Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 6, 2020

Dr. E. P. Miller’s

37, 39 West 26th Street

New York, Ap. 16 {1881}


My dear Matthew {Barney},


I am glad you are getting along decently well.  I am very much better than I was and begin to enjoy life again.  Lydia Dame is with me for a few days.  Anne you probably see; she left Thursday.  I enjoyed her visit very much . . . .


Yesterday (Good Friday) the city was packed and crammed and I suppose it will be on Sunday . . . .


Tomorrow (Sunday) Lydia expects to go to Trinity {Church}; probably she will have to stand.  After Easter has passed, I mean to buy Easter Eggs.  I suspect they will be cheap.  The streets are exceedingly pretty; some of the Easter cards are very pretty and the roses beautiful.  You pass thousands of them on Broadway.


Matthew Barney was the husband of Maria’s older sister, Sally Mitchell Barney, who died in 1876.  By this point, Matthew was remarried.  He is buried on Nantucket with his second wife and her family.  It is nice to see that they still remained close – he was, after all, her brother-in-law for thirty-eight years before Sally died – a death not unexpected as her health had been poorly much of her life.  Lydia Dame, was a daughter of Maria’s youngest sister, Eliza Katherine (Kate) Mitchell Dame and Anne is of course a younger sister of Maria’s.

What I find funny is Maria’s frugal nature coming out in her note about buying Easter candy AFTER Easter.  Such a Maria thing.  She was not poor by any means, leaving a decent estate to her family when she died in 1889.  But her Nantucket and Quaker-self shine through in this comment – as too does the over-crowding.   In this date of COVID-19, it immediately makes me think of “social distancing.”  Maria might find it amazing to see shots of what were once crowded areas of NYC and Boston –  all now empty because of this virus pandemic.


Maria was in NYC for the Easter parade – this was at its beginnings – and went on for decades though it began to fizzle out in the last decade or so.  If you have never seen “Easter Parade” with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland it really is a must no matter what your religious belief – it is not a religious-based movie and it has one of the best dance and song scenes in a musical – “A Couple of Swells” – (says this movie musical nut) and “Stepping Out With My Baby” is  fantastic – can’t go wrong with Irving Berlin!  And if you have never seen Anne Miller tap dance, this one is even more important to watch!


JNLF

Recent Posts

The Ancient Vine

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 11, 2026
A repost – with my apologies – from last year. It started budding the week of April 30 this year. This is what our landscaper for the MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House that is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters once I plant them – try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 4, 2026
May 6, 1878 Between the clouds, Miss Spalding obtained 7 photographs of Mercury on the Sun. It is comfort to me to be able to plan and do a new kind of work. The large telescope worked better than usual, Clark having just been to the Observatory. Clark, as in Alvan Clark, a man who would become the premier telescope maker in America and who built Maria Mitchell’s 5-inch Alvan Clark refractor that she purchased from him (after working with him to build it per her specifications) with money gifted to her from “The Women of America” led by Elizabeth Peabody. More than likely, it is this telescope she is referring to as she did use it in the Vassar College Observatory with her students – and it is also taking center stage in photographs, along with her (first her father’s) Dolland telescope.  Maria had decided she would photograph the Sun on every clear day, and this was one of those results. She would use these images, with her students, to study sun spots and their changes. With her students, Maria would photograph the transit of Mercury as noted above. She would also photograph the transit of Venus a few years later with her students. JNLF

Spring Has Sprung!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 27, 2026
And with it, some of the heirloom daffodils I purchased for the Mitchell House last fall. A place was recommended to me by two longtime friends of the MMA and gardeners extraordinaire. It is called Old House Gardens. I ordered a small amount as we now have a plethora of voles on Vestal Street – I believe I complained about them here last year. They won’t eat daffodils so I got a few of “Butter and Eggs” (1777) and “Conspicuus” (1869) as either of these could have appeared in William Mitchell’s gardens. They were not listed in a letter from John Quincy Adams that I have mentioned before. But, Adams was not here visiting the Mitchell family when the daffodils would have been in bloom. The one pictured here is “Butter and Eggs” not completely unfurled. JNLF
Show More