, a few miles distant from the city proper and near to the Boston post-road. The house she occupied—a primitive affair—is remembered as standing until 1850.
In the book we read,—
"Montreville gave her one female attendant and supplied her with what money she wanted; but business and pleasure so entirely occupied his time that he had but little to devote to the woman whom he had brought from all her connections and robbed of innocence. Sometimes, indeed, he would steal out at the close of evening and pass a few hours with her; and then so much was she attached to him that all her sorrows were forgotten while blessed with his society; she would enjoy a walk by moonlight, or sit by him in a little arbor at the bottom of the garden, and play on the harp, accompanying it with her plaintive, harmonious voice. But often, very often, did he promise to renew his visits, and, forgetful of his promise, leave her to mourn her disappointment. What painful hours of expectation would she pass! She would sit at a window which looked toward a field he used to cross, counting the minutes and straining her eyes to catch the first glimpse of his person, till, blinded with tears of disappointment, she would lean her head on her hands and give free vent to her sorrow; then, catching at some new hope, she would again renew her watchful position till the shades of evening enveloped every object in a dusky cloud."
In one of the old editions of the work there is a quaint picture of the neglected girl seated in a mournful attitude in a formal garden evidently much more pretentious than the primitive spot that the real heroine knew. The house in New York City generally accepted as the place where she died formerly stood at the corner of Pell and Doyer Streets and was known as the "Old Tree House." Her grave is in Trinity Church-yard; but even that is unauthenticated, some people having gone so far as to state that the head-stone that bears her name is a fiction. It is still the resort of the sentimental, and it is to be hoped that time cannot prove that Montrésor never sorrowed there over the girl Mrs. Rowson made famous as she herself did many years before on the grave of her British Grenadier.