1870 November: The Banner provides a detailed report of Wilson’s three contributions to a spiritualist convention in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
1871ff September: As recorded in the Banner, Wilson becomes involved in regular spiritualist sessions in Temple Hall, perhaps as its resident medium, and later becomes involved in its Children’s Progressive Lyceum.
1873 April: Wilson is elected as one of the “Leaders” of one of the groups of children forming part of the Temple Hall Independent Children’s Progressive Lyceum.
1873 August: The Banner notes how Wilson speaks on the same platform as the highly controversial Victoria Woodhull (a “free love” advocate) and others at the Fourth Annual Spiritualist Camp Meeting, Silver Lake, Plympton, Massachusetts.
1874 February: The Banner notes that “Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson, the well-known trance lecturer, gave an anniversary in honour of her spirit father”—the first of many such mentions of Wilson’s involvement in the social side of Boston’s spiritualist activities.
1874 circa March: Begins to become involved with Boston’s Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 1, as noted in the Banner.
1874 August or early September: Wilson speaks at the dedication of Rochester Hall, Boston, to which the Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 1 had moved, and her address is reported at length in the Spiritual Scientist’s first issue, on September 10, 1874.
1874 September: The Banner records that Wilson was elected as the leader of the “Lake” group of Boston’s Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 1.
1874 September: The Banner reports that Wilson speaks in Boston at a convention of the “Universal Spiritualist Association,” whose president was the controversial “free love” advocate, Victoria Woodhull. This event, which Woodhull missed, is also reported extensively, and very disapprovingly, in the Spiritual Scientist.
1875 January 14: The Spiritual Scientist extensively reports upon a large celebration held by Wilson at Rochester Hall, attended by senior figures in Boston’s spiritualist circles.
1875 May: The Banner notes that, at a meeting of the Boston Spiritualist Union aimed at setting up an “American Spiritual Institute,” Wilson was selected as its “Director—Educational Department.” The Spiritual Scientist notes that Wilson was appointed at the meeting to the “committee to return and nominate,” the function of which seems to have been to arrange for the collation of nominations to the institute’s Acting Executive Committee. Wilson was not on this latter committee, nor later ones. After this one mention of Wilson, the extensive reports in the Spiritual Scientist about how the American Spiritual Institute tried to set about funding the establishment of a “Spiritual Temple” in Boston never referred to Wilson again. This institute eventually seems to have collapsed, almost penniless, in September 1875.31
1876 April: The Banner provides an account of a speech given by Wilson the previous month at “the Twenty-Eighth Anniversary of the Advent of Modern Spiritualism Commemorative Exercises at Paine Hall, Boston.”
1877 circa April: The Banner notes that Wilson moves to Hotel Kirkland, Kirkland Street; this is probably a consequence of breaking up with John Gallatin Robinson. (After this date her name does not again appear as Mrs. Hattie Robinson in the Banner.)
1879 April: Banner reports show that Wilson is centrally involved in the foundation of a new lyceum, “Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 2,” which would soon rival the Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 1 as the leading children’s lyceum for Boston spiritualists.
1879: The Boston City Directory lists Mrs. Hattie Wilson’s address as 15 Village Street (973). Wilson is consistently listed in the Boston City Directory as living at this address from 1879 through 1897 (1610).
1880: The U.S. Census lists Wilson as aged forty, a mulatto and as keeping house at 15 Village Street. (Curiously, she is recorded as born in Maine.) The other family listed at this address consists of Frank J. Ellis, his wife, and their three children.32 The Banner still continues to list her as resident at the Hotel Kirkland at this time. However, the Boston City Directory notes Wilson’s address as 15 Village Street, Boston. It is unclear exactly when in 1879 she moved there, but this Banner 1870 listing is certainly erroneous (the Banner regularly complains that its spiritualists did not update their listings).
1880: Wilson serves as the treasurer of Boston’s Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 2, as recorded by the Banner.
1880 April: The Banner notes that, at a ceremony marking the Children’s Progressive Lyceum No. 2’s renaming as the Shawmut Spiritual Lyceum, Wilson delivers a reading. Subsequent issues of the Banner continue to record her regular involvement until the end of 1882.
