Sara Payson Parton

Sara Payson (Willis) Parton (1811 - 1872)

Sara Payson "Fanny Fern" Parton formerly Willis aka Eldredge, Farrington
Born 9 Jul 1811 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, United States

ANCESTORS

Daughter of Nathaniel Willis Jnr and Hannah (Parker) Willis
Sister of Nathaniel Parker Willis and Richard Storrs Willis
Wife of Charles Harrington Eldredge — married 28 Mar 1837 (to 6 Oct 1846) in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Wife of Samuel Putnam Farrington — married 30 Dec 1848 (to 7 Sep 1853) in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Wife of James Parton — married 5 Jan 1856 (to 10 Oct 1872) in United States

DESCENDANTS

Mother of Mary Stace Eldredge, Grace Harrington (Eldredge) Thomson and Ellen Willis (Eldredge) Parton
Died 10 Oct 1872 at age 61 in Manhattan, New York, United Statesmap

Biography

• American novelist, children's writer, humorist, and newspaper columnist, known by the pen name "Fanny Fern".
• Notables Project
• Sara (Willis) Parton is Notable.
• Fern's popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers.
• Was the first woman to have a regular column in an American newspaper.
• Was the highest-paid columnist in the United States.
• Is credited with coining the phrase, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"

Life Events
Sara Payson Willis was born July 9, 1811, in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, United States, the daughter of newspaper owner Nathaniel Willis and his wife Hannah Parker. At the time of her birth, she had four older siblings.[1]

Sara Payson Willis aka Fanny Fern is described as being: "A large, argumentative brunette with a florid complexion, an aquiline nose, and sharp blue eyes...She made up in self-assurance for what she lacked in beauty." In this portrait, Fanny's dress has a button front, sporting large light-coloured (possibly white, yellow, or cream) buttons, a tightly gathered skirt, and a broad zig-zag stripe down the drop-shoulder sleeve. Fanny is leaning on her right arm, atop a pile of books that are placed on some kind of pedestal, and is clasping her left hand in the right. Her hair is severely parted down the centre, and smoothed across her head to where there are bunches of tight, ringlet-like curls that cascade down the sides of her head to just above her shoulders. She is wearing a ribbon around her neck, tied in a bow at the front – although this might be actually attached to the dress bodice. This looks as though it were a brightly coloured gown, but it is impossible to know from this black-and-white image.
Sara married firstly Charles Harrington Eldredge March 28, 1837, in Boston, Massachusetts.[2]
Sara and Charles were to have three children, all daughters. Sadly, the eldest did not to live to adulthood, dying at age 7 of what was termed "brain fever", and only a short while before Charles also died, of typhoid fever. Her second child was also not to have a long life, dying of scarlet fever aged just 21 years, not long after giving birth to Sara's first grandchild (who was later adopted by Sara).

• Mary Stace (1838–1845)
• Grace Harrington (1841–1862 (Thomson))
• Ellen Willis (1844–1922 (Parton))

Charles having died in 1846, leaving Sara and the children near destitute, she – after having tried to make a living by her writing– was eventually persuaded by her father to take another husband. As a result, Sara married secondly merchant Samuel P. Farrington 30 December 1848, in Boston.[3] The marriage was not to last, however, due mostly to Samuel's intense jealousy, with Sara leaving him in 1851, and the marriage finally ending in divorce in September 1853.

A woman — stated as Mrs. Adolphus Smith (clearly the "blue stocking") — sits at a table, writing something on a writing desk with a quill pen. A man stands over her on one side (“Wife! will you leave off scribbling?” ("Don’t be disagreeable, Smith, I’m just getting inspired")), and a woman is standing to the other side.
The Blue Stocking.
(An illustration from
"Fern Leaves".) -See this illustration in profile media
Although she had penned articles for her father's Christian newspapers earlier in her life, it was now, after her divorce, that she put serious work into writing. Her first attempts to be published by her brother were turned down by him as being of little interest outside Boston, however he was proven wrong when her work was taken up by publishers in New York and elsewhere. Her first book, Fern Leaves, published in 1853, was a best seller.

On January 5, 1856 Sara married thirdly biographer James Parton, who had previously been employed by her brother, Nathaniel — and had been fired by him for publishing Sara's work after refusing orders to cease doing so. The wedding was noted in the newspapers of the day.[4] [5]
After Sara's daughter Grace died of scarlet fever in 1862, and her husband (Mortimer Neal “Doesticks” Thomson) died in 1875, Sara and James informally adopted Grace's daughter: Grace Ethel "Ethel" Thompson, who later took the last name Parton (and was also an author of note).

