March is Women's History Month, founded in 1980 to recognize and celebrate the historic accomplishments of women. How better to celebrate this year than to recognize the work of New London's famed lady historian, Miss Frances Manwaring Caulkins? It's especially appropriate now, for the New London County Historical Society has just released its excellent reprint of her long out-of-print classic, “History of New London, Connecticut: From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1860.”

This book appeared in 1852; she updated it in 1860. If you're interested in the history of New London, this is the mother lode. You can't study New London without the aid of Miss Caulkins. Walter Woodward, Connecticut State historian, calls it indispensable. Happily this is a beautiful version. Published with the aid of a grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council, the handsome dust jacket reproduces an 1853 view of New London from a Kellogg lithograph that hangs in Shaw Mansion, the society's headquarters.

Miss Caulkins has always fascinated me. She was far ahead of her time. The volume includes two photographs of her, one dated 1865 and one earlier. In both she wears some sort of veil or headdress. Was this a fashion statement, or do historians sometimes have bad hair days?

Thanks to an informative introduction by Dr. Nancy Hathaway Steenburg, we have a brief account of her life, so difficult in the early years. She was born in New London in 1795 to a widowed and impoverished teen-age mother. Eventually her mother remarried, but was widowed again with more small children. Frances felt it her duty to provide financial aid. She never married and spent much of her life struggling to support her family.

With some formal education she taught school in New London and Norwich for 14 years, but in 1836 relocated to New York where she spent six years as a prolific writer for the American Tract Society. Her role model was her own teacher, Lydia Huntley Sigourney of Norwich, who earned her living but did not transgress society's standards for women. Some of Caulkins' tracts sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

She was relieved at last from financial responsibility when her half-brother, Henry P. Haven, achieved wealth and position as the head of a whaling firm. He provided her with security and her unmarried status freed her from household details and allowed her time for writing.

Back in Connecticut she devoted herself to history, consulting the requisite primary sources such as town records, scouring ancient cemeteries for gravestone information, even delving into Joshua Hempstead's famous diary, piecing together the town's history. She believed in interviewing and recording the views of senior citizens, a technique we now call oral history. Her Norwich history was published in 1845; the New London opus followed seven years later.

Carefully written and very readable, Caulkins' New London history is essential for the local history bookshelf, still valuable to modern historians, presenting a wonderful social and political history of the region. It has been called “a family history of the people of New London.” She writes of early settlers as though they were personal friends.

I commend the New London County Historical Society for the reprinting of this history. They even had a hard time with its opening release reception. The first had to be postponed because the books were late in arriving. The second, scheduled for Feb. 22, was cancelled by a snowstorm. Happily, the third was successful.

This 780-page volume includes a detailed index prepared by Frances F. Pan. The new reprint is available from the New London County Historical Society for $60, a bargain. For more information call 443-1209 or visit newlondonhistory.org.

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