Part of a 14-panel panorama etching of 17th-century buildings in St. Petersburg, Russia

Appendix E: Biographies

Ropes, Gellibrand, Prince, Hall

William Ropes (19 November 1784 – 10 March 1869),1 founder of William Ropes and Company, was married on 15 August 1811 to Martha Reed (12 August 1787 – 27 April 1830). Their surviving children, five of whom appear in Anna Whistler’s St. Petersburg diaries, were Mary Tyler (13 October 1812 – 16 April 1894; see Images 266–267), William Hooper (10 March 1814 – 16 November 1891), Joseph Samuel (6 February 1818 – 14 March 1903), Sarah Louisa (19 July 1819 – 5 October 1910), Elizabeth Hannah (14 May 1825 – 25 November 1921; see Image 267), and Martha Reed (13 June 1826 – 21 August 1888).2 The first letter William Ropes opened on arriving in St. Petersburg on 16 June 1830 for the purpose of entering into business with Russia informed him of his wife’s death.3 He remained in Russia, while his children were placed in the homes of family and friends.4 On a trip back to Boston, he remarried, taking as his second wife, on 1 April 1832, Mary Anne Codman (12 July 1802 – 1 September 1873).5 On 20 April 1832, they sailed from New York for St. Petersburg, taking with them William Ropes’s four oldest children: Mary Tyler, William Hooper, Joseph Samuel, and Sarah Louisa.6 In August 1837, William Ropes departed St. Petersburg permanently with his wife and his daughters, Sarah Louisa and Martha Reed, leaving his House in the hands of William Hooper Ropes and a friend, Archibald Mirrielees (7 September 1797 – 11 February 1877; see Image 268).7 It is William Ropes’s older children from his first marriage, primarily Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand and William Hooper Ropes, and the wife and children of William Hooper Ropes, whom the Whistlers were close to in St. Petersburg. They were well acquainted while there with Joseph Samuel, Elizabeth Hannah, and Martha Reed Ropes. All of these Ropes family members appear in the diaries, but no mention is made there of Sarah Louisa.

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Early in his stay in St. Petersburg, William Ropes spoke of William Clarke Gellibrand (31 March 1791 – 20 April 1884; see Image 265), “Egerton Hubbard’s partner.”8 Mr. Gellibrand, son of Reverend William (28 May 1763 – 27 September 1840) and Sophia (Hinde) Gellibrand (12 January 1759 – 20 November 1793),9 was “a native of Hampshire, England.” He “had a good education at a high school” and “learned the elements of Latin and Greek, with which languages he later became familiar.” “At a proper age he went to reside as a clerk to Mr. Morgan, one of the principal Merchants in Archangel.” In 1813, he went to St. Petersburg to work for the House of Morgan there, acting as manager under Mr. Morgan and handling the business for him. In 1822, he started a business in partnership with a Mr. Holliday. Mr. Holliday handled the business in St. Petersburg, while Mr. Gellibrand handled the Moscow end. In 1828, however, Mr. Gellibrand was led to suspect that there were irregularities in the St. Petersburg end of the business and eventually discovered that his partner had been defrauding their firm. Mr. Gellibrand’s name was cleared in the matter by Mr. Holliday. Of the offers of employment now made to him, Mr. Gellibrand accepted that of Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Morgan’s brother-in-law, to join their House. He spoke French, German, and Russian. He was “the most active of [their] little church.”10 On 27 December 1825, Mr. Gellibrand married in England Elizabeth Parkinson (20 June 1794 – 5 February 1833) and brought her out to Russia. On William Ropes’s return to St. Petersburg with his second wife and four of his children in 1832, his family too became part of this circle that belonged to the dissenting chapel, gave room and board to ministers traveling to and through St. Petersburg, distributed tracts, participated in the work of the Dorcas Society and was collecting money to build its own building, the eventual British and American Congregational Church (see Image 125).11 On 24 January / 5 February 1833, Mrs. Gellibrand died. On 27 January / 8 February, she was buried from the Sarepta Chapel,12 the meeting house of the German Moravian Brethren, which the dissenters used until they had their own church.13 In February of 1834, William Clarke Gellibrand and Mary Tyler Ropes became engaged, despite the fact that he was almost twice her age. They were married on 1/13 May 183414 in the English Church (see Images 110–111), Rev. Edward Law (see Image 253) officiating.15 The Gellibrands wanted Elizabeth Hannah Ropes to come out to St. Petersburg from Boston to live with them as their own child.16 She arrived in October 1834, along with her sister, Martha Reed Ropes, who came to live with their father and step-mother.17 It was for the purpose of being “useful to Elizabeth” that Ellen Harriet Hall (23 April 1822 – 11 December 1903),18 the niece of Mr. Gellibrand’s first wife, was invited from Leeds to St. Petersburg in 1837.19 With no family and few friends in England and after having lived more than thirty-five years in Russia, Mr. Gellibrand contemplated with regret in 1849 having to leave a country where he felt at home, but the climate of Russia did not agree with his wife.20 They did not, however, leave Russia until at least 1854,21 when they went to England, where they were joined by Sarah Louisa Ropes. Mr. Gellibrand “rented Brammerton Hall in Norfolk from his old friend, Captain Haggard … the father of Rider Haggard, the novelist.”22 They spent only a year at Brammerton Hall, because the climate of Norfolk was also too severe, and then moved to Albyns in Stapleford Abbots, Essex.23 It is here that Mr. Gellibrand died.24 Judging from the number of members of the clergy present at his funeral, he had been very generous to various churches.25

He left a personal estate of almost £72,000. Mrs. Gellibrand was his sole executrix and heir.26 She gave up Albyns, bought the Manor House in Chigwell, Essex, and lived there, with Sarah Louisa Ropes, until her death on 16 April 1894.27 The gross value of her personal estate was almost £59,000, and her will was twenty-eight pages long.28 She spread her money about, giving most of it to relatives, some to employees, some to friends, including former ministers of the dissenting church in St. Petersburg, Rev. John Croumbie Brown and Rev. Thomas Scales Ellerby, and some to the British and Foreign Bible Society and to its Benevolent Fund.