Sara Payson Parton née Willis, also Eldredge, and Farrington, passed away October 10, 1872, in Manhattan, New York, United States, and was buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[6]
Obituaries ran in newspapers across the globe, even in so far-flung a place as The Dundee Courier And Argus, in Forfarshire, Scotland.[7]

In her Will, wherein she named her husband, James Parton, and Robert Bonner, editor and her "esteemed and faithful friend", as Executors, Sara aka Fanny, left her estate divided equally between her daughter Ellen, and her granddaughter Grace Ethel Thomson. There were provisions made for the case that either, or both, should predecease her, or that either should predecease the other, or that Grace Ethel should die before reaching her majority. In the case of both named heirs predeceasing Sara, she bequeathed her estate to those of her brothers and sisters who survived her.[8]

A small house sits nestled in the woods, beneath a number of over-hanging trees, and behind a rustic split-log fence.
The Little Brown House.(An illustration from"Fern Leaves".) See this illustration in profile media
A strange-looking man with straggly hair is standing on a street, holding the string of a small wooden horse on wheels, and surrounded by boys who appear to be mocking, or taunting him. Tim wasn't always the crazy figure now seen. He became this way after finding his beloved daughter, Kitty, had been run down by a train when she had stopped to pick up her spilt huckleberries. Ever since that day Uncle Tim goes up and down through the road pulling the little wooden horse that Kitty used to play with, in the hope that he will find her.
Crazy Tim.
(An illustration from
"Little Ferns For Fanny's
Little Friends".) See this illustration in profile media
✦ Fanny Fern books available on Gutenberg :
✦ Fern Leaves (1854)
✦ Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends (1854)
✦ Ruth Hall (1855)
✦ Rose Clark (1856)
✦ Fresh Leaves (1857)
✦ Folly As It Flies (1868)
✦ Ginger-Snaps (1870)
✦ Caper-Sauce (1872)
✦ Other images by Fred. M. Coffin, published in Fern Leaves, and Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends, can be seen on Fanny Fern's Fern Leaves.

Research Notes
Before her death, Sara's daughter, Ellen Eldredge, lived with Sara, her husband James Parton, and her orphaned granddaughter, Grace Ethel Thomson. After her death the two girls moved to Newburyport, where James would come to visit. Finally, James left New York, moved to Newburyport, and he and Ellen Eldredge were married, becoming parents to her niece/his granddaughter-by-marriage. Eventually Grace Ethel (known as Ethel) changed her last name to Parton, which was the name under which she wrote. Ellen and James were to have two children (Mabel, and Hugo), so Ethel grew up with foster/adoptive siblings, something she had not known before.

Sources

1. ↑ Birth Certificate — Maine Birth Records, 1715-1922, Maine State Archives; Cultural Building, 84 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0084; Pre 1892 Delayed Returns; Roll Number: 104. Name: Sarah P Willis; Gender: Female; Birth Date: 9 Jul 1811; Birth Place: Portland, Cumberland, Maine, USA; Father: Nathaniel Willis; Mother: Hannah Willis
2. ↑ First Marriage — Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook). Name: Sarah P Willis; Event Type: Marriage; Marriage Date: 28 Mar 1837; Marriage Place: Boston, Massachusetts; Spouse Name: Charles H Eldredge
3. ↑ Second Marriage — Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook). Name: Sarah P Eldredge; Event Type: Marriage; Marriage Date: 30 Dec 1848; Marriage Place: Boston, Massachusetts; Spouse Name: Samuel P Farrington
4. ↑ Third Marriage; Newspaper Announcement — Newspapers and Periodicals. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Name: Mrs Sarah Payson Eldredge; Event: Marriage; Marriage Date: 5 Jan 1856; Marriage Place: New York; Spouse: James Parton; Newspaper: New York Evening Post; Publication Date: 11 Jan 1856; Publication Place: New York, USA; Call Number: 485767
5. ↑ Third Marriage; Newspaper Announcement — Publication Date: 9/ Jan/ 1856; Publication Place: Baltimore, Maryland, USA; URL: newspapers.com. Name: Mrs. Fanny Fern; Gender: Female; Marriage Date: May 1856; Spouse: James Parton
6. ↑ Burial — Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 16 April 2021), memorial page for Fanny Fern (9 Jul 1811–10 Oct 1872), Find A Grave: Memorial #37440541, citing Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave.
7. ↑ Obituary— "British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q26M-RZKR : 26 October 2019), Mrs Sarah Payson or Fanny Fern Willis Parton, 24 Oct 1872; citing Obituary, Dundee, Forfarshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, page , Records extracted by FindMyPast and images digitized by FamilySearch. The British Library, London; FHL microfilm 102,001,196.
8. ↑ Will and Probate — New York County, District and Probate Courts. Record of Wills, 1665-1916; Index to Wills, 1662-1923 (New York County); Author: New York. Surrogate's Court (New York County); Probate Place: New York, New York. Name: Sara P Parton; Probate Date: 21 Oct 1872; Probate Place: New York, New York, USA; Inferred Death Year: Abt 1872; Inferred Death Place: New York, USA; Item Description: Wills, Vol 0212-0213, 1872-1873

