Charity Bryant

Charity Bryant (May 22, 1777[1] – October 6, 1851[2]) was an American business owner and writer. She was a diarist and wrote acrostic poetry.[3] Because there is extensive documentation for the shared lives of Bryant and her partner, Sylvia Drake (October 31, 1784 – February 13, 1868), their diaries, letters and business papers have become an important part of the archive in documenting the history of same-sex couples.[4]

Charity Bryant
Sheldon Museum. Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, Middlebury Vermont
BornCharity Bryant
May 22, 1777
North Bridgewater, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedOctober 6, 1851(1851-10-06) (aged 74)
Resting placeWeybridge Hill Cemetery, Addison County, Vermont
Occupationbusiness owner, diarist
Genrediary; acrostic poet
PartnerSylvia Drake

Biography

Charity Bryant was born on May 22, 1777, in North Bridgewater, Massachusetts[5] to Silence (née Howard) and Phillip Bryant.[6] Her mother died of consumption shortly after her birth.[7] She was the sister of Peter Bryant (August 12, 1767 – March 20, 1820), a doctor and later a state legislator,[8][9] and the aunt of famed romantic poet William Cullen Bryant.[10] She was a descendant of Francis Cooke through her father's line.[11] As the youngest of at least ten surviving children[12] (including an oldest brother, Oliver, who had enlisted in the Massachusetts militia and died sometime in August of 1776),[12] Bryant was often treated with "affectionate indulgence"[13] by her older siblings, who also instilled in her a love for poetry that would stay with her throughout her life.[14]

Bryant began working as a teacher in 1797 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts,[15] which allowed her the opportunity to live independently from her father and stepmother, earn her own living, and still protect her reputation.[16] During this time, she formed intimate relationships with several of her fellow teachers,[17] including most notably Lydia Richards, with whom Bryant exchanged a number of poems containing somewhat erotic imagery.[18]

In 1807, she went to visit a friend, Polly Hayward in Weybridge, Vermont and it was there that she was introduced to Polly's sister, Sylvia Drake.[lower-alpha 1] The two quickly became partners and worked together in a tailoring business that they ran out of their shared house.[20] Their community, including their relatives, accepted them as a married couple.[20][21][22]

Drake discussed their relationship in her diaries:

Tuesday- 3 [July]—31 years since I left my mother’s house and commenced serving in company with Dear Miss B. Sin mars all earthly bliss, and no common sinner have I been, but God has spared my life, given me every thing I would enjoy and now I have a space, if I improve it, to exercise true penitence.[23][24]

Bryant’s nephew, William Cullen Bryant, also described their relationship using language that emphasized the depth of the women's relationship:

If I were permitted to draw the veil of private life, I would briefly give you the singular, and to me interesting, story of two maiden ladies who dwell in this valley. I would tell you how, in their youthful days, they took each other as companions for life, and how this union, no less sacred to them than the tie of marriage, has subsisted, in uninterrupted harmony, for more than forty years.[4]

The two women were prominent members of their community, and their relationship was treated the same way as any standard marriage between a man and a woman: according to William Cullen Bryant, Bryant was like the "husband," and Drake was her "fond wife."[25] On tax documents and census records, Bryant was always noted as the head of the household.[26]

Bryant had suffered from poor health since infancy,[27] and her adult years were also plagued with illness. In the summer of 1839, she developed heart disease [28] that would ultimately kill her on October 6, 1851.[29] In her will, Bryant left their shared home entirely to Drake[30] who lived there until 1859.[31]

Bryant and Drake are buried together under a shared headstone at Weybridge Hill Cemetery, Addison County, Vermont.[32]

Notes
  1. Washington states that "They came to Weybridge in 1806 from eastern Massachusetts..."[19]

References

Citations
  1. Cleves 2014, p. 3.
  2. Cleves 2014, p. 189.
  3. Cleves 2014, p. 100.
  4. Albers, Jan (2015). "Sylvia and Charity: a Vermont Love Story for the Ages". Henry Sheldon Museum. Middlebury, Vermont: Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History. Archived from the original on 30 June 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  5. Cleves 2014, pp. ix, 3.
  6. Cleves 2014, p. 2.
  7. Horowitz 2015, p. 588.
  8. Cleves 2014, p. 20-21.
  9. "William Cullen Bryant". Plainfield Historical Society. Plainfield, Massachusetts. 2015. Archived from the original on 27 January 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  10. Cleves 2014, p. xi.
  11. Kurian & Lamport 2016.
  12. Cleves, 2.
  13. Cleves, 5.
  14. Ibid.
  15. Cleves, 27.
  16. Cleves, 29.
  17. Cleves, 36.
  18. Cleves, 39.
  19. Washington 1991, p. 40.
  20. Kaplan, Sarah (March 20, 2015). "The improbable, 200-year-old story of one of America's first same-sex 'marriages'". The Washington Post. Washington, D. C. Archived from the original on 19 July 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  21. Cleves 2014, pp. xi=xii.
  22. Onion, Rebecca (13 June 2014). "Same-sex marriage in the 19th century". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 22 March 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  23. Sylvia Drake’s Diary, 1838
  24. Cleves 2014, p. 129.
  25. Cleves, 140.
  26. Cleves, 139-141.
  27. Cleves, 4.
  28. Cleves, 175.
  29. Cleves, 189.
  30. Cleves, 193.
  31. Cleves, 194.
  32. Cleves 2014, p. xii.

Bibliography
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