Anna Whistler (see Images 1–5) maintained close ties with the Gellibrands, particularly after she settled in England. She made an annual visit to them at Albyns, sometimes meeting other St. Petersburg friends there, and at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas received a large hamper of food from them.29 Mrs. Gellibrand, in turn, visited Anna Whistler in London.30

* * *

Very little is known about Elizabeth Hannah’s life. She is listed in the Gellibrand household in the 1871 Census but not in the censuses for 1861, 1881, or 1891. She is listed in the 1881 Census as a boarder in Eastbourne, Sussex, in the house of Heber D. Ellis, a physician; her condition is registered as “lunatic.”31 Financial provision was made in Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand’s will for her care. The last surviving child of William and Martha (Reed) Ropes, she died on 25 November 1921 at The Priory, a hospital or nursing home in London.32

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Somewhat more is known of Sarah Louisa Ropes. She was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts,33 and came to St. Petersburg with the family in 1832. In February 1836, she was being attended by “Dr. Arendt, an eminent German physician … once a week” in consultation with the family physician,34 and in August of the same year was in England because of lung trouble.35 She left Russia with her father and step-family and became “quite an English girl”36 but felt “that her home [was] with her brothers and sisters” and in September 1838 was back in Russia with the Gellibrands.37 She most likely divided her time between them and her father and step-family. When the Gellibrands moved to England, she joined them and is listed in their household in the 1861, 1871, 1881 censuses and with the widowed Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand in the 1891 Census. She too received a large inheritance from Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand. Sarah Louisa Ropes died on 5 October 1910 in London, leaving effects of about £5,000.38 She made charitable bequests and left a small sum to her sister, Elizabeth Hannah, but the bulk of her estate went to her nieces and nephews, the children of William Hooper Ropes and of Martha Reed (Ropes) Trask.

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Martha Reed Ropes was not yet six years old when her father, step-mother, brothers, and sisters left for St. Petersburg in 1832. She came to Russia when Elizabeth Hannah did and seems to have left with her father and step-family in 1837.39 Anna Whistler’s diaries record Martha’s visit to William Hooper Ropes, Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand, and Elizabeth Hannah Ropes in 1844, when she was eighteen. Between 1 March 1840 and 19 October 1845, Martha Reed appeared to be living alternately in East Brighton, Massachusetts, and near Islington, London. In that same timespan, she compiled four volumes of abstracts of sermons and one of poetry.40 On 9 October 1849, she married Charles Hooper Trask (4 September 1824 – 11 December 1905).41 Trask attended Amherst College in 1841–1843 and graduated from Yale in 1846. He later became a New York partner of William Ropes and Company.42 They had seven children: Mary Gellibrand (4 April 1851 – 10 December 1937), Anna Hooper (10 March 1853 – 10 August 1937), Elizabeth Ropes (25 March 1857 – 15 October 1896), Ellen Louisa (29 January 1858 – 26 September 1859), Charles Hooper (13 May 1860 – 16 May 1891), William Ropes (9 January 1862 – 1933), and Henry Ropes (12 February 1864 – 5 August 1926).43

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Joseph Samuel Ropes “studied in Boston in the school of Gideon F. Mayer, the founder of the Chauncey Place School, and attended a private school in Medford, Massachusetts.”44 He was the scholar of the family.45 He undertook the study of Russian, along with the rest of his family, when they arrived in St. Petersburg in 1832.46 His mastery of the language enabled him to attend the Third St. Petersburg Gymnasium.47 After graduating from this institution, he petitioned the rector of St. Petersburg University, Ivan Petrovich Shul’gin (see Image 316), for permission to enter the First Division of the Faculty of Philosophy as a paying student, and presented the required proof of residence, baptismal certificate, and high school diploma.48 He began attending St. Petersburg University in August 1837 and at the end of his first year had “passed No. 1 in his class.”49 He completed his studies on 11 June 1841 (OS) and received a certificate dated 25 October 1841 (OS).50 While still a student at the university, he had taken on “a large share of Tract business.”51 He filled the office of secretary of the Tract Committee,52 superintended the publication of all translated tracts,53 and himself translated tracts into Russian.54 It is possible that in undertaking the course of study he chose at university, Joseph Samuel intended to prepare himself for the ministry and “become a missionary in Siberia.”55 In 1840, however, he wrote that he had felt for a long time that he was “not fit for a missionary” and that he could do far more good by translating tracts.56 After graduation from university, he joined William Ropes and Company, to the eventual distress of Archibald Mirrielees, who, together with William Hooper Ropes, ran the firm, and who did not find Joseph Samuel sufficiently modest or respectful.57 Archibald Mirrielees left the firm; Joseph Samuel remained, and in 1846 was made “general partner for four years,” receiving in “lieu of profits … 2000 silver roubles of the currency of the Empire of Russia.”58 Joseph Samuel also translated and wrote secular pieces. He made a translation of an article on the 1837 fire in the Winter Palace.59 Commencing 13 October 1842 and continuing through 27 April 1843, he wrote a series of eleven letter-essays entitled “Men and Things in Russia” and published them under the pseudonym “H.L.S.” in the United States.60 In 1847, Joseph Samuel returned to Boston permanently61 and worked for William Ropes and Company there. On 16 November 1848, he married Anna Rumsey Perit (5 December 1819 – 22 December 1879), daughter of John W. and Margaretta (Dunlap) Perit. They had no children.62 He received an honorary MA from Yale College in 185363 and served several times on examining and visiting committees at Harvard University, for example, the Special Committee for Examination in the Greek Language.64 He wrote financial articles and delivered an address on “The Value of Libraries.” “He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1875 and 1876, and of the Senate, 1878 and 1879; … a member, from 1870, of the board of managers of the Boston Seaman’s Friend Society, of which his father was first president; president of the Massachusetts Colonization Society for years; a member of the board of trustees of Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary.”65 In 1894, he moved to Norwich, Connecticut, to live with his wife’s nieces, the Misses Huntington.66 Totally blind, his “days and hours [were] brightened by the pleasure of listening to a company of intelligent women who … alternately enabled him to ‘read by deputy’.”67 He died on 14 March 1903.68 His funeral took place on 19 March in the Immanuel Congregational Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts.69

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William Hooper Ropes, eldest son of William Ropes, was attending Mount Pleasant Institution in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1829.70 On 1 January 1830, when William Ropes set out on the Courier for Havana and St. Petersburg, he took William Hooper with him. Once in Russia, William Ropes decided to send his son home again on the return voyage of the Courier, intending him to start as a clerk in some relative’s office.71 But, on taking a second wife in Boston in 1832 and setting off for St. Petersburg again, William Ropes took his four eldest children with him. In March 1833, a printed circular formally announced the “establishment in St. Petersburg [of] the firm of William Ropes and Company.”72 William Ropes became a merchant of the first guild, but as “his being written up as Foreign Guest [did] not give him the privilege of trading in the interior,” it was decided that William Hooper should become a Finnish subject and a merchant of the second guild.73 As William Ropes began making plans for his eventual return to the United States, with an interval in London in order to be closer to Russia in case the firm should encounter difficulties, he engaged William Hooper as a partner.74 In 1837, he hired Archibald Mirrielees, a close friend of his and of William Clarke Gellibrand, “to take charge of the internal department … but not to be a partner,”75 while William Hooper, who now spoke fluent Russian and was “a capital hand to bargain with the Russians, with whom he [was] a great favorite,”76 was to handle “the outdoor business,” which was “his forte.”77 William Hooper and Archibald Mirrielees got on very well, but in 1841 the very self-assured Joseph Samuel Ropes joined the firm and Archibald Mirrielees, unable to cope with him, left it in 1842.78 William Hooper now managed William Ropes and Company with the help of his brother-in-law, William Clarke Gellibrand.79

