index rerum, Mary E. Gilman’s copy

Twentieth Edition, Northampton, Mass. Hopkins, Bridgman & Co., 1854.

Advertisement for the New Edition Todd’s Index Rerum is pasted onto front flyleaf; and bears name of owner, Mary Gilman, Salem, N.Y. The name is repeated on the title page, this time as Mary E. Gilman. This copy contains very few topical entries. Rather, it includes some (copied) poems, drafts or copies of letters sent; several pages of personal ruminations ca 1860-1878 (lonely, and increasingly depressed); extracts (in back of book) possibly for penmanship exercises (some in German), and several leaf/flower cuttings with written annotations.

One page (last, preceding end flyleaf) has been removed, cut by scissors or knife.
 

Above right : Feb 17th 1856. N.Y.C.C.[?]
A leaf of Laurel from Italy. Volarno’s land of roses Presented me by Miss Lydia A. Coldwell.

One of several sprigs inserted in this copy.
 

index entries

• at AooA, newspaper clipping, inserted loose:

  At the residence of his parents, in this Village, on the 14th inst., of phthisis pulmonalis, OSCEOLA BUTLER GILMAN, son of Dr. O.P., and Almira B. Gilman, aged 21 years.
  He was a young man of promise and high aims of usefulness, esteemed by all who knew him and beloved by his friends.
  His sick chamber was a place of sacred privilege to those who stood near him.
  He died, conscious to the last, in the enjoyment of that peace and tranquility of mind, which an unwavering confidence in a personal Saviour alone can afford.
  The papers of Exeter and Keene, N.H., will please copy the above notice.
  L.

• at CaaC, Carpet Durpen mem. / Williams. 94 Reade St — N.Y.
• at CuuC, a small four-leaf clover
• at DuuD, two unidentified seed pods
• at EuuE, unidentified leaves
• at GuuG, flower (rose?)
• at IuuI, unidentified leaf (same as at EuuE)
• at JeeJ, unidentified sprig (including flower)
• at LaaL
  Lanuage Eng / Origin of. Indo European / (1) Indian — (2) Medo Persie — (3) Graeco Latin — (4) Lutovie — (5) Dharmie [?] — (6) Celtic
  a sheet inserted loose, a list of English kings (and their years of accession, beginning with 1066 William Conquerer and ending 1483 Richard III, and note Printing introduced into Eng. 1471. Printing invented by Costor [Caxton?] 1440
• at LiiL, Literature / Sir John Mandeville 1300 born. died 1371. Com Eng Lit.
• at LooL begins penciled transcript/draft [?] of letter to, and another presumably from, a Mrs Hunter.

  Salem NY. Aug 29th, 1864
  My Dear Mrs Hunter
  In all my intercourse with you I think there has been a clear understanding between us until the morning before I left Campbellsville [?]. Your manner towards me that morning is unexplained. I did not think at that time I was the cause of the apparent coldness, but was forced to think so before I left town In what degree deem me culpable or merriting what seemed to one then [?] and does none unfriendly, unladylike treatment I cannot judge But I do know this, let me have done ever so wrongly according to what we both profess is should told [?], & if I cannot exhonerate myself you will have done your duty if allowed to explain & both feel [] for having done right.
  What has occured is the most painful circumstance I ever had any lot-or parcel [?] in [] much it caused a misunderstanding between me [my friend] Sarah Clark which can never be explained in this life She is now we all trust where all things which are [covered?] are revealed. I understand the culter [?] of judging action by a higher standpoint than which here be satisfied [?]/ I have thoughts are as her dead hands reached out to comfort me. Mrs. Hunter I do not merit injustice at your hand. I do not like to accuse you of it but until that ending interview [?] is explained I hold you my debtor Did I ask more than what is right: Am I not right in asking what I do:
  I leave this to your judgment & if our mature reflection consideration [impassioned reflection ?] you can relieve me of this powerful [?] feeling of injury received through misunderstanding of very much obliged.
  yours truly —
  M. E. Gilman

  [?] Sep 11, 1864
  My Dear Miss Gilman
  &c.

• at MaaM, neatly torn from newspaper, a poem entitled God Made Manifest, no date (but cotton and wool prices for August 31, in Northern and Southern cities, so presumably pre or post 1861-65). Found here
• at MuuM, unidentified leaf (same as at EuuE)
• at PaaP, unidentified (thistle-y) flower
• at PeeP

  Oh! for a peace which floweth like a river
  Making lifes desert places bloom and smile
  Oh! for a faith to grasp the glad for ever
  Amid the shadows of earth’s Little While.

  A little while to wear the veil of sadness
  To hit [? with weary steps through weary way,
  Then to pour forth the oil of Gladness
  And clasp the gridle sic] round the robe of Praise.

