Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, page 298
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The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635, by Frederick Clifton Pierce (Chicago: 1895)
Transcribed by the Whitney Research Group, 1999.
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| 298 | WHITNEY GENEALOGY. |
"Finished thy course, and kept thy faith With Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth When Autumn's sun in downward going, The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing." HENRY M. WHITNEY San Francisco, September, 1864. He d. Mar. 14, 1854; res. Boston and Shrewsbury, Mass. 4464. i. WM. PHILLIPS, b. Nov. 28, 1821; d. umn. Boston, Feb. 1, 1887. 4465. ii. LUCY, b. Dec. 14, 1822; d. same day. 4466. iii. MARIA LOUISA, b. Apr. 12, 1824; m. Lowell MASON. Mrs. Maria Mason, the wife of Lowell MASON, died at her home at Mont- rose, N. J., on Thursday morning, November 10, a little after midnight. She was born in Boston, Apr. 12, 1824, and was a daughter of Paul WHITNEY, a prominent merchant of that city, and a leading member of the Old South Church. She was mar- ried in 1844 to Lowell Mason, and after residing for a time in Cincinnati and New York, came to Orange in 1854, where her home has been ever since. For many years she had been troub- led with deafness and she had long been an invalid, her suffer- ings increasing greatly during the closing years of her life. She was excluded thus from general society, and lived her life almost wholly in the circle of her own home. Her outward activity was chiefly with her pen, but through this she was enabled widely to extend her influence, and by her words of tenderness and sympathy to hold her friends very near to her. For many years she had written occasionally for magazines, of late almost exclusively for Scribner's. She had an imagination of extraordinary vividness and delicacy, and the exquisite gift of expression which often makes every word a picture. Through her contributions to Scribner's she formed a pleasant intimacy with the late Dr. Holland. "Afterglow" has a special tender- ness from the experience which it enshrines, and from its asso- ciation, now, with her own death. Though she was born in Bos- ton her early home was at Shrewsbury, Mass., a few miles from Worcester, and in the old burying ground there on the top of Shrewsbury Hill are the four graves of her father and mother, and a brother and sister, who died within a short time of one another. These are the "four mounds," ever kept green in her memory, and so touchingly commemorated in this her last com- position: AFTERGLOW. Four mounds of earth lie side by side Where summer sunshine far and wide Its largess throws. No dismal shade From cypress or from yew is made; The sweet-briar trails across the sward Where happy-hearted daisies guard From rude approach the precious sod That lies upon that hill of God. An hundred throats their carols pour From out a full, exhaustless store, As if their rapture bore a long Refrain from one undying song. The light, the song, the roses' breath Preclude the gloom and chill of death, As calm, and still, the holy dust Awaits the rescued spirit's trust; And joyous life upspringeth fair Where they have climbed the heavenly stair. Can love from out our lives be lost, Whose fibres with our own have crossed? Are you bright angel's brows more fair, 'Neath glory of the haloed hair, Than when they bent to me below All glistening with the Paschal-snow?
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