The arrival in St. Petersburg of Ellen Harriet Hall in 1837 to live with the Gellibrands was a turning point in William Hooper’s personal life. He became very interested in this companion of his younger sister,80 and they became engaged in the summer of 1838, when she was sixteen.81 Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand found her future sister-in-law “amiable, affectionate … pious, [and] an excellent musician, with a beautiful voice and fine execution.”82 On 23 April 1840, her eighteenth birthday, William Hooper Ropes and Ellen Harriet Hall were married in the dissenting chapel in Leeds,83 where her parents lived. They returned to St. Petersburg, where they lived for some fifteen years more. Seven of their nine children were born there: Ellen Gellibrand (15 March 1841 – Concord, MA 1924), Mary Emily (10 August 1842 – September Qrt. 1932), Louisa Harriet (18 November 1843 – 1 June 1903), William Hall (20 August 1845 – 27 April 1905; buried Providence, RI), Ailie Elizabeth (28 May 1848 – 16 July 1931), Charles Joseph Hardy (7 December 1851 – Bangor, ME 5 January 1915), and Ernest Edward (12 February 1854 – 1914).84 In the autumn of 1844, after almost a year of being acquainted, William Hooper Ropes’s family and the Whistlers rented apartments opposite one another on the third floor of Ritter’s house, No. 237 on the English Embankment (see Images 101–104).85 They remained neighbors until the death of Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) in April 1849. In 1850, William Hooper took up duties as U.S. consul for St. Petersburg, a post he held until spring 1854.86 Sometime after the late spring of 1854, the William Hooper Ropes family moved to England. Sometime between 1855 and 1858, they moved into Lewisham House (their half was called Brockley House) in Lewisham. Their last two children were born in Lewisham: Anna Josephine (c. 1858 – 4 February 1931) and Arthur Reed (23 December 1859 – 11 September 1933).87 Arthur Reed Ropes, a Cambridge University don from 1884 to 1890, achieved fame as Adrian Ross, described in the year of his death as a writer of “lyrics for some of the most famous musical comedies of the last 40 years.”88 He married Ethel Wood, youngest daughter of Charles John Wood; her grandparents had been friends of the Whistlers in St. Petersburg (see Wood in this appendix). The Post Office Directory for 1861 lists “William Hooper Ropes, Lewisham House, Lewisham S.E. and 3 Crown Court, Old Broad St. E.C.” The latter address was probably that of the London office of William Ropes and Company. By 1864, the family had gone from the Lewisham address.89 They were said to be living in 1868 in Upper Clapton.90 The 1871 Census confirms that they were living in the Upper Clapton area of Hackney with five of their children present, at West Spring Field House.91 On 6 May 1876, Ailie Elizabeth Ropes married at Avranches, Normandy, Rev. Charles Edward Baines Reed (c. 1846 – Pontresina, Switzerland 29 July 1884), secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society.92 In July 1876, Ellen Harriet (Hall) and William Hooper Ropes were reported to have “brok[en] up housekeeping at Clapton last winter & [to be] trying the climate of France” for the health of the invalided Mrs. Ropes.93 In 1888, William Hooper’s address, again probably his office, was 5 Jeffreys Square, St. Mary Axe in London.94 On 15 July 1890, in Christiana, Copenhagen, Denmark, Ellen Gellibrand Ropes married Charles Hooper Trask (1824–1905).95 William Hooper Ropes died suddenly on 16 November 1891, in Tenby, Pembroke, southwest Wales, at the home, it would seem, of his daughter, Louisa Harriet (Ropes) Cattley,96 who had married on 18 March 1869 in Upper Clapton, London, Edward Abbs Cattley. Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes died at the Tenby address on 11 December 1903.97 It has not been possible to locate the will of William Hooper Ropes. Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes left effects of about £13,000.98

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Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes was the daughter of John Drinkrow Hall (Hull, Yorkshire 1 February 1796 – Falsgrave, Scarborough, Lincolnshire 30 July 1865) and Harriet (Parkinson) Hall (Brigg, Lincolnshire 10 February 1796 – Falsgrave, Scarborough, Yorkshire 18 October 1870) of Leeds. 99 They were married on 26 June 1821.100 Harriet (Parkinson) Hall’s sister, Elizabeth, was the first wife of William Clarke Gellibrand. John D. Hall worked for the Aire and Calder Navigation Company in Leeds; the family resided at Dock Street.101 He is listed in the 1841 Census as “clerk,” and in the 1851 Census as “agent,” to the Aire and Calder Navigation Company.102 On his retirement, he and his wife moved to Falsgrave, Scarborough, where he is listed in the 1861 Census as “living from independent interest money.”103 They both died in Falsgrave.104 John D. Hall’s occupation appears on his wife’s death certificate as “cashier.”105 Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand, who visited the Halls in 1841, said of the family: “Mrs. Hall, a very kind and pleasing woman, who calls me sister, and whom I dearly love. Her husband is a most kind and intelligent man, and the girls are amiable and agreeable.”106

The Halls had two other daughters besides Ellen, whose lives were also to be bound up with St. Petersburg. Their youngest daughter, Emily Hall (c. 1827 – 31 March / 12 April 1846), listed in the 1841 Census as fourteen years old, died in St. Petersburg while visiting the William Hooper Ropes family, and was buried there. Several pages of Anna Whistler’s diaries are devoted to her death. Their other daughter, Marian Amelia Hall (25 December 1823 – 2/14 April 1886)107 married in Leeds on 6 June 1850108 George Henry Prince, first cousin of William Hooper Ropes.

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George Henry Prince (16 October 1821 – 25 April 1900)109 was the son of William Ropes’s sister, Ruth Hardy (Ropes) Prince (24 June 1791 – 28 July 1837), and of Henry Prince (4 September 1789 – 5 March 1854) of Salem, Massachusetts. He was one of five surviving children, the other four being Benjamin Ropes (14 November 1822 – December 1902; see Image 270), James Cheever (8 January 1825 – 10 March 1853), Sarah (16 December 1826 – 4 January 1901), Samuel Ropes (25 April 1833 – 6 September 1899).110 Shortly after the death of his mother, when he was almost sixteen, it was proposed by William Ropes that he come out to Russia and join the company, probably as a “shipping clerk with specific internal duties.”111 It was stressed that he had to be “a good boy,” “determined to qualify himself fully for business by learning the languages” “as without them one might almost as well be dumb – as regards active business,” and that he must “be wholly under the control and subject to the heads of the House.”112 He arrived in St. Petersburg in early September of 1838113 and proved to be a good risk. By October, he was “getting on pretty well in German” and would that winter “have a capital opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Russian.”114 “His American feelings [were] strong, and [did] not seem likely to evaporate very soon.”115 Although the others in the family seemed to be “getting less American,” “George was the only staunch one among [them], unchanging and unchanged.”116 When Archibald Mirrielees left the firm and his duties shifted to William Hooper, George Henry took over William Hooper’s duties in the interior. By November 1847, George Prince and Mr. Fairbanks, the London agent for Harrison, Winans and Eastwick, had announced that they were “going into the Ice business – exporting it to London.”117 After Major Whistler’s death, when Anna Whistler, James (see Images 24–29), and Willie (see Images 27, 30) were living in Pomfret, Connecticut, George Henry, on a visit to Boston, made a special trip to spend Christmas of 1849 and New Year’s Eve of 1850 with her.118

