Weber to introduce it, and the Women's Residence of the South End to house it, the first lace industry in this country was begun February 18, 1901, with one pupil. Miss Elizabeth Feely. Her progress was watched with interest, and in the first week was begun a simple, narrow insertion of English thread lace, that was salable at sixty cents a yard. Other girls came, but either they were not adapted or circumstances took them away. In six weeks, however, another lace-maker had conie to stay, Miss Alice Riorden; and these two girls for many months carried on "the industry." Their progress was encouraging. They began at once with the very fine thread, and learned first to make the beautiful lace known as the English thread. Then they were taught to make separate figures and to ornament them with delicate fillings peculiar to old Honiton. Small things were turned out—at first, tie ends, doilies, little collars. Then orders came for more pretentious articles. The girls learned to clean laces in the European manner. Rare things came to Mrs. Weber to be restored, from Portsmouth, N.H., Fitchhurg, from St. Louis even. New girls joined the industry, and it began to pay its own way. Since the first six months of its existence there has not been a day when there were not orders ahead to be filled. At present six lace-makers are busy all the time, and several outside the shops are filling orders for special varieties that can be made at home.
So much has been accomplished by one New England woman in the face of great difficulties. American girls, absolutely untrained, have in one year been taught to make the finest laces, equal, it is claimed, to any produced in the world at the present day by workers whose families have been lace-makers for generations.
HELEN COFFIN BEEDY was born in Harrington, Washington County,
Me., November 9, 1840, the daughter of John B. and Ruby (Strout)
Coffin. Her maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Joanna (Roberts) Strout, were pioneer settlers of Harrington. Benjamin Strout was a man greatly respected for his sterling integrity. He traced his descent from a long line of English ancestors. His wife Joanna, a native of Portland, Me., was a famous housekeeper. Her receipts and her instructions, her children say, have never been improved upon by the inventions of modern domestic science. She was also much given to works of charity.
Mrs. Beedy's father, John B. Coffin, by occupation a ship-builder, was one of the leading citizens of Harrington in his day. He used to .solemnize marriage, and he often represented the town in the State Legislature. In politics he was a Democrat. Both Mr. and Mrs. Coffin were members of the Baptist church. Many of his ancestors and their kindred were Quakers or Friends, and Mrs. Beedy is proud to be allied to Lucretia Mott and the Rev. Phœbe Hanaford. The Coffin lineage in America extends back to Tristram Coffin, who came to New England in 1642, and died in Nantucket in 1681.
Mrs. Beedy's mother. Ruby Strout Coffin, was from early girlhood highly religious. Her diary gives a record of her many interest- ing experiences as a teacher, which profession she adopted at the early age of .seventeen. She describes her long journeys on horseback through the woods to her school. After her marriage Mrs. Coffin became the first president of the Martha Washington Society at Harrington, and in one of her addresses, the paper of which is now yellowed with time, we find she advocated the founding of a village library—advocated it so pertinently that it was soon in operation, being housed for some years in the homes of the members, who alternately assumed the obligation.
Mrs. Beedy's early training was of the best. Her mother's religious teaching took deep root in her heart, and her father's counsels were for her practical good. He frequently .Slid: "Helen, you have neither beauty nor wealth. If you accomplish anything in the world, you must work for it." And work she did. By her grandmother Strout, with whom she went to live at the age of nine, after her mother's death, she was taught skilled housekeeping. Being a vigorous child, she kept constantly at school in her native
