childhood.  She attended the district school, was a fair writer and speller and, like her father very fond of reading.  She learned to cook and sew, make butter and cheese, spin and weave, and was very domestic in all her tastes.  The Reads and Anthonys were near neighbors, and although differing widely in religious belief, a subject of much prominence in those days, they were on terms of intimate friendship even before the ties were made still closer by marriage between the two families.

Both Anthonys and Laphams were Quakers as far back as the sect was in existence.  Both were families of wealth and influence, and when Humphrey and Hannah were married she received from her parents a house and thirty acres of land, which were entailed on her children.  Silver spoons are still in the family, which were part of her dowry more than a century ago.  Hannah Lapham Anthony was a most saintly woman and, because of her beautiful religious character was made an elder and given an exalted position on the “high seat."[1]

[Illustration:  Home of Lucy read, Adams, mass.]

She was a very handsome brunette and was noted for the beauty and elegance of her Quaker attire, her bonnets always being made in New York.  Humphrey never attained the “high seat;” he was too worldly.  His ambition was constantly to add more to his broad acres, to take a bigger drove of cattle to Boston than any of his neighbors, and to get a higher price for his own than any other Berkshire cheese would bring.  He had a number of farms and a hundred cows, while his wife made the best cheese and was the finest housekeeper in all that part of the country.  The fame of her coffee and biscuits, apple dumplings and chicken dinners, spread far and wide.  Their kitchen was forty feet long.  One end was used for the dining-room, with the table seating twenty persons, and in the other were the sink and the “penstock,” which brought water from a clear, cold spring high up in the mountains.  Here also were the huge fire-place, the big brick oven and the large pantry.  Then there were the spacious “keeping” or sitting-room, with the mother’s bedroom opening out of it, the great weaving-room with its wheels and loom, and two bed-rooms for the “help” down stairs, while above were the children’s sleeping-rooms.  Opening out of the kitchen was a room containing the cheese press and the big “arch” kettle, and near by was a two-story building where the cheese was stored.  Up in the grove was the saw-mill, and at the foot of the hill was the blacksmith shop, where nails were made, horses shod, wagons and farm implements mended and, later, scythes manufactured.  On all the farms were fine orchards of apples, plums, pears, cherries and quinces, among which stood long rows of beehives with their wealth of honey.