On 6 June 1850, George Henry Prince married in Leeds Marian Amelia Hall, sister of Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes. Their five known surviving children were Emily Hall (Russia 22 January 1851 – Bridgwater, Somerset 19 September 1933), Annie Ropes (St. Petersburg 1854 – Bridgwater, Somerset 15 August 1942), Sarah Marion (Scarborough, Yorkshire 10 November 1855 – Bridgwater, Somerset 13 September 1946), Ruth Harriet (b. St. Petersburg 20 Nov. 1856), John Henry (St. Petersburg 8 December 1862 – 21 May 1921).119 They were possibly also the parents of George Osgood (St. Petersburg 1858 – Kiev 1894 or 1895). On 14 September 1876 (OS), Annie Ropes Prince married in St. Petersburg Sydney Charles Scott (c. 1850 – 18 September 1936), bachelor, solicitor, of London.120 On 12 July 1879 (OS), Sarah Marian Prince (called Minnie) married in St. Petersburg Thomas Foster Barham (c. 1851 – Bridgwater, Somerset 5 October 1927), bachelor, solicitor, of London.121 George Henry Prince died on 25 April 1900 in Wyberg (Vyborg in Russian), Finland, in the house of his son-in-law, Edward Engestrom,122 husband of Ruth Harriet (Prince) Engestrom. Both he and Marian (Hall) Prince were buried in the Smolensk Cemetery.123 George Henry Prince kept a journal while living in St. Petersburg. Several fragments about the Whistlers were published by a descendant in 1974, but unfortunately the present location of the journal is unknown to me.124

Mention is made as well in Anna Whistler’s diaries of George Henry Prince’s brother, Benjamin Ropes Prince (see Image 270), second mate on the Zephyr (Capt. Leach),125 who arrived in St. Petersburg in May 1846 with George Henry Prince. He seems to have gone to work for Harrison, Winans and Eastwick.126 On 1 December 1850, he married in St. Petersburg Mary Alexandrine Van der Vliet (1830 – 3 May 1854), called “Sashy.” Both were recorded as residing in St. Petersburg.127 They left Russia at an unknown date and settled in Hamilton, Massachusetts, where Mary Alexandrine (Van der Vliet) Prince died on 3 May 1854. In January 1856, Benjamin Ropes Prince was living and farming with his brother, Samuel.128

* * *

Among other cousins from the United States who visited William Hooper Ropes and are recorded in Anna Whistler’s diaries is Franklin Henry Hooper (bap. 7 July 1822 – Boston 10 October 1847),129 who traveled to St. Petersburg in the summer of 1844. He had traveled to St. Petersburg on at least one previous occasion.130 He was the orphaned son of William (bap. 1 December 1795 – 9 March 1828) and Rebecca (Hooper) Hooper (d. 27 November 1830). William Hooper, a sea captain, died at sea. All three children of this union (their parents were married on 17 November 1818) died young.131

Notes

1   For obituaries of William Ropes, see newspaper clippings in a book donated by Mrs. John J. Trask to the PEM (PEM: Ms E R 785.3 18692).

2   List of marriages and issue, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Mary T. Gellibrand to Mrs. Hardy Ropes, St. P., July 7/19, [18]34; Mary T. and William Gellibrand, St. P., July 4/16 and July 19, 1834; Essex Times, April 30, 1884, and April 18, 1894. Death Index, vol. 393, p. 289, Massachusetts Archives at Columbia Point, Boston. See also a certified copy of an Entry of Death for William H. Ropes, Registration District of Pembroke, Sub-District of Tenby, County of Pembroke, GRO.

3   William Ropes to his parents, St. P., 29 June 1830, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

4   Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. 19 July 1830, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

5   There were children from the second marriage, but they do not figure in Anna Whistler’s diaries.

6   William and Mary Anne (Codman) Ropes to his parents, St. P. 2 May 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers; list of marriages and issue.

7   He is incorrectly identified as Alexander Mirrielees in Harriet Ropes Cabot, “The Early Years of William Ropes and Company in St. Petersburg,” The American Neptune 23, no. 2 (1963): p. 138.

8   Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. 12 April 1831, and Cronstadt 22 June 1831, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

9   Gellibrand family tree. I wish to thank Jane D’Arcy of Curtin, ACT, Australia, a descendent of William Clarke Gellibrand’s brother, Joseph Tice Gellibrand, for providing a photocopy of her family tree; a copy is also available in the Gellibrand Family Papers, LRA/MS 1110, LRA (hereafter, LRA: Gellibrand Papers). See also Joanna Livingston, “Merchants 1815–1884,” in Gellibrands (self-pub., Belvedere, 2005), p. 53, which deals primarily with William Clarke Gellibrand and Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand, in LRA: Gellibrand Papers.

10  All the foregoing information is taken from the letter of Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. Feb. 10/22, 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

11  Information about the British and American Congregational Church (often called simply the British and American Chapel) is difficult to find and contradictory. Two excellent contemporary sources on the houses of worship of St. Petersburg substantially dissipate this confusion, when compared to one another.

Antonov and Kobak, in Sviatyni Sankt-Peterburga, explain that a congregation was formed on 6 December 1833 including the Congregationalists, which seven years later separated from the Anglicans. The congregation bought a building, to which, in 1839–1840, the architect Karl-Wilhelm Winkler (1813–1861) added from the courtyard side a double-lighted hall holding 250 persons, although there were far fewer Congregationalists in St. Petersburg at that time. In 1890, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chapel, the front building was expanded into a two-story structure according to the plans of civil engineer F.V. [sic: F.N.] Sobolevskii (1831–1892) and redecorated (Antonov and Kobak, Sviatyni Sankt-Peterburga, pp. 269, 383, 388).

Shul’ts’s explanation is as follows. The building of the Methodist British–American Church and the prayer hall of Christ the Savior of the Hutterites and the prayer hall of the Sarepta Brotherhood was built on New-Isaac Street in 1820 [sic: 1840] according to the plan of the civil engineer F.N. Sobolevskii (1831–1892). When it was being built, the foundation and walls of the house previously standing on that spot in the 1780s and 1790s and the entire adjacent plot, all belonging to Count A.A. Bezborodko, were included (Shul’ts, Khramy Sankt-Peterburga, p. 261).

A valuable source about the Church are the letters from St. Petersburg of the Ropes family members to their relatives in Massachusetts in the 1830s cited in these Notes. They show that the congregation was in existence in 1832, when William Ropes arrived in Russia for the second time; that they were collecting money to build their own church; and that in the meantime they met in the meeting house of the German Moravian Brethren (Mary T. Ropes to Uncle Hardy Ropes, St. P. 19 June 1832, St. P. June 30/July 12, 1833, and St. P. 3 July N.S., and St. P. Cronstadt June 1/14 [sic], 1833, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. 4 Dec. N.S. 1832).

