Miss Sarah Lee
New Ipswich Historical Society
Miss Sarah Lee at the organ willed to G. Allyn Brown who willed it the New Ipswich Historical Society.
On Loan
The organ in these photos is currently on loan to the Barrett House
On this day - Jun 6, 1908
James Roger diary entry
6th (Saturday)
Cool morning fair and warm wind SW to W. David and G. Sargent at Club House. Jim went to Greenville for grain and him and I seeded the patch behind Lowe’s garden. I cut and trimmed 3 lots. Wilson Ashley paid me 75 cents for cutting the Wilson and Bennet lots. Maggie cut off lilac blossoms, cinnamon rose in flower at back door. Also pink’s in cemetery. Got letter from Alice and Hamish.
On this day - June 6, 1897
William Jurian Kaula diary - Megascops asio
I have named my umbrella "Sunny France" in derision of that optomistic [sic] poet and infamous imposter who abused his poetic licence [sic] in misleading foreigners. We expect to read lies in guide books in reference to climate. This has been a week of intermitting rain and at times it was actually unsafe to venture outdoors without the assistance of two canoes called "sabots." We bring back enough real estate on our feet on each trip to make a new flower bed.
The departure of seven or more months has not dimmed my memory of that time when I was daily surrounded by doctors and when I labored making colored reproductions of those pathological specimens.* One by one, those horrible names are fading from my memory and I can hardly recall the difference between an adenoma and a angeioma [sic] or a spindle-cell or a giant-cell sarcoma. I was conceited enough to feel like a veteran when I attended a few anatomical lectures to the art students at the Ecole de Beau Arts last winter. But I found that though I had drawn the pylorous [sic] and oesophagus [sic] many times in the past the knowledge will not prove very useful in art. Nevertheless the work that I did for Prof. Dwight on the bones and muscles was of more value. The slight knowledge that I obtained into the mysteries of bacteriology was enough to keep me in constant fear of an infection from some unknown source. This is my good excuse for being addicted to the constant use of tobacco, and I realize that generous use of soap and water is also a splendid disinfectant, but as water is a valuable article here I cannot say that it is used here in quantities enough to make the results apparent.
* To Dr. A.K. Stone - I recently received a pamphlet from Dr. Chadbourne which brought me back into old times again. It was not medical work but a little adventure I had with ornithology in making illustrations suitable for "Evidence suggestive of the occurance [sic] of 'individual dichromatism' in megascops asio." This valuable work can be found in 'The Auk', Vol. XIII, No. 4, Oct. 1896, and Vol. XIV, No. 1, Jan. 1897.
Megascops asio = Eastern Screech Owl, common in Eastern North America to Canada
Editors Note:
William Jurian Kaula started his art career doing medical paintings. Kaula illustrated John Collins Warren’s 1895 Surgical pathology and therapeutics to which the Center for the History of Medicine owns the artist’s original watercolors and drawings.
Sarah Lee, 1838-1933, never married, is from an old New Ipswich family and is buried in Central Cemetery. G. Allyn Brown was a professional musician who once resided in Gloucester MA.
Does anyone know the manufacturer of the organ? Betsy Thoms's gr-gr-grandfather was Jonas Prescott Whitney of Ashby and Fitchburg, 1796-1879, founder of the Whitney Organ Co. Quite possible this instrument was built by him or his sons who carried on the business into the 20th century.