fortune if she stayed with her."Would I sell my liberty for a few thousands of dollars?" Always seeking independence, Paine said no, but she did stay with the woman for several months. Around 1832, at age 40, Paine moved to Boston. She had "the opportunity of studying my profession, at the [Boston] Athenaeum... which was opened for the benefit of artists.... This was very advantageous to me." Although Paine had been a portrait painter for many years, this was the only time she described receiving any formal art instruction." Paine was invited in 1833 to Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where she spent "a most beautiful and pleasant summer....The scenery was delightful."'For several years, she visited her mother each fall and spring, returning each time to Cape Ann."As there were few places of amusement
ELIZA AND SHELDON BATTEY AND THEIR SON THOMAS SHELDON BATTEY Providence, Rhode Island 1830 Oil on wood panel 42 >< 60" Private collection Note on reverse in Thomas Sheldon Battey's hand stating the portrait was painted by Miss Susan Paine in 1830
in this out of the way place; my painting-room was a place of general resort; I was liberally patronized." She found that her mother and stepfather were having trouble maintaining their home, so she set up an apartment for them. "It seemed left to me to make arrangements, and provide for the aged pair." Soon she was traveling again and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, where her "exhibition-room was constantly thronged with callers; frequently more than one hundred in a day" That fall she returned to her mother, to "paint at home." Shortly thereafter, her stepfather received a bequest and purchased another farm. Paine was left alone in the apartment she had set up for her mother and stepfather, and her "feelings were much hurt." She "felt ... the sting ofingratitude." Paine's interest in writing was first seen in 1836 when she published a Christmas hymn in the (Providence)
Courier and six moral and religious poems in the following two years.' Around this time she took in a 12-year-old girl for three years. "I had tried in vain to make a painter of her.... I introduced her as my adopted daughter." For several months, they both lived in Fall River, Massachusetts, where their room and board was $5 a week. On a visit to her parents' new farm, Paine was shocked when she found them "living in a sort of out-house" while her half brother Nathaniel was living in the main house with the deed to the farm in his name. Paine always traveled by moving between boardinghouses, arriving with several letters of introduction, so that each move was based on a recommendation ofsomeone she trusted. Her visit to Worcester, Massachusetts, at age 47, around 1839, exemplifies the problems of a woman traveling alone. She makes a clear distinction between a hotel or public house and a boardinghouse, where a lady would lodge. This incident is the only example of Paine staying at a hotel recorded in her autobiography:"[I] proceeded alone, an entire stranger, with two introductory letters, to W[orcester], Mass. . . . The darkness of night came on early, every female, one after another, had got out of the coach.... At length, about 8 o'clock in the evening, we arrived at our destination. The rain was still pouring like a flood... where was [I] to be left? . I was an entire stranger in W[orcester], and as it was impossible to deliver my letters that nightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that I must, though reluctant, go to a Hotel." She found that her room was "neat, and handsomely furnished," and that the bed proved to be "good, clean, and well aired," three things that she believed to be "seldom found together at a hotel." However, she made the discovery that three doors opened into the room, and this situation frightened her. She asked the maid to show her the outside of each door and found the adjacent rooms to be vacant. "I then bade her lock the doors, and hand the keys to me. . . . When alone, I inserted each key on the inside, partly turned,to prevent the possible use of duplicate keys." After falling asleep, she was awakened at the sound of someone trying to open one of the doors."After trying for some time, they left ... but I found it impossible to close my eyes again that night." Early the next morning,she used the letters of introduction to find a suitable boardinghouse that also provided her with a painting room. She remained there for the winter. In the spring, Paine found that her half brother Nathaniel had sold her parents' farm and moved them back to South Killingly, Connecticut, where he operated a tavern. There she "found the poor old people looking sad and dejected," so she again moved them into an apartment. Paine asks,"Reader, do you now comprehend the cause of my being poor? I have never received pecuniary aid from any mortal, since I was sixteen years of age." She returned
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