When Anna Whistler came to Russia, the British and American Congregational Church was well-established in its building on New-Isaac Street, and she sometimes attended services there.

12  Transcripts of Non-Conformist Registers, RG 4/405 St. Petersburg, PRO.

13  Romanes, Calls of Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 82.

14  Louisa Ropes to her grandparents, St. P. 21 Feb. 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers; typed extracts; Wm. Ropes to his parents, St. P. 10/22 Feb. 1834.

15  Wm. Ropes to his parents, St. P. 2 May N.S. 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers. Wm. C. Gellibrand and Mary Tyler Ropes were members of the dissenting church, but “from 1754 to 1837, marriages had to be performed by a beneficed Anglican clergyman in order to be legal, except in the case of Quakers and Jews. … Other nonconformists, in order to insure the legitimacy of their children, married in the Anglican church, and the event was recorded in the parish register; nonconformist registers between 1754 and 1837 record details of births/baptisms and deaths/burials only” (Amanda Bevan and Andrea Duncan, Tracing your Ancestors in the Public Record Office, 4th ed. [London: HMSO, 1990], p. 28).

16  Wm. and Mary Anne (Codman) Ropes to his parents, St. P. 2 May N.S. 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers. For a description of their apartment, in which the Whistlers were guests, see the letter of Mary T. Gellibrand to Mrs. Hardy Ropes, St. P. July 7/19, [18]34.

17  Wm. Ropes to his parents, St. P. 10/22 Feb. 1834, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta, Sept. 1/13, 1838. Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 137.

18  Registers of the Fish Street Congregational Church, Hull, Central Library, Hull, Yorkshire. See also a certified copy of an Entry of Death for Ellen Harriet Ropes. Registration District: Pembroke, Sub-district: Tenby, in the County of Pembroke, GRO.

19  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, St. P. May 11/23, 1837, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

20  Wm. C. Gellibrand to Joseph G. Jennings, St. P. 31 Jan. 1849, LRA: Gellibrand Papers. J.G. Jennings of Launceston, Van Dieman’s Land, was the eldest son of Wm. C. Gellibrand’s Aunt Hannah, who married William Jennings. Mr. Gellibrand had actually been just in St. Petersburg for thirty-five years, although he says “in Russia.”

21  A Quaker delegation hoping to avert war between Russia and England came to petition Nicholas I in 1854 and enjoyed the hospitality of the Gellibrands. See Griselda Fox Mason, Sleigh Ride to Russia (York, UK: William Sessions, 1985), pp. 43, 46, 47, 50–53, 56–57, 76, 80, 81, 85.

22  From an unpublished history of the Gellibrand family by her grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Gellibrand, a copy of which is in the possession of Jane D’Arcy (hereafter, LRA: Lady Gellibrand).

23  LRA: Lady Gellibrand. For a description of Albyns, see Livingston, Gellibrands, pp. 60–61.

Anna Whistler describes the abundance of Albyns in a letter to Mary Emma Harmar Eastwick:

Albyns is the house of all others to interest your Father. Our dear old friends have had a lease of it 17 years, it is therefore in the highest state of cultivation & has the most choice trees & shrubs to ornament, besides fine Oaks & green fields, I need not go beyond the garden walks for exercise daily they are so extensive, but I look beyond them & see in the pastures 20 Cows! Mr G-s fancy to have so many [,] of course the poor all around have milk as much as they want[.] Mrs G is the lady bountiful most fully verified and the most perfect symptom of a christian household is here kept up. cheerfulness & devotedness shewn by the many servants who assemble with us regularly for family worship noon & evening. On Sunday evenings, we all enjoy singing hymns with them in the library, where the Grand piano is. Some of our St P neighbours have happened to be guests with me now, & Ailie Ropes here also. We have enjoyed drives almost every afternoon in this prettiest part of Essex, I who have a rather solitary life, feel so grateful for the companionship of those sympathising friends. We are all at liberty to occupy our morning as we like, while Mrs G attends to her affairs and when I stroll thro the garden surrounded by such a variety of choice sweet gay flowers & look above at the blue sky & bright sun I involuntarily think “These are Thy works Almighty Parent Thine the universal good” Such a noble Cedar of Lebanon faces my room window! & a Magnolia Grand de Flora is trained to the roof of the house, it had six beautiful blossoms when I first came. rains have defaced them, but rain is so needed, since the unusual drought of the past months. The harvest of grain gathered in, said to be in all parts of England finer & more abundant Harvest than for 30 years. (Anna McNeill Whistler to Mary Emma Eastwick, Albyns Essex, Sept 8th 1874, LC: P-W, box 34, fols. 65–66 and 77–78)

24  Obituary in Essex Times, April 30, 1884.

25  Obituary in Essex Times, April 30, 1884.

26  Will of Wm. Clarke Gellibrand, 28 March 1877; probated, 28 June 1884, PRO.

27  LRA: Lady Gellibrand; obituary in Essex Times, April 18, 1894.

28  Will of Mary Tyler Gellibrand, 8 Sept. 1888; codicil, 9 Sept. 1891; second codicil, 24 Jan. 1894; probated, 4 June 1894, PRO.

29  Anna Whistler to Mary Emma Eastwick, Albyns, Essex. Sept. 8th 1874, letters of Anna Mathilda McNeill mother of James McNeill Whistler 1830–1876, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 65–68; Anna Whistler to James H. Gamble 2 Lindsay Houses Chelsea London Sept. 7–10 1870, GUL: Whistler Collection W539; Anna Whistler to Catherine (McNeill) Palmer, London, 3–4 November 1871, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 67–68 and 75–76; Anna Whistler to Mr. Gamble, Feldheim, Wimbledon Common Wednesday Nov 29 1871, GUL: Whistler Collection, W541; Anna Whistler to my beloved Friend, 2 Lindsay Houses Chelsea London Tuesday evening Nov. 5th 1872, W546; Anna Whistler to [Mr. Gamble?] 2 Lindsay Houses Chelsea Wednesday Sept. 30th [18]74, W457.

30  Anna Whistler to James and William Whistler, Coblenz, 22 January 1866, GUL: Whistler Collection, W521.

31  Mary Tyler (Ropes) Gellibrand paid two visits to Anna Whistler while visiting Elizabeth in Eastbourne in 1876 and brought Elizabeth with her on one of these visits (Anna Whistler to Mary Emma Eastwick Hastings, 19, 26 & 28 July 1876, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 79–82).

32  Certified copy of an Entry of Death for Elizabeth Hannah Ropes, Registration District of Wordsworth, Sub-district of Putney, County of London, GRO.

33  1881 Census for Stapleford Abbots, Essex, for the Gellibrand household.

