Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [7]
The coup de grace of this miserable year came at five-thirty on the chilly Tuesday morning of November 18, when a fire broke out in a shoe dealer’s Water Street warehouse. A light rain hardly checked the flames. The fire, refreshed by a breeze blowing from the east, spread quickly to surrounding buildings. Captain Caleb Thaxter watched in dismay as his uninsured store next door was consumed by the blaze. Captain William Blackmer lost his house, barns, and shed, but fared better than his neighbor, having had the foresight to insure his property for $5,000. The fire shifted hungrily toward First Street, consuming several houses in its path.
Among the townsfolk roused by the clatter of fire wagons and shouting voices was surely Edward Robinson, whose new home was only a few blocks north of the blaze. Robinson must have hurried down to the scene, like other residents, to do what he could to help the fire company. It would have been in his famously domineering nature not just to help but to marshal forces and begin giving orders. By 8:30 A.M., crews had the fire under control. Robinson would have noted with satisfaction that no buildings or property belonging to Isaac Howland Jr. and Company had been damaged. And as New Bedford residents, soot-streaked and exhausted, staggered home to breakfast or perhaps a brief rest before the start of another workday, Robinson would have made his way back to the house at the corner of Seventh and Walnut to calm the nerves of his bride, Abby. Frail by nature, Abby was by now confined to bed, nine months pregnant and ready to give Edward Mott Robinson the only thing as valuable to him as his fortune; an heir to perpetuate the name of Robinson: a son.
Two or three days later, on November 21, 1834, Abby gave birth to a healthy girl, Hetty Howland Robinson.* Robinson spent little time doting over a daughter he had not wanted and a wife who had disappointed him. He poured his energies into the business. By the following summer, he moved his family to a home he considered more worthy of his rising status in New Bedford, a granite, Greek Revival mansion at the corner of Pleasant and Campbell streets, in the northern end of New Bedford. The house, which he leased for $920 per year, was a large square structure, with six fireplaces and three full floors, flanked on either side by large porches. It was big and institutional enough in its appearance that in later incarnations it would serve as New Bedford’s first hospital, St. Joseph’s, and, after that, as a convent.
Hetty would remain in this house only a short while. She was a lively child, with a pretty face and blue eyes, and much too robust for her mother. Before her second birthday, with Abby pregnant again, Hetty’s parents shunted her off to the home of her grandfather, Gideon. Gideon shared the home with Sylvia, as well as Ruth Howland, the late Isaac Howland’s second wife. Although Hetty would return to her natural parents from time to time, her grandfather’s house would be her principal home through much of her childhood. The elderly Ruth and the invalid Sylvia shared mothering duties as best they could so that the energies of the frail Abby could be spared for childbirth. On May 20, 1836, Abby gave birth to a son, whom the couple