Anne Maria Mitchell (1847 – 1929)

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 16, 2024

In the vein of sharing more about other family members, here is a little bit about one of Maria Mitchell’s nieces.


The only child of Maria’s younger brother, William Forster and his wife Charlotte Coffin Dow Mitchell, Annie Maria as she was called – named for two of her aunts – illustrated a keen aptitude for writing at a young age. While still in high school, the island papers printed her stories to high acclaim. In the footsteps of her abolitionist father, Annie Maria would follow him into the South when she was just 18 years of age, working under him as a teacher in Alabama and Tennessee as they worked with formerly enslaved people. Besides teaching, she and her father provided aid to the formerly enslaved through their work with the Freedmen’s Aid Commission. In their work, they would cross paths with numerous other Nantucketers – many, if not all, raised as Quakers.


While she would leave and return North in 1867 at the age of 20, Annie Maria would refocus her efforts on her writing. Her work for those she had taught in the South continued as she wrote several works of fiction including Freed Boy in Alabama and educational primer books for those learning to read. While she would write books for all audiences, several of her early books focused on characters who were Black, perhaps providing examples of strong Black characters at a time when such characters did not exist in literature and thus serving as positive and inspiring representation for Black readers.

In 1871, she married Alfred Rickman Payne, an Englishman. They would have four daughters: Charlotte “Lottie” Payne (b. September 10, 1873, d. Sept 15, 1873), Fanny Ursula Payne, Alice Mary Payne, and Eliza Katherine Payne – named for her great aunt, Eliza Katherine “Kate” Mitchell Dame, who lived in Lynn and was the youngest of William and Lydia Coleman Mitchell’s children (and Maria Mitchell’s youngest sister). With a house full of children, much of her writing and publishing came to an end and she focused on her church. Annie Maria died in Brooklyn, NY at the age of 82.


JNLF


The image is of Anne Maria Mitchell Payne and one of her granddaughters.  The dog’s name has long been forgotten – but what a cutie!

Recent Posts

The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF

Putting Things By

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF
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