Valentine Week was a pretty traumatic time for kids in grade school a couple of generations ago. Just look at poor old Charlie Brown agonizing at the mailbox awaiting that elusive Valentine card from the little girl with red hair, or any other friend in the Peanuts gang, for that matter.

I still have a piece of paper from Auburn’s Washburn School Grade 2 or 3 with the names of all my classmates from the early 1950s printed on it. I think it was passed out by our teacher to help us prepare for that annual ritual when we sorted little cards from a book of press-out Valentines. We cut, folded and pasted the mini-sized envelopes and selected just the right inscription for each person. In those early grades, just to complicate things, we were expected to give Valentines to both the girls and the boys.

That faded printed page had check marks next to some of the names. I wonder if I was flagging valentines I received or ones I wanted to give.

As I looked for local connections with Valentine’s Day in old newspapers, I came across an account of marriage proposals received by the woman who was to become the second wife of Squire Edward Little. The letters of Hannah Andrews, who was known as “the Belle of Bridgton,” were kept by her granddaughter Harriett Reynolds Harvey of Auburn. They were published in the Lewiston Journal
Magazine on Jan. 16, 1915.

There were two letters in which suitors asked for Hannah’s hand in very different ways. Hannah concealed the signatures and neither appears to be from Benjamin S. Chase, a Portland sea captain who died at sea soon after marrying Hannah, nor from Edward Little, the upright and very business-minded citizen of early Auburn.

The first letter, written around 1814 and close to Valentine’s Day, began, “Admired Lady, impressed with a deep sense of my own unworthiness and of your excellence, it is with the utmost diffidence that I address you.”

After more sentimental comments, the writer said, “If a youth, who deems domestic happiness as the most supreme terrestrial felicity and whose temporal pursuits shall ever be directed to its promotion, has any interest in your affection, then, Dear Girl, signify it to him and permit an interview.”

How could anyone resist such a long-winded version of “Be My Valentine?”

The second letter sent to her around the same time was from a much more pompous suitor. He said, “My happiness seems to depend” on Hannah’s reply. He continued in stilted tone, “In the course of a year, I think I shall be in the circumstances to make a wife comfortable and augment my happiness.” He adds that he had never proposed marriage to any other, but “I have reason to believe that
there are a number of respectable ladies with whom I might be united.”

Then he says, “ … believing that you possess every necessary qualification, I now ask the question.” And he says, “Since you are so well acquainted with me, I fancy you will make a speedy conclusion.”

It seems Hannah knew him well enough not to accept the proposal.

When the widowed Hannah Chase decided to marry Squire Little, she had a young daughter who grew up in the historic Little house that still stands at Main and Vine streets in Auburn. She recalled being terrified that first night by the roar of the Great Falls.

Hannah’s daughter became acquainted with a young Nelson Reynolds, who lived in a big house across the river. He had a big red sled and they would speed down Goff Hill together.

The story goes that she told Nelson (who was Harriett Reynolds Harvey’s future father) that she liked his sled a lot. He asked if she would always slide with him, and on her answer of “yes,” he asked, “Will you marry me when I grow up?”

Nelson’s simple proposal was much more effective than the letters that had been written many years before to the “Belle of Bridgton” who became Mrs. Edward Little.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by sending e-mail to [email protected].