• Obituary — The Fort Scott Weekly Tribune; Publication Date: 23 Jun 1892; Publication Place: Fort Scott, Kansas, United States of America

See also:

Wikipedia : Fanny Fern
Wikidata: Item Q3066458, en:Wikipedia help.gif

• Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Fern

Fanny Fern, born Sara Payson Willis (July 9, 1811 – October 10, 1872), was an American writer who was the first woman to have a regular newspaper column. She was also a humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories in the 1850s-1870s. Fern's great popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers. By 1855, Fern commanded $100 per week for her New York Ledger column and was the highest-paid columnist in the United States.[1]

A collection of her columns published in 1853 sold 70,000 copies in its first year. Her best-known work, the fictional autobiography Ruth Hall (1854), has become a favorite of feminist literary scholars.

Early life

Sarah Payson Willis was born in Portland, Maine, to newspaper owner Nathaniel Willis and Hannah Parker; she was the fifth of eight children. Her older brother Nathaniel Parker Willis became a notable journalist and magazine owner.[2] Her younger brother Richard Storrs Willis became a musician and music journalist, known for writing the melody for "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear".[3] Her other siblings were Lucy Douglas (born 1804), Louisa Harris (1807), Julia Dean (1809), Mary Perry (1813), Edward Payson (1816), and Ellen Holmes (1821).[4]

Inspired by Reverend Edward Payson of Portland's Second Congregational Church, her father intended to name his fifth child after the minister. When the child was born a girl, he named her after Payson's mother, Grata Payson. The reverend urged the Willises to reconsider, noting that his mother had never liked the name.[4] Willis' surname was to change often in her life, throughout three marriages and the adoption of her chosen pen name "Fanny Fern". She decided on the pen name because it reminded her of childhood memories of her mother's picking ferns. Feeling that this chosen name was a better fit, she used it also in her personal life; eventually most of her friends and family called her "Fanny."[5]

Willis attended Catharine Beecher's boarding school in Hartford, Connecticut. Beecher later described her as one of her "worst-behaved girls" (adding that she also "loved her the best".) Here the girl had her first taste of literary success when her compositions were published in the local newspaper.[6] She also attended the Saugus Female Seminary [1]. After returning home, Willis wrote and edited articles for her father's Christian newspapers, The Puritan Recorder[7] and The Youth's Companion.

Marriages and career

Children

In 1837 she married Charles Harrington Eldredge, a banker,[8], and they had three daughters: Mary Stace (1838), Grace Harrington (1841), and Ellen Willis (1844). Her mother and younger sister Ellen both died early in 1844; in 1845 her eldest daughter Mary died of brain fever (meningitis); soon afterward, her husband Charles succumbed to typhoid fever.[2] Willis was left nearly destitute. With little help from either her father or her in-laws – and none from her brother N.P. Willis – she struggled to make ends meet for her surviving young daughters. Her father persuaded her to remarry.

Writing in earnest

In 1849 the young widow married Samuel P. Farrington, a merchant.[8] The marriage was a mistake. Farrington was so intensely jealous that in 1851 Willis left him, scandalizing her family[7], and they divorced two years later.[8]

Willis published her first article, "The Governess", in November 1851 in the new Boston newspaper Olive Branch, followed by some short satirical pieces there and in True Flag; soon after she regularly began using Fanny Fern for all her articles.[9][7] In 1852, on her own with two daughters to support, she began writing in earnest. She sent samples of her work under her own name to her brother Nathaniel, by then a magazine owner, but he refused them and said her writing was not marketable outside Boston. He was proved wrong, as newspapers and periodicals in New York and elsewhere began printing Fanny Fern's "witty and irreverent columns".[10]

In the summer of 1852, Fern was hired by the publisher Oliver Dyer at twice her salary to publish a regular column exclusively in his New York newspaper Musical World and Times, becoming the first woman to do so. The next year, Dyer helped her find a publisher for her first two books: Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio (1853), a selection of her more sentimental columns, and Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends (1853), a children's book. She had to reveal her legal name to the publishers, which then was still Farrington and disagreeable to her. She tried to keep her name secret.[11] The former book sold 70,000 copies in its first year,[12] "a phenomenal figure for the time."[13]

Highest-paid columnist

James Parton, a biographer and historian who edited Home Journal, the magazine owned by Fern's brother Nathaniel (known as N.P. Willis), was impressed by Fern's work. He published her columns and invited the author to New York City. When her brother discovered this, he forbade Parton from publishing any more of Fern's work. Instead Parton resigned as editor of the magazine in protest.[10]