  And He who is himself the gift & Giver
  The future glory, and the present smile
  With the bright promise of the glad Forever
  Will light the shadwos of earth’s Little While.

  three stanzas only transcribed, possibly from (imperfect) memory?

  A different and longer version — giving Mrs. Crewdson as author — is found in A Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations, specially selected with a view to the needs of the pulpit and platform, by the Rev. R.A. Bertram. London, 1877. here.

• at ReeR, Revolution / French commenced openly on the 14th of July, 1789, by an attack on Bastile [sic]
• at RooR, Diocletian / made Emperor 285 A.D. [in pencil; hard to read]
• at SooS, Love in S, the S being the heading for the page, which then incorporates the o at top center, and a cipher-like   r   r   o   w   at upper right.
   

  What can I do for thee ! Thou hast my prayers
  Ceaseless as the stars around the great white throne
  No passing angel but to heaven bears
  Thy name, wreathed round with some sweet orison
  Yet evil on thy path may come and go
  Taking deliberate aim to lay the bow
  While I stand by — a looker on — to prove
  The penury and silence of my love

  How can I comfort thee? My tears are thine
  Fall duteously upon thy griefs they wait
  If thou art wronged, the bitterness is mine
  If thou art lonely, I am desolate.
  Yet still upon thy brow the shadow lies
  Still the drops gather in thy plaintive eyes
  The nails are sharp, the cross weighs heavily
  I cannot weep away one pang for thee

  The midnight deepens, and I cannot guide
  The tempest threatens, and I cannot shield
  I must behold thee wounded tempted tried
  Oh agony! I may behold the yield
  What boots the altar in my heart whereon
  Thy royal image stands unbreathed upon,
  And pure, and guarded from irreverent glance
  With so vainly jealous vigilance.

  Oh, were this all ! But no I have the power
  To grieve thee by unwary tone or deed
  Or, niggard in my fear to miss the hour
  For comforting with hope thy time of need.
  To hide too shyly half the love I feel
  Too roughly touch the wound I seek to heal
  Or even (oh pardon !) wayward and unjust
  To wrong thee by some moment of mistrust.

  Yet I would die for thee, and thou for me
  We know this of each other and forgive
  These tremblings of our frail mortality
  So prompt to die, and yet afraid to live
  Lift we our eyes to heaven. Love greets us there
  Disrobed of its earthly impotence
  Even human love — below still doomed to be
  Stronger than death, feebler than infancy.

  A published version of the poem appears here and there, including (under the title Love in Sorrow, (by S. M.), in Sharpe’s London Magazine, subtitled A Journal of entertainment and instruction for general reading. With elegant engravings. here. Gilman’s transcription does not fully match one particular published version.

  High sentimentality is evidenced by this verse transcription, and this index rerum overall. It brings to mind the sentimentality — embarrassing to us today — described by Helen Sheumaker in her Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America (2007) (for example, at pp 28-29). And yet this volume is more inward than outward directed...

• at TuuT, a rose.
• at ViiV, unidentified sprig (rose?), possibly also leaves of another plant.
• at VooV, unidentified sprig (includes flower, perhaps daisy?).
• at WiiW, a poem entitled Why. Will transcribe later. Cursory Google Book search turns up nothing close. Eight four-line stanzas.
• at WooW, concluding two stanzas of above. And an unidentified sprig, perhaps two.
• at ZiiZ, a single leaf (looks like bay).
• at ZooZ, here begin five pages of carefully arranged, and mounted, flowers, all captioned with date and place. I list here the captions, but do not attempt naming the sprigs.

  at oZ,
  Campbellsville 9th April 64 [there seems to have been Campbellville post offices, in Dutchess County, New York and Sullivan County, Pennsylvania according this this 1854 gazetteer; same place? otherwise, Campbellsville’s in Kentucky and Tennessee]
  April 18th, 64
  May 29th, Gunsburg [?] Pike I.I. [?]
  Leland June 1859
  June 13th Grave Yard,
  July 8th, 64 Blet[?] Montogues

  at uZ,
  White Mountains, Mt Washington Aug 13th — F. S. Smith.
  From Virginia, Arlington. Feb 1870
  From Chalfield Min. Presented by Chas. Benett [?]
  Presented me by Miss Harrison Peigle [?] D.C. Feb. 1870 / Azalia [sic]

  at first blank page (verso) following oZ,
  From the ruins of Ticonderoga 1857

  at next blank page (recto)
  From Margaret Fuller Ossoli’s Grave October 2, 64. Mt Auburn Boston Mass [n.b.: actually, cenotaph — her body was not recovered after shipwreck off Fire Island in 1850; see wikipedia entry.]
  Centennial Grounds 1876
  From Benj. Franklin’s Grave Phila. Oct 11. 1876
  Centennial Grounds

  at next blank page (verso)
  Feb 17th 1856. N.Y.C.C.[?] / A leaf of Laurel from Italy. Volarno’s land of roses Presented me by Miss Lydia A. Coldwell.

