John Thaxter Poses Unhappily in the 1850s |
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Historic
Must be the season, but this scary deteriorating close-up photo of poet Celia Thaxter’s son John (second of three boys) reminds me of the Halloween masks that used to come on the back of a box of cereal. The difference is the piercing eyes that look at us through the centuries. John (1854-1929) was clearly not happy posing for his picture. (Continued below)
Celia was 19 when John was born and, according to her letters, was a difficult child. “Baby gets more and more obstreperous every day,” Celia wrote soon after his birth. “He squeals enough to cut your head in two.” John’s parents had a troubled relationship and the boy was often away from the Isles of Shoals with his father Levi Lincoln Thaxter. John married Mary Gertrude Stoddard in 1887 who was from a wealthy
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