{"id":4005,"date":"2018-09-30T22:35:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T02:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=4005"},"modified":"2020-10-28T10:41:38","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T14:41:38","slug":"my-dear-parents-19th-century-students-write-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/my-dear-parents-19th-century-students-write-home\/","title":{"rendered":"“My Dear Parents . . .” 19th Century Students Write Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Note: This post is an expansion of an article published in the <\/em>Williston Bulletin in 2000.\u00a0 A few of the quoted documents have appeared elsewhere in this blog.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyone pursuing the history of Williston Seminary\u2019s first four decades might assume that the task involves the study of dry, formal documents, the records of austere men shaping the serious minds of New England\u2019s youth under the benevolent gaze of a saintly founder.\u00a0 Fortunately, we have an antidote.\u00a0 At a time when telephones and email were not even a dream, students wrote long, lively, personal letters, dozens of which are preserved in the Williston Northampton Archives.\u00a0 Most we have in manuscript; a few are copies or transcriptions of documents in private hands.<\/p>\n

While much was happening in the 19th <\/sup>century world, most students\u2019 letters barely acknowledge events away from school and home.\u00a0 Their concerns were necessarily more local: classes, friends, money.\u00a0 These letters let them speak with their own voices, and provide a fascinating window into their daily lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The campus in 1845, showing Principal Wright’s house, the First Church, English (Middle) Hall, and the White Seminary. (Click images to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Their writing was hardly that of finished scholars.\u00a0 Samuel Williston once admonished that \u201cBad orthography, bad penmanship, or bad grammar\u2014 bad habits in any of the rudiments\u2014 if they be not corrected in the preparatory school, will probably be carried through College and not unlikely extend themselves to other studies and pursuits.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong> Perhaps to prove his point, we have mostly left the writers\u2019 syntax alone, making only minimal corrections.\u00a0 Indeed, as student Abner Austin wrote his family in 1856, in a sentence spectacularly devoid of any punctuation whatsoever,\u00a0 \u201cMr. Williston is not the teacher he has nothing to do with it no more than you have he is the founder of it therefore it is called the Williston Seminary.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By mid-century many New England towns were connected by rail, but in 1854 the line had not yet reached Easthampton.\u00a0 That April, Charles Carpenter wrote his father,<\/p>\n

I arrived safely at No. H. on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 On the way, met (in the cars) with a young fellow, like myself, Williston-bound.\u00a0 Had to wait in No. H. all day \u2014 crowds of students came up in the train \u2014 and several stages and teams were in readiness to convey them over.\u00a0 Ten of us got into a three seated wagon.\u00a0 It was most terrific going \u2014 mud and melted snow formed a horrible coalition \u2014 Could hardly get out of a walk, a single step.\u00a0 We suffered the greatest trouble, however, in fear that other students would get ahead of us and engage the rooms; but after two hours we arrived \u2014 \u201cput\u201d for the \u201cSem.\u201d\u00a0 The Chief Boss of the Institution, Mr. Marsh, is absent, on account of dangerous family sickness \u2014 and everything went hurly-burly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carpenter took lodging in the \u201cBrick Seminary,\u201d which later generations of students would know as Middle Hall.\u00a0 [For full text, see “The Faculty Don’t Furnish Towels.”<\/a><\/strong><\/em>]<\/p>\n

The rooms are small \u2014 have one window \u2014 one bed and bedding \u2014 a table \u2014 a desk-like shelf, for books and writing, and a small stove.\u00a0 There is a closet in the room, with hooks for clothes; a washstand and a bowl, pitcher and two pails; a looking glass and a woodbox, I believe complete the list of furniture supplied by the Institution.\u00a0 Have to pay about 2.75 each for the use of the room.\u00a0 We board at the Boarding House for $1.67 per week \u2014 then there are fuel, lights, etc. \u2014 Leavitt brought a lamp, which will be enough for us both. \u2014 I forgot my boot-brush \u2014 As I shall need that, I think you had better send it \u2014 As the \u201cFaculty\u201d don\u2019t furnish towels, wish you would put in a couple \u2014 coarsest you can get if you please; or<\/u> pretty coarse. \u2014 Slip in some matches, if you please, and the silk that Mother cut out for a pen-wiper and which I forgot.\u00a0 They ask enormously for everything here \u2014 12\u00bd for a box of 5 ct. matches \u2014 and at that rate \u2014 If there are a few of those carpet tacks left, put in a few \u2014 not particular.\u00a0 Our wood is greener than the imaginary dress of the milkmaid in the spelling book, and we have to use a good deal of paper.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Only about half the students lived on campus.\u00a0 Others lived with local families, often chopping wood or tending livestock in exchange for lodging and meals, or took rooms in boarding-houses.\u00a0 Albert Montague, whose 1842 letters are the Archives\u2019 earliest student documents, was one of the latter.\u00a0 In September of that year he described his day to his sister, Phila, in Sunderland, Mass.:<\/p>\n

