Curator Report
from the Tenney Archives

 

The past several months have found me up to my elbows in Archives. Mostly reading and digesting the boxes of materials and learning more of our Tenney ancestors. In one box I have come upon a collection of older manuscripts devoted to varying subjects. Some are written by Tenneys, others are about Tenneys.. One that has really caught my attention is entitled “Personal Memories of Martha J. Tenney.”  It is written by E.P. Tenney and is addressed to the President of the Board of Trustees of the Tenney Memorial Library, Newbury, Vermont.  It is dated April 15th 1910 and was written shortly after Martha Jane’s death from a stroke in March 1910.

It seems appropriate to me to focus on this particular document since we are on the verge of receiving our new edition of our Tenney family genealogy for which we owe an enormous debt to Debbie Montgomery and to her predecessor, Martha Jane Tenney.

This document begins with the recollection of the author as a five year old, of a time around 1840 when he first met MJ’s (Martha Jane’s) father Colonel Abner B. Tenney. Colonel Tenney was traveling by “pung”  from Concord, New Hampshire to Boston. A pung is a low box type sleigh often pulled by one horse.  The Colonel had a load of farm goods to trade including butter, cheese, applesauce and pork. The journey to Boston from the family farm in Newbury Vermont was about 160 miles. With a good horse able to go 20 plus miles a day it would have been at least a week’s journey each way.  He stopped at the home of his sister Mary in Concord, NH.  probably to give a gift of supplies and to spend the night. It was about half way to Boston. Edward, the author of this particular manuscript  recalls that on  his Uncle’s return trip he also stopped and this time the sleigh was loaded with sugar, molasses and dry goods.

Martha Jane was born on that family farm in Newbury, Vt.  in 1832.

She was the sixth of six children born to her parents Abner and Sofia (Cutler) Tenney. One of her siblings, Asa, died prior to her birth and a second brother, also named Asa, died of consumption as a 20 year old in 1849. Martha Jane grew up with  three sisters on the farm, Mary, Sofia and Hepzibah.  Her parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary together on the farm in Newbury and actually the family resided there for 55 years. They called their farm “Upper Meadow” and it bordered the banks of the Connecticut River. MJ’s mother became an invalid in later life and passed away in August of 1873. The Colonel passed away one month later. At the time of their deaths in 1873 the family farm had grown to 515 acres and there were also land holdings in Ohio.

Life for MJ on her parents farm sounded idyllic.  Edward says in the 1915 manuscript, “In my memory , too, of those delightful days, I still see the lithe figure of their mother moving hither and thither in directing the household ways, always cheery, always swift in perception and efficient in doing the duties nearest. Were I an artist I could paint at this moment the house with its verandah toward the south where these children of the sun abode, the daughters shelling peas on the porch, the mother moving about the living rooms that opened to the July breeze from the north , and the father superintending the hay field.”

Reading the above I wondered about the author and his somewhat romantic style. I had to know a little more about him to satisfy my curiosity Who was this gentleman who used phrases like “ministering angel” elsewhere in the manuscript to describe MJ?

Reverend Edward Payson was an 8th generation Tenney. The son of Mary Tenney, MJ’s aunt who lived with her husband Asa Tenney in Concord, NH. Interestingly enough Mary was the daughter of a Tenney and married a Tenney. Hmm, I think that will be a different article some months away as it will take me that long to figure it all out.

Edward was educated at Dartmouth College and later at the Bangor and Andover Theological Seminaries. In 1859 at age 24  he became the assistant editor of the “Pacific” a San Francisco based paper. A minister, he was pastor of several congregational churches but also become the president of Colorado College.  A many times published author of historical novels and other works one may even find one of his novels, “Constance of Acadia,” 1886  still available on Amazon.com.

According to Edward’s manuscript MJ moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1873 upon the passing of both her parents. She moved in with her older sister Hepzibah who was fondly called “Ziba.”  Ziba was married to James Davis White, a Haverhill native descended from William White, one of the original twelve men who settled in Haverhill in 1640.  The Whites and MJ resided at “Locust Hill,” the family residence on Boardman Street.  MJ outlived her sister and brother in law and became the sole resident of Locust Hill. She was financially quite savvy; according to Edward she made successful investments which enabled her to establish the Tenney Memorial Library in Newbury Vermont in 1897.   

In 1891 MJ’s first edition of “The Tenney Family” was published. Without it we wouldn’t be able to trace our ancestors back to Rowley, England and the several centuries old fabric of the Tenney family would surely have been lost.  MJ’s large and detailed volume has given us both a clear and remarkable history and a unique means of connecting ourselves to one another. When I finished Edward’s article I poured through my great grandfather’s 1904 edition of MJ’s book and discovered that MJ’s 3rd times great grandfather Deacon Samuel Tenney is my 6th times great grandfather born in Bradford in 1667.  

According to Edward’s manuscript, “In the first edition, an analysis shows that out of twenty-three hundred Tenney  names, both men and women, one in every ten was a teacher, a physician, a lawyer or a clergyman; and , counting the men only, one out of every eleven was a soldier and one out of every ten a deacon or a minister.”

Edward Tenney goes on to say, “Martha had a most enthusiastic love for her own home, her own town, her own state, and her own nation. She took pride in any and every family stock that trained patriots and worthy citizens of our common country. 

“Very clear ideas, too, she had of how to make good citizens out of the youth of the nation.  For two things: she would have them learn to work and work hard in early life; and she would have them read good books.”

Martha Jane and Edward have both left a wonderful legacy for us in the written word.  I wonder if there is distinctive literary DNA among the Tenney’s as not only do we seem to have many authors among us but even some quite famous ones as MJ and Edward are both related to Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Frost and John Locke! (Or at least Ancestry.com says so when one clicks on famous relatives of that branch of the Tenney’s)

 

.....to be continued!