“May you be happy here [in Freeport], my dear Becca,
and may you be unspeakably Blessed in the Realms of Bliss...”
So ends a charming and cajoling 1788 letter, which Randall Wade Thomas, the alert executive director of the Freeport Historical Society, was pleased to show me. We both suspected that there was more of its story to discover, but I at that time was not able to put the letter in context. Written beautifully, the letter is addressed to young Rebecca Eells, in Hanover, Mass., the youngest daughter of William Witherell Eells. Let’s read it:
My Dear Cosin, and Beloved Name sake -- Be pleased to accept
of the inclosed Token of Love, from one who both respected, and
dearly Loved your hon’d [honored] Parents -- and shall ever retain a kind
regard, and tender affection for them -- My best Wishes attend
you all -- May you be happy here my dear Becca -- and may
you be unspeakably Blessed in the Realms of Bliss --
Please to present my Affectionate Regards to all friends --
in A particular Manner to your good Parents, Brothers & Sisters --
& believe me to be Your well Wisher & constant Friend
Rebecca Hunter
[Fre]eport October 28 1788
N.B. I suppose this will be handed you by A very worthy Lady
who I esteem as a Sister, and love as a friend --
the token of Love is A Pocket [ ** ] and a stone,
drop set [ ** ] gold for your bosom.
R. H.
The writer of this touching 1788 letter from Freeport, Maine was Rebecca Eells Hunter of Newport, Rhode Island. (It is quoted and its image displayed with permission of the Freeport Historical Society). A lady of elegant hand and felicitous phrase, Mrs. Hunter was twenty one years senior to the teen-ager to whom she wrote, Rebecca Eells of Hanover. Mrs. Hunter referred to young “Becca” as her cousin, and indeed Becca was her first cousin once removed. (Thus, she was also first cousin to young Rebecca’s father, William Witherell Eells, Jr., about whom Rebecca Hunter speaks so glowingly.)
In 1788, the date of the letter, Becca Eells would have been about thirteen years old. From the loving yet cajoling tone that the older cousin used, one can infer that she supposed that Becca was reluctant to move from her girlhood home in Hanover to a frontier part of Freeport—perhaps for an extended stay. Or perhaps forever? Such a life-long stay is suggested by Rebecca Hunter’s benediction-like phrase “May you be happy here, my dear Becca.”
What could be bringing young Becca to Freeport? And why was Rebecca Hunter writing from there? We can never know for sure, but with the help of this wonderful letter and a few facts an educated guess is possible. In fact, Rebecca Hunter’s letter cracks open the closed door of history.
In this post-Revolution decade, North Yarmouth (and soon-to-break-away Freeport) were attracting settlers to the empty backland. Among them were Becca Eells’s elder siblings. About 1783, one of Becca’s sisters, Hannah Witherell Eells White had moved to North Yarmouth-Freeport, for her husband Jacob White purchased land that year. Hannah’s second child would have been one year old when Mrs. Hunter wrote her letter. Another sister, Lydia Eells Hayes, had married and moved to North Yarmouth in 1787. Another sister, Sarah Bosworth, may have been in the process of moving. And her brother William Junior would buy land in Freeport in 1790 and soon marry there. Thus, it is plausible that Becca was being enlisted to come to Maine in part to help her siblings’ families with the exacting work of settlement and child-rearing.
Undoubtedly, when Rebecca Hunter was in North Yarmouth-Freeport she would have visit in these Eells sisters, who were her first cousins, and that is reason enough for a visit. But a discovery at the Registry of Deeds in Portland perhaps reveals another reason for Rebecca Hunter’s trip to Maine. Her mother Mary Goodwell Eells of Stonington CT was a fourth-generation heir to an undivided part of the original grant of “Prout’s Gore.” This was a three thousand acre track granted by the Massachusetts General Court to the heirs of Joshua Scotaway or Scottow in the 1600s or early 1700s. The future of Prout’s Gore was an active issue in 1788 as Freeport prepared to split away from North Yarmouth. As her mother was to sell her share the following spring, perhaps Rebecca’s trip was somehow connected to that decision [Cumb. Co. Registry of Deed, Mary Ells of Stonington CT to James Babbage, Bk 85 p 118, 19 March 1789; see also, Florence G. Thruston and Harmon S. Cross, Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine, p46 (Freeport, Me. 1940)].
In any event, the cousins probably enlisted Rebecca Hunter to allay young Becca’s fears. They must have thought that Becca could be of great help, if she willingly came, and the whole family’s new future was in Maine, they hoped. So Rebecca Eells Hunter’s letter, filled with love and reassurance (enclosing a token of love that would have been so exciting and so adult), was part of this generation’s step into the unknown of a still-unsettled land.
What happened to “my dear Becca”? Was she indeed to be “unspeakably Blessed in the Realms of Bliss”? Her life did change as a result of going to Freeport. About ten years later, on New Year’s Eve 1799, when she was 24, she married Barnabas Bartol of Freeport. Among their many children was Barnabas Henry Bartol, whose wealth benefited the town and built its Bartol library. His and his wife’s portraits still hang in the Bartol Room of the new Community Library.
- From Descendants of William Witherell Eells and Sarah Pilsbury Eells of Hanover, Mass..., by Stephen F. Ells and Edris Hoisington Ells (Lincoln MA, 2004). The letter is used with the permission of the Freeport, Maine, Historical Society.