1883 January: The Banner reports upon “a complimentary reception … given by Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson to her friends,” possibly as a preparation for the founding of her school the next month.
1883 February: Wilson founds a “Spiritual Progressive School” for children in Boston, her name for her spiritualist lyceum for children. This seems to cease operation early in 1884.
1897: Boston’s city directory lists “Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson” as “board[ing at] 9 Pelham” in Boston (1641). This address is also listed in the 1898 directory (1660). This 1898 listing is the last listing for Wilson in the Boston City Directory.
1898: The Banner of May 21, in its “Movements of Platform Lecturers” column, carries a notice that “Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson, 9 Pelham street, Boston, holds circles at 7.45 P.M.” (8).
1899: The Banner records on December 20 that at a meeting in “Dwight Hall” a “Mrs. Dr. Wilson” speaks of her spiritualist convictions. This may be a reference to Harriet E. Wilson; if it is, it is the final reference to her in the Banner, and one of only a tiny number in the last decade of her life.
1900: The 1900 U.S. Census does not record Hattie Wilson in Boston, or in Quincy, Massachusetts, where she is to die on June 28.33 It is unclear why she is in Quincy at the time of her death. P. Gabrielle Foreman and Reginald Pitts speculate that she was employed as a nurse in the home of Silas H. Cobb. This speculation is supported by the facts that Silas Cobb was injured during the Civil War (a cannon rolled back over him, leading him eventually to file for a disability), that Wilson’s death certificate notes her occupation as “nurse,” and that Silas Cobb dies on April 4, 1900, which cumulatively might suggest Wilson had gone to Quincy to nurse him.34 While it is possible that she did serve as a “nurse” of some sort for the Cobbs, we do not know how long she had been living in Quincy before her death, though we are told that the “inanition” that caused her death had lasted for two months (see appendix 3). However, her place of residence on her death certificate is given as “Boston. 9 Pelham Street.” This suggests her time in Quincy may not have lasted long. Though she is not recorded in the Boston City Directory after 1898, she was in the audience at Dwight Hall in December 1899 and she may simply have become too old to bother or be able to arrange for any listing in the directory after 1898. She may therefore have just been visiting Catherine Cobb’s household, or Catherine Cobb may have fetched her from Boston to Quincy after her illness set in, perhaps because Catherine Cobb was a long-standing client of hers or an admirer of her spiritualist talents. This speculation is supported by Cobb family lore, which for a long time held that Wilson was a Native American, a mistake that can best be explained not by supposing she was attempting to pass as a Native American (her listings in the Banner, for example, always listed her as a “colored” medium) but by the fact that her fame as a medium chiefly resided in the access she claimed she could gain to “Indian” spirit guides (the assumption here being that over the years the Cobbs’ family narrative came to misremember that she was a medium accessing Native American spirits). Since Wilson’s “inanition” is recorded as “incident to old age” and lasting for “two months,” it seems a little unlikely she was nursing Silas Cobb a few weeks before her terminal decline, and much more likely that the Cobb family rescued her from a situation of some need in Boston. This would also explain her burial in
Quincy in the Cobb family plot: the Cobbs take upon themselves the task of arranging for Wilson’s burial because Wilson’s estate could not support the cost of transporting her body back to Boston (Wilson’s spiritualist career seems to have long been almost dormant, as detailed in appendix 2). Cobb family lore explicitly supports this idea, as it holds that Walter Cobb, Silas H. Cobb’s son (and a prominent Quincy newspaperman), generously arranged for her burial in the Cobb family plot because she died in poverty. Notices of her death appear in late June in the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, and Quincy Patriot, along with details of her funeral. The Globe’s June 29 notice details how the funeral will be held from the residence of Mrs. Catherine C. Cobb, 93 Washington Street, Quincy, Saturday, June 30. Wilson is buried in Mount Wollaston Cemetery, Quincy, in plot 1337 (the site of the Cobb family grave). Her name is recorded at the bottom of the back of the Cobb memorial, under the names of deceased members of the Stoddard family (close family friends of the Cobbs who came to share the same burial plot).35
NOTES
1. See U.S. Federal Census, Milford, N.H., 1850; U.S. Federal Census, Milford, N.H., 1830; Milford Town Hall Vital Records, “copy of marriages returned by Rev. E. N. Hidden, Apr. 1852.” No Adams families are listed as living in New Hampshire in Carter G. Woodson’s Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830 (Washington, D.C.: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc., 1925). There are, however, well over thirty Adams families fitting the description provided in Our Nig listed as living in other states. There is probably no way to determine if one of these black Adams families is the family of Harriet Adams, since the 1830 federal census, upon which Woodson’s book is based, only lists the names of the heads of households. See also Massachusetts Deaths 506: 95, Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston, Mass.; and Banner of Light (hereafter cited as BL) XXVIII, no. 8 (November 12, 1870): 2–3.