34  Mary T. Gellibrand to Mrs. Hardy Ropes, St. P. Feb. 6/18, 1836, HUBL: Ropes Papers. Dr. Nikolai Fyodorovich Arendt (Kazan’ 1785 – St. Petersburg 14 October 1859), who was instrumental in establishing the Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, was Imperial physician to Emperor Nicholas I from 1828 to 1839 (Karev, Nemtsy Rossii, pp. 71–72). The family physician was Dr. James Ronaldson Handyside.

35  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, St. P. Aug. 12 N.S. [18]36, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

36  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta, Sept. 1/13, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

37  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta, Sept. 1/13, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

38  National Probate Calendar (UK), 1910.

39  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, St. P., May 4/16, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

40  Martha Reed Ropes, Religious Meditations (1840), PEM. The two residences are noted down on the inside cover of vols. 1, 3, 4, and 5. She seems to be paraphrasing sermons she had attended. I have not ascertained whether the ministers referred to were all from Boston churches. It is difficult to say what is original in the volume of poetry. The authors of some poems are, however, clearly indicated.

41  Amherst College Biographical Record of the Graduates and Non-Graduates: Centennial Edition, 1821–1921 (Amherst, MA: Trustees of Amherst College, 1939). Charles Hooper Trask was the son of Captain Richard Trask (surname changed from Tink) (Salem, MA 13 July 1788 – Manchester, MA 5 August 1846), who had been engaged in the Russia trade (see Captain Trask’s obituary by Wm. H. Tappan in Rev. D.F. Lamson, History of the Town of Manchester Essex County, Massachusetts, 1645–1895 (Manchester, MA: published by the Town, [1895]), pp. 1294–1295).

42  Marriage Index, vol. 38, p. 266, Massachusetts Archives at Columbia Point, Boston; Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 139.

43  E.S.W., ed., “Materials for a History of the Ropes Family,” Historical Collections of the Essex Institute 8, no. 1 (1868), p. 55; genealogy of the Trask family supplied by Margaret Coleman of The Russian American Cultural Center at Russia Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts (now closed). According to Coleman’s note in the margin of Cabot’s article in the American Neptune, Cabot was wrong in stating that Charles Hooper Trask captained some of the ships of William Ropes and Company. It was his father, Captain Richard Trask, who did (Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 139).

44  Andover Theological Seminary, Necrology, 1902–1903 (Boston: Everett, 1903), p. 71.

45  John Codman Ropes (St. Petersburg 28 April 1836 – Boston, MA 28 October 1899) was the scholar in William Ropes’s second family (Joseph May, John Codman Ropes, LL.D. A Memoir, by His Friend and Classmate Joseph May, reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (June 1900): pp. 3–28; Archives Biography Files (HUG 300); Harvard College class reports; Quinquennial Catalog of Harvard University, 1636–1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937); Tolman Index).

46  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. 11 August 1832; Joseph S. Ropes to grandparents, St. P. May 13/25, 1833, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

47  According to a paper read by Professor Norman E. Saul of the University of Kansas at the 1990 Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Washington, DC, Joseph Samuel Ropes was called upon to demonstrate his ability at languages before Nicholas I at the graduation ceremonies of the Third St. Petersburg Gymnasium (“American Merchants in Russia, 1815–1845,” p. 10). I wish to thank Professor Saul for providing me with a copy of his paper. For a discussion of the Third Gymnasium, see V.V. Smirnov, Peterburgskie shkoly i shkol’nye zdaniia Istoria shkol’nogo stroitel’stva v Sankt-Peterburge–Petrograde–Leningrade 1703–2003 gg. [Petersburg Schools and School Buildings: A History of Schoolbuilding in St. Peterburg–Petrograd–Leningrad, 1703–2003] (St. Petersburg: Russko-Baltiiskii informatsionnyi tsentr, BLITS, 2003), 69–70.

48  TsGIA SPb: Fond 14, opis’ 3, delo 6231. Delo Pravleniia imp. S.P. Universiteta o vydache Attestatov i Diplomov konchivshim kurs nauk v SP-skom Universitete. Iiun’ 1841g.-dek. 1841g., l. 229 [File concerning the issuing of Certificates and Diplomas by the administration of the Imperial University of Saint Petersburg to those finishing the course of studies at St. Petersburg University. June 1841 – Dec. 1841, fol. 229]. See also Wm. Ropes Trask to Wm. Ladd Ropes, Boston, 9 May 1903, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

49  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta, Sept. 1/13, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers. Concerning his junior year, see Joseph S. Ropes to his grandparents, St. P. Sept. 19/Oct. 1, 1840.

50  For a copy of his certificate, see TsGIA SPb: Fond 14, op. 3, delo 6231, fols. 227v–228 (see Note 48 for document title). In a book about the school containing an alphabetical list of day students and paying boarding students for the period 1823–1872, Joseph Ropes is no. 2244 (N. Anichkov, comp., Istoricheskaia zapiska piatidesiatiletiia tret’ei sanktpeterburgskoi gimnazii [A Historical Note for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Third St. Petersburg Gimnazium] [St. Petersburg: V. Arngol’d, 1873], p. 185).

51  Joseph S. Ropes to his aunt, Louisa Green, St. P. Aug. 30/Sept. 11, 1839, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

52  Joseph S. Ropes to Louisa Green, St. P., Sept. 26/Oct. 8, 1840, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

53  Joseph S. Ropes to Louisa Green, St. P., Sept. 26/Oct. 8, 1840, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

54  Joseph S. Ropes to Louisa Green, St. P. Aug. 30/Sept. 11, 1839, HUBL: Ropes Papers. In this letter, he reported having translated into Russian Joseph Sutcliffe’s Memoir of Emily Rowland (1836). He was thinking of translating at his leisure suitable portions of Practical Thoughts. By 1839, their Tract Committee had published seventy-six tracts. In the 1840 letter to Louisa Green, he reported having “94 tracts in regular series.”

55  TsGIA SPb: Fond 14, op. 3, d. 6231 (see Note 48 for document title), fols. 227v, 228. He took the following subjects: Metaphysics; Moral Philosophy; Russian History; Political Economy; Statistics; Rights of Nations and Diplomacy; Russian Civil Law; Russian Criminal Law; Greek; Latin; German; English, in which he received the grade of Excellent (5); Anthropology and Logic; Russian Literature; and General History and Slavic Antiquities, in which he received the grade of good (4). He received the grade of Excellent (5) in deportment as well (TsGIA SPb: Fond. 14, op. 3, d. 6231 (see Note 48 for document title), fols. 1, 1v, 2, 227v, 228); Andover, Necrology, p. 71; NEHGR, supplement (April 1904): p. lxxxviii.

56  Joseph S. Ropes to Louisa Green, St. P., Sept. 26/Oct. 8, 1840, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

57  Archibald Mirrielees to William Ropes, St. P., 12/24 June 1842, MHS: Ropes Papers. Harriet Ropes Cabot (d. 12 January 2002) graciously permitted me to consult family letters at her home, when they were still in her possession. She later deposited them with the Massachusetts Historical Society.

