to examine her relatives and other people she describes, Paine lamented that her mother's affections now had to be and to locate her in various census records, directories, and shared with her new stepsibfings. Tall for her age and manewspaper advertisements. Through this process we found ture in appearance, Paine was employed at age 15 to teach the dates, names, and locations for many of the events she at the local school."When my term of school expired in the Fall,I went,as a scholar,to the best Academy in Rhode described.' At the start of Roses and Thorns, Paine introduces Island." She was unable to afford the cost of this education. herself by having two people discuss a "tall, large lady" "I paid my board, nearly all by needle work, which I did in a drab bonnet: "She is seen going to her studio every morning, and returning about sunset. Neither cold, heat, or even storms prevent her. She .. . sustains an unblemished character." Is she a person with "matrimonial disappointment?" She "does not appear to move in any society . . . but seems to be wholly unconnected.... She certainly is a very eccentric person.... She seems to be a bird of passage. She dropped here among us one day, but who she is, to whom related, or wherefrom,still remains a mystery to many." Susanna Paine, the second and last child of James (1764/5—?) and Mary Chaffee Paine (1767-1849), was born on June 9, 1792, in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.' Her father was lost at sea when she was "too young to know, or even retain the faintest recollection of him." She grew up in the home of her grandparents, Reverend Jonathan and Mary Chaffee. It was a comfortable life on a small farm. Her grandfather, who had "no regular salary, because his feeble health would not admit of his preaching constantly," died on August 7,1800. Paine was an excellent student, "a favorite with the teachers, an object of envy and jealousy with the scholars," but she left school at age 11 to help care for her grandmother. When she was 12, she was struck by a bolt of lightning that killed the woman standing next to her. According to the attending physician, she nearly died herself. "To all appearances, I died," she recollected. "My mother wept over me.. ..I seemed to be going forward towards a large group of very young women. They had on white dresses, and looked most beautifully." She was revived after an hour, evenings and Saturdays. Wrought work,at that time, bore a but suffered from seizures for the next several years. On October 14, 1807, her grandmother died, and on high price,...I remained until I was so far advanced in my April 9, 1808, her mother married Nathaniel Thurber studies, as to be able to teach any of the common branches (1761-1848), a widower with four children. The combined of education ...at my final examination, the highest honfamily moved to a small farm in Foster, Rhode Island, and ors were bestowed on me."5
GEORGE MORILLO BARTOL Maine Pastel on paper 1827 24/ 1 4 x 191/4" Private collection, courtesy David Wheatcroft Antiques, Westborough, Massachusetts Signed and dated on reverse: Mrs. Paine 1827
64 WINTER 2005/2006 FOLK ART