Miscellany Mondays: Sarah Loring Bailey
Scholar, educator, author
Synonymous among local historians and history buffs is the name Sarah Loring Bailey.
She is known for writing the authoritative history of Andover, a book with a lasting impact on the community. One person even called it the “Bible of Andover.”1 It’s therefore worth learning more about the woman behind this important work.
Aside from historical research, she led a successful career as a teacher and a writer.
Her parents, Otis Bailey, deacon of the North Parish Unitarian Church, and Lucinda Alden Loring, a teacher, recognized her academic abilities and encouraged her education.23 She attended local private schools including Franklin Academy on Academy Road, the first school in Massachusetts to accept girls.4
Bailey was born on April 22, 1834 in the Parson Barnard House in the North Parish (now North Andover). She knew her home as the Bradstreet House because they believed Simon Bradstreet, a founding settler of Andover, built it in the 1660s.
It turns out that William Barnard erected the house in 1715 and Simon Bradstreet had no association. This revelation came in the 1950s shortly after the North Andover Historical Society purchased the property. However, the Barnard family bought the vacant land from Dudley Bradstreet, son of Simon.5
After Franklin Academy, Sarah Bailey took her first teaching job at a school in Andover’s West Parish. She then continued her education at Bradford Academy in Haverhill, another co-ed school, before returning to teaching.
She never stayed in one place for long. She began at a high school in Newton, then Lynn, then back to the Punchard School at Andover. The next stop was a boarding school for women in Georgetown, Kentucky. The Civil War suspended school operations so she left for a private school in Galena, Illinois.
In Galena, she managed to befriend the family of Ulysses S. Grant who had a home there after the war.6
She had the biggest break of her career when she accepted a position at the Dearborn Female Seminary in Chicago.7 Founded in 1855, it was the oldest school in Chicago that prepared girls for college. The University of Chicago acquired it in 1899.8
When not teaching, Bailey spent her time writing articles and poetry including the short work “Young Ladies at Andover.”
Circling back in a way, she held her last teaching job in Boston. It was at this time she refined her interest in writing towards historical research. She began to collect tidbits of Andover history, sketches if you will.
The desire for a complete, chronological history of the town emerged as her collection of stories grew. Bailey quit teaching for good in 1876 and dedicated more of her time to the “Sketches of Old Andover.”910
By 1880, “sketches” would greatly underestimate the scale of her work. Motivated by a “love for what was historic,” she authored the most thorough history of Andover to date.11
The financial backing to cover publication costs came from a number of local individuals and institutions including Phillips Brooks, Peter Smith, and the Trustees of Phillips Academy.12 She published the work with Houghton Mifflin & Co. in 1880.
Considered her “crowning effort,”13 the 626-page history contained an introduction explaining the geology of Andover by George F. Wright and several illustrations. She changed the title to “Historical Sketches of Andover” with the important note that the history of the town covered what is now Andover and North Andover. The towns split in 1855.
Bailey effectively retired after publishing her book. She traveled abroad later in life, spending several months in Paris.
At home, she had a reputation for her fidelity, zeal, and “more than ordinary mental powers.”14
On September 8, 1896, in Taunton, Massachusetts, amid ill-health, she died. She had no spouse or children but had siblings and friends to memorialize her. They organized a service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, after which they buried her in Ridgewood Cemetery in the Bailey family plot.15 The next year her sister Charlotte published a collection of her poems.16
In the preface of “Historical Sketches of Andover,” Bailey discussed her wish for the formation of a town Historical and Genealogical Society to preserve and build upon the work she had already done.17
While not realized in her lifetime, The Andover and North Andover Historical Societies, founded in 1911 and 1913 respectively, fulfilled her desire for a center of local historical research.
LLB_AHS, “aka 'The Bailey Book' or "Bible of Andover,'” review of Historical Sketches of Andover (Comprising the Present Towns of North Andover and Andover), Massachusetts, by Sarah Loring Bailey, Internet Archive, September 16, 2016, https://archive.org/details/historicalsketch00bail.
Hollis R. Bailey, Bailey Genealogy: James, John, and Thomas, and their Descendants, in Three Parts (Somerville, MA: The Citizen Press, 1899), 89-90, https://archive.org/details/baileygenealogyj00bail.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” The Andover Townsman, September 11, 1896, 8, https://mhl.org/sites/default/files/newspapers/ATM-1896-09.pdf.
Claude Moore Fuess, Andover: Symbol of New England: The Evolution of a Town (Andover, MA: The Andover Historical Society and the North Andover Historical Society, 1959), 224, https://archive.org/details/andoversymbolofn00fues.
“Parson Barnard House: Myths & Legends,” North Andover Historical Society, accessed May 14, 2021, https://www.northandoverhistoricalsociety.org/new-page.
Fun fact: the citizens of Galena gifted the house to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865 as thanks for his service in the Civil War.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” 8.
The University of Chicago, Annual Register: July, 1903 - July, 1904, with Announcements for 1904-1905 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1904), 194, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Register/A3rOAAAAMAAJ.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” 8.
Sarah Loring Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover (Comprising the Present Towns of North Andover and Andover), Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1880), iii, https://archive.org/details/historicalsketch00bail.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” 8.
Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover, iii.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” 8.
New England Historic Genealogical Society, The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register 1897 Volume LI. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1897), 103, reprinted 1998, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_England_Historical_and_Genealogi/zNxsv5Ul_9wC.
The Andover Townsman, “Sarah Loring Bailey,” 8.
Sarah Loring Bailey, Poems (Chicago: Charlotte O. Bailey, 1897), 4, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poems/O-UyAAAAYAAJ.
Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover, iii.
Floyd, thank you for this article about Sarah Loring Bailey. I have used her book often in my research on Andover.
We received this email from a History Buzz reader. Thanks so much for your note!
"This is a lovely tribute to a wonderful woman! I am so glad you wrote/sent this to your following. To add to her legacy, did you know that Bailey is the only non-contemporary author whose work is accepted by the Daughters of the American Revolution (and others) as evidence/proof of service by military/militia and civilian (including the women of the town) patriots from Andover during the American Revolution. The only work that comes close is the State of Massachusetts' Soldiers and Sailors of the American Revolution and its record of loan and food receipts. Baily was truly an Andover Treasure!"