If you think strange creatures and things that go bump in the night are inventions of the twentieth century, you are sorely mistaken. The Victorians loved their Gothic literature, spearheaded their own Spiritualist movement, and even encountered a mythological creature or two. Victorians even had their own cryptozoological creatures swimming about their waters and creeping about their forests. In fact, most of the cryptozoological creatures people encounter today were the same ones encountered in the times of our ancestors.

Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster and New England has the Great New England Sea Serpent. Sightings of the sea serpent around the New England coast began in 1638 and have continued being told by boaters and fishermen since then. The creature resembles a large ocean snake, the major difference being its massive size described between 30 and 80 feet long in my brief research. No real specimen of this creature has been caught, although people in 1817 believed they caught a baby sea serpent, which was most likely a deformed terrestrial snake.

The sightings of the sea serpent were not limited to lower class fishermen, sailors and boaters, however. About a year ago, I came across a copy of the Brunswick Telegraph from the 1880s with an odd article in it about yet another sighting of the slithery creature. The article reported peripherally that General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the great Civil War hero and former governor of Maine, had actually seen the great sea serpent with his own two eyes. He was on his schooner, the Pinafore, off one of the peninsulas south of Brunswick (I believe it was Casco Bay) and he saw what he described as a serpentine creature that he had never seen before and was quite large. I want to say he estimated that it was 40 feet long. I don't have the article in front of me as it is in storage but it appeared to me that the reporter, of course, did not take the story very seriously. A joke was cracked in the article about General Chamberlain charging the great serpent as he had charged the rebels on Little Round Top.

Even so, Chamberlain was not prone to lying and I find him to be a credible source. If he said he saw the Great New England Sea Serpent, then he saw it.

I don't remember where I saw this information but when I find the source, I will update the blog.

The bracelet was designed by the Civil War hero Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as a tenth anniversary present for his wife, Frances Caroline Adams Chamberlain, who had seen precious little of him during the war. In November 1865 he contacted Tiffany and Company in New York City to see if they could execute the design. The firm replied that it was "perfectly practicable" and that Chamberlain should reply by telegraph "to insure its completion in time" for the anniversary. Tiffany's bill, dated December 6, 1865, noted "Bracelet to order - $250." The following day, the Chamberlains' anniversary as well as what was then Thanksgiving Day in Maine, the general presented the bracelet to his wife.

The bracelet is made of yellow gold with a central medallion bearing a red enameled Maltese cross bordered with diamonds, set on a white enameled field. This was the insignia of the Fifth Corps Army of the Potomac, which included the Twentieth Maine Infantry, commanded by Chamberlain during the Civil War. Apparently Chamberlain had suggested that the cross be outlined in rubies, for in their November letter to him Tiffany's cautioned that "the rubies as a border to the red enamel would not look well & the effect would be bad & lost." The firm assured him that the difference in price between rubies and diamonds would not be more than twenty dollars.


Opposite the Maltese cross is a replica of Chamberlain's shoulder bar with two silver stars (Pl. III), indicating his rank of major general a promotion he received shortly after he presided over the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. Like the red cross, the blue bar is enameled en guilloche. The border of the bar and the edges of the bracelet are chased to simulate military cording. Engraved on the inside of the bracelet behind the bar is "Fannie C. Chamberlain/Dec. 7th 1865."

The edges of the bracelet are joined by twenty-four miniature hourglasses that, according to family tradition, symbolize the weary hours of each day that Chamberlain was away from his wife during the war. The names of twenty-four battles in which he fought are engraved on the hourglasses as follows: ANTIETAM, SHEPARDSTOWN FORD, FREDERICKSBURG, CHANCELLORSVILLE, GETTYSBURG, SHARPSBURG PIKE, MANASSAS GAP, BRANDY STATION, RAPPHANNOCK ST[ATIO]N, SPOTSYLVANIA C.[OURT] H.[OUSE], TA RIVER, NORTH ANNA, LITTLE RIVER, TOLOPATAMOY, MAGNOLIA SWAMP, BETHESDA CHURCH, CHICKAHOMINY, PETERSBURG, WATKIN'S FARM, QUAKER ROAD, WHITE OAK ROAD, FIVE FORKS, SOUTH SIDE R.[AIL] R.[OAD], and APPOMATTOX C.[OURT] H.[OUSE].

Fanny Chamberlain, ca. 1862.

Welcome to Fanny's Parlor: The 19th Century Brought to Life.

I was inspired to create this blog because every time I talked about life in the 19th century, people always wanted to know where they could find more information. I'm a teacher by nature and I believe in teaching through giving people things they can relate to and that makes history less of a dry odyssey through dates and names that mean nothing to most people now.

I chose to call this blog Fanny's Parlor after a nineteenth century woman by the name of Fanny Chamberlain. (Most of you who know me already know about her.) Born in quite humble beginnings, Fanny rose to become an artist living on her own, a music and voice teacher, a college professor's wife, onto a Civil War general's wife, the First Lady of Maine, and a college president's wife. She led a unique life for nineteenth century standards and witnessed things that most of her peers never dreamed of in their own lives.

Fanny was known in her lifetime for inviting students of Bowdoin College and people in the town of Brunswick, Maine, into her home for parties and social gatherings. She helped the students with their problems and cared for them so much that the habits were mentioned in her eulogy. It was said: "Then to the time Mr. Chamberlain was made president of Bowdoin College when she was still 'the same little Fannie Adams,' and the students came to her with their joys and sorrows, wrong doings and love affairs. Whatever happened, she always took the part of the student, being almost a mother to them." It was also said of her: "Mrs. Chamberlain had a fund of funny stories and of quaint sayings. She was young and bright in spirit, even to her last. She was cultured and intellectual and an artist in painting as well as in music. But better than all her versatile talents was her dear, true strong, loving heart."

She is the namesake of this blog and the point of reference for the things taught here. No subject will be off-limits. There will be everything from humor to seriousness, birth to death, Victorian oddities, sex, love, marriage, careers, fashion, architecture, furniture, incorporating Victorianisms into the present, and everything in between. In the spirit of Fanny's "fund of funny stories and of quaint sayings," this blog will be anything but a dry historical reference.

I hope to see all of you here in the evolution of Fanny's Parlor.