[15] give an anecdote of her whilst yet young. Her parents were of the Episcopal Church, and among the most bigoted of that body. In those days the Baptists were a despised people, and it was reckoned vulgar to be of their community. One day, however, it was made known through the neighborhood where she lived that one of these despised sectaries1 would preach in a barn, and a party of gay young people, one of whom was the lovely and gay Fanny Lloyd, agreed for a frolic to go and hear him. Of those who went to scoff one remained to pray; this was Fanny Lloyd. Her soul was deeply touched by the meek and holy spirit of the preacher; she wept much during the sermon, and when it was over, the preacher spake kindly to her. From that day a change came over her mind; she would no longer despise and ridicule the Baptists; and before long announced to her astonished and indignant parents that she found it necessary for the peace of her soul to become publicly one of that despised body. Nothing could equal the exasperation which followed this avowal. They threatened that if she allowed herself to be baptized, they would turn her out of doors. It was not a matter of choice, but of stern duty with her; she meekly expostulated—she besought them with tears to hear her reasons, but in vain. She could not, however, resist that which she believed to be her duty to God; she was baptized, and had no longer a home under her parents' roof. She then took refuge with an uncle, with whom she resided several years. This early persecution only strengthened her religious opinions; and she remained through life a zealous advocate of those peculiar views for which she had suffered so much.2The date of Abijah Garrison's marriage is uncertain, except that it was nearly at the close of the last century, and on the 12th day of December. The place of the ceremony is equally unknown; neither has it been ascertained where was the first home of the young couple. Not improbably, from what follows, it may have been
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1 Perhaps ‘Elder J. Murphy, a licentiate from a Baptist church in Nova Scotia.’ who in 1794 commenced preaching on the adjacent Moose Island. on which Eastport, Me., is situated. (See Millet's “Hist. Baptists in Maine,” p. 338.) The church at Eastport, which ultimately grew out of this beginning, had members on Deer Island.
2 As Mr. Garrison, on his visit to England in 1846, must have furnished Mrs. Howitt with these facts in regard to his mother, they are reproduced here as more authentic than any later recollections could have been.
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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