There is 20 in the club [i.e., the boarding house] of which 2 of them are teachers viz. Mr. Storrs & Mr. Clapp. We do not live quite as well as I did at Amherst but it does very well to study upon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Albert Montague later in life. He managed the family farm and became a leading citizen of Sunderland. He died in 1885.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arose this morning about 20 minutes before the bell rang.\u00a0 The bell rings at 5 for the students to get up.\u00a0 Study until breakfast time which is 20 minutes before 7.\u00a0 Had griddle cakes with molasses to put on them.\u00a0 At 1\/4 before nine went into prayers.\u00a0 After prayers came into my room and studied until noon.\u00a0 At noon or about 25 minutes past 12 went to dinner.\u00a0 The rest of them had fish which smelt as strong as the fish cellars in Boston.\u00a0 I made out with wheat bread and butter.\u00a0 Recited almost all the afternoon.\u00a0 The bell rang for supper about 6.\u00a0 Had warm wheat bread and well salted butter (but no molasses) and apple pie.\u00a0 In the evening had the headache so that it troubled me a little.\u00a0 About 9 1\/4 o\u2019clock commenced writing and at 1\/4 after ten am about ready to get into bed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Montague continued,<\/p>\n

I like it here very much and wish my father was of such means so that I could stay 3 years which is the time required to fit one for college, I believe.\u00a0 There are 10 lessons recited in the forenoon each day and about the same number or perhaps a little less in the afternoon.\u00a0 3 of my lessons I recite to Mr. Kimball the best teacher I ever saw.\u00a0 He is always good natured, mild, pleasant and sociable and in fact he has numberless good traits about him and one in particular which shows a very sound mind, viz. he has just got married.\u00a0 There are about 130 scholars connected with the Seminary and nearly 40 of them are handsome misses<\/u>.\u00a0 In my grammar class there are nearly 40, chemistry class nearly 25, Astronomy class about 15 and geometry class 7.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few weeks later, Montague returned to the subject of food:<\/p>\n

We have our food provided for us at the boarding house as usual but of all the butter that was ever made I think this must be the poorest.\u00a0 The next day after we got down here we had some butter of which I eat one mouthful at a meal which was quite sufficient for me.\u00a0 Such frowzy butter as that you never tasted of and I hope you never may, for I verily believe it was some that Noah\u2019s wife put up and had left over after the Ark rested on Mount Ararat.\u00a0 We had it on the table 3 or 4 meals and all began to grow uneasy and Kingsley made a motion that we use it for boot grease.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[The complete texts of Montague’s three letters may be found at “Not Homesick in the Least.”<\/a><\/strong><\/em>]<\/p>\n

Montague mentioned the presence of young ladies at the Seminary.\u00a0 Samuel Williston had envisioned an all-male institution, but for reasons of practicality we were coeducational until 1864 . It was generally believed that a coed environment provided too many distractions.\u00a0 There may have been some truth to this, if one considers the example of Lucien Tudor Platt, who wrote a friend in September, 1863, \u201cHave got a loud old boarding place, and Ah! Ye Gods! and spirits of just men made Perfect!\u00a0 What a charming young damsel of seventeen summers boards with me.\u00a0 She is from Boston, has a face and form that a Venus might covet.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It cut both ways.\u00a0 In 1845 Urania Stoughton who, with her sister Emily, lodged with an Easthampton family, told her father,<\/p>\n

I wrote so<\/u> much with Fred standing at our door trying to make Emily come out into the hall \u2014 he brought her his coat to mend and I told him the last time he was here he shouldn\u2019t come to our room any more \u2014 if he came to see E- again, they should sit on the stairs \u2014 She told him he should come in, I told him he shouldn\u2019t, & he declared he wouldn\u2019t unless I went out and told him I must write a letter \u2014 said he had something to tell E- that he shouldn\u2019t tell me at any rate and she refusing to go into the space \u2014 I told him finally I would go down for a cent \u2014\u00a0 so he gave me a cent and I ran down here.\u00a0 Miss Brackett talks so much to us about associating with the young men, that tho\u2019 we know there is, in reality, no harm in Calvin\u2019s or Fred\u2019s coming to our room yet it might<\/u> make a great stir if it happened to be known \u2014 & I can\u2019t bear the thought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Payson Church, where Williston students were expected to attend. Prior to 1856, they attended the First Church shown in the campus image earlier in this post.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite its name, Williston Seminary was not a church-affiliated school.\u00a0 However, students were expected to participate in, if not necessarily embrace, Samuel Williston\u2019s evangelical Congregationalism.\u00a0 Some responded better than others.\u00a0 In 1856 Abner Austin wrote,<\/p>\n

