Introduction
Born: May 17, 1833, Hanover, New Hampshire (Julian incorrectly gives the location as Hanover, New Haven).
Died: August 31, 1902, Brooklyn, New York.
Buried: Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Pseudonym: Farin.
Born: May 17, 1833, Hanover, New Hampshire (Julian incorrectly gives the location as Hanover, New Haven).
Died: August 31, 1902, Brooklyn, New York.
Buried: Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Pseudonym: Farin.
Grace was the daughter of Charles Brickett Haddock (a minister and professor at Dartmouth College) and Susan Saunders Lang, and wife of lawyer Theodore Hinsdale (married 1850). Her maternal grandfather was Colonel Ebenezer Webster, the father of statesman Daniel Webster. She was named after her father’s aunt, Grace Fletcher Webster.
Grace contributed verses and short sketches to Scribner’s Magazine (when it was known as Hours at Home), the Boston Congregationalist, the Independent, the Sunday School Times, and the Christian Union.
In the green fields of Palestine,
By its fountains and its rills,
And by the sacred Jordan’s stream,
And o’er the vine-clad hills.
Once lived and roved the fairest Child
That ever blessed the earth;
The happiest, the holiest
That e’er had human birth.
How beautiful His childhood was
Harmless and undefiled;
Oh! dear to His young mother’s heart
Was this pure, sinless child!
Kindly in all His deeds and words
And gentle as the dove;
Obedient, affectionate,
His very soul was love.
Oh! is it not a blessèd thought,
Children of human birth,
That once the Savior was a child
And lived upon the earth?
Grace Webster Hinsdale
Coming to the King, 1865