Celia Thaxter

"American writer of poetry and stories, Celia Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1835 and grew up in the Isles of Shoals, first on White Island, where her father, Thomas Laighton, was lighthouse keeper, and then on Smuttynose and Appledore Islands. When she was sixteen, she married Levi Thaxter and moved to the mainland. Her life with Levi was not harmonious and she missed her islands, and so after 10 years away, she moved back to Appledore Island. Her first published poem, "Landlocked", was written during this time on the mainland.

Celia became the hostess of her father's hotel, the Appledore House, and welcomed many New England literary and artistic notables to the island and to her parlor, including writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Whittier, Sarah Orne Jewett, and the artist Childe Hassam, who painted several pictures of her. She was present at the time of the infamous murders on Smuttynose Island, about which she wrote. She died in 1894.

Her poems first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and she became one of America's favorite authors in the late 19th century. Among her best-known poems are The Burgomaster Gull, Landlocked, Milking, The Great White Owl, The Kingfisher, and especially The Sandpiper." - Wikipedia

A biography from the period reads: "Many people will be interested to know that they are in a great measure indebted to the late James Russell Lowell for the pleasure they have derived from reading the exquisite poems of Celia Thaxter, for it was he who discovered her genius. Mrs. Thaxter never sought admittance to the field of literature, but Mr. Lowell, while editor of the "Atlantic Monthly," happened to see some verses which she had written for her own amusement, and, without saying anything to her about it, christened them "Landlocked," and published them in the "Atlantic." Mrs. Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, N. H., June 29, 1835. When she was four years old her father, Thomas B. Laighton, took his family to the Isles of Shoals to live. The childhood of herself and two brothers was passed at White Island, where her father kept the lighthouse, which is described by her in her book, "Among the Isles of Shoals." During her later life she has continued to spend all her summers among those islands. In 1851 she was married to Levi Lincoln Thaxter, of Watertown, Mass., who died in 1884. After the publication of her first verses in the "Atlantic Monthly," she had many calls for her work, and at last, persuaded by the urgent wishes of her friends, John G. Whittier, James T. Fields and others, she issued her first volume of poems in 1871, and later the prose work "Among the Isles of Shoals." Her other books are: "Driftweed," "Poems for Children," and "Cruise of the Mystery, and Other Poems." Among the finest of her single poems may be mentioned "Courage," "Kittery Church-yard," "The Spaniards' Graves," "The Watch of Boon Island," "The Sandpiper," "A Tryst," and "The Song Sparrow." She is a most fastidious writer."

http://capecodhistory.us/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I9265&tre...