A quick first trip through the wonderful "Wedded Bliss" exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum calls to mind some of our region's best-known love stories.
The courtships and marriages of Simon and Anne Bradstreet, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, and Sir Harry and Agnes Frankland, for example, all have the makings of a great novel or movie.
The Frankland story is particularly interesting. Agnes Surriage was the 16-year-old daughter of a Marblehead fisherman and his wife who, at a young age, took a position as a maid at the popular Fountain Inn. Her future, like that of many of her peers in this vibrant fishing community, seemed bleak.
Surriage's life would take a dramatic turn, however, when Sir Harry Frankland checked into the Fountain Inn in 1742. An employee of the royal government, Frankland was in town to oversee the construction of Fort Sewall. It didn't take the young bon vivant long to spot the lovely Agnes who was scrubbing floors in tattered clothing and no shoes. Smitten and sympathetic, Frankland gave the young woman money to buy a pair of shoes.
On subsequent visits to the Fountain Inn, Sir Harry noticed Agnes was still barefoot. She had bought shoes, she told her benefactor, but was saving them to wear to church.
Deeply touched, Frankland sought permission from Agnes' parents and minister to take her to Boston where she could get an education and live a better life. Eventually they agreed, and soon Agnes was living in the lap of luxury in Harry's Boston manse and learning to act like a lady of culture and breeding.
Boston society, however, was scandalized by the unmarried pair's living arrangement. Whatever Frankland's motives were, his cohabitation with a beautiful young woman who was not his wife set tongues wagging and made life very unpleasant. With marriage out of the question — Agnes was, after all, the daughter of a poor fisherman, and he a nobleman — Harry decided a change of venue was in order.
Drawing on a family fortune, Frankland acquired a 480-acre estate in Hopkinton, 26 miles west of Boston, and moved there with the woman who was now his lover. The pair lived in fine style, and devoted much of their time to gardening and other cultured pursuits. Agnes was happy, but there was still no talk of marriage.
In 1753, Frankland had to return to England on personal business and decided to take Agnes with him. But it did not go well with Harry's family. In their eyes, Agnes' natural beauty and cultivated grace did not make up for the absence of a wedding ring.
The unpleasantness of the situation required yet another change of scene, and the couple headed off on a grand tour of Europe. They eventually rented a house in Lisbon, Portugal in 1775 and immersed themselves in the social and cultural life of that city's privileged class.
Their life of leisure and rest would be interrupted by a devastating earthquake that hit Lisbon, destroying much of the city and killing thousands of inhabitants. Sir Harry was nearly one of them; Marblehead historian Samuel Roads, Jr. writes that Frankland was traveling in a carriage with a female passenger who was killed by falling debris.
Agnes was at home when the quake struck, and escaped death by running outside. Hysterical, the young woman raced through the streets looking for her lover. Against all odds, she heard his cries for help emanating from beneath a pile of rubble. Agnes dug furiously for the better part of an hour to save her beloved, and was finally able to free him. Though badly hurt, Sir Harry managed to survive.
His time under the rubble gave Frankland plenty of time to pray and to think about his life; and soon after his near-death experience, he kept a promise he had made to himself and to his Maker. He summoned a Catholic priest and finally, after more than a decade of cohabitation, married his beloved Agnes. A second wedding ceremony, this one presided over by an Anglican priest on board the ship taking the couple back to England, made it all official.
Now a legally married bride, Agnes was welcomed into the Frankland family that had previously scorned her and settled into a life of "wedded bliss." For the next 13 years the couple moved between Europe, Hopkinton and Boston, continuing to live a life of relative ease and comfort. After Harry passed away in 1768, Agnes settled in Hopkinton surrounded by the beautiful gardens they had created years earlier.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, Agnes, a Tory, fled to England. She eventually remarried in 1781, but died two years later at the age of 57.
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Jim McAllister of Salem writes a weekly column on the region's history.
