Representative women of New England/Augusta H. Gifford
AUGUSTA HALE GIFFORD, historical writer, was born in Turner, Androscoggin County, Me., and brought up through girlhood on one of the old Maine farms. Her father and mother, James Sullivan Hale and his wife, Betsey Stai)les, had settled on the family estate, which had been redeemed from the rocks and briers by Mrs. Gifford's grandparents, David Hale and his wife, Sally Kingsbury, in the early years of the nineteenth century.
David Hale, Mrs. Clifford's paternal grand-father, was a native of Harvard, Mass., born in 1772, and a lineal descendant in the sixth generation of Thomas^ Hale, the immigrant progenitor of this branch of the Hale family in New England, who settled at Newbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1637. David Hale married Sally Kingsbury, of Ellington, Conn., daughter of Simon Kingsbury, and livecl in Rutland, Mass., until their removal to Turner, Oxford County, Me., in 1802. They made the voyage of three weeks from Boston to Falmouth (Portland) in the winter season, in a sailing-vessel, and were obliged to leave their two children in Falmouth until summer, since it was not practicable earlier to take them forty miles through the woods.
The Kingsburys were a remarkable family intellectually, and Sally Kingsbury Hale brought to these wilds a well-developed and well-stored mind. Although living to be an octogenarian, she still retained her excellent memory; and to the delight of her grandchildren, the elder children of her son Sullivan, she whiled away the long winter evenings, passed before the huge open fireplace, with vivid accounts of battles of the Revolution, including that of Monmouth, in which her brother, Dr. Joseph Kingsbury, was wounded, and with thrilling stories of Indian captivities and other adventures in far-off colonial times. These stories she told as she had heard them in her girlhood from the lips of Ephraim Kingsbury, of Haverhill — "Uncle Ephraim," she used to call him—stories partly of his own experience and partly, perhaps, relating to the Ephraim Kingsbury who is on record in Chase's History of Haverhill, Mass., as having been killed by Indians in 1676.
Sullivan and Betsey (Staples) Hale were the parents of five children, namely: Eugene, United States Senator; Hortense, who with her husband. Dr. Cushing, a retired physician, now lives on the old homestead in Turner, Me.; Frederick (deceased); Augusta (Mrs. Gifford); and Clarence, of Portland, Me., Judge of the United States Court.
Augusta Hale was fitted for college in the high school of Turner, in the companionship of a beloved brother, Frederick, with whom she shared every sport, overcame every difficulty, and was {permitted to accomplish every task. They even studied their lessons from the same book, going to and from school together. His death in 1868 was her first affliction, and it marked the beginning of her literary aspiration. In 1859, at the age of seventeen, she entered Oberlin, then almost the only fully equipped college (with a complete classical curriculum) in the country open to both sexes. Her voice was often heard' in the college and the college society parts, delivered in the large church then, as now, connected therewith. But her student life at Oberlin was only the beginning of the self-culture which must necessarily supplement the early education of men and women who accomplish anything worth while for the world.
After graduation she settled in Portland, and in 1869 was married to the Hon. George Gifford, originally a lawyer, afterward a journalist, and finally for many years as at present in the consular service. Mrs. Gifford shared with her husband different fields of foreign labor, and this residence abroad has continued for her somewhat intermittently for more than a quarter of a century, their home being at intervals in London. Paris, various parts of France, and for several years in Basle, Switzerland. She became the mother of three children — Katherine, Clarence Hale, and Marguerite. The younger daughter was born during a long residence of the family in Nantes, France. Many interesting and amusing incidents occurred in Mrs. Gifford's early trips across the Atlantic with her little ones, at a time when the voyage in stormy weather sometimes extended over a space of fifteen or sixteen days, and the perils and hardships of the ocean had not been ameliorated to the extent which obtains at present.
In her early life abroad Mrs. Gifford imbibed a taste for foreign literature, foreign languages, and foreign travel, which shaped her subse- quent career. She has since travelled exten- tively over Europe and the Orient, many of the countries visited having been but recently made accessible to the traveller. Her plans and tours have been all marked out in advance, and her research has been so thorough that the map of Europe to her is like an illuminated book, even the unaccustomed routes being like the beaten track in her own garden. She has delighted the public with a large foreign cor- respondence, her vivid imagination making the scenes of these various countries and the customs and habits of the people stand out before her readers like familiar experiences, her interesting and practical relations furnishing much valuable information to other travellers.
Since 18.3, after the death of her eldest child, Katherine, born in 1870, a young lady of lovely character, Mrs. Gifford has found great solace in literature. In her first travels through Germany, fascinated by German life and the people, she conceived the idea of putting into form a racy account of the Germans from their beginning; and from this idea was developed the series of books, beginning with "Germany: Her People and Their Story," published by the Lothrop Publishing Company in 1899. It is as readable as a romance, one of its great merits being that its historical facts have an attractive setting. Evidently prepared with reference to the requirements of the general reader, it is something more than an outline of the salient features in the progress of the German nation from barbarism to enlightenment, from a confederacy of loosely allied states to a strongly cemented empire. Legend and anecdote have been skilfully woven into the story, and vivid glimpses are given of the national life, and a clear insight into the national character. It was a difficult task the author had before her of condensing within the limits of a six-hundred-page volume twelve hundred years of a nation's growth. There was danger on the one hand of making the volume little more than a chronological record, and on the other of inadequacy. The success with which she has avoided both dangers attests a fine sense of proportion, discriminating judgment, and much literary skill.
"Mrs. Gifford's ’Germany' was received with so much favor by both the people and her publishers that she was encouraged to go on with the series. She has now for several years been collecting material abroad for her ’Italy,' visiting that country many times in order to absorb all the phases of Italian life and character; and 'Italy: Her People and their Story,' bids fair even to excel the first of the series in interest."
Mrs. Gifford has also given much time to club work, writing many papers and giving many lectures and talks. Her papers on "German Literature and German Authors," "Mission Work in India" (the origin of the people from the Aryans, their early religious development, etc.), an article entitled "How to Travel," and her very celebrated lecture, "From the North Cape to the Orient," have attracted much attention. Her series of talks on architecture, condensed for students and travellers, is to be the nucleus of a volume entitled "The Architecture of Cathedrals and Castles, for Students and Travellers," when time shall permit her to complete the work.
Mrs. Gifford through all these years of travel has retained her home in Portland, Me., and when in America it has always been her pleasure to spend her time in this beautiful little city by the sea and again get in touch with real New England life. Both at home and abroad her society is sought by people of culture, and she is a welcome presence in any gathering.