Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/167

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND

daily life must be dismissed from this sketch with but a passing allusion. They are in a manner sacred from even a friendly pen. She sought not the praise of men.

Mrs. Flint was essentially a representative product of our New England civilization. Liberal, ungrudging, and wisely discriminating in her charities, her domestic life was distinguished by a simplicity, thrift, and independence, accompanied with a cordial hospitality, affording a true index to her character, and demonstrating her Puritan descent and training.

Such a woman as Mrs. Flint is a blessing to any community and an honor to humanity. Her memory will be cherished with grateful affection and genuine respect in the towns where her influence and good deeds have been best known and her personal qualities appreciated, while in the wider circle of those who have been told of her gracious character and noble philanthropy will her name be treasured with reverence and admiration.

In the little cemetery at North Reading, not many rods from the home once so dear to her, lies the body of Harriet N. Flint beside that of her husband.

C. W. E. Tox.


JULIA K. DYER, widely known and beloved as Mrs. Micah Dyer, has been associated for over forty years with nearly every large philanthropic work started in Boston, serving in every office she has been appointed to with noble unselfishness. Her maiden name was Julia Knowlton. She was born August 25, 1829, in Deerfield, N.H., near the birthplace of General Benjamin F. Butler. Her parents were Joseph and Susan (Dearborn) Knowlton. The Immigrant progenitor of the Knowlton family of New England was Captain William Knowlton, who died on the voyage from London to Nova Scotia, and whose sons a few years later settled at Ipswich, Mass., the earliest to arrive there, it is said, being John in 1639.

Through her maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Dearborn, who married Comfort Palmer, of Haverhill, Mrs. Dyer is descended from Godfrey Dearborn, who came from England and was one of the earliest settlers of Exeter, N. H., in 1G'.ii), and later removed to Hampton, N.H.

Her great-grandfather, Edward Dearborn, fought at the battle of Bunker Hill, as did her paternal grandfather, Thomas Knowlton. In the Revolutionary Rolls of New Ham])shire, Edward Dearborn is named as a private in Captain Benjamin Titcomb's company in 1775; as a soldier from Dover in the Continental army in April, 1776: in Captain Drew's company, February, 1777; on the pay-roll of Captain Nathan Sanborn's company. Colonel Evans's regiment, which marched September, 1777, from New Hampshire to re-enforce the Northern Continental army at Saratoga; also sometime member of the Fifth Company, Second New Hampshire Continental Regiment, which was commanded by Colonel George Reid, 1777-79.

Edward Dearborn married Susanna Brown, whom he left, when he entered the army, to care for the farm and three small children, the nearest neighbor being ten miles away. Susanna Brown was the daughter of Nehemiah and Amy (Longfellow) Brown, of Kensington, N.H., and grand-daughter of Nathan Long- fellow. The last named was probably the Nathan born in 1690, son of William and Anne (Sewall) Longfellow, of Newbury, Mass., and brother of Stephen, born in 1681, from whom the poet Henry W. Longfellow was descended.

Joseph Knowlton, Mrs. Dyer's father, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and her brother, Josph H. Knowlton, in the Civil War. The patriotism of Mrs. Dyer is thus shown to be inherited.

During her infancy her parents removed to Concord, N. H., and in l839 they took up their residence in Manchester, N.H., where for twenty years her father was connected with the Land and Water Company, besides tilling important positions of trust. Up to the age of fourteen h(>r education was gained in private schools. She then went to a boarding-school ii Concord, N.H., where she remained one year, after which she entered the New Ham])t()n Institute, known at that time as one of the best schools for girls in the country, from which she was graduated with honors before the age of eighteen.