Fern's first book, Fern Leaves (1853), was a best seller. It sold 46,000 copies in the first four months, and over 70,000 copies the first year. She received ten cents a copy in royalties, enough for her to buy a house in Brooklyn and live comfortably. Three years into her career, in 1855 she was earning $100 a week for her column in the New York Ledger, making her the highest-paid columnist in the United States.[14] Her first regular column appeared on January 5, 1856, and would run weekly, without exception, until October 12, 1872, when the last edition was printed two days after her death.[15]

Fern wrote two novels. Her first, Ruth Hall (1854), was based on her life - the years of happiness with Eldredge, the poverty she endured after he died and lack of help from male relatives, and her struggle to achieve financial independence as a journalist. Most of the characters are thinly veiled versions of people in her world, and she took revenge by her unflattering portrayals of several who had treated her uncharitably when she most needed help, including her father, her in-laws, her brother N.P. Willis, and two newspaper editors. When Fern's identity was revealed shortly after the novel's publication, some critics believed it scandalous that she had attacked her own relatives, and decried her lack of filial piety and her want of "womanly gentleness" in such characterizations.[16] At the same time, the book garnered positive attention as well. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had earlier complained about the "damned mob of scribbling women", wrote to his publisher in early 1855 in praise of the book. He said he "enjoyed it a great deal. The woman writes as if the devil was in her, and that is the only condition in which a woman ever writes anything worth reading."[17]

Wounded by the criticism and ambivalent about the wide publicity she stirred up, Fern tried to reduce the autobiographical elements in her second novel, Rose Clark. But while it features a conventionally sweet and gentle heroine, a secondary character makes a poor marriage of convenience, an act which Fern had regretted in her own life.

Fern's writing continued to attract attention. In her Ledger column of May 10, 1856, she defended the poet Walt Whitman in a favorable review of his controversial book Leaves of Grass.[18] She noted Whitman's fearless individualism and self-reliance, as well as his honest and "undraped" portrayal of sex and the human body.[19] Criticized for her admiration, she continued to champion literature that was ahead of its time.[10] It has been suggested that Whitman imitated her Fern Leaves in his choice of cover art for the first edition.[5]

Late marriage

Sara Willis and James Parton were married in 1856 when she was 45 and well established.[8] She and her husband lived in New York City with Ellen, one of her two surviving daughters. They also raised Ethel, her granddaughter and orphan of Grace, who died in 1862.[20]

Later years

In 1859, Fern bought a brownstone in Manhattan at what is now 303 East Eighteenth Street near Second Avenue; she and Parton lived in this house for the next 13 years until her death.[21] Fern continued as a regular columnist for the Ledger for the remainder of her life. She was a suffrage supporter, and in 1868 she co-founded Sorosis, New York City's pioneer club for women writers and artists, formed after women were excluded from hearing the author Charles Dickens at the all-male New York Press Club dinner in his honor.

Fern dealt with cancer for six years and died October 10, 1872.[2] She is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts next to her first husband. Her gravestone was inscribed simply "Fanny Fern." After her death, her widower James Parton published Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume (1874).[10]

Published worksOverall, Fanny Fern produced two novels, a novella[22], six collections of columns, and three books for children.[2]

Column collections

Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio (1853)
Fern Leaves, second series (1854)
Leaves (1857)
Folly As It Flies 1868)
Ginger-Snaps (1870)
Caper-Sauce (1872)

---Novels

• Ruth Hall (1854), autobiographical; this is her most well-known work to modern readers. Fanny Ford (1855), serialized in the Ledger beginning June 9, 1855.[23]
• Rose Clark (1856)

Childrens' books

* Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends (1853)

• The Play-Day Book (1857)
• The New Story Book for Children (1864)[2]

Literary criticism

Fern was extremely successful in her lifetime as a columnist. She was said to fit her material and subject matter to the audience. Many readers of weekly literary papers were women, and Fern addressed them in a conversational style, often using interjections and exclamation points, while tackling topics that concerned the daily life of ordinary women. Her readers were wives and mothers who worried about their children, current fashions, difficult husbands, and aggravating relatives. Sometimes they felt oppressed, depressed, or stressed. Fern expressed their problems in plain language, addressing women's suffrage, the woman's right to her children in a divorce, unfaithful husbands, social customs that restricted women's freedom, and sometimes just having a bad day.[2]

Critics of "women's literature" considered some of these strengths to be weaknesses. They attacked her conversational style as unprofessional, feminine, and too spontaneous. Many male critics labeled her as "sentimental." This has led to counter-criticism about what exactly "sentimental" writing is, and why it is considered bad. The criticism showed women's lower status in society almost as well as Fern did in her work—who decides the standards by which literature is judged, and who does the judging? [2] Nathaniel Hawthorne praised her as an exception to the "damned mob of scribbling women", who wrote "as if the devil was in her".[24] Fern was straightforward when she wrote of subjects such as men's economic and social victimization of women.[18]

