By Peter F. Stevens

In the "sky parlor" of a Dudley Street mansion in 1789, a quill's scratch broke the silence. A beautiful woman was composing verse that would earn her acclaim as one of the early republic's foremost female voices of letters. So famed did the name of Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton become that she was credited with writing the earliest American novel, The Power of Sympathy, and was said to have done so in the Dorchester mansion, known as the "Taylor Place."

In several early histories of the town, chroniclers boasted that the nation's first bonafide novelist had lived and worked in the mansion, with its view of Howard Avenue. What better proof, locals, as well as historians across the nation, noted, than the fact that in the landmark book, "she recorded, skillfully disguised in an intricate plot, the seduction and her death of her favorite sister."

There was one problem. While Morton did craft verse in the sky parlor of that home and while her sister did indeed meet that sad fate, Sarah Morton had not written The Power of Sympathy. The likely author lived nearby, a not particularly well-known poet, playwright, and essayist named William Hill Brown.

Although Sarah Morton did not write the milestone story, she did launch much of her reputation as one of the nation's first ladies of literature from her sunny nook of the Taylor Place.

Sarah Wentworth Apthorp was born in Boston into a life of Colonial privilege in 1759, the daughter of James and Sarah (Wentworth) Apthorp. Both parents hailed from affluent mercantile families, and Sarah was baptized at King's Chapel, in Boston, on August 29, 1759.

Sarah was raised in Boston and Braintree, and the pretty young girl soon displayed a precocious intelligence that her parents, unlike so many of the era's people who believed that females needed only a basic education, afforded Sarah the best schooling and schoolmasters locally available. A voracious reader, Sarah also showed a genuine flair and passion for writing, especially verse.

Along with her unusual education, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp was also schooled in the social graces and possessed a large measure of charm. Her family socialized with the foremost families of Massachusetts and were friends of John and Abigail Adams and the rest of the region's movers and shakers. With Sarah's beauty, intelligence, and grace, she had the proverbial pick of affluent and eligible young men. The suitor who won out was a brilliant Boston lawyer on the rise in political and social circles. His name was Perez Morton, an ardent Patriot who had won acclaim for the eulogy that he had delivered at the funeral services of Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the Patriot heroes slain at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

On February 24, 1781, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp became Mrs. Perez Morton, and, in the ensuing years, she gave birth to five children and began publishing poetry in the leading journals and magazines of her day. Most of the time, she wrote under the pseudonym "Philenia," frequently contributing "her moralizing or eulogistic lyrics" to Massachusetts Magazine. In 1790, her first book of poems, The Virtues of Nature, an Indian Tale, "an idealized narrative on the 'noble savage' theme...in couplets," was published. The work was praised in both America and Britain.

Sometime between the late 1780s and 1790s, the Mortons moved from their State Street mansion to a splendid home at the junction of Dudley and Howard Streets in Dorchester. Various accounts of Sarah Morton's life contend that she wrote The Power of Sympathy there. What is inarguable is that in the Taylor Place, the Mortons threw glittering soireees and dinners and that Sarah Morton composed some of her most highly accalimed poetry in her sky parlor.

In the late 19th Century, William Dana Orcutt described the Dorchester mansion as a fitting site to inspire any author or poet: "The grand old house is still familiarly remembered by a large number of Dorchester's residents; but although a portion of its history is generally known, few realize to what varied events, joyful and sorrowful, gay and pathetic, the sturdy old walls had so long stood silent witnesses. Here the gallants of the last century led the fair maidens in courtly dance....here the literary, social, and political leaders exchanged their politest courtesies, and discussed subjects of the deepest importance to the nation."

Orcutt wrote those lines about Sarah Morton's years in Dorchester. He also referred to a scandal that had evolved at the Taylor Place. That tragedy, which many people would believe drove Sarah Morton to write The Power of Sympathy, America's first novel, literally hit the poetess where she lived. According to later scholars, Morton's husband, Perez, may have had an affair with her sister, and in the accompanying scandal, Sarah's sister killed herself.

In Orcutt's treatment of the affair, he writes: "It was in this room [the Taylor house's sky parlor] that Sarah Wentworth Apthorp, better known to the world as Mrs. Perez Morton, composed the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy," in which she recorded her sister's plight and death.

For over a century, locals and people throughout America believed that Sarah Morton had written The Power of Sympathy , a belief buttressed by "the similarity of the book's plot to a scandalous tragedy that had occurred in Morton's own life &emdash; her husband's affair with her sister, followed by the sister's suicide." Then, in 1894, literary scholars attributed authorship of the book &emdash; written "anonymously" &emdash; to the Mortons' neighbor William Hill Brown, who may well have witnessed "the seduction" firsthand. Since Perez Morton was one of the most powerful men in Massachusetts, Brown might well have feared letting the world know that he had written the novel, whose purpose, the author asserted, was "to expose the dangerous Consequences of Seduction."

The "seduction scandal" notwithstanding, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton continued to write and publish well-received verse. On October 14, her husband, Perez, died, and the poetess lived for nearly a decade longer. She died at the age of eighty-six on May 14, 1846 , "having outlived her children and all of her near relatives."

In the late 1800s, the Mortons' former Dorchester mansion was torn down. Orcutt decried the act as "one of the most pathetic of the recent demolitions, " the sky parlor where Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton had commiserated with her Muse gone forever.

After the Dorchester Reporter ran a 100th anniversary look at the January 1902 swearing-in of Patrick Collins as Mayor of Boston, one of our readers, Kevin Mangern of Florida Street, sent us the pictured piece of Dorchester memorabilia.

The item is a "flyer," or "mock ballot," for local Democrats voting in the 1903 city elections. Next to the name of Collins, who was running for a second term as mayor, is a bold black X.

An X also advises locals to vote for a name familiar &emdash; then and now &emdash; on the Dorchester scene. The name? Gallivan.

The "voting guide" was likely handed out on the day or the eve of the contest, the practice of distributing mock ballots throughout the wards a customary one of the era. In the 1903 election, Patrick Collins raked in 63 percent of the vote &emdash; a record at the time &emdash; and won every ward in the city.

Where did this relic of that bygone election turn up? In gutters as he was cleaning them out.

Do you have similar items that you would like to share with the community? Give us a call at 617-436-1222 or send them to us at The Reporter, 150 Mt. Vernon Street, suite 120, Dorchester, 02125.

-Peter F. Stevens