58  Letters 1845 [sic]: Agreement … 6 August 1846, typed extracts, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 139.

59  “Destruction of the Palace,” HUBL: Ropes Papers. Joseph Samuel had also written a very good description of St. Petersburg and Butter Week soon after his arrival in that city (Joseph S. Ropes to his grandparents, St. P., May 13/25, 1833, HUBL: Ropes Papers).

60  H.L.S., “Men and Things in Russia,” pts. 1–11, New-York Evangelist 1, no. 41 (October 13, 1842): pp. 325–326; 8, no. 43 (October 27, 1842): p. 170; 8, no. 45 (November 10, 1842): p. 178; 8, no. 51 (December 22, 1842): p. 202; 9, no. 1 (January 5, 1843): pp. 2–3; 9, no. 4 (January 26, 1843): p. 14; 9, no. 9 (March 2, 1843): p. 34; 9, 11 (March 16, 1843) p. 42; 9, no. 13 (March 30, 1843): p. 50; 9, no. 15 (April 13, 1843): p. 58; 9, no. 17 (April 27, 1843): p. 66. The titles of the letter-essays are “Peterhoff, Its Gardens and Fountains – The Imperial Family – Magnificent Festival of the Tsarina’s Silver Wedding-Day – A Russian Fete” (13 October 1842), “Sketch of the Imperial Family” (27 October 1842), “The Emperor Nicholas” (10 November 1842),“The Russian Nobility” (22 December 1842), “The Russian People” (5 January, 26 January, 2 March 1843), “Russian Character” (16 March 1843), “The Russian Winter” (30 March 1843), and “Bad Roads – The Russian Villages” (27 April 1843). One essay (13 April 1843) was untitled. He asked a cousin in the United States not to disclose his identity (Joseph S. Ropes to William Ladd Ropes, St. P., Sept. 17/29, 1842, MHS: Ropes Papers). Cabot also provided me with photocopies of a typewritten version of these eleven letter-essays.

61  RG84: Records of Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, Diplomatic Posts, USSR, vol. 003, Despatches Sent, Cambrelling, Ingersoll, 1840–1848, Ralph I. Ingersoll to Nesselrode, St. Petersburg, 15/27 September 1847, fol. 34, NAUS.

62  W.C.G., “Joseph S. Ropes,” Norwich Evening Record, March 14, 1903.

63  Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, 1701–1924 (New Haven, CT: The University, 1924), p. 587.

64  In 1867 and 1868, he served on the Special Committee for Examination in the Greek Language, in 1874 and 1878 on the Committee to Visit the Academic Departments, in 1875 and 1876 on the Committee to Visit the College.

65  Andover, Necrology, p. 72; NEHGR, supplement (April 1904), p. lxxxix.

66  Andover, Necrology, pp. 71–72; NEHGR, supplement (April 1904), pp. lxxxviii–ix. See the tribute to him in the PEM by the Boston Seaman’s Friend Society. The tribute appeared in the Boston Transcript, but the clipping is not dated.

67  NEHGR, supplement (April 1904), p. lxxxviii.

68  The Herald, March 17, 1903, p. 12; Boston Sunday Globe, March 15, 1903, p. 9.

69  In addition to the abovementioned obituaries, see the obituary by W.H.R. in response to the death notice in the Boston Evening Transcript, Monday, March 16, 1903, p. 16. It has not been possible to ascertain in which issue the obituary by W.H.R. appeared. W.H.R. may be William Hall Ropes (1845–1905), son of William Hooper and Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes.

70  William H. Ropes to his grandparents, Amherst, 8 August 1829, MHS: Ropes Papers.

71  Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 133; William Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P., 19 July 1830, MHS: Ropes Papers. In the foregoing letter, he stressed William Hooper’s need to study hard, and his difficulty with spelling and other subjects.

72  Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 136.

73  Wm. H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. Sept. 23/Oct. 5, 1833, HUBL: Ropes Papers. For an explanation of the commercial guilds of Russia, see “Russia and Her Commerical Strength,” Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine 10, no.4 (October 1841), pp. 297–321.

74  Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 137.

75  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. July 9/21, 1837, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Wm. Ropes to his parents, St. P. March 27/April 8, 1837, MHS: Ropes Papers; Archibald Mirrielees to Wm. Ropes, St. P. 12/24 June 1842; Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 138.

76  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London, 27 July 1836, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

77  Wm. Ropes to his parents, St. P. March 27/April 8, 1837, MHS: Ropes Papers; Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 137.

78  Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 139; Wm. C. Gellibrand to Wm. Ropes, St. P. 21 Aug. / 2 Sept. 1842, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Archibald Mirrielees to Wm. Ropes, St. P., 12/24 June 1842, MHS: Ropes Papers.

79  Cabot, “William Ropes and Company,” p. 139.

80  Mary T. Gellibrand to Hardy Ropes, Okhta, near Petersburg, June 6/18, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers. For further family assessments of Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes, see also Mary T. Gellibrand to grandparents, St. P., Sept. 1/13, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Joseph Samuel Ropes to his grandparents, St. P., September 19/October 1, 1840; and in typed extracts: June 24/July 6, 1840.

81  William Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London, 30 July 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

82  Mary T. Gellibrand to Hardy Ropes, Okhta, near Petersburg, June 6/18, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

83  Wm. H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, New York, 9 March 1840, HUBL: Ropes Papers; William Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London, 30 April 1840.

84  E.S.W., “Materials for a History of the Ropes Family,” p. 61; IGI.

85  Mary T. Gellibrand to Wm. Ladd Ropes, Peterhoff road Sept. 7/19 [1844], MHS: Ropes Papers.

86  William H. Ropes to The Honorable Mr. L. Marcy, Secretary of State, St. P, RG59: M81, Despatches from US Consuls in St. Petersburg, 1803–1906, roll 5, vols. 7–9, 31 December 1847 – 30 December 1857, NAUS. See the letter of 4/16 December 1850, in which he states that he has “entered upon the duties of [his] office as Consul of the United States for this place,” and his letter of 4/16 May 1854 concerning the termination of his duties as consul. Both of the letters were to Mr. Marcy. William H. Ropes was succeeded by William Lewis Winans of Harrison and Winans.

87  List of marriages and issue, HUBL: Ropes Papers. See also 1861 Census for Lewisham; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1931 and 1933.

88  “Obituary. Mr. Adrian Ross,” The Times (London), September 12, 1933; see also The Times (London), September 13, 14, 15, 1933; The Literary Who’s Who for the Year 1920 (London: George Routledge & Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920), p. 233.

89  All of the foregoing information about residences is from John Coulter, Local History Centre of the Libraries Division of Lewisham Leisure, to E. Harden, 31 August 1991.

90  E.S.W., “Materials for a History of the Ropes Family,” p. 55.

91  1871 Census for Civil Parish of Hackney, Municipal Ward of Stanford Hill, City of Hackney, Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Matthew, RG 10/312, fol. 6, p. 7.

92  The Times (London), no. 28624, c. May 10, 1876; The Times (London), August 1, 1884; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1884.

