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Frances Eliza Very (1821-1895) and Lydia Louisa Ann Very (1823-1901) were the daughters of Capt. Jones and Lydia (Very) Very, of Salem, Massachusetts. Their brother, Jones Very (1813-1880) was a controversial poet, author, and religious/spiritual figure among the Transcendentalists. The Very sisters lived with Jones and another brother, Washington (1815-1853), in Salem. Both women had long careers as teachers in public and private schools in Salem and were known as slightly eccentric, ardently humanitarian, and nature-loving.

The collection consists of one undated volume of writings by Frances Eliza Very, five volumes of poetry by Lydia Ann Very, dating from 1840 to 1848 and 1857 to 1866, and school records kept by Lydia, 1847 to 1853. Frances included poetry and several essays in her notebook. She wrote "A Dissertation on the Soul and Body," appealing to Christians to prepare for an eternal life by looking inward. Other "musings" examine such topics as education, "By Precept and Example how can we best inculcate the Spirit of Christianity?" and the "Miracles of the Fig Tree." She also wrote a critical essay addressed to Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876), inquiring his opinions of the writings of Theodore Parker (1810-1860). Her poetry is inward, spiritual, and sentimental in nature.

In 1856, Lydia's poetry was published in a small volume entitled, Poems (Andover, Massachusetts: W.F. Draper). These verses are found in manuscript form in volumes two, three, and four of the collection. They also contain original drawings by Lydia. Her interests centered around children, animals, and flowers. Her poetry shows none of her brother's or sister's transcendentalism. She made occasional contributions to the Salem Gazette and the Boston Transcript and, in later years, published more poetry and several third-rate novels.

From 1847 to 1853, Lydia kept thorough records of student attendance and payments for a private school maintained by her brother, Washington.

Joseph Allen (1790-1873), the son of Phineas and Ruth Smith Allen, of Medfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1811. He then studied for the ministry and in l8l6 was called by the town of Northborough to be its third minister. It was a post he held for forty years, until he voluntarily relinquished his pulpit duties and his salary. He remained, however, engaged in church affairs as senior pastor.

Until the disestablishment of the church in Massachusetts in 1833 Allen, as the Congregationalist minister, was minister of the entire town of Northborough and chairman of the district school committee. It was a role he relished: the school children were invited to play in his extensive gardens; he arranged for young women to earn, through their handiwork, money to purchase books for a library; and he instituted a series of public lyceums.

Soon after arriving in Northborough, Joseph and his wife opened a school to earn extra income and eventually to be able to educate their own family of seven children at home. The Allen School was a Northborough institution for decades.

Joseph Allen was a beloved figure in his community. He was more widely honored by being chosen as a delegate to the Paris Peace Convention in l849 and as a representative to the Massachusetts General Court, for a four-month term in 1864. His influence in Unitarian circles was far-reaching. Within a month of his death, memorial services to him were preached from pulpits in Quincy, Illinois, and San Francisco, California.

Lucy Clark Ware Allen (1791-1866) was the daughter of Henry and Mary Clark Ware. She was their eldest surviving child and the eldest of his nineteen children. Her childhood was spent in Hingham, Massachusetts, but in l805 the family moved to Cambridge on the occasion of Henry Ware, a Unitarian luminary, being named Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard.

Proximity must have played a role in Lucy and Joseph's romance as Joseph studied with Henry Ware. In February of 1818 the couple was married and the young minister brought his bride to Northborough to a newly built house across the common from the church. They arrived from Cambridge, after dark, in a rainstorm. In later years Lucy remembered "…how pretty the village looked, when arriving at the top of the hill by Capt. Hunt's. Mr. Allen said, 'There is Northborough!' and peeping out from behind my umbrella I saw the lights in the village a short distance below and beyond."

Lucy was well qualified by temperament and experience to preside over a large family-her own plus the student boarders. Her intelligence, patience and humor enabled her to survive the occasional "…talking and racketting and thumping…" of the boys as well as the muck "…tracked through the house by our 20 pairs of feet." In addition to her regular duties, she acted as the manager and taskmaster necessary to the production of two early student newspapers-"The Meteor" and "The Nosegay", printed in 1835-1836.

During the last eight years of her life Lucy was an invalid. The effects of a stroke kept her confined to the parsonage where she was lovingly cared for by her family. Her death was lamented but also welcomed as a release from her long suffering.

Joseph and Lucy married on 3 February 1818. They had seven children: Mary Ware; Joseph Henry (1820-1898), who married Anna Minot Weld (1820-1907); Thomas Prentiss (1822-1868), who married Sarah Alexander Lord (1825-1904); Elizabeth Waterhouse (1824-1893); Lucy Clark; Edward Augustus Holyoke; and William Francis (1830-1889), who married [1] Mary Tileston Lambert (1842-1865) and [2] Margaret Loring Andrews (1839- ).

Mary Ware Allen Johnson (1819-1897), the eldest child of Joseph and Lucy Clark Ware Allen, was born in Northborough. She was educated at home and i Show more Show less