I bought the above book from a well known auction site the other day and it arrived this morning. It was published by (ahem) The Religious Tract Society and it says under the title – A New England Story. I think it was published around about 1890-1900. It also has the title Lee Chester.

I collect postcards and old prints of the town of Dumbarton because I was brought up there from the age of 5. The photograph on the left hand side (west) of my header is of Dumbarton Castle/Rock. So when I saw this book for sale I thought I might as well buy it, thinking that it would be something to do with Dumbarton Oaks in the US – but it isn’t.

Chapter II begins:
Dumbarton lay amid the hills, the principal part of the town nestling in a broad valley around which rose undulating slopes, growing still higher in the distance, till far away they rose to mountains, bounding the township with a granite barrier. It had taken its name from that old city on the Clyde, whence a large number had come in early colonial times to find in this new land ‘freedom to worship God,’ and had bestowed upon the little settlement they founded the name of their birthplace.

I haven’t been able to find any mention of a town in America with the name of Dumbarton, only Dumbarton House in Washington, so I’m wondering if it is purely fictional or if there is such a place in New England.

Has anybody heard of Lucy Lincoln Montgomery? Obviously it’s a Scottish name so maybe she or her family originally came from Dumbarton. I discovered that she wrote a few books and possibly a poem about a little quaker girl who sewed a tuck in her dress, but I can’t find out anything about LLM herself.

Can anybody help?