• at the following verso page commence 15 pages of (mostly) dated ruminations, followed by two pages on The French Revolution, a passage from Stearling Onyx Ring [Sterling, 1856, here] an extract from Wordsworth, extracts from Shakespeare, two more pages of rumination (or extract?), one page listing meetings of Music Class commencing Tuesday Set 14th 1858; a sentence in German, and continuation of the music class schedule; an alphabet A-Z a-z and a poem in German; a passage (extract? original?) entitled Unwritten History dated Salem Feb 28, 1856; followed by various notes on back flyleaf and endpaper.

  The writing is melancholic, rueful, unrelieved by particularistic observations, narrative, anecdote. The tone is captured by expressions like weary years, my spirit flutters faint and low, I must be strong!, or here, from an entry in June 1858, The greatest shock that my humanity has ever endured has come, I am bleeding, bleeding from the thorn that pierce my brow, even through to my brain. No account is given of the shock however. Details that do come through are an entry dated 22 September 1858 with the location Chatfield Min written in the margin; Chatfield referenced again in December; a Medory House referenced in entries for Christmas and the last day of 1858.

  In that last, we read I never have written of any one save my own self. In my pride I have thought in long years hence I would if permitted to look over these leaves but be pained in reading how foolishly I had endured heart struggles...

  All dates of entries are noted, but transcriptions given only where there the account achieves some granularity of specific events, or change in tone.

• Salem Aug 22nd 1857
• Salem Aug 23. Sabbath
• May 1859
• Sabbath [] May
• M. June 6th
• June 1858
• June Saturday 18
• July 12
• July 24th 58
• July 27th
• Aug 18, 58
• Sept 22nd, 58 / Chatfield Min [?
• Oct 28th
• November 7th Yesterday was my birthday. Twas but 23 years from yester morning since I first saw the light of Our World...
• Novem 14th
• Chatfield, Decm 4th
• Medory House Christmas
• The last day of the year 1858 Midory House
• Jan 1st 1859
• March 25th 70 Henceforth I will write in this every day...
• Jan 18th 59
• Jan 19th 59
• Jan 20th 59 Every day that passes adds a joy or sorrow to my life...
• Jan 22nd I am to become a master...
• Salem March 25th 60 More than a year has passed since I have written here and what a year? God pitty [sic] me what a year I have only lived, breathed eating and sleeping day and night, and thus the year has gone.
• Glenwood Ladies Sem, Sept – Oct 1st 1860
  Glenwood Ladies’ Seminary was located in West Brattleboro, Vermont, opening to pupils in September 1860, thus Mary Gilman would have been in its first class. Something about the school in the Annals of Brattleboro 1681-1895, here. More about Glenwood and its early principal Hiram Orcutt (1815-1889) later.
• Oct 3rd 1860
• June 6th 1861 Glenwood This new year is so far on its way. I have neither written or wished to write. There has been a shadow upon my life, a coldness in my heart which seemed impossible to overcome, Perhaps my mind is troubled by knowledge of my own weakness and I am not in any degree satisfied with myself Yet ever striving I will be able to be comparatively happy. Durty ‐ principle of integrty ever guiding our Redeemer the chiefest of all. Let me walk on trusting hopefull.
• Oct 23th 1861
• Novem 15th 1862 Goshen Conn
• Jan 18th 1863
• Jan 21st 1863 The wind is howling about all thse hills. the storm is beating sobbing through the trees. I remember when darker storms have beat upon me. Not pitiously for else I could not be which through the grace of God I am. Lord let me ever be thankful for every day of my life I have great cause.
• Salem May 11th 1863
  At home six weeks — when shall I be at home forever? I am thankful for many blessings — Thank God for my friends — faithful and true to me — I am not at rest — nor can I ever expect to be — Lord thou [?] the earth clothest her with a garment of fresh beauty ever so cause my heart to be renewed and cloth it in the righteousness [?].
• Salem N.Y. 1863 Decm 13th
  It is long since I have felt like writing in this book and can hardly tell why I write. The floods of a deep grief have swept over me — five days after I wrote in this the last time until now my beloved father died His is at Home for ever. Oh! that we like him may rest not now but when the Master calleth for us. Suddenly [] and still his life went down I am in conflicting doubts firm resolves and still undecided. I am waiting for the mooring [moving ?] of the water.