Legacy

Fanny Fern is credited with coining the phrase, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach".[25] Henry D. Butler dedicated his 1858 book The Family Aquarium to "the gifted litterateuse whose nom de plume is 'Fanny Fern'"[26] Fern's granddaughter Ethel Willis Parton became a correspondent for the periodical The Youth's Companion (founded by her great-grandfather, Nathaniel Willis).[20] Fern satirized her social-climbing brother N.P. Willis as "Apollo Hyacinth" in an article.[5] Susan Stoderl wrote an opera about Fern titled A.F.R.A.I.D. (American Females for Righteousness Abasement Ignorance & Docillity), which premiered as the inaugural show of the Brooklyn Repertory Opera, at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2005.[2]

Further reading

Nancy A. Walker, Fanny Fern (1993)

Author. Sara Payson Willis was born the fifth of eight children; her siblings included future author Nathaniel Parker Willis. She married her first husband, Charles H. Eldredge, in 1837, though he and their eldest of three daughters died. She remarried in 1849 to Samuel Farrington though she left him two years later, igniting a minor scandal. Her financial difficulties led to her writing using the pseudonym "Fanny Fern." By the 1850s, working for a New York newspaper, she was the first woman granted a regular newspaper column; her popularity allowed her to become one of the highest-paid magazine writers of her day. She also issued several books to great success including "Fern Leaves" in 1853. Her major work was "Ruth Hall" (1854), a thinly-veiled autobiographical novel which also lampooned her brother N. P. Willis, by then a highly-successful writer, and his refusal to provide financial or literary assistance to a struggling sister. Fern married James Parton, a former employee of her brother, in 1856. The couple moved from New York City to Manhattan. In her later years, Fern spoke out about social reform and women's rights, specifically women's suffrage.

Sarah Willis Parton 1811 - 1872

Biography

Sarah Willis Parton, also known as Fanny Fern, began her notable life in Portland, Maine on July 9, 1811. She was christened Grata Payson in the honor of the mother of her parents’ minister. But, her first name was later changed to Sarah. Fanny Fern, one of nine children, was educated at the ladies seminary of Catherine Beecher.

Sarah was very happily married to Charles Eldredge in 1837. She bore three children, but only two survived. She and her husband divorced in 1846, and later he died of typhoid fever. To make a living to support her two daughters, she started writing.

She found herself with no financial help and not capable to make a living. So, to fix this problem, she married Samuel P. Farrington in 1849. She married him because her father wanted her to. But, they split up three years later. Again, she was unable to make a living, so she was forced to give her daughter, Grace, to her former in-laws.

She got the attention of publisher James C. Derby from Auburn, NY. In 1853, he published her writings as Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-Folio. It became an instant success in America and England. In 1854, a second series of Fern Leaves was published as well as Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends, which was a book for children. The three books together sold 132,000 copies in the US and 48,000 in other countries.

In 1855, Robert Bonner put her on the New York Ledger as a weekly columnist at the astonishing pay of $100 per week. Back then, this was simply outstanding. She had a readership of nearly 500,000 and became one of America’s first woman weekly writers. Here she would work for the rest of her life, and never missed an issue.

During the same year, her autobiographical book, Ruth Hall, was published. This caused an outrage. This was a thinly-veiled autobiography. People noticed themselves in it, and were very mad at her for putting unpleasant descriptions of them. The editor was so mad, in fact, that he gave away Fanny fern’s real name.

Her pieces were chatty, spicy, witty, and impudent, but they were sympathetic towards domestic problems in a way that women understood. Over the next fifteen years, a series of her writings from The Ledger were published in seven different books, and two were for kids.

A second novel, Rose Clark, was not as well received in 1856. Because of this, she married biographer James Parton.

Sarah was a voiced feminist, continuously writing in defense of women's rights. She believed that women were as intelligent and capable as men were. She also argued that women should be allowed to follow any career they want. She wrote about birth control, divorce, education for women, sexism in religion and marriage, and women's scarcity. Sarah’s writing was regularly very humorous, and her entertaining disapprovals of sexist men drew much notice. Most of her ideas were ahead of her time, and most people disagreed with her, but she was still very popular. Some readers would even crowd outside the offices of the Ledger every week when her column came out, trying to be the first to see what she had written!

In 1868, she and Jane Croly, formed Sorosis, one of the first women's clubs in America. But, at the age of 61, she was diagnosed with cancer, and after six years of fighting, she died in New York City in 1872. Her body was taken to Cambridge, Massachusetts where she was buried in Mount Auburn cemetery.