2. See Barbara A. White, “ ‘Our Nig’ and the She-Devil,” 19–52.
3. U.S. Federal Census, Milford, N.H., 1840. See also White, “ ‘Our Nig’ and the She-Devil,” 21–22.
4. See White, “ ‘Our Nig’ and the She-Devil,” 19–52; R.J. Ellis, Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig,” 19–46. The depiction of the Haywards in Our Nig, the Bellmont family, was adapted to fit the requirements of a fictional tale. Consequently the chronologies do not match exactly, the Bellmonts have fewer children than the Haywards (five instead of seven), the sequence of arrivals and departures in and out of the family home of the Haywards does not match that found in Our Nig, and Sally Hayward was not Nehemiah Hayward’s “maiden sister,” since at some point she married, becoming Mrs. Sally Blanchard, though she did come to live with the Haywards. See Ellis, Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig,” 39.
5. Based on the information provided in Our Nig. There is some dispute over this; C. E. Potter’s map, however, does seem to show the divide between school districts two and three as the Souhegan River. See C. E. Potter, [Map of] Milford (Milford: n.p. 1854).
6. The 1850 overseers for the poor report, and all others, are still located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford. White and Ellis have viewed reports from the years 1839 through 1869.
7. U.S. Federal Census, Milford, N.H., 1850.
8. See the overseers’ report for the poor, 1851, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford.
9. Arthur Chase, History of Ware, Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass.: University Press, 1891), 224; Herman Packard DeForest, The History of Westborough, Massachusetts (Westborough: The Town, 1895), 364; Isaac Newton Lewis, A History of Walpole, Massachusetts (Walpole: First Historical Society, 1905); 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Accelerated Indexing System: Massachusetts. See also D. Hamilton Hurd, ed., A History of Worcester County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis and Co., 1889).
10. Milford Town Hall Vital Records, “copy of marriages returned by Rev. E. N. Hidden, Apr. 1852.”
11. George Plummer Hadley, “Hillsborough County Farm,” in The History of the Town of Goffstown, 1733–1920 (Concord, N.H.: Published by the Town, n.d. [1924?]), 424–37.
12. Overseers’ report for the poor, 1855, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford Town Hall.
13. “Paupers Received and Discharged, 1853–1855,” Hillsborough County Nursing Home (formerly Hillsborough County Farm), Goffstown, N.H.
14. Overseers’ report for the poor, 1856, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford Town Hall.
15. Wilson, Our Nig, ed. Foreman and Pitts, ix; “Who Wants a Good Head of Hair? / Mrs. Wilson’s / Hair Regenerator,” Farmer’s Cabinet (January 15, 1859), 4. See also “Use Mrs. Wilson’s Hair Regenerator and Hair Dressing,” in Methodist Quarterly Review 42, ed. D. D. Whedon (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1860), 714.
16. Overseers’ report for the poor, 1858, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford Town Hall.
17. Overseers’ report for the poor, 1859, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford Town Hall.
18. Some critics insist Harriet E. Wilson must have copyrighted the novel. See also Eric Gardner, “ ‘This Attempt of Their Sister’ ”: 226–46.
19. February 15, 1860, death record from the New Hampshire Bureau of Vital Records. This record enables George Wilson’s birth date to be deduced. Mortality Schedule of the Federal Census for Milford, 1860. “Death Notices,” Farmer’s Cabinet, (February 29, 1860): 3.
20. U.S. Federal Census, Hillsborough County, N.H., 1860; Methodist Quarterly Review 42, ed. D. D. Whedon (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1860), 714.
