Abby, Julia, And The Cows (June 1957 | Volume: 8, Issue: 4)

Abby, Julia, And The Cows

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Authors: Elizabeth G. Speare

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June 1957 | Volume 8, Issue 4

In the early morning of January 8, 1874, a momentous procession moved along the quiet Main Street of the small New England town of Glastonbury, Connecticut. Led by an implacable town official, who doubled as constable and tax collector, seven Alderney cows plodded toward the auction block, their reluctant progress urged by four men, a dog, and a drum. Behind followed some forty-odd local citizens with teams of horses, and in the rear, black-bonneted heads high, their resolute spines never touching the backs of the wagon seats, rode two frail little elderly ladies. The scene was, in the words of a Hartford correspondent, “a fit centennial celebration of the Boston Tea Party.” Justice was at stake, and the seven cows, like the chests of tea, were destined to become a national symbol.

The embattled owners of the cows were Julia Smith and her sister Abby. Though these two were quietly living out the closing years of a long and uneventful life-Julia was 82 and Abby 77—they were not wholly unacquainted with notoriety. They were the last remaining members of a family of nonconformists who for half a century had nonplused the small community of Glastonbury.

Zephaniah Hollister Smith, father of the sisters, was a native of Glastonbury, born in 1786. A graduate of Yale, a scholar, linguist, and mechanical genius, he began, as an ordained minister in western Connecticut, a career which he soon found irreconcilable to his conviction that the gospel should not be preached for money. Legend has it that in the resultant dispute with his parishioners he sweepingly excommunicated the entire parish and was in turn excommunicated by them. Leaving the ministry, he undertook the study of law and presently set up a practice in his native Glastonbury.

Zephaniah married Hannah Hadassah Hickock, herself a linguist, mathematician, astronomer, and poet. On their five daughters these two seem to have bestowed an incredible legacy of talent, as well as an impressive collection of names: Hancy Zephina, Cyrinthia Sacretia, Laurilla Aleroyla, Julia Evelina, and Abby Hadassah.

The five sisters never married, perhaps, as rumor implies, because of a pact made in early youth, perhaps because few suitors in that small town could have measured up to their formidable requirements. Legend tells of one persistent young man who was so unresponsive to hints that the sisters were forced to deal with him plainly. “Now,” one of them said at last, “we are all busy. But if you will tell us which one of us you prefer, she will remain and the rest of us will continue our work and not waste our time.” The caller took one startled look around the circle. “Damned if I know,” he stammered, and, seizing his hat, departed, never to return.

For 32 years Julia Smith kept a diary in French and Latin, in which are recorded the minutiae of quiet days filled with good works. The Smith sisters read and studied, tended their farm, wove and spun, drank tea with their