        After she died, her writings were widely reprinted. Many of her ten books of essays were bestsellers in the United States and Britain. She was widely respected for all her writings and she put a very big impact on the women community today! 

Fanny Fern (July 9, 1811 – October 10, 1872) was the pseudonym of Sara Willis Parton. She was a popular American columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories in the 1850s-1870s. Her immense popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and the immediacy of her topics to her mostly middle-class female audience. In 1852, she became the first female writer with her own regular column; by 1855, she commanded $100 per week for her New York Ledger column and was the highest-paid newspaper writer in the United States.[1]

Her best-known work, the fictionalized autobiography Ruth Hall (1854), has become a favorite with feminist literary scholars.

Sarah Payson Willis was born in Portland, Maine, to newspaper-owner Nathaniel Willis and Hannah Parker; she was the fifth of eight siblings, including journalist Nathaniel Parker Willis.[2] Another brother, Richard Storrs Willis, became a musician and music journalist known for writing the melody for "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear".[3] Her other siblings were Lucy Douglas (born 1804), Louisa Harris (1807), Julia Dean (1809), Mary Perry (1813), Edward Payson (1816), and Ellen Holmes (1821).[4]

Her father had recently become very religious after being inspired by Reverend Edward Payson of Portland's Second Congregational Church and intended to name his fifth child after him. When his fifth child turned out to be a girl, he instead decided to name her after Payson's mother, Grata Payson, though the Reverend urged the Willises to reconsider, noting that his mother never liked the name.[4] Her name was to change often in her life throughout three marriages and with the adoption of her chosen pen name "Fanny Fern". She decided on the name because it reminded her of childhood memories of her mother picking fern leaves. She felt that this name was a better fit for her, and used it even in her personal life; eventually, most of her friends and family called her "Fanny." [5]

Fern attended Catharine Beecher's boarding school in Hartford, Connecticut; here, although Beecher later described her as one of her "worst-behaved girls" (adding that she also "loved her the best"), she got her first taste of literary success when her compositions were published in the local newspaper.[6] She was also sent to the Saugus Female Seminary [1]. She then returned to her parents' home, where she wrote and edited articles for her father's Christian newspapers, The Puritan Recorder [7] and The Youth's Companion.

Fern married Charles Harrington Eldredge, a banker, in 1837,[8] and they had three daughters: Mary Stace (1838), Grace Harrington (1841), and Ellen Willis (1844). After seven happy years, tragedy struck: Fern's mother and younger sister Ellen died early in 1844; then, in 1845, her eldest daughter Mary died of brain fever; soon afterward, her husband Charles succumbed to typhoid fever. [2] Fern was left nearly destitute. With little help from either her father or her in-laws – and none at all from her brother Nathaniel – she and her two remaining daughters struggled to make ends meet. Her father persuaded her to remarry and she soon followed his suggestion.

Fern married Samuel P. Farrington, a merchant, in 1849.[8] The marriage was a mistake; unable to cope with her new husband's intense jealousy, she scandalized her family by leaving him in 1851.[7] and they were divorced two years later.[8]

Fern first published a few short satirical works in the Boston newspapers Olive Branch and True Flag. [7] In 1852, again on her own with two daughters to support, Fern began her writing career in earnest. She sent some samples of her work using her real name to her brother, Nathaniel Willis, who rudely refused them and said that her writing was not marketable outside Boston. Her brother was proved wrong, as newspapers and periodicals in New York and elsewhere began printing the "witty and irreverent columns". [9] She began writing a regular column in the New York newspaper Musical World and Times that year, becoming the first woman to write her own regular column; the next year, 1853, she published both Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, a selection of her more sentimental columns, and Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends, a children's book. The former sold 70,000 copies in its first year.[1
James Parton a biographer and historian, who was editing the magazine Home Journal, owned by Fern's brother Nathaniel Parker Willis, was impressed by Fern's work. He not only printed her columns but invited the author to come to New York City. When Nathaniel Willis discovered this he forbade Parton from printing any more of her work. Parton refused to obey the request and promptly resigned as editor of the magazine.[9]

Fern's first book, Fern Leaves (1853), was a best seller. It sold 46,000 copies in the first four months, and over 70,000 copies the first year. She received ten cents a copy in royalties, enough for her to buy a house in Brooklyn, New York, and live comfortably. Just three years into her career, in 1855, she was earning $100 a week for her column in the New York Ledger, making her the highest paid columnist in the United States.[11] Her first regular column appeared on January 5, 1856, and would run weekly, without exception, until October 12, 1872, when her last edition was printed two days after her death.[12]

Fern also wrote two novels. Her first, Ruth Hall (1854) describes her few years of happiness with Eldredge, the poverty and humiliation she endured after he died, and her struggle to achieve financial independence as a journalist. Most of the characters are thinly-veiled versions of people Fern knew, and several – those individuals who treated her uncharitably when she most needed their help, including her father, her in-laws, her brother Nathaniel, and two newspaper editors – are put in a most unflattering light. When Fern's identity was exposed shortly after the novel's publication, some critics were scandalised at this lampooning of her own relatives, and decried her lack of filial piety and her want of "womanly gentleness" in seeking revenge in this manner.[13] The criticism wounded Fern deeply, and her second novel, Rose Clark, is less autobiographical in nature and features a conventionally sweet, gentle heroine; a secondary character, however, reenacts the debacle of Fern's marriage of convenience to Farrington.

