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NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
27 
“MARY H. NORTHEND TOOK 
UP WRITING AS A 
FAD—NOW ITS 
BUSINESS. 
Has Completed a Book. 
Seven years ago Mary H. North- 
end of Salem decided to take up 
writing and photography as a fad 
that would afford her some recrea- 
tion in a state of semi-invalidism. 
She started without capital and 
hampered by continual illness. To- 
| day she employs three photograph- 
ers and six assistants, and will en- 
large her staff next winter to meet 
the growing demand for her work. 
Last year she sold to magazines and 
newspapers 150 articles and groups 
of pictures, her bills for photo- 
graphs alone amounted to some- 
thing like $2000, and she rounded 
out the season by writing a book, 
“Colonial Houses and Their Fur- 
nishings,” which is being brought 
out this fall by Little, Brown & Co. 
She lives in a quaint old-time 
house in Barton square, Salem—a 
house very near the railroad station 
and the business centre of the city, 
yet surrounded by an air of old- 
fashioned peace in the midst of tts 
quiet street. The broad, low-ceil- 
inged rooms are filled with beauti- 
ful mahogany furniture that is in- 
tact after generations of use. Colo- 
nial candlesticks of brass, pewter 
and silver stand on the lowboys and 
on the mantles above the numerous 
fireplaces. 
Has Big “Graveyard.” 
Three good-sized rooms in the de- 
lightful old mansion are given up 
to photographs and a “graveyard.” 
In professional parlance a “grave- 
yard” is a place where clippings on 
various subjects may be “buried” 
until they are needed. In seven 
years Miss Northend has assembled 
one of the most valuable “grave- 
yards” in the country, one that con- 
tains nearly a million clippings on 
thousands of different subjects. 
' Whenever the author wishes to 
write an article about anything un- 
der the sun, she merely pulls out a 
drawer in the “graveyard,” reads 
over the clippings and sits down be- 
fore her typewriter ready for work. 
Not all the clippings are printed 
matter. Miss Northend has many 
manuscripts describing some histor- 
ical event or some collection of rare 
furniture or china, of which facts 
have been furnished her by Salem 
people. 
Belonging to one of the oldest 
Salem families, Miss Northend has 
had an exceptional opportunity to 
obtain photographs and descriptions 
of Salem art treasures. Doors have 
swung open for her which would 
have remained obdurately closed, 
no matter how loudly an outsider 
might hammer against them. As a 
result she has many photographs 
among her stock of 30,000 which 
could not be duplicated by any one 
else, and many itemized accounts 
of precious Salem carvings or pew- 
ter which nobody else has been al- 
lowed to examine for commercial 
purposes. 
Seated among her family heir- 
looms—‘‘Oh, I have tons of them!” 
she confessed—Miss Northend talk- 
ed the other day about her work 
and how she came to take it up. 
“About ten years ago,” she said, “I 
was hunting desperately for some- 
body to write a bit of doggerel for 
a social occasion. When every one 
had failed me, a friend suggested 
that I write it myself. 
Wrote Doggerel First. 
“Perfectly impossible!” I an- 
swered, “but I did it. Then I wrote 
a poem for a minstrel show at Duin- 
mer Academy in Byfield, and one 5f 
the instructors told me that I had 
talent. So for two or three vears | 
wrote, with no idea of how to write, 
various articles which I copied in 
my perfectly illegible hand and sent 
to the very best magazines. I was 
invariably much surprised when 
they were returned to me—my au- 
tograph cut from the bottora of my 
letter and pasted outside the pack- 
age. 
“At last I wrote a history of Mar- 
blehead, which was published in a 
local paper and copied in the Boston 
papers. My friends, feeling: that ill- 
health and lack of training would 
prove a handicap, tried to dampen 
my enthusiasm. Without much con- 
fidence I began sending articles to 
the newspapers. 
“The Herald was among the first 
to encourage me, and I feel that I 
owe to it much of my success. It 
occurred to me that photographs 
would enhance my work. I started 
out with my small camera. When 
my first batch of negatives was de- 
veloped the art editor of the Herald 
said they were the worst pictures 
he’d ever seen. 
“So I hired a good photographer, 
and soon had the satisfaction of 
hearing that my photographs were 
the best ever turned in to a Boston 
paper. It was then I decided that 
the best was none too good for the 
market. 
“Now I own what is called the 
most valuable collection of photo- 
graphs of colonial objects in the 
country. 
“Success means hard -‘vork and 
constant diligence. I find that 1 
must be ahead of the tide, instead of 
drifting. It amazed me to see my 
‘fad’ growing into a profession, and 
now I discover that I must devote 
all my time to it. I rise at 5 in the 
morning and often I work until 
midnight. How many miles I travel 
over the country photographing and 
writing, I can’t even estimate. But 
the work never grows uninteresting. 
I love every bit of it.” 
It may be admitted, however, that 
some literary feeling is also needed 
for success in Miss Northend’s 
work. This she doubtless inherited 
from her father, William Dummer 
Northend, the contemporary and 
friend of such men as Ruitus Choate, 
Charles Sumner and Jefferson Da- 
vis. Mr. Northend was among the 
greatest experts on criminal law in 
Massachusetts, and for many years 
nearly all the big criminal cases of 
the State were handled by him. He 
wrote “The Old Bay Colony,” one 
‘of the most accurate books on early 
American history that has ever been 
Written. 
On both her father’s and her 
mother’s side Miss Northend en- 
joys family connections that have 
helped her inestimably in gaining 
admittance to the homes of Salem’s 
first families. Her mother’s ances- 
tors were the Wheelwrights and 
Harrods of Newburyport, and her 
father’s ancestors were the Long- 
fellows and Sewalls. Against such 
an “open sesame” no doors of the 
Salem aristocracy could remain 
bolted. 
Breeze Subscription, $2 a Year. 
7 age 
For Sale By 
Samuel Knight Sons’ Co., 
Manchester, Mass. 
