Plate 41.

White veil. Made by Marietta, or Mary, Smith, born July 18, 1806, died November 28, 1889, daughter of James Smith and his wife, Gloriana Shelton, of Derby, Connecticut. The whole veil is 48 inches wide by 46 inches long. It was made about 1830. It contains seventeen lace stitches. (See also Plates 42 and 43.)

Quaint details of the home and habits of her forebears and of the romance which saddened without spoiling her life, are interestingly portrayed in The Salt Box House , published some years ago. At thirteen years of age she was taken to Miss Pierce’s Female Academy at Litchfield, Connecticut, where her father left her with the admonition, “Never forget your accountability,” and where she made satisfactory progress in her studies. The tone of mind of the day can be understood from a letter written to her father. Returning from school by stage coach, she recorded her arrival at a friend’s house in New Haven, where she was to await him. She wrote that there had been ten passengers in the coach, all but two of them ladies, and that the tedium of the journey had been relieved by the ladies’ taking turns in reading aloud an essay on “Good Behavior”!

Without doubt she learned at Miss Pierce’s school to make the veil shown in these plates; for Miss Mary W. Peck, who made her own wedding veil (see Plates 30, 31, and 89), was a teacher there.

The family was a social one. We read of the white crêpe frock which Marietta Smith had for a ball-dress in her fifteenth year. The romance of her life took place at seventeen, when she met a young Southerner. A mutual affection brought them together, but the two natures did not quite understand each other. They parted; but when he died, three years later, she realized her mistake with uncontrollable grief and was faithful to his memory during all her life. She had many other lovers; she read and studied, became interested in music and other things, visited and travelled; but “through all her long life the love of her youth remained a potent factor,” though she was never a grim old maid.

Miss Mary began keeping a journal—in a desultory way at first; later, as years passed, as one of the important interests of her life. She chronicles her father’s and mother’s deaths in a loving fashion. Living alone became more and more satisfactory. She wrote: “I take a world of comfort all alone in my house; nobody makes me afraid, even if they molest me in a gossiping way.... Staying in my own house in solitary state is very pleasant to me, but worries my neighbors.” The love of travel became a ruling power. The elegancies of life appealed strongly to Miss Mary. She was a welcome guest in many a great house. “The spell of intellect and culture is always irresistible to me,” she wrote; and “there are a great many ‘field-days’ in society. I love these musters at home and abroad, and in my day and generation have Vibrated through a great number. I occasionally join the gay circles, taking into consideration the expediency of airing my manners, to make sure I am modern and extant!” “Trimmed my borders and cut my grass this morning, trimmed my self in my royal robes this afternoon and made calls.”

The veil was given to the Litchfield Historical Society by the Misses Alice and Edith Kingsbury, of Waterbury, Connecticut.