In Fanny's Ledger column from May 10, 1856, she defended Walt Whitman when she wrote a favorable review of his controversial Leaves of Grass.[14] In particular, she noted his fearless individualism and self-reliance, as well as his honest and "undraped" portrayal of sex and the human body.[15] She was criticized for her admiration, but her outspoken support marked her as a champion of literature that was ahead of its time. [9] It has been suggested that Whitman imitated her Fern Leaves in his choice of cover art for the first edition. [5]

Sara Willis and James Parton were married in 1856. [8] She and her husband lived in New York City with one of her two surviving children , they also raised a granddaughter, Ethel, the orphaned child of Willis's daughter Grace, who passed away in 1862.[16]

In 1859, Fern moved to a brownstone in Manhattan at what is now 303 East Eighteenth Street near Second Avenue; she would live in this house for the next 13 years until her death.[17] Fern continued as a regular columnist for the Ledger for the remainder of her life. She was a suffrage supporter and in 1868 she co-founded Sorosis, New York City's pioneer woman's club. [16] Fern battled cancer for six years and died October 10, 1872.[2] She is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts next to her first husband. Her gravestone was inscribed simply "Fanny Fern." After her death her husband, James Parton, published Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume (1

Fanny Fern: A Brief Biography

Sara Payson Willis, the woman that would become Fanny Fern, was the fifth of nine children born to Nathaniel Willis and Hannah Parker. Born on July 9, 1811, in Portland, Maine, Sara spent most of her childhood in Boston, where her father was a newspaper editor and a deacon at the Park Street Church. Her older brother, Nathaniel Parker Willis, was already a fairly established writer and editor by the time that Sara began attending Catherine Beecher’s prestigious Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford, Massachusetts, in 1828. At school, the young Sara displayed impressive literary talents, and after her time at the seminary ended, she returned to Boston and wrote pieces for her father’s children’s periodical, The Youth’s Companion. In 1837, Sara married Charles Harrington Eldredge, a Boston banker. By all accounts the marriage was a happy one, and the couple soon had three daughters. But the next few years would not be kind to Sara Eldredge.

• Portrait of Fanny Fern, standing, facing left. see profile media

In 1844, her youngest sister, Ellen, died during childbirth. Her mother died just a few months later. In 1845, Sara’s oldest daughter, Mary, died of meningitis, and in 1846, her husband Charles succumbed to typhoid fever. Left a widowed mother of two children, and with little financial support from her family or in-laws, Sara soon remarried, this time to Samuel P. Farrington, a merchant and widower. The marriage proved to be a disaster; Farrington was both unkind and intensely jealous, accusing Sara of infidelity and attempting to turn her children against her. In 1851, only two years after her second marriage, Sara took the bold step of moving out of her home with her two daughters and taking up residence at a Boston hotel, a decision which scandalized and further alienated her from her conservative family. Greatly angered, Farrington spread rumors intended to call his wife's integrity into question; he eventually filed for a divorce, which was granted on September 7, 1853.

To provide for herself and her children, Sara took up the pseudonym Fanny Fern and began writing regular newspaper columns for the True Flag and Olive Branch, two Boston publications. Although she earned barely enough to keep her small family afloat, the newly fashioned Fanny Fern’s popularity soon grew. The lack of strict copyright restrictions in the mid-nineteenth century meant that Fern’s columns were frequently reprinted, and she soon developed a fairly devoted following throughout the Northeast. In 1846 her brother Nathaniel had started his own publication, the Home Journal (a periodical that survives today as Town & Country), and by the early 1850s it had become quite successful. The journal’s editor, James Parton, liked Fern’s work so much that he decided to reprint several pieces. When Willis discovered that his sister was the author of the columns, he forbade Parton to publish any more of her work. Parton resigned in protest.

