|
|
Gummere Family of the USA
Francis Barton Gummere
Born 6 March 1855 at Burlington,
New Jersey, the son of Samuel
James Gummere and his second wife Elizabeth Hooten Barton.
Married on 14 September 1882 at Burlington,
New Jersey to Amelia Smith
Mott.
Died 30 May 1919 at Haverford,
Pennsylvania.
Buried at Haverford Friends Burial Ground (Orthodox), Buck
Lane, Haverford Township, Delaware,
Pennsylvania, row 2, grave
number 32.
Amelia
Smith Mott
Born 17 July 1859 at Burlington, New Jersey, the daughter of Richard Field Mott and his
wife Susan Thomas of Burlington,
New Jersey.
Died 7 October 1937 at Haverford,
Pennsylvania.
Buried at Haverford Friends Burial Ground (Orthodox), Buck
Lane, Haverford Township, Delaware,
Pennsylvania, row 2, grave
number 33.
Children:-
- Richard
Mott born 3 August 1883 at Burlington,
New Jersey; married 1908
to Christine Robinson.
- Samuel James born 16
August 1885 at New Bedford,
Massachusetts; married 20
October 1910 to Margery Tatnall.
- Francis Barton born
21 December 1888 at "Woodside", Haverford, Pennsylvania; never
married; died 4 August 1937; buried at Haverford Friends Burial Ground
(Orthodox), Buck Lane, Haverford Township, Delaware, Pennsylvania, row
2, grave number 34.
Francis came to Haverford aged seven, when his father became professor of
mathematics in 1862. He was an intelligent, able boy and entered the college
in 1869, aged only fourteen years. He graduated from Haverford in 1872 at the
young age of seventeen with a B.A. He then spent a year as a clerk at the
Pencoyd Iron Works, followed by a year working in a Philadelphia law office, before going to
Harvard in 1874. In 1875 he graduated from Harvard University
with a second B.A. degree, and simultaneously graduated from Haverford with
an M.A.(1875). He then taught English and Rhetoric at the Friend's School in Providence, Rhode Island
(1875-9), spending his vacation time in Europe.
After his stint of teaching, Francis studied abroad for two years at Leipzig, Berlin and Strasbourg, gaining a Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg
in Germany
in 1881 with a dissertation on The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor. That same
year he returned to Harvard as an English instructor. Francis married Amelia
Smith Mott of Burlington, New Jersey in 1882 - she was one of his pupils at
the Friend's School in Providence.
He was appointed headmaster of the Swain
Free School
in New Bedford, Massachusetts
in 1882, then elected Professor at Haverford in 1887, with a years leave of
absence in Europe before taking up his
position at the college.
New Buildings at Haverford College,
from Rural Pennsylvania
by Rev. S.F. Hotchkin, 1897.
In their first year at Haverford, the Gummeres lived at
"Woodside" at the end of the Serpentine Walk, the home of Rendel
Harris and his wife who were in Armenia for the academic year.
Housing was short at Haverford, and with a family of three boys the Gummeres
felt they needed a permanent home of their own. To solve this problem the
college made an arrangement whereby a professor could build a house on
college grounds, free of ground rent, and the college agreed to buy the house
at an agreed sum when the owner wished to sell, or the owner could sell to
another faculty member. Together with Professors Gifford and Hall, Dr.
Gummere built a house in a grove of trees on what is now the Circle which
rings the cricket field. They moved in in autumn 1890 and were to spend 30
years in that house.
Dr Gummere's knowledge of classical literature - English, Greek, Latin and
German - was vast, and with his unfailing memory could recall things at will.
His lectures were full of vitality and interest, and he managed to present
things in a new way. He enjoyed attending the various literature clubs in the
city to which he belonged, and being a guest on social occasions, but did not
enjoy public speaking and tried to avoid such engagements if he could. Dr.
Gummere had a small circle of intimate friends with whom he enjoyed
conversing or playing chess. He loved playing golf, and enjoyed the wit and
companionship of the "nineteenth hole".
|
Francis Barton Gummere was a member of the American
Philosophical Society, and in 1905 became president of the Modern Language
Association of America. Other societies, committees and clubs he was a member
of were - American Dialect Association, American Academy of Arts and
letters, Committee of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Harvard,
Appalachian Club of America, Franklin Inn Club, Contemporary Club of
Philadelphia, University Club of Philadelphia, Elizabethan Club of Yale
University, St David's Golf Club, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Founders' Club.
He delivered courses of lectures at the Northwestern and Johns Hopkins
universities and the University
of California. In
1907 he suffered a nervous breakdown and lost the sight in his right eye
after a retinal haemorrhage. This loss of sight worried him greatly least
it affect his golf game, but he still managed to play. However it did bring
to a halt his library research and reading of manuscripts. The following
year while on a tramping trip in the Virginian mountains he overtaxed his
heart, resulting in permanent injury, and thereafter had to watch his
health.
|
|
Dr. Gummere published several works - The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor (1881),
Handbook of Poetics (1885), Germanic Origins: a Study in
Primitive Culture (1892), Old English Ballads (1894), Beginnings
of Poetry (1901), The Popular Ballad (1907), Lives of Great
English Writers (in collaboration with Walter Swain Hinchman, 1908), Oldest
English Epic (1909), a translation of Beowulf (1910), Democracy and Poetry (1911), and
numerous essays. Like his father before him, Francis wrote poetry, and one of
his poems, John Bright, is in E.C. Steadman's American Anthology
(1900). In 1901 he was offered a professorship at Harvard University
but declined the position. In 1909 Harvard conferred him with a Litt.D. Other
universities offered him professorships but he remained at Haverford until
his death in 1919 of oedema of the lungs brought on by heart failure at the
age of 64 years. His name is chiefly associated with his theory of the
communal origin of the English and Scottish popular ballads.
Amelia Mott Gummere was also a noted author in her own right. She wrote Friends
in Burlington (1884), The Quaker: A Study in Costume (1902), Witchcraft
and Quakerism (1908), The Quaker in the Forum (1909), The
Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922). In 1915 she founded the John
Woolman Memorial Association which operates a historic house in Mount Holly, New
Jersey located where John Woolman’s apple
orchard once stood. At the time, historic houses were proliferating in honor
of military heroes, and Amelia felt the need for a memorial to a man of
peace. John Woolman (1720-1772) was a Quaker who was known for his journal,
and his lifelong work to end slavery. She also assisted in writing The
Quakers in the American Colonies (1911) by Rufus M. Jones, assisted by
Isaac Sharpless and Amelia Mott Gummere.
If I have something wrong I would greatly appreciate being corrected, or
if you have something to add to the story then please email me .
Return to main Gummere
page.
References:-
Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. viii, edited by Dumas Malone.
A History of Haverford College for the First Sixty Years of its Existence, prepared
by a Committee of the Alumni Association, published 1892.
Haverford College: A History and Interpretation,
by Rufus M. Jones, published 1933.
Encyclopaedia of American Quaker Genealogy, by William Wade Hinshaw.
Records from the Ancestry.com website.
Biographical Catalogue of the Matriculates of Haverford College,
1833-1922.
The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Volume
IV.
Rural Pennsylvania: In the Vicinity of Philadelphia, by Rev.
S.F. Hotchkin, published 1897, from http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/hotchkin/rp/main.html
URL=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gomery/gummerefrancisb.html
Last revised: 16 March 2012
© Linda Hansen 2012
|