This is one of the most Christian like schools I ever knew.\u00a0 They have prayer meetings once or twice a week which we have to attend.\u00a0 We are very pious when in sight of any of the teachers but as soon as we get out of sight of them we raise the very Devil.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Others were more serious.\u00a0 In 1850, Henry Nason wrote a friend,<\/p>\n

The meetings in the seminary are very well attended.\u00a0 I think there is more than ordinary interest \u2014 the number of pious students is rather small \u2014 but I hope there may be an interesting time this winter.\u00a0 That would make things go on more pleasant \u2014 and what greater blessing could we ask \u2014 it seems a long time since there was very much interest, and it seems to me that if those who profess religion would do their duty as they ought, there would be a different state of things.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1867 Frank Davol told his father that \u201cThe report is around that Dr. Seelye is going to leave his church next year.\u00a0 Lately he preaches only twenty or twenty-five minutes.\u00a0 Of course, it suits the students, but not the town folks.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong> But a year later, in January, 1868, he would write,<\/p>\n

You will be a little surprised when I tell you I think I have found my Savior\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0Dear father, with your prayers at home I will be a better boy\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0Since I have changed my life I want to see Mother very much. I want to talk, I cannot write her all the things that are in my mind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Davol had an enthusiasm for politics, as well.\u00a0 The following September, he wrote his father,<\/p>\n

We are overflowing with patriotism up here at school.\u00a0 We have formed a Grant & Colfax club and have bought a very handsome banner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Students led busy lives away from study and prayers.\u00a0 When limited opportunities for social contact forced boys and girls to be creative, activities such as weekend plant-collecting expeditions became important recreational events.\u00a0 Urania Stoughton wrote, \u201cThere was a botanizing excursion last week \u2014 Two gentlemen of the class wanted to go with E- but Mr. Russell Wright took her away with himself and Miss Stacy.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong> [See “Botanizing”<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em>] Other activities included attending lectures \u2014 Albert Montague mentions hearing Abolitionist speakers several times \u2014 and debating, interest in which surged in the 1850’s and 60’s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cyclists, 1886. Perhaps Arvine Wales is among them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whenever possible, students sought outdoor entertainment.\u00a0 Arvine Wales wrote his mother in 1887, \u201cMy bicycle is not worn out, but I have stretched out so, that the cranks are short for me. And as I don\u2019t get livery horses, I would like to see the country around here on my wheel.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 Mount Tom was a popular destination for hiking and picnics.\u00a0 In the winter, wrote Abner Austin in 1856, \u201cThere is a huge pond close by and we have great times skating.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0I have had one good sleigh-ride to North Hampton and back which cost 50 cts. apiece.\u00a0 It is glorious sleighing up here I tell you.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 Sleighing appears to have been immensely popular. It was also the only reliable means of transportation on snowy roads.\u00a0 James Flower and two friends sleighed home to Ashfield, about 20 miles from Easthampton, for Christmas in 1867:<\/p>\n

We went to the stable and engaged a team.\u00a0 The sleighing was splendid for the first ten or twelve miles, but after that the road was not trodden very much and consequently the sleighing was not so good.\u00a0 But when we had nearly reached home we found the sleighing better if anything than it was at first.\u00a0 When we were passing through Haydenville, the fellow who was driving, not being accustomed to the road and wishing to show of his superior horsemanship by running by a team, got into the wrong road and went around a meeting house, and when he got back into the road again he started back for East Hampton.\u00a0 Pretty soon we convinced him that he was on the wrong road, then he turned around and started right again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After this nothing of any interest happened until we had nearly reached home, when going up a hill as one of the boys sat near the edge of the seat we gave him a push & out he went, rolling in the snow.\u00a0 We started the horse up & ran away from him, after we had gone a little way we thought we would have compassion on him, so we stopped & let him get in.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bonfire, from the 1878 yearbook The Caldron.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But horseplay could get out of hand.\u00a0 One warm night in May 1862, Frank Moore wrote a friend,<\/p>\n

