Caroline Thacher & the Rev. John Philander Perry

Henry Thacher, son of Peter, organized the second temperance society in America.  He was a prominent man in Yarmouth, Massachusetts and was a representative to the General Court at Boston.  He married Elizabeth Gray of Yarmouth on Nov. 25, 1802. Elizabeth was the daughter of Capt. Joshua Gray, who commanded a company of minute men which marched towards Marshfield in 1775, and his wife Mary Hedge.

Henry and Elizabeth Thacher had 12 children, but only 4 would live long enough to marry.

1. Eliza Jane born July 25, 1803 married Nathaniel S. Simpkins May, 1824.  She died Aug. 30, 1836 at age 33, just 2 months after the birth of her 4th child. 
2. Henry Gray born April, 1805, was a storekeeper and died unmarried at age 27 on Jan. 10, 1833.
3. Winslow Lewis born June 27, 1807, also an unmarried storekeeper, died Apr. 14, 1834 at age 26.
4. Mary Burr born Nov. 7, 1809 died Nov. 9, 1827 at age 18.
5. Sally born Dec. 22, 1811 died Mar. 19, 1826 at age 14.
6. Maria Edith born April, 1814 died unmarried at age 23 on Aug. 31, 1837.
7. George born Dec. 7, 1816 died Dec. 31, 1835 when he was 19.
8. Thomas born June 19, 1819 married (1) Mary Gorham Hallett (2) Catherine Worcester and lived to age 77.  He died May 15, 1897.
9. Charles born Dec. 2, 1821, died at age 32 months and 20 days, Aug. 21, 1824.
10. Caroline, the subject of this blog, was a twin.  She was born Oct. 6, 1824, married Rev. John Philander Perry and died at age 43 years in April, 1868 of consumption. 
11. Cornelia her twin, born Oct. 6, 1824 died at age 21 months on July 20, 1826. 
12. Charles, the youngest was born Oct. 6, 1829 and baptized Charles Thacher but after the death of his brother, Henry Gray Thacher and his father Henry Thacher, both who died in 1833, his name was changed to Henry Charles Thatcher by the Massachusetts Legislature. He married Martha Bray and died at age 70 on Apr. 28, 1900. 

Caroline lived in Yarmouth and Boston, Massachusetts.  Before her marriage she was an author of children’s books, one which was entitled Morning Ride.  When she was twenty-eight she married the Rev. John Philander Perry of New Ipswich, New Hampshire.  They were married by the Rev. Thomas Worcester in Boston, on April 28, 1853.

John Philander Perry born Feb. 23, 1819, was the son of Chauncey Perry and Abigail Stearns.  Four of their sons became clergymen and two became lawyers in Brooklyn, New York.  “Their aged father, having assisted his sons to a liberal education, could review with proud satisfaction their honorable careers.”

John Philander, though hampered by imperfect eyesight, graduated Dartmouth College in 1842.

After their marriage the couple lived in Yarmouthport. In 1853 Rev. Perry was settled as pastor of the Swedenborgian Church at Yarmouthport, Massachusetts, where he remained until his retirement in 1870.

The Rev. John Philander and Caroline (Thacher) Perry had 2 sons.

Infant son / still born Jan. 20, 1854
Infant son / still born May 22, 1855.

John Perry was apparently an acquaintance of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I found this in The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1860-1869 ... 

To John Philander Perry, September 17, 1861

Concord
17 September 1861

Dear Sir,
I have received your note containing your kind and hospitable invitation that I should come to your house on the 27th instant, which I accept with much pleasure.

With thanks,

Yours respectfully,

R.W. Emerson

The addressee is the Reverend John Philander Perry, first minister of the Society of the New Jerusalem and a director of the Union Library, which was apparently also a club (History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, ed. Simeon L. Deyo). The letter was originally owned by Perry's granddaughter, Margaret P. Stimmel.

This photograph of Carrie Thacher is dated June 1862.  She is 38 years old and looks ill, but she would live another 5 years.

 

The photograph of J. P. Perry is taken a couple of years later in 1864, when he would have been 45.

Caroline died of consumption in Yarmouth, Massachusetts in April of 1868, at age 43 years 5 mos. and 27 days.

John Philander Perry married a 2nd time to Emma Rusch, born circa 1835 in Elsinore, Denmark.
They had 3 children; 2 sons and 1 daughter:

1. John Cromwell born Dec. 29, 1870 married Feb. 21, 1899, to Ester C. Skinner and resided in Los Angeles, CA. (4 children) 
2. Chauncey Rusch born May 6, 1872 married Jun. 21, 1896, to Mabel Tuttle. (4 children) 
3. Emily Stearns born Dec. 18, 1873.  She was an artist and lived in Los Angeles, CA.

John Perry’s later years were passed in “the place most dear to him,” New Ipswich, NH.  He died July 30, 1886 in New Ipswich, Hillsborough, NH, at age 67.

Note:  Of special interest were these items passed down through the Thacher family that are mentioned in Frederick Freeman’s book The History of Cape Cod (1862) …

“Relics are less frequently found among the representatives of ancient families on the Cape than might be expected; but we recollect having seen with in a few years, at the house of Mrs. Peter Thacher, a cradle about 200 years old, ingeniously made of oak by Col. John Thacher, a father of 21 children; and also the scarlet blanket in which the infant of Mr. Anthony Thatcher was wrapped when drowned by the wreck at Thacher’s island near Newburyport, in 1635.  The cradle and blanket above referred to were left by will to Peter Thatcher of Hyannis, MA., and by him were disposed to Mr. *Henry C. Thacher of Yarmouth, MA.”

