Earthbound and Heavenbent Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (1747-1817)

Preface Close to the Connecticut River and set back from the road that runs north out of Hadley, Massachusetts, stands a house called Forty Acres. Built in 1752, it is a graceful blend of Georgian and Federal architecture. Lilacs and mock orange grow close to the foundations, tall shade trees shadow the roof, meadows slide gently down to the river. An eighteenth-century vision stands realized, a dream of shelter for succeeding generations, of seasoned elegance and growing prosperity emerging from a productive farm.Born in 1747, Elizabeth Porter Phelps spent all but her first five years at Forty Acres. Her remarkable life spanned three wars, a major uprising, and the emergence of a nation. During that time, alterations to the house reflect aesthetic and practical changes in the occupants' lives. Rooms in the house, spared from overzealous restoration, retain traces of the family members who lived within its walls.Another record exists in the wealth of family papers preserved and passed from generation to generation. Diaries and letters re-create the ordinary and extraordinary; they make audible individual voices. They put flesh on the bones of history. Phelps's papers create for us a vivid picture of a brief time when people were united by mutual needs, a common religion, and a belief in the existence of a "promised land." This belief tied them to their land and to the close-knit community that they created. It was a succoring community, its foundation the seventeenth-century covenant in which the inhabitants promised to watch over one another.In many ways, the world described by Elizabeth Phelps has disappeared, but as we explore that world, we find ourselves on surprisingly familiar ground: lives disrupted, in some cases extinguished by war, threatened by rampant epidemics, destructive natural catastrophes; people overworked, men torn between public and private aspirations, women yearning after food for the spirit; marriages unsettled by lack of communication, depression, financial loss, prolonged absence, anxiety for children's welfare.One cannot gain an accurate sense of what it was like to live in eighteenth-century New England without recognizing the ways in which Calvinism continued to influence people's thinking, particularly among farming communities. Though the single-minded Calvinism of seventeenth-century Puritans does not characterize the religion of all eighteenth-century New Englanders, its enduring strength can be seen in the multiple revivals that occurred well into the nineteenth century. Millennial dreams were nourished from meetinghouse pulpits. The dissensions that arose in the late eighteenth century within the Congregational Church kept theological debate alive among clergy and laity alike.Whether the inhabitants of early New England were pious believers or not, everyday life was suffused with signs of the divine intention. Responding to that intention demanded both an active and a contemplative life, one in which love of one's neighbor was demonstrated through acts of kindness, and the love and fear of God through meditation and prayer. For the devout to fulfill both demands produced inner conflict. Writing was a way in which Elizabeth Phelps could explore this dichotomy in her own life.The contents of a house -- beds, tables, chests of drawers -- can be bequeathed from one generation to another. But what about ideas, principles, creeds; can a house nurture and preserve a family legacy based on these intangibles? Can those convictions be passed from generation to generation like teapots and shawls? Elizabeth Phelps's story provides one answer to these questions. Copyright 2004 by Elizabeth CarlisleCarlisle, Elizabeth is the author of 'Earthbound and Heavenbent Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (1747-1817)' with ISBN 9780743244404 and ISBN 0743244400.