Despite this setback, Fern’s fame was such that J. C. Derby, a publisher from Auburn, New York, approached her about the possibility of publishing a collection of columns. Fern agreed, wisely choosing to accept royalty payments of ten cents per copy instead of a lump sum, and within a year Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Port-folio had sold nearly 100,000 copies. By this time, Fern had moved to New York, where she soon took up writing for the Musical World and Times, a periodical edited by her other brother, Richard Willis. Neither the older Willis nor his publisher, Oliver Dyer, had any idea as to Fanny Fern’s real identity when they offered to double her salary if she agreed to write exclusively for their paper. When he did discover that the columns' author was his sister, Richard's response was much more gracious than that of his brother Nathaniel, and he continued to encourage Sara and publish her writing. Her work for the Musical World and Times, combined with the royalty payments from Fern Leaves, meant that Fern was able to both comfortably provide for her young family and devote herself fully to her writing. Over the next several years she published two more books for Derby, one another collection of columns and the other a children’s book entitled Little Ferns for Fanny’s Little Friends, both of which appeared in 1853. Her career prospects improved even more in 1854 and 1855, two years that would prove instrumental in establishing Fanny Fern as one of the most recognized voices in America.

In December 1854, Fern published her first novel, Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. A roman á clef, the book told the tale of a young woman who overcomes the death of her first husband and the cold shoulders of her family (particularly her brother, a prominent newspaper editor) to become a successful newspaper columnist. Sales of the novel were boosted considerably when, just weeks after the book’s publication, it was publicly revealed that Sara Payson Willis, sister of well-known editor Nathaniel Parker Willis, was the woman behind the façade of Fanny Fern. Readers clambered to see what Fern had to say about her famous brother, and although the incident brought Fern considerable criticism from those who claimed it was unfeminine and indelicate to satirize ones family in such a public manner, Fanny Fern’s fame had never been more valuable. Thus it was that Robert Bonner, a brash young editor, approached Fern about writing an exclusive story for his up-and-coming story paper, The New York Ledger.

• Portrait of Fanny Fern, close-up, facing right see profile media

Originally offering Fern twenty-five, then fifty, then seventy-five dollars per column, only to be turned down on all three occasions, Bonner then offered her an unprecedented $100 for each column of a serialized story, an offer which Fern finally accepted, making her the highest-paid newspaper writer in the country. Her serialized story, “Fanny Ford,” appeared in the pages of the Ledger in June 1855, and marked the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership with Bonner. Fern agreed to write a weekly column for the Ledger, the first of which appeared in January of 1856. She would publish a column every week until her death in 1872.

In addition to her Ledger columns, Fern would go on to publish another novel (Rose Clark, in 1856), four more collections of newspaper columns, and two more books for children. While she became known for her advocacy of women’s rights and women’s independence and was frequently a strong proponent of educational reform for children, Fern was a prolific writer and offered her views on topics as varied as summer travel, the simple joys of a closet, literature, Civil War camps, prison reform, autograph-seekers, the importance of breakfast, and which New York cemeteries she preferred.

In 1856, Fern married James Parton, the former Home Journal editor who had resigned in protest over Fern’s treatment at the hands of her brother. Eleven years Fern’s junior, Parton would go on to have a distinguished literary career of his own, penning successful biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Horace Greeley, and others. Parton and Fern’s marriage was a happy one, and with their literary connections, they ran in the same circles as respected writers William Cullen Bryant, Bret Harte, and Horace Greeley, as well as a more Bohemian crowd, including Walt Whitman.

Fern battled cancer for the last six years of her life, finally succumbing on October 10, 1872. On November 2, the fourth page of The New York Ledger, on which Fern’s column most frequently appeared, was edged in black in her honor. Sara Willis Parton was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, next to her first husband, Charles Eldredge. Only two words adorn her gravestone: “Fanny Fern.” The stone itself is also simple: a large, plain cross, with intricately carved ferns creeping around its base and winding their way to the top. The monument serves as an apt metaphor for a woman who came to be known, even by those closest to her, by the name that she fashioned for herself, a woman raised in a deeply religious and highly traditional household who climbed to the top of her profession and went on to become one of the most well-known and outspoken writers of her day. She became the country’s highest paid newspaper columnist, and, in the words of a contemporary rival newspaper, a writer whom “all the world knows.” And she accomplished it all with an infinitely clever blend of satire, sentiment, humor, and critique, all pulled together by a strong and captivating voice, a voice that hundreds of thousands of readers came to know as that of Fanny Fern.

Kevin McMullen
Images courtesy of Bill Nelson
Biographical sources consulted:
Walker, Nancy. Fanny Fern. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Print.
Warren, Joyce. Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1992. Print.
Warren, Joyce. Ruth Hall and Other Writings. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1986: ix-xxxix. Print.

• Reference: https://fannyfern.org/bio
• Residence: 1811 - Portland, Cumberland, Maine, United States
• Residence: 1860 - 6th District 18th Ward New York City, New York, New York, United States
  • Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Aug 3 2022, 17:40:00 UTC
• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jul 29 2023, 17:35:12 UTC
• Referencr: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Willis-11936
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Jul 29 2023, 22:14:03 UTC schwartz