I.
MRS. ROWSON
Susanna Haswell Rowson, the author of "Charlotte Temple," was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1761. Her father was William Haswell, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and her
mother Susanna Musgrave. In 1769 she came to America with her father, who settled at Nantasket, in Massachusetts, and remained here until 1777. She wrote, nearly twenty years
afterward, in an introduction to one of her books:
[1]
"It was my fate, at a period when
memory can scarcely retain the smallest trace of
the Occurrence, to accompany my father to Boston, in New
England, where he had married a
second wife, my mother having lost her life in
giving me existence. Blessed with a genteel
competency, and placed by his rank and
education in that sphere of life where the polite
and friendly attentions of the most respectable
characters courted our acceptance, and enjoying
a constant intercourse with the families
of the officers of the British Army stationed
there, eight years of my life glided almost
imperceptibly away."
Her education was carefully supervised
during her stay in Nantasket. She is said
to have attracted the notice of James Otis,
the orator and statesman, who called her
"my little scholar," and endeavored to
inculcate in her mind his own political
sentiments, but whatever success he may
have had with the daughter did not extend to the father. She adds:
"At that time the dissensions between England
and America increased to an alarming
degree. My father bore the King's commission;
he had taken the oath of allegiance. Certain I am
that no one who considers the nature
of an oath voluntarily taken, no one who
reflects
that, previous to this period, he had served thirty years
under the British Government,
will blame him for strict adherence to principles
which were interwoven, as it were, into his existence. He did adhere to them.
The attendant consequences may readily be supposed. His
person was confined; his property confiscated.
Having been detained as a prisoner two years and
a half, part of which was spent in Hingham
and part in Abington, an exchange of prisoners taking place between the British and
American, my father and his family were sent by cartel
to Halifax, from which we embarked for England."
A few years after her return to England she began to support herself. At one time she acted as a governess in the family
of the Duchess of Devonshire. She also wrote verses, and in 1786 published a novel called "Victoria," the characters in
which she described as having been "taken from real life." To assist in its Publication, subscriptions were secured, and
several came from notable persons, including General
John Burgoyne, Mrs.
Siddons, Sir Charles Middleton, and Samuel Adams. This work,
the only one that appeared under Mrs. Rowson's maiden name, was dedicated to
the Duchess of Devonshire, who
introduced her to the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV.,
through whom was secured a pension for her father.
In the same year she was married to William Rowson, a hardware merchant, serving as trumpeter in the Royal Horse Guards. Mr. Rowson soon failed in business, in consequence, it is
said, of losses, through a partner in America. She and he, as well as her husband's sister, then decided to go on the
stage.[2]
They made, their first appearance in Edinburgh in the
winter of 1792-3, and afterward acted in" several other British towns.
Meanwhile
she continued to write books. "Victoria" was followed by a story called "Mary; or, The Test of Honor," and then came in succession "The Inquisitor; or, Invisible Rambler," a work in
three volumes, modeled on Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," 1788 (republished in Philadelphia in 1794); "Poems on Various Subjects," 1788; "A Trip to Parnassus"; "A Critique on Authors
and Performers"; "Mentoria," being views on education, 1791; "Charlotte; a Tale of Truth" (such was the original title of "Charlotte Temple," the "Temple" being omitted), two volumes,
1790, which within a few years reached a sale of twenty-five thousand copies; and "Rebecca.; or, the Fille de Chambre," an autobiographical novel, 1792, of which a revised edition was
published in this country in 1814.
In 1793 Mr. and Mrs. Rowson entered into a contract to come to
America and act in the Chestnut Street Theater in
Philadelphia. When they arrived yellow fever
was prevalent in that city, and the company
for a time acted in Annapolis instead. For
three years Mrs. Rowson continued her life
here as an actress, appearing mainly in
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston. Coming
to New York, she viewed the grave of the
unfortunate Charlotte, and went to the house
in which she died. Among the characters
which she represented on the stage were
Lady Sneerwell in "The School for
Scandal," an Dame Quickley in "The Merry
Wives Windsor." She wrote several play,
among them "A Female Patriot," 1794
"Slaves in Algiers," 1794;
"Americans in England" and "The
Volunteers," 1793 The latter was a farce
founded on the whisky insurrection in
western Pennsylvania.
In 1794 appeared the first American
edition of "Charlotte Temple," which was
still called "Charlotte." William Cobb (the
once famous "Peter Porcupine" printed a
rather brutal attack upon her
writings at this time, entitled "A Kick for a
Bite," in which he indelicately said that in
"Slaves in Algiers" she "had expressed
sentiments foreign to her heart." She replied
in an introduction to her next book, "Trials of
the Human Heart," described on the title-page
as "by Mrs. Rowson of the New Theatre."
"The literary world is infested," said she,
"with a kind of loathsome reptile," and then
added that "one of them lately crawled over
the volumes which I have had the temerity to
submit to the public eye." "Trials of the
Human Heart," in four volumes, 1795,
was her most ambitious literary undertaking,
but it had only a moderate success. Prominent
persons, including Martha Washington and
Benjamin Franklin, were among the
subscribers for it. It was followed in
Baltimore in the same year by "The Standard
of Liberty," being a patriotic address to the
armies of the United States.
Abandoning the stage in 1796, her last
appearance being made in Boston, Mrs. Rowson
settled in Massachusetts. She taught for a time in
Medford and Newton, and finally went to
Boston, where for the remainder of her life she
maintained school in which were educated the
children of many cultured families. Her
experience as a teacher embraced twenty-, five
years. During this period she edited (1802-5) the
Boston Weekly Magazine wrote for
several other periodicals, an published the
following books: "Reuben and Rachel; or, Tales
of Old Times," 1798; "Miscellaneous Poems," in
which appeared original verse, including a song, "
America, Commerce, and Freedom,"' that
enjoyed wide popularity, besides translations
from Homer and Virgil, 1804; "A System of
Geography," 1806; "A Spelling Dictionary," 1807;
"Sarah, the Exemplary Wife," 1813; "A Present for
Young Ladies," being a compilation of poems,
recitations, and dialogs, 1811; Exercises in
History," 1822; and, finally,
"Biblical Dialogues Between a Father and His
Family," 1822; this being her last work, except a
posthumous one, entitled "Lucy Temple,
Charlotte's Daughter," a sequel to "Charlotte
Temple," but much inferior to it. "Lucy Temple"
contained a brief memoir of Mrs. Rowson by
Samuel L. Knapp. Many of these books were
published through subscriptions obtained in
advance, and the names of the subscribers were
printed at the end of each book.
Mrs. Rowson died in Boston, November 2, 1824,
and was buried in the family vault of her friend,
Gotlieb Graupner, in St. Michael's Church, South
Boston. A granite monument to her memory was
in recent years set up in a family lot in Forest Hill
Cemetery, Roxbury, by her grandnieces and
nephew, Mary and Haswell C. Clark, and Mrs.
Samuel Osgood, born Ellen Haswell Murdock,
the mother of Mabel Osgood Wright, who
designed the stone. Her body was not removed
to this lot, however, inasmuch as
identification of it after removal from St.
Michael's Church had become impossible
through the loss of a coffin plate. In 1859 the
Rev. Elias Nason read a paper on Mrs.
Rowson's life and work before the New
England Historical and Genealogical
Society, and in 1870 published in Albany a
more extended memoir in book form, with a
portrait.