  And indeed, Orville Pool Gilman, M.D., born in Jaffrey, N.H., September 15, 1805; died at Salem, May 16, 1863, in The Salem Book: Records of the Past and Glimpses of the Present (Salem N.Y., 1896): 150 here

• Campbellsville Ky, April 29th, 64
  I am here by the grace of God and am what I am new experience awats me on every hand — I am ill now in bed but tomorrow doubtless will be well. Thank God for friends. Thank God I can find them. I am tired a little of the turmoil of life but not disheartened. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
• Salem N.Y. Sept 11
  I am feeling the [?] freshness of youth come to me. I no longer question what is love? I know it is a rest. A pure confidence. A strength added. I am thankful. Do not forget God in the fullness of my new love life. Every thing looks beautiful — never so beautiful before. Aug 20th 1863 Gorhen Ct.
  Another year gone. Would not retrace it. Am happy. Find life has it [sic] work i every phase. The labor of love is sweet refining all the soul. God give us strength of will and purpose to do right. To live pure beautiful and holy lives. Looking
• Oct 9th A little year is gone Lyman and I are happy in each others love. I cannot say as I am perfectly satisfied. I am content. I look for a realization of my fondest dreams as yet no Ship is sailing toward us from unknown seas! If he could talk to me more if I could talk to him more as I want to I should like it. In Gods own time All will be well.
• Feb 13th 1866
  God has spend [?] us to see this another year. We are forgetful of his mercies sometimes forgetful of each other but we turn to Him alone who is able to save all that come unto him and forgiving each other if we pain one another bu carelessness or neglect or worse anger. And so our lives run on. Am fearful my life is not widening much, not expanding as it ought. I shall have to guard against falling into a hum drum sort of life. Wishing to do my homely duties well, but not content with this I must advance — Oh love Oh Life where are they promises? Does the future hold more than the past? A. [G ?] Love — I have you — But Life what art Though! a vexing delusion!
• Jan [?] 1867 [very very faint]
  A strong reality. A sorrowful joy and a joyful sorrow. So mixed — so troubled It seems to me life is growing in me more and more a hard reality not [? as] beautiful as hope and fancy [] else we would forget to look beyond for the substance of which this life is but an idea. Well for us we cannot realize all [] [] else we would quit work to [] []. This gives us happy [energy?], strengthens our wills makes us strong for good — thanks [?]

  diary entries, 1867-69

  
• Feb 3d 67
• Sep 9th 67
• 1868 — Himman
  I find I seek this book and write more as a refuge — or a place in which I can express my thoughts there by relieving my spirit of some of its madness — If my sister was here If my mother could be with me a little while I should be glad I feel so among strangers sometimes. striving to make kind ways wasy to me &mdash and to others — failing from weakness — failing for want of goodness — Alas! there is no help for me &mdash am quite alone I have strange dreams of the future — God help me keep this year to Him and true to myself.—
• Feb 16th
• Nov 3d 1869
  I have been thinking a long time of writing some where my fears as regards myself. I am thinking I shall not live long. It is hard for me to think of dying now. There has been times when I have longed and prayed for death. I do not now. I am only fearful I may die before I get my work done. I should be glad to live to be old to help Lyman. to do something worthy [?]. I hope I may but I cannot get ride of the dreadful presentiment that I shall die soon — I mean to get ready so I may not have regretting little things left undone. I mean to make my will get my life insured and so forth — It will do no harm to get ready at any rate. I wish to live but if I cannot I cannot, God’s will be done.
• 1876 Dcem 5
  I see by the above what halucination possess one at times — Probably I as dyspeptic at the time it was written — Since then I have come very near dying — It is not dreadful to contemplate — Everything will go right on just the same if I should die tonight — Gods great purposes and plans will be wrought out. I am but a cypher in the great sum of human existence — Everything works for good to those who love the Lord — I am satisfied
• 1878 Feb 12

who was Mary E. Gilman?

At rootsweb.ancestry.com we find this entry for Mary E. Gilman :

2. Orville Pool Gilman was born 15 SEP 1805 in Jaffrey, Cheshire, N.H., and died 16 MAY 1863 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.. He was the son of 4. Daniel Gilman and 5. Mary B. Stickney.

3. Almira Butler was born 8 OCT 1811 in Hinsdale, Cheshire, N.H., and died 17 OCT 1872 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.. She was the daughter of 6. Josiah Butler and 7. Fanny Liscom Tower.

Children of Almira Butler and Orville Pool Gilman are:

i. Mary E. Gilman was born 1836 in Wardsboro, Windham, Vt.
ii. Charles Orville T. Gilman was born 13 SEP 1840 in Wardsboro, Windham, Vt., and died 21 FEB 1875 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.
iii. Elvira Gilman was born 1843 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.
iv. Benjamin Brodie Gilman was born 1845 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.. He married Josie Gilman_nee_unkn. She was born 1845 in ., , Ct.
v. Emma Frances Gilman was born 25 MAY 1849 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.
vi. John D. Gilman was born 1850 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.
vii. Ida M. Gilman was born 1858 in Salem, Washington, N.Y.

here (accessed 30 December 2009);

but no mention of Osceola Gilman ?