Representative women of New England/Helen N. Packard
HELEN N. PACKARD, widely known as a newspaper correspondent, a writer of poems, and an enthusiastic worker in patriotic societies, is one of the recent accessions from New England to the journalistic ranks of the Pacific coast, having removed from Springfield, Mass., to Portland, Ore., in 1901. This was three years ago, eight years after the death of her husband, John A. Packard, a veteran of the Civil War.
Mrs. Packard is a native of Maine. Her maiden name was Clark. She was born in Winterport, Waldo County, being one of the ten children of Lemuel and Harriet (Brown) Clark.
The Clark family of Winterport is one of the very oldest and most respected of the town, Lemuel Clark, Sr., having come there from Kittery nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. The original farm of the progenitor of the family is now owned and occupied by his great-grandson.
Mrs. Packard's father was a sea-captain, engaged mostly in the West India trade, but also visiting foreign ports. Two of his brothers served in the War of 1812. Mrs. Packard's mother, born in 1812, was daughter of .John, Jr., and Sally (Crosby) Brown, of Belfast, Me. John Brown, Sr., removed from Londonderry, N.H., in 1773. He had been an officer in the Provincial army in the French and Indian War. He was one of the first board of selectmen of Belfast, and is said to have been a man of "great vigor, energy, and honesty." He died in 1817, aged eighty-two years. His son, John, Jr., born in 1763, died in 1824 (History of Belfast). Both father and son were members of the Committee of Inspection and Safety during the struggle for American independence, and both rendered valuable service to the infant country. John Brown, Sr., was one of three men who alone of all the settlement refused to take the oath of allegiance to Great Britain when the British fleet appeared in Penobscot Bay in 1779, preferring to sacrifice all his possessions, which he did, but they were restored to him in 1783.
Sally Crosby, described by one who had seen her as a "remarkably sedate, sensible, godly woman," was born in 1774, the daughter of Simon and Sarah (Sewall) Crosby. Her mother, great-grandmother of Mrs. Packard, was daugh- ter of Nicholas antl Mehitable (Storer) Sewall, of York, Me., and sister of Stephen Sewall, the learned professor of Hebrew at Harvard Uni- versity in the latter part of the eighteentli century. Nicholas Sewall was son of Johii^ (Henry' ') and nephew of SamueP Sewall, the distinguished Judge Sewall of colonial times.
Lemuel Clark was a man of intense loyalty to his country, but was too old to enlist in the Civil War of 1861-65. He sent two of his sons to the front, one of whom returned, the other being killed at Antietam.
His daughter Helen was reared in an atmos- phere of patriotism, and was but a school-girl when she began to work for the soldiers. vShe scraped lint, knitted socks, packed bo.xes of comforts, and after the war was over raised money from various entertainments for the benefit of the soldiers. When only fifteen years old she went about the outlying dis- tricts of Winterport, canvassing for provisions for the soldiers' fair to be held in her native town. After her graduation from the high school she continued her studies for a time at a boarding-school for girls. John Alvin A. Packard, to whom she was married in 1867, served as a Lieutenant in the Fifth Maine Regiment in the Civil War, and had an honorable record as a brave soldier. He participated in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Hmi to Gettysburg. One week after Gettysbiu-g, while leading his company in an engagement, he was wounded by a bullet, which passed through his body and lodged in a tree. He resigned the fol- lowing November, but it was thirteen months before the wound was healetl. For a few years Mr. and Mrs. Packard made their home in Portland, Me. In 1874 they removed to Spring- field, Mass. They became the parents of three sons: Walter Alvin, born December 17, 1877; Arthur Howard, born November 17, 1879; and Raymond Clark, born July 11, 1881. Mr. Packard died in Springfield, at the age of fifty- eight years, May 1, 1893, from disease contracted in the service thirty years before.
While living in Portland, Me., Mrs. Packard joined the AVoman's Auxiliary to the Portland Army and Navy Union. For many years slie contributed letters and articles to the press in behalf of the soldiers of the Civil War, en- deavoring to awaken an interest in their needs. She has received hundreds of letters of appre- ciation from soldiers in all sections of the country and many official votes of thanks from posts and regimjjntal associations, also lettefs from Dr. Olivei' Wendell Holmes, John J. In- galls, and many distinguished generals of the Civil War.