*Henry Charles Thacher was the youngest brother of Caroline.


Sources:

• The History of Cape Cod by Frederick Freeman
• Thacher - Thatcher genealogy
• Genealogy, and biographical sketches of the descedants of Thomas and Anthony Thacher by David W. Allen
• The NY Genealogical and Biographical Record Vol. 45
• The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1860-1869 by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mary Orvis Marbury - Author & Fly Tier

Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury

Charles Frederick Orvis and Laura Ellen Walker were married on April 25, 1855. Their first child, Mary Ellen Orvis was born March 6, 1856 in Manchester, Vermont; the same year her father opened his tackle shop in a small stone building next to his brother’s hotel, the Equinox House.

Mary had 3 younger brothers; Frederick Charles born April 26,1858, who died when he was just 2 years old; Robert Judson born July 16, 1861 and Albert Charles born Aug. 7, 1863.

Their father, Charles Orvis established his company before the Civil War.  After the war, as the railroad brought more tourists and anglers in to fish the Batten kill, his company prospered and orders for his rods and fishing tackle grew.

As the company grew, one of the challenges he faced was finding an adequate supply of the flies his customers ordered.  Even when he tried other dealers, he found no consistency of pattern and was, he said, “continually disappointed.”

It was a problem that would ultimately be solved by his daughter’s interest in fly tying.

Mary Orvis grew up exploring the Batten kill and meeting many of the great anglers of the day.  When she expressed an interest in learning to tie flies, her father employed one of the best fly tiers in the city, John Haily, to train her.  

Mary became an expert at making flies and in 1876 she began supervising the Orvis fly tying staff.  Her workforce, generally from 5 - 7 girls was small compared to other fly tying operations. These flies helped drive the sales of her father’s invention, the lightweight fly reel.

Mary held great influence over the family business. Her brothers became prominent Manchester citizens but it was Mary who contributed the most to her father’s business.  Anglers often placed orders for flies by name but there was no way they could know that the fly they ordered would be the pattern they thought it would be, and what they received was often different from what they were expecting.  Charles and his daughter recognized the need to standardize fly patterns by name and type.

Charles Orvis surveyed anglers from fly fishing areas across North America, soliciting information on the finest flies and how they were made and used.  Mary undertook the task of compiling the responses and editing the book.  Much of her book, Favorite Flies and Their Histories, consisted of the replies her father received from anglers.

Favorite Flies and Their Histories (1892) contained 32 color plates and 290 illustrations of regional patterns. It was an immediate best seller and became the standard reference for identifying flies, dressings and patterns. The acclaim Mary’s book and fly tying brought her surpassed that of any of her contemporaries. She was an expert fly tying artist, a successful author, and a recognized authority in her field, and much has been written about her contribution to fly fishing, but precious little about the woman herself.

The quote below is indicative of what I found describing her personality …

“Her moods were said to be unpredictable; at times she was ill mannered but one acquaintance recalled her as a delightful woman.”

I imagine being a successful woman in the 19th century,  in a business dominated by men, had its challenges.

That Mary’s marriage in 1877 was brief is evidenced by the fact that no one seems to have known her husband’s name.  That being said. I am not convinced that the general assumption that their brief marriage was unhappy is correct.  I think it may have been brief because he died.

There is not one census, from 1860 when Mary is 4 years old, to the one before her death, when Mary is not living in her father’s household.

In the 1880 census, the first after her marriage, Mary Marbury, 24, is found in her father’s household with her 3 year old son John Morton Marbury.  Her marital status is listed as single, which is doubtful.  In all succeeding censuses her marital status is “widowed.”

I wondered just when Mary Marbury became a widow, but the date of her husband’s birth and death, like so much of Mary Marbury’s life, remains a mystery.

Whenever I found mention of Mary‘s husband, he was referred to as John Morton Marbury born 1876. Which is impossible since he could not possibly have been born in 1876 and fathered a child in 1877. As it turns out her husband’s name wasn’t John Morton Marbury.

Yet, I found this particular bit of misinformation going as far back as 1922.

According to the death certificate of Mary’s son, who died as a young man;  his father’s name was William C. Marbury,  born in New York, NY.  Which unfortunately for me, didn’t make him any easier to find.

John M. Marbury, the son,  was born November 20, 1877. Some records show his birthplace as Manchester, VT.; in others it is recorded as Greenwich, NY.

He attended school at Burr and Burton Seminary (VT), St. John’s Military Academy and Norwich University (NY).  After 1895 he was involved in the newspaper business in Machester.  The 1900 census lists his profession as journalist.

His mother, Mary remained an active participant in the family business, assuming more responsibilities as her father grew older. She turned the fly operation over to her sister in law, Mrs. Robert Orvis in 1904, the same year her son died.

John M. Marbury died at age 27 on Sept. 5, 1904.  His cause of death was “uremia.” (kidney failure).

His stone is marked …

"He loved his fellow men"

"Warm, summer sun
Shine Kindly here
Warm, southern wind
Blow softly here
Green sod above
Lie light, lie light
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night"

Mary Ellen Orvis Marbury died November 8, 1914 at age 58.  After her death she was compared with the legendary Dame Juliana Berners, another mysterious woman who was thought to have written the first book on angling in 1496.

Mary‘s father, Charles Orvis, famed American tackle maker and author of  Fishing with the Fly (1883) died a few months later on March 24, 1915, at age 84.

A Piece of Fly-Fishing History: A Letter from Charles F. Orvis