Lydia Bartlett Allen

Lydia Bartlett (Allen) was born an identical twin to her sister Mary in Manville, RI and joined five older siblings ranging in age from 3 to 14 years. Her parents, Abner Bartlett and Drusilla Smith, one month after the birth of the twins, joined two of Abner’s brothers in a move to Danby, Vermont. The Bartlett brothers were iron workers. Abner also farmed to feed his large family and specialized in fruit trees. Drusilla was an expert at spinning and weaving and was forced to use her skills when Abner died of small pox five years after the move. Her oldest son was then 19 and took over the family farm and the younger brothers worked as iron workers with their two uncles.

In 1814 Lydia married Isaac Allen and the couple soon moved to western New York to start their married life together. They traveled through country-side devastated by the War of 1812. They took a cart full of furniture, much of it made by Isaac’s father. Lydia carried with her cuttings of herbs to plant on their new farm. Lydia Bartlett, as a young girl, had developed an extensive knowledge of herbs and medicine. She could help deliver babies, clean and sew up wounds, and even perform amputations. Upon arriving in Western New York, Lydia immediately befriended the local Seneca Indians, helping in times of need, trading and purchasing food products the Indians had grown or gathered, and learning from them their herbs and medicines. Neighboring settlers called for Lydia whenever there was a medical need. Isaac, a liberated man even by today’s standards, supported his wife in her work. Isaac considered his wife’s medical skills a “gift from God” and cared for their young children whenever Lydia was called away from home, sometimes as far as twenty miles, to give assistance. Her children remember her medical basket always at the ready by the door. Lydia later told her grown children of walking home through the woods alone late at night, her way lighted by a single candle in a “lanthorn,” a small box made of horn that protected the candle and let some light shine through. Wolves and even a panther probably followed Lydia as she trudged home after a long evening providing emergency medical assistance to a neighbor. Her rules for safe walking in difficult situations were: walk quickly and steadily, be careful to be sure of your footing, and never look back.

Many of Lydia’s brothers and sisters followed their sister west and established homes in the same community. The Bartletts brought with them their Quaker beliefs, establishing a Friends Meeting. This Quaker community joined the “Progressive Friends” and the meeting in Collins maintained the Progressive Friends ideals longer than any other.

Lydia’s interest in herbs developed naturally into a great love of flowers and gardening. Her daughter, Drusilla, became a great teacher and college professor whose first love was botany, collecting plant specimens during her world travels (South Africa and India). Many of Lydia Allen’s grandchildren and great grandchildren became noted gardeners who, when asked where they developed their great passion for flowers, would say simply, “from Lydia.”