We are going out tonight to have some fun, build a great bonfire and then get out the [fire] engine.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0While I was writing the last sentence I was interrupted by 2 boys under my window ready to go to the appointed rendezvous.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0They were all there, 30 or 40 in number, and all in such perfect disguise that I did not know my most intimate friends.\u00a0 The place for the fire was some distance from the Sem. and the engine house is in the immediate vicinity of the Sem.\u00a0 We collected barrels, boxes, rails, etc. in an enormous pile and when ready started the engine.\u00a0 We dragged the engine nearly there and then some of the boys who had been at the pile at a signal, lighted it and away she blazed.\u00a0 Grandly and defiantly the flames arose and soon the hose was on, the suction down and out squirted the water.\u00a0 We were however very careful not to put much water on the fire.\u00a0 Scarcely had we begun to work when the factory bell began to ring as the watchman had been attracted by the flames.\u00a0 Instantly we took to our heels, scattering around, each for himself.\u00a0 As I was running I heard a voice crying out.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re a d–d pretty set of boys\u201d accompanied with a rawhide around some unfortunate\u2019s legs.\u00a0\u00a0 I have found out during the day that at least seven boys were caught and have been suspended from school for the present.\u00a0 The town people are terribly enraged and intend to have the boys who have been caught arrested and an action taken against them for damage.\u00a0 I have not been implicated yet but I fear I shall be every minute.\u00a0 In case I am I shall be expelled perhaps and likely engaged in a law-suit.\u00a0 This seems pretty serious especially as I was the one who proposed it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

School and town were justifiably sensitive about recreational pyromania.\u00a0 Disaster had struck the school only five years earlier.\u00a0 On March 4th<\/sup>, 1857, Henry Perry was cutting wood for his host family<\/p>\n

.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0when I heard the alarm of fire and the bells commenced ringing.\u00a0 And upon looking toward the Seminary I saw a dense cloud of black smoke coming from the L part.\u00a0 I went down as quick as possible and commenced helping the students get out their things \u2014 the seminary furniture, &c &c. It was all bustle and confusion, I tell you.\u00a0 Some throwing looking-glasses, chairs, bedsteads, &c out of the second story windows and breaking things up at a great rate and others more careful carrying them down by hand.\u00a0 Everything was got out in some shape or other, except from the attic rooms of the L part which the poorest students occupied and where the fire originated.\u00a0 There were five or six students who were out at the time the fire commenced who lost all they had in the world except what they wore at the time.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0The building burned from 4 to 7 o\u2019clock when it was level with the ground.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Perry’s letter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Abner Austin also fought the fire.<\/p>\n

The first thing I done was to holler fire and run to the engine house for the engine (the only one in town).\u00a0 Myself and another student burst the doors in with our feet and by that time there was enough there to help draw it over to the reservoir.\u00a0 I worked on it most of the time when I could get a chance but it did not do any good for the fire had got between the ceilings and we could not put it out any way.\u00a0 So we gave it up and begun to play onto the other [building] and also onto the wood pile and saved them.\u00a0 The Town Hall caught on fire & also another house close by but did not do any damage for there were men on both with pails of water ready to put it out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perry, whose optimism seems to have been matched by his sense of understatement, continued,<\/p>\n

It was largely insured, and is attended with no very great loss, but considerable inconvenience.\u00a0 Mr. Williston has today made arrangements with the brick maker for the brick to build another Seminary, which will be larger and more commodious than the last and will probably be finished for use next fall term.\u00a0 We met this morning for prayers in the vestry of the church which will be used for that purpose for the present and also the recitation room for the Senior Class.\u00a0 Our recitations will go on as before as we recite in the other Seminary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Austin’s letter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Samuel Williston\u2019s new brick building, South Hall, would provide classrooms and dormitory space for nearly a century.\u00a0 Meanwhile Austin, like many of his friends, was profoundly shaken.<\/p>\n

We go on with our school but in rather a cramped up way.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0A part of the English scholars have gone home\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0Jake says he shall go home Monday if he gets some money to pay his bills, for his books was burnt and one of mine was too.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0I think it my duty to leave school now for I am learning nothing but uglyness.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[For full texts, see “The Great Seminary Fire”<\/a><\/strong> and “Abner Austin, Fireman.”<\/a><\/strong><\/em>]<\/p>\n

Abner Austin, like most students, turned to his parents for advice.\u00a0 So did Percy Lang, whose 1881 letter suggests an enviable confidence in both his mother\u2019s judgment and in the college admission process.<\/p>\n

