Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 24, 2014

Feb. 5, 1882.


We have had two heavy snow storms since Feb. came in. We have twice been unable to get out of the Observatory without help. The first time 6 men, two horses and a girl came to our rescue; today four men and two horses and a girl came.


Phebe’s picture, painted by Fanny came; it is far the most pleasing she has done.


In 1882, Maria Mitchell had been teaching at Vassar College for approximately seventeen years. At that point, the Vassar Observatory was fairly remotely located in relation to Main Building where all of the college’s activities took place. One can image how hard it was for Maria to get out of the Observatory, but also how hard it was for her “girls” to get to her.


This entry is one of those gems I come across. Actually, there are many gems. For many, many years before I was curator, there was a portrait stowed away and the inventory was listed as “Unknown Woman.” Finally one day, as I was again looking at it trying to figure out who she was, I realized it was Phebe Mitchell Kendall, one of Maria’s younger sisters! Now, I come across this in Maria’s journals and it really makes me wonder if this oil portrait was painted by Frances (Fanny) Mitchell Macy, the daughter of Anne Mitchell Macy and her husband Alfred Macy. Fanny was an accomplished artist, maybe taking after her accomplished artist aunt, Phebe. I don’t recall any artist’s signature on the painting, but this could be one in the same! I am very excited to investigate further!


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 24, 2026
I have always wanted to find a piece of a clay pipe. I know – weird – but if you have ever read any of my blogs here for the MMA then you know I have a thing for pottery shards. I sort of figured I would not find a piece of a clay pipe – not even a piece of a stem. But the other day, walking in a place where I have found quite a few shards, I found a piece of clay pipe! Now, I’m not talking about water pipes – I am talking about tobacco pipes. And I know very little about clay pipes. Yes, I am a curator of a historic house museum, but this family did not smoke. They were Quaker and among the many things they abstained from, tobacco was one of them. Therefore, I am not up on clay pipes so I am doing a bit more research.  For one, age can be determined by the width of the hole inside the pipe. So based on this one, I would say it’s fairly late. Since they were so fragile, and those holes pretty small, if it got filled with tobacco, the person just broke off the stem creating a shorter pipe and one that was not clogged with tobacco. Apparently, stems could be recycled – in fact, 15,000 broken stem pieces were uncovered at a historic walkway at Colonial Williamsburg – they were used as fill! And pipes were made into the early twentieth century – falling out of favor around World War One. It makes sense – they were cheap, easy to make, and affordable. Typically, one could last a few years – unless you dropped it of course. An,d pipes were used by men, women, and (eh, em) yes, children. I can see that Nantucket may not have had a lot of tobacco smoking residents – not just that some were Quaker – but because of the Quaker influence. I t does not mean people here do not smoke – I just think there may have been fewer smokers on the island in the nineteenth century and earlier. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 17, 2026
August 19 {1857}. There are four great men whose haunts I mean to seek, and on whose footsteps I mean to stand: Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, and Johnson. To-day I told the driver to take me to St. Martin’s, where the guide-book says that Newton lived. He put me down at the Newton Hotel, but I looked in vain to its top to see anything like an observatory. I went into a wine-shop near, and asked a girl, who was pouring out a dram, in which house Newton lived. She pointed, not to the hotel, but to the house next to a church, and said, “that’s it – don’t you see a place on the top? That’s where he used to study nights.” It is a little, oblong-shaped observatory, built apparently of wood, and blackened by age . . . .” Blackened no doubt by the wood ash and soot found in the air throughout over-crowded nineteenth century London. We always think about London being very foggy in the nineteenth century but frankly a lot of it was wood and coal ash as the nineteenth century grew older, particularly as factories developed and belched all of that into the air – think Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. But Maria Mitchell, while starting in Europe as a young woman’s chaperone, also knew that this tour of Europe was a great learning experience – the equivalent of a college education she could not have. Doors were thrown open to her around Europe – in particular at all of the observatories that dotted the continent. She was not just well-known – she was famous. JNLF
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