21. See Wilson, Our Nig, ed. Foreman and Pitts, x.
22. Foreman and Flynn, “Mrs. H. E. Wilson, Mogul?, rpt. at www.harrietwilsonproject.org/news/Mogul_Boston_Globe_Feb09.pdf.
23. Report of the overseers of the poor, 1863, located in the Town Clerk’s Office in Milford Town Hall.
24. See appendix 2, “Hattie E. Wilson in the Banner of Light and Spiritual Scientist.” All future references to the Banner of Light can be cross-referred to this section. See also our introduction. See Massachusetts Marriages, 228: 129, Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston, Mass.; and Massachusetts Deaths, 506: 95, Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston, Mass. See also appendices this page, this page, and this page-this page of this edition.
25. See Wilson, Our Nig, ed. Foreman and Pitts, x; see also appendix 2, “Hattie E. Wilson in the Banner of Light and Spiritual Scientist.”
26. BL XXI, no. 26 (September 14, 1867): 5.
27. Boston City Directory, Embracing the City Record (Boston: Sampson, Davenport and Co., 1868), 623, 705. Wilson is listed in the following directories published by Sampson, Davenport: 1869 (652, 837, with the second listing recording her as a physician); 1870 (706, 809, with the second listing recording her as a physician); 1873 (798); 1874 (971); 1875 (946); 1876 (950); 1878 (940); 1879 (973); 1880 (1022); 1881 (1070); 1882 (1104); 1883 (1139); 1884 (1149); 1885 (1163); 1886 (1234); 1887 (1289); 1888 (1335); 1889 (1343); 1890 (1371); 1891 (1402); 1892 (1446); 1893 (1471); 1894 (1479); 1895 (1532); 1896 (1610); 1897 (1610); 1898 (1660).
28. The 1870 Boston City Directory records her address as still 27 Carver Street, probably erroneously. In 1872, this directory also records a Mrs. Hattie Wilson living at 5 Fayette Street (764). This is probably not Harriet E. Wilson, who by this time had moved into John Gallatin Robinson’s household in 46 Carver Street and is listed in the Banner as living there in 1872.
29. U.S. Federal Census, Ward 8, Boston, 1870. On more than one occasion, Wilson is recorded as white in the official records. There are a number of possible reasons for this. She may have been seeking to pass as white (though it must be noted that she always advertised herself as a “colored … medium” in the Banner). Her husband may not have wished it to be known he had married a nonwhite person (again unlikely, since she ran a business as a colored medium from the house they shared). The person who recorded the entry may have assumed she was white from her appearance. Or perhaps here the census taker only intervie
wed Robinson and assumed his wife must be white without asking. Finally, the bare possibility exists that a simple error or slip of the pen occurred. See also appendix 3.
30. See Massachusetts Marriages, 228: 129, Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston, Mass. See also appendix 3.
31. See “Meetings at Rochester Hall,” BL XXXVII, no. 9 (May 29, 1875): 4.
32. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Ward 16, Boston, 1880.
33. The 1900 Boston census, however, does record a Hattie Wilson living as a lodger at 15 Cortes Street. She is recorded as white, female, born in December 1850, a seamstress, born in Maine, with a father and mother both born in Maine. This record cannot simply be ignored. Though it is exceedingly unlikely that this Hattie Wilson is Harriet E. Wilson, nevertheless the coincidences stack up: Harriet E. Wilson was more than once taken to be white in official records, she had previously probably worked in a sewing job, in W_____, Massachusetts (sewing hats), and in the 1880 census she had been recorded as born in Maine with both parents also born in Maine. There is an age discrepancy of more than twenty years, but the 1880 census had recorded an age discrepancy of more than ten years. What Wilson could be doing in Cortes Street, Boston, a matter of weeks before her death in Quincy is unclear, especially as her death certificate records her as not only living in Quincy at the time of her death but also as (usually) resident in Boston, in 9 Pelham Street. The likelihood, then, is that the Hattie Wilson in Cortes Street from the 1900 census is not the same Hattie Wilson. However, the Cortes Street Wilson’s existence does remind us just how common the names “Hattie” and “Wilson” were in Massachusetts at this time.
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