Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy, 1865-1946

Historian, of Brewer, Me.

Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, naturalist, historian, folklorist, and writer, was born on June 18, 1865, in Brewer, Maine. She attended Bangor High School, Abbott Academy in Andover, Mass., and graduated from Smith College in 1888. In 1893 she married Rev. Jacob A. Eckstorm of Chicago and they had two children: Katharine Hardy Eckstorm, who died in 1901, and Paul Eckstorm, who died in 1943. The Eckstorms lived in Oregon for a short time and then moved to Providence, R.I., staying there until Jacob Eckstorm's death in 1899. In 1900 she returned to Brewer with her two children and lived there for the rest of her life. Her interests included Indians and their crafts and language, birds, Maine ballads and folklore and she wrote extensively about these subjects. She died on December 31, 1946.

Manly Hardy was born on November 11, 1832, in Hampden, Maine, the only child of Jonathan Titcomb Hardy and Catherine Sears Atwood Hardy. The family moved to Brewer, Maine, when Manly was four, and he remained there for the rest of his life. He became a fur buyer and dealer, maintaining one of the most extensive fur businesses in Maine. He also spent much time in the woods of Maine, acquiring great knowledge of woods lore and spending time with other men familiar with the wilderness. In 1861 he was the assistant naturalist on the Maine State Scientific Survey. He began to mount birds and assembled a collection of some 3,300 U.S. birds. He also wrote extensively about the Maine woods, Indians, and mammals. He married Emmeline Freeman Wheeler on December 24, 1862. They had six children: Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Catherine Atwood Hardy Bates, Annie Eliza Hardy Eckstorm, Manly Willis Hardy, who lived less than two years, and twins Charlotte W. Hardy and Walter M. Hardy. Manly Hardy died on December 9, 1910.

Jonathan Titcomb Hardy, the father of Manly Hardy and the grandfather of Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, was born in Pelham, New Hampshire, in 1803 and came to Maine in 1811, living in Hampden until 1835. Then the Hardy family moved to Brewer where Jonathan Hardy was a businessman involved in shipping, lumbering, timberlands and the fur trade. He died in 1864.

Walter M. Hardy, artist, writer, apple grower and son of Manly Hardy, was born in Brewer on February 9, 1877. He graduated from Bangor High School in 1896 and spent a year at the University of Maine before transferring to the Art Students League in New York City. After completing courses there he also studied in Paris, England, and Italy. He was interested in birds and other wildlife and after his return to the U.S. did illustrations of birds and animals for various publications. He also illustrated some of the articles written by his father. In 1911 he bought a farm in Holden, Maine, where he planted a large apple orchard. He raised and sold apples there until his death on September 17, 1933.