93  Anna Whistler to Mary Emma Eastwick, Hastings, Wednesday. July 19. 1876, Letters of Anna Mathilda McNeill, mother of James McNeill Whistler, 1830–1876, LC: P–W, box 34, fols. 81–84.

94  Will of Mary Tyler Gellibrand, 8 Sept. 1888; codicil, 9 Sept. 1891; second codicil, 24 Jan. 1894; probated, 4 June 1894, PRO.

95  The widowed Charles Hooper Trask was the husband of Ellen Gellibrand Ropes’s aunt, Martha Reed (Ropes) Trask. She had died in 1888. See her biography earlier in this essay.

96  The Times (London), no. 33485, November 1891. As Louisa Harriet (Ropes) Cattley was in attendance, he may have died at her home (certified copy of an Entry of Death for William Hooper Ropes, GRO). See also Pall Mall Gazette, March 19, 1869.

97  Certified copy of an Entry of Death for Ellen Harriet Ropes, GRO.

98  Will of Ellen Harriet Ropes, PRO.

99  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Leeds, 9 March 1841, HUBL: Ropes Papers; list of marriages and issue; IGI for Yorkshire; “Deaths” and obituary, Scarborough Gazette, August 3, 1865; certified copy of an Entry of Death for Harriet Hall, Registration District: Scarborough, Sub-District: Scarborough, County of York, GRO.

100  The Register of Marriages in the Parish of St. Hybald, Scawby in the County of Lincoln for the Years 1813–1837, p. 14, no. 42, microfilm no. 1609, SoG.

101  Leeds directories for 1839 and 1853.

102  Census entries for 1841 and 1851. See also Charles Hadfield, The Canals of Yorkshire and North East England, 2 vols. (Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1973), vol. 2, p. 362.

103  1861 Census entry for 5 Victoria Place, Falsgrave, Scarborough.

104  1861 Census entry for 5 Victoria Place, Falsgrave, Scarborough; “Births, Marriage and Deaths” as well as obituary, Scarborough Gazette, August 13, 1865; certified copy of an Entry of Death for Harriet Hall, GRO.

105  Certified copy of an Entry of Death for Harriet Hall, GRO.

106  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Leeds, March 9, 1841, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

107  List of marriages and issue, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Registers of the Fish Street Congregational Church, Hull, Central Library, Hull, Yorkshire; Returns of Births and Baptisms Deaths and Marriages from Brit. & Amer. Congl. Church St. Petersburg, with an Index 1840–1895, RG 33/144, PRO.

108  Certified copy of an Entry of Marriage for George Henry Prince and Marian Amelia Hall, GRO. They were married in the Belgrave Chapel, Leeds, “according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Independent Denomination.” The groom was twenty-eight years old; the bride was twenty-six.

109  List of marriages and issue, HUBL: Ropes Papers; typed extracts: envelope containing a description of the death of George Henry Prince.

110  I wish to thank Mr. S. Hardy Prince of Beverly, Massachusetts, for this information.

111  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London, 24 Feb. 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

112  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London, 3 April 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Wm. H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. July 4/16, 1838. George Henry Prince did not like Mr. Mirrielees any more than Joseph Samuel Ropes did.

113  Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta, Sept. 1/13, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers. George Henry Prince is described at length in this letter.

114  Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London 14 Oct. 1837, HUBL: Ropes Papers; London 3 April 1838; London 7 Sept. 1838; Mary T. Gellibrand to her grandparents, Okta Sept. 1/13, 1838; Wm. H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P. Sept. 22/Oct. 4, 1838; St. P. Oct. 19/31, 1838; Joseph S. Ropes to his grandparents, St. P. Aug. 29/Sept. 10, 1839; Wm. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, London 14 Nov. 1839.

115  Joseph S. Ropes to his grandparents, St. P. Aug. 29/Sept. 10, 1839, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

116  Joseph S. Ropes to his aunt, St. P. June 24/July 6, 1841, MHS: Ropes Papers.

117  BUHG: Colin Ingersoll Journal, pt. 2, fol. 50. See also the reference to this joint undertaking in the diary of Henry K. Fettyplace, who visited St. Petersburg briefly in July 1848, and met his “old friend and schoolmate, George Prince,” while calling on Major Whistler (entry of Monday, 24th July [1848], PEM: Fettyplace Journal). Fettyplace mistakenly called Mr. Fairbanks an Englishman.

118  Hardy Ropes to his son, Wm. Ladd Ropes, Boston 22 Dec. 1849, HUBL: Ropes Papers; diaries of Hardy Ropes: No. 32, Year 1849; no. 33, Year 1850.

119  I wish to thank Mr. S. Hardy Prince of Beverly, Massachusetts, for this information. See also The Times (London), September 20, 1933; August 18, 1942; September 14, 1946; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1933 and 1942.

120  Attestation of Marriages in the British & American Congregational Church St. Petersburg Russia from June 22 1844 to 11th November 1886 numbered 1/84, no. 68, RG 33/145, NAUK; 1901 Census for London.

121  RG 33/145, NAUK, no. 73; 1901 Census for London.

122  Envelope containing a description of the death of G.H. Prince, typed extracts, HUBL: Ropes Papers.

123  [Transcript of the] Register of Births and Baptisms [1895–1903], Deaths and Burials [1896–1903], and Marriages [1896–1903], from the British and American Church, at St. Petersburg, RG 33/149, PRO.

124  Raymond and Prince, “Whistler,” pp. 3–14.

125  Captain Thomas Leach (6 September 1807 – 5 December 1886) was born and died in Manchester, MA (Manchester Vital Records 1850, p. 76).

126  Anna Whistler to James Whistler St Petersburg Feb. 19 Monday eve [1849], GUL: Whistler Collection, W383, with additional entries on 20, 22, and 24 February.

127  [Transcript of the] Attestation of marriages in the British & American Congregational Church, St. Petersburg, Russia from June 22 1844 to 11 November 1886 numbered 1–84, no. 16, RG 33/145, PRO.

128  The information about Benjamin and Mary Alexandrine (Van der Vliet) Prince is taken from a letter written by Benjamin Prince in Hamilton, MA, on 13 January 1856 to his sister, Sarah. In it, he speaks of living better now, as his brother, Samuel, has just married. He speaks also of Mrs. Revillon, who was at that time in the United States. It becomes clear in this letter that he has customers to whom he supplies milk. Notes written on the letter clarify that “Sashy” Prince is dead. I am grateful to Mr. S. Hardy Prince of Beverley, MA, for supplying a copy of this annotated letter.

129  See his application of March 26, 1844, for a passport (NAUS: Passports, M1371, roll 2, p. 16, passport no. 1902). See also, Pope and Hooper, Hooper Genealogy, p. 149.

130  William H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. Petersburg, September 22/October 4, 1838, HUBL: Ropes Papers; Joseph S. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. P., August 30/ Sept. 11, 1839.

131  Pope and Hooper, Hooper Genealogy, pp. 125, 148–149.