The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1898-11-10
parrots, one OF which had belonged to
Jerome Bonaparte

Henry Hall Ward had been very fond
of birds. The fence of the backyard was
unusually high, was covered with vines
and lined with dovecote. The parrots
and doves were great pets of Mr..
Wards After his death Miss Partridge
had them most carefully tended. AS
one by one they died she had them
stuffed and placed in front hall room
ON the second floor. This is the only
particular in which the interior aspect
of the house was changed from the ex-
act condition in which Mr.. Ward or
MIR. Harry" as Miss Par fridge would
call him in speaking of him to his old
servants, left it,
For many years she continued her soil
tary visits and wandered through the
house which had so many tender mem
cries for her-for she herself had lived
there until the death of her lover 8
mother, but with the lapse of years,
doubtless owing to the fact that not a
ray of sun could find it's way through
the tightly closed shutters, the house be-
came musty, and the books, the papers,
the stuffed birds and the many pictures
and objects of taste began to show
signs of decay.
Then Miss Partridge took a step which
must have given her heart great
wrench Except for the caretaker' s
quarters, she had the entire interior of
the house stripped and everything taken
to her residence, and from that time her
visits to the house have ceased, but even
when the house was being stripped the
shutters were not opened, and it is a
fact that for % years they have re-
manned tightly closed.
Henry Hall Ward, to whom Miss
Partridge has remained SO faithful for
SO many years, was one Of the leaders of
the New York society of his day and in
which the Ward family is still repre-
sented by his cousins-General William
G. Ward, who was an officer in the
United States volunteer service during
the civil war, and Mr.. Charles H.
Ward Mr. Francis E. Ward, the lat
ter's son, is secretary of the SeabIight
Golf club, and another son, Henry
Ward, is with Troop A in Porto Rico
Henry Hall Ward was president of
the New York club in it's early days.
when it had delightful quarters In the
old Haight house, at Fifth avenue and
Fifteenth street. He was also promi-
nent member of the Union club and of
the Society of the Cincinnati, of which
he was also treasurer. The Ward family
owes its membership in this society to
Colonel Samuel Ward, an officer of the
Revolutionary army, who was Henry
Hall Ward s grandfather. The portrait
of another ancestor, Governor Richard
Ward of Rhode Island, is now the prop
erty of Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt
Henry Hall Wards father was a
brother of Samuel Ward, whose son,
Samuel, was the Sam Ward, famous as
wit, scholar and bon vivant Other
cousins of Henry Hall Ward We're Mrs
Julia Ward Howe and Mrs. Crawford,
the wife of the sculptor and the mother
of f. Marion Crawford. 1t seems Won
der that the novelist should not have
woven this romance, which he found
ready to hand in his own family, into a
novel
Henry Hall Wards social position
hihy pp JohSoh AiOiii WV itiCb NAV oiliOht =
the pallbearers at his funeral in Grace
church were John Jacob Astor, Walter
l.. Cutting, Johnston Livingston and
James Francis Ruggles
Eliza Ann Partridge's relationship to
Henry Hall Ward arose from the fact
that their mothers were sisters They
were members of the Hall family of
Pomfret, Conn. j Prescott Hall, her
uncle, was William NJ Evart's first law
partner Those who knew Miss Par
fridge as a girl, so many years ago de-
scribe her as charming She was of
medium height, had brown eyes and an
abundance of strikingly dark hair She
is said, even now, at the age of "a. to
preserve much of her youthful beauty
When Henry Hall Ward died, one of
his friends penned these lines in his
memory:
Honored and loved, he passed away
As sinks "A summers day to rest;
The brightest when the radiant clouds
OF silent evening gem the west
Does the woman who still treasures
his memory think of these lines as she
gazes into the sunset?-New York Her :
aid.