John Albert Macy and Anne Sullivan Macy

John Albert Macy (1877-1932) son of Powell Macy (1844-19?) and Janet Foster Patten (1846-1930) born in Detroit, Michigan.

Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller

Powell Macy son of Oliver Macy(1819-1867) and Phebe Fowler Powell (1820-1867). Oliver, son of Peter Macy (1792-1846) and Ann Swain (1798-1897) Obed Macy and Abigail Pinkham Obed, son of Caleb Macy and Judith Gardner. Caleb, son of Richard Macy and Deborah Pinkham Richard, son of John Macy and  Deborah Gardner John, son of Thomas Macy and Sarah Hopscott
J A Macy Draft

In 1895, John was admitted on a scholarship to Harvard University where he achieved an outstanding academic and extracurricular record. Not only did he win the coveted Phi Beta Kappa key, but he was also editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate.

Obed Macy, b. 15 January 1762, d. 24 December 1844

                             

Abigail Pinkham b. 7 December 1764, d. 23 October 1842

                               
When he was twenty-five years old and an instructor of English at Harvard, he was introduced to Helen Keller, then a student at Radcliffe College, and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, by a good friend, Lenore Smith, who knew Helen could use some help in writing her first book.
More on Family
Judith Macy and Her Daybook; or, Crevecoeur and the Wives of Sherborn by Lisa Norling
Life in the Mansion on Pleasant Street:
The Women, Part I More from American National Biography 
J A Macy author, critic, and poet, was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Powell Macy and Janet Foster Patten, the descendants of early New England settlers long associated with the whaling industry. John Macy grew up in the Boston area and attended Malden High School in Malden, Massachusetts. Upon graduation in 1895 he enrolled at Harvard on a partial scholarship, majoring in English literature.

Though he had to supplement his scholarship with various jobs, Macy excelled at his studies and was an outstanding student. He was also a leader in extracurricular activities and a member of several elite campus clubs. He served as editor in chief of the school newspaper, the Harvard Advocate; edited the satirical magazine the Harvard Lampoon; and was named the class poet. Graduating with honors in 1899, he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Macy remained at Harvard following graduation, teaching in the English department for several years and earning a master of arts degree in 1900. The following year he became an associate editor of a prominent children's magazine, Youth's Companion, headquartered in Boston. While still at Harvard, Macy had been introduced to the celebrated blind deaf mute Helen Keller, who was then attending Radcliffe College, the women's division of Harvard. A mutual friend, Lenore Smith, thought that Macy would be able to help Keller write her autobiography.

Macy was fascinated by Keller, whose triumph over severe handicaps--made possible by the devotion of Annie Sullivan, who had taught her to read and write--made her an international heroine. Agreeing wholeheartedly to the task, Macy learned the manual language used to communicate with the blind and deaf. Working closely with Sullivan, Keller's companion as well as her teacher, Macy helped Keller write and edit the book and also acted as its agent, securing a lucrative contract with the New York publishing firm Doubleday, Page & Co. Keller's The Story of My Life proved a sensation when it was serialized in the Ladies' Home Journal in 1902, and the autobiography garnered even greater acclaim when it was published in book form early the following year.

 Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan Macy, Mark Twain, John Macy at Stormfield (Redding, Connecticut)

Macy's collaboration with Keller and Sullivan brought them into intimate contact, and the three formed a close attachment to one another. Continuing to assist Keller with her writing--he also published several articles about Keller under his own name--Macy became a de facto part of the Keller-Sullivan household, first in Cambridge and then in Wrentham, Massachusetts, where the two women shared a cottage. Macy desired a permanent relationship, and that meant marriage to Annie Sullivan, since both Sullivan and Keller, as well as Keller's family, believed that Keller's handicaps precluded her from marrying. Indeed, the two women were inseparable and thought of themselves as one person. Sullivan refused Macy's advances for several years, partly on the grounds that she was eleven years his senior. Eventually, however, she consented, and they were married in 1905.

The unusual nature of the Macy-Sullivan marriage made the relationship a difficult one to sustain. Keller was central to Sullivan's life--the women were constantly together, with Keller even accompanying Macy and Sullivan on their honeymoon--and Sullivan ruled the household as a consequence. Macy and Sullivan had little time for themselves, and, according to numerous biographers, their interactions were damaged by Sullivan's acknowledged moodiness and frequent outbursts of bad temper. A woman who was partially blind herself and had survived, against all odds, a horrific childhood, Sullivan was a gifted teacher but an understandably flawed human being. The marriage frayed, and there were intermittent separations. By 1914 Macy had left the household permanently to live on his own. The couple had no children. Macy had developed a drinking problem as he coped with the stress of his marriage, and his reliance on alcohol to relieve personal anguish persisted for the remainder of his life.

From his days at Harvard Macy had become increasingly interested in politics. By 1909 he was openly avowing an allegiance to socialism, perhaps partly as a consequence of his impoverished background. He shared his enthusiasm for socialism with Keller and Sullivan, and a major consequence of his relationship with Keller was her conversion to the socialist cause, an attachment she held throughout her life. (Sullivan, conservative and skeptical, refused to become a partisan.)

During his years with Youth's Companion Macy was a frequent contributor of literary essays to leading publications, including the Atlantic Monthly. In 1907 he published his first book, Edgar Allan Poe, a well-received critical study of the author. In 1909, a year after leaving Youth's Companion, he published his second book, A Child's Guide to Reading. After taking time off from literature in 1912 to serve as secretary to George R. Lunn, the socialist mayor of Schenectady, New York