Representative women of New England/Annie Fields

by Mary H. Graves

ANNIE FIELDS, author, known al-so as Mrs. James T. Fields, judicious helper of the poor, is a native of Boston and a resident of that city, having a sunnner home at Manchester-by-the-Sea. Her birth occurred in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, her marriage in 1854.

Daughter of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston and Sarah May (Holland) Adams, she is of the eighth generation of the family founded by the immigrant, Henry Adams, of Braintree, who died in 1646. Her Adams line of ancestry is: Henry,¹ Joseph,² Joseph,³ Captain Ebenezer,⁴ Deacon Ebenezer,⁵ Zabdiel,⁶ Dr. Zabdiel Boylston.⁷ Deacon Ebenezer Adams, her great-grandfather, was cousin to President John Adams, the latter being son of Deacon John⁴ and his wife, Susanne Boylston, and the former son of Deacon John's brother, Captain Eben

ezor Adams, whose wife was Annie Boylston, sister to Susanna.

The wife of Joseph³ Adams and mother of Captain Ebenezer⁴ and Deacon John⁴ aforesaid was Hannah Bass, daughter of John and Ruth (Alden) Bass and grand-daughter of John Alden and his wife Priscilla. Sure enough, then, is Annie Fields, poet and friend of poets, a "Mayflower" descendant.

Mrs. Fields's maternal grandparents were Captain John and Sarah (May) Holland, the grandfather a Boston merchant and ship-owner. The grandmother was a daughter of Samuel⁵ and Abigail (Williams) May. She was sister of Joseph⁶ May, whose daughter Abigail⁷ married Amos Bronson Alcott and was the mother of Louise May Alcott; and sister to Joseph⁶ May's brother Samuel, who married Mary Goddard and was the father of Abby W. May of honored memory.

For years Mrs. James T. Fields has been one of the leading workers in the A.s.sociated Charities of Boston, in which organization she has served as vice-president and director, and as corresponding secretary of District No. 7, giving much time and energy to the study of social and economic (|uestions and the practical work of befriending the poor.

The writings of Mrs. Fields betray a cultivated mind, a wide acquaintance and loving intimacy with books and their producers, and possess a literary and personal flavor of unfailing charm. It may be noted in passing that one of the teachers by whose instructions she profited in her youth was George B. Emerson, who for a number of years kept an excellent private school in Boston. Mrs. Fields has been a contributor to the Atlantic, Harper's, the Century, and other magazines. Her first book of poems, "Under the Olive," was followed by a memoir of her husband, entitled "James T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches, with Unpublished Fragments and Tributes of Men and Women of Letters," 1881; "How to help the Poor," 1883; "Whittier: Notes of his Life and Friendships," 1893: "A Shelf of Old Books," 1894: "The Singing Shepherd, and Other Poems," 1895; "Authors and Friends," 1896; "Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe," 1897; "Hawthorne," in the Beacon Biographies, 1899; "Orpheus, a Masque," 1899.

Early in the present year, 1904, after an interim of impaired health and cessation of literary activity, appeared from the pen of Mrs. Fields a little volume on Charles Dudley Warner, in the Contemporary Men of Letters Series. What was said by a competent critic of her "Authors and Friends" may here be cited as applicable to this attractive monograph of later date:—

"It is because Mrs. Fields herself was born just early and just late enough, and through circumstance and native endowment came into the closest intimacy and sympathy with the men and women whose names shine forth most clearly in our century's record of letters, that her book has an unconunon charm and value." {{right|M. H. G.