Invitations hae been extended to Mrs. Packard to write for Grand Army gather- ings from Maine to Texas. In October, 1889, at the dedication of the Maine monuments, she read an original poem at the sunmiit of Little Round Top, Gettysburg, entitled "The Voice of Maine." Among the many popular poems she has written are "Decoration Day," "The Old Guard." "In Memoriam," and "Me- morial Day." 'hen tlie memorial building of the Fifth Maine Regiment was dedicated at Peak's Island, Portland, Me., Mrs. Packard by special invitation read original verses.
The Magazine of Poelrij and lAterary Revieir, in its issue of October, 1895, referred to her work as follows: "All of Mrs. Packard's poems, whether |)atriotic, descrijttive, psychical, in- trospective, or in lighter vein, evince a deep and original mind, a keen insight into nature, a sincere faith, and a graceful and concise mode of expression. Several of her poems have been arranged as songs, a setting for which they are particularly well adapted."
Among the publications in which Mrs. Pack- ard's writings have appeared are the Spring- field R.ej)ul)liran, Homestead and Vniun, the Repidtlican Joiirnal uf Maine, Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekee/pinq, Youth's Compan- ion, Boston Transcript, and various Western papers; among the magazines, the Twentieth Ceniury, New Natiort, and New Idea.
During more than twenty-five years' residence in Springfield, Mass., Mrs. Packard was a friend to l). K. Wilcox Post, G. A. R., of that city, of which her husband was an active member. She joined the Relief Corps auxiliary to this post in 188.1, and was vice-president three years and chairman of its executive committee six years. She helped to earn thousands of dollars for the memorial building of E. K. Wilcox Post, and is held in grateful remembrance by the post and corps, her work for the Grand Army being well known throughout the State. She participated as a delegate in several conventions of the Department of Massachusetts, Woman's Relief Corps. At the time of the Spanish-American War she was one of the organizers, and was corresponding secretary and a director, of the Springfield Auxiliary to the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Association. Her two elder sons enlisted for service in Cuba, and Arthur fell on the firing line at El Caney, July 1, 189S, pierced by a Mauser bullet. The death of this young patriot, only eighteen years of age, and the frantic grief of the elder brother over his dead body was a fruitful theme for the newspaper correspondents in Cuba, from Richard Harding Davis down to the humblest wielder of the pen; and the tragic circumstance was the original of the statue at the Buffalo Exposition entitled "l'll Caney."
Her eldest son, Walter, returned from Cuba broken in health from yellow fever, and was obliged to leave the bleak climate of New England for the Far West. For this reason Mrs. Packard in 1901 resigned her position as literary editor of the Springfield Daily News, and moved to Portland, Ore.
In her new home she is still actively engaged in public work She has been patriotic instructor and also press correspondent of George Wright Relief Corps of Portland, Ore., and in 190;i was elected a national delegate to the Woman's Relief Corps convention in San Francisco. Her interest in the old soldiers is as strong as ever. She is correspondent for several Eastern papers. After the close of the National Encampment at Buffalo the Times of that city said, "Of all the hundreds of press correspondents who sent out letters describing the encampment, none equalled in graphic description those sent by 'H. N. P.' to the Springfield Republican." Mrs. Packard represented the same paper in 1903 at the Frisco encampment, where she received a cordial greeting from a host of Grand Army comrades. Mrs. Packard has held several offices in the United Order of the Pilgrim Fathers, including that of Governor of the Colony in Springfield. She is also a member of Mercy Warren Chapter, of Springfield, of the Daughters of the American Revolution. When a resident of Massachusetts she was identified with the New England Woman's Press Association. As her works testify, she is a woman of talent and of much executive ability.
Mrs. Packard has had rather more than the ordinary share of troubles which fall to the lot of mortals, but has borne all her many trials with fortitude and cheerfulness, always holding the faith that some good purpose underlies all the worries of humanity. Her New Eng- land birth and training, and inheritance of courage from a long line of ancestors, have doubtless upheld her where others would have failed.
Mrs. Packard now receives the pension of a Lieutenant's widow, secured to her by special act of Congress through the efforts of the Hon. Malcolm A. Moody, Representative from the Second Congressional District of Oregon.