Sarah Orne Jewett House

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Cast of Characters

Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum

Writer Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849-June 24, 1909) was born in her grandparents’ eighteenth-century house. She lived there with her family until 1854, when they built a Greek Revival house next door. As Sarah gained attention as an author, she and her family lived in the two Portland Street homes in the center of town.

Jewett and her older sister Mary inherited their grandparents’ house, now a National Historic Landmark, in 1887. It inspired Jewett’s novel Deephaven.

Today, Sarah’s beloved home is Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum. It reflects not only the sisters’ eclectic tastes and their desire to preserve family’s tradition, marrying Georgian architecture with Aesthetic Style; the house also reflects the life, work, and passion of Sarah, who created a life of artistic and literal freedom for herself in Victorian America. The Greek Revival house next door is a visitor center incorporating a museum shop and programming space.

Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) was thirty-eight when she and her older sister Mary inherited their grandparents’ house. By this time, Jewett was a successful author, living at least half the year with her life partner Annie Fields, at Fields’ Boston home or traveling. Enjoying city life and more, devoted to Annie, Sarah Orne Jewett still considered herself made of “Berwick dust,” and spent several months a year at her Maine home, most of that time she devoted to her writing.

Annie Adams Fields

Annie Adams Fields (June 6, 1834-January 5, 1915) was a writer, society hostess, philanthropist, and social reformer. She was a proponent of women’s rights, notably suffrage and the right to earn a medical degree. With her husband, publisher James T. Fields, Annie Fields established a highly sought-after literary salon at their home on Boston’s Charles Street. After the death of her husband, Annie Fields began a decades-long relationship with Sarah Orne Jewett. While the two moved through society as a couple, Annie seldom accompanied her partner Sarah to South Berwick. She usually remained at her Boston home or her summer home in Manchester, Massachusetts, or visited friends during these months apart.

Mary Rice Jewett

Mary Rice Jewett (June 18, 1847- September 28, 1930), Sarah’s older sister by two years, inherited the house with Sarah in 1887 and participated in its eclectic interior design. While Sarah was away months at a time, Mary stayed in South Berwick year-round. Though she did travel occasionally, Mary was a central figure in the town. She was a charter member of the Woman’s Club and active in her church community and in children’s aid organizations. Mary sat on the Berwick Academy library committee and was a member of the Maine and New Hampshire Historical Societies. Letters between Sarah and Mary show a sisterhood imbued with deep friendship. Sarah’s nickname for Mary was O.P., for Old Peg, and Mary’s for Sarah was Queen of Sheba, or Sheby. Like her famous sister, Mary never married. In many ways, Mary supported Sarah’s writing career by running the household, affording Sarah much needed time at her desk.

Caroline "Carrie" Jewett Eastman

Caroline Jewett Eastman (December 13, 1855-April 1, 1897), “Carrie,” was Sarah Orne Jewett’s younger sister, and the only one of the three “doctor’s girls,” as South Berwick townspeople called the Jewett sisters, to marry. When Sarah and Mary inherited their grandfather’s house, Carrie moved into the Greek Revival house next door with her husband, Edwin Eastman, the town apothecary, and son, Theodore J. Eastman. Carrie died unexpectedly after a brief illness at the age of forty-two. Sarah Orne Jewett dedicated “A Native of Winby and Other Tales”, a collection of stories, to her younger sister, writing: “I have had many pleasures that were doubled because you shared them, and so I write your name at the beginning of this book.”

Dr. Theodore Jewett

Dr. Theodore H. Jewett (March 24, 1815-September 20, 1878), Sarah Orne Jewett’s father, was her companion, intellectual comrade, and mentor, offering advice she valued: “Don’t try to write about people and things, tell them just as they are.” Graduating from Berwick Academy, Bowdoin College, and Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College, Dr. Jewett practiced medicine in South Berwick at the urging of his father, Captain Theodore Jewett, who had lost two of his four sons to illness and tragedy at sea. As Dr. Jewett’s family expanded, Grandfather Jewett had a second house built on the family compound to accommodate them and keep the family close. Dr. Jewett held the positions as Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in the Medical Department of Bowdoin, consulting surgeon to the Maine General Hospital, Surgeon of the First Maine District, and for several years, president of the Maine Medical Society. He made substantial contributions to the medical literature of his era. His death at age sixty-three had a profound effect on Sarah.

Caroline Perry Jewett

Caroline Perry Jewett (December 11, 1820–October 21, 1891), Sarah Orne Jewett’s mother, was diagnosed with an unknown illness sometime before Sarah reached adulthood. Mrs. Jewett’s three daughters were attentive to her needs, sometimes altering travel plans so as not to leave their mother untended. While she did not often write letters, those she wrote to her daughters show an affectionate mother whose interest in the lives of those around her is undiminished by the sickness that ultimately killed her. To date, no image of Caroline Perry Jewett has been located.

Theodore Jewett Eastman

Dr. Theodore Jewett Eastman (August 4, 1879-March 9,1931), nicknamed Teddy, Thidder, Stubby, and Stubs, was close to his aunts and to “Aunt Annie,” Fields, particularly after the successive deaths of his parents while he was in his teens. Teddy visited the house frequently during school vacations and into adulthood. He earned a B.A. from Harvard University, graduated Harvard Medical School, and became a physician. Like his aunts, he never married. Dr. Theodore Jewett Eastman bequeathed the house to Historic New England in 1931, having with his aunt Mary preserved Sarah Orne Jewett’s bedroom since her death in 1909.

Domestic Staff

The Jewett family employed staff for cooking and housekeeping, horse care, driving, and general maintenance. At least three of the known staff members were Irish immigrants. While domestic staff turnover in the Victorian era was generally fairly high, the Jewett family staff stayed longer than average, in a few cases for decades.

Cast of Characters