Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

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[34] not marked by any strong qualities, and with less intellectual vigor than the other children. He was placed on a farm for his health, and was at one time with the Brook-Farm Community, a well-known fraternity of social reformers. It was remarkable that two brothers, not at the time sea-faring men, should end their lives in different shipwrecks.¹

Julia was born, May 5, 1827, and died, May 29, 1876; the last survivor of the nine children, and the only one who outlived Charles. She married, in 1854, Dr. John Hastings, of San Francisco. Her children, Alice, Edith, and Julia, are the only living issue of Charles Pinckney Sumner. She was an invalid for many years. She was beloved for her sweetness of nature and her true womanliness. Her last visit to the Atlantic States was in 1862, and her ill-health did not permit her to make a later one. She visited Washington at that time. Charles accompanied her to New York, and parted with her at the steamer, as she sailed on her return. ‘I shall never forget,’ she afterwards wrote, ‘his tender care at that time. My last sight of him was standing on the wharf as the steamer moved off.’