I wish you would answer this question conclusively now.\u00a0 If I attend college, to which shall I go?\u00a0 Yale or Princeton?\u00a0 If I go to Yale I will graduate in 3 years; if P., I will get through in 4 years as the requirements are somewhat different for entrance.\u00a0 You will save me some trouble & time in deciding immediately.\u00a0 So please do.\u00a0 Perhaps that you desire that instead of which I go to a medical college instead.\u00a0 If so, please state that.\u00a0 I have a plan and that is this: that I study medicine next year & conclude in 3 yrs. then enter the navy for a 3 yrs. cruise as surgeon at a salary of $1800 per annum.\u00a0 By so doing I will obtain a knowledge of the world that I could not in any other way get.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Arthur Richmond (r.) and friends.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parental advice, of course, frequently came unasked.\u00a0 In May, 1873 Arthur Richmond\u2019s mother admonished him,<\/p>\n

I have no objection to your spending part of your time with the boys provided they are of the right sort and you know what that is as well as I can tell you for a boy is known by the company he keeps as well as a man and you must be very careful for I am not at your side to warn you, but there is one to whom you can go for guidance at all times, but I do not think it best for you to be from home at night.\u00a0 You are safest in the house and away from temptations for you know boys at least some are always getting into scrapes and they are very glad when they can get others to join them and that is one of the reasons that I wish you always to be home at night and do not hang around the village but whatever business you have to do, do it and go home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A full year later, she was still at it:<\/p>\n

I hope you are doing your best.\u00a0 You know your failing in being easily drawn away from any thing you undertake and I am not at your elbow to remind you so you must be on your guard least you forget when you have no one to remind you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Willie Skinner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

William Skinner\u2019s father, writing in 1873, was more succinct:<\/p>\n

You are old enough to know the value of time, and time lost can never be regained.\u00a0 Avoid any lazy beard growing loafer whose father has sent him to school to get him out of sight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One can only guess how such parental concern was received.\u00a0 Abner Austin could not resist needling his father, \u201cDid those segars smoke good that you took out of my trunk?\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 But it is telling that virtually every letter includes thoughts of home. Frank Davol, who had longed for his mother’s counsel when he struggled with his faith, wrote in December, 1867,<\/p>\n

I was going to ask you if I could come home for Christmas but as we only have two days, I do not expect to come.\u00a0 You do not know how homesick I will be that day knowing that you will all have such a nice time and I so far away from home . . . This will be the first Christmas that I was ever away from home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1856, Abner Austin missed his horse: “Tell Henry to take care of Old White good for I shall want to have him look pretty nice you know for it won\u2019t look very well for a student to be riding around with an old poor horse.”<\/strong>\u00a0 And in 1842, Albert Montague\u2019s longed for the family farm:<\/p>\n

It has been a good hay day today.\u00a0 I wonder if our folks are haying.\u00a0 Wonder if they have got out the rest of the manure; wonder if Austin has took his steer, wonder if the water melons are all gone and last though not least wonder if the folks are all well\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0 I wish I had some of Mother\u2019s tea.\u00a0 I live well enough, though, and feel well, have not been homesick in the least.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Postscript:<\/em> Frank Moore\u2019s part in the bonfire never became known to local authorities.\u00a0 However, records in the Yale University Archives indicate he led a colorful career there.\u00a0 Percy Lang, or perhaps his mother, also chose Yale.\u00a0 Percy entered the banking profession rather than medicine.\u00a0 Abner Austin remained at home in North Haven, CT, where he managed the family farm.\u00a0 He eventually established successful livery stables and retail businesses in Meriden, CT.\u00a0 William C. Skinner became a leading manufacturer of silk textiles in Holyoke and South Hadley, Mass., and grew a beard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Note: This post is an expansion of an article published in the Williston Bulletin in 2000.\u00a0 A few of the quoted documents have appeared elsewhere in this blog.] Anyone pursuing the history of Williston Seminary\u2019s first four decades might assume that the task involves the study of dry, formal documents, the records of austere men … Continue reading “My Dear Parents . . .” 19th Century Students Write Home<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[96,453,25],"tags":[105,238,491,487,482,486,489,485,98,488,483,490,5,484,492],"class_list":["post-4005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-letters","category-student-life","category-williston-seminary","tag-abner-ellsworth-austin","tag-albert-montague","tag-arthur-richmond","tag-arvine-wales","tag-charles-carpenter","tag-frank-davol","tag-frank-moore","tag-henry-nason","tag-henry-t-perry","tag-james-frisbie-flower","tag-lucien-tudor-platt","tag-percy-lang","tag-samuel-williston","tag-urania-stoughton","tag-william-c-skinner"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4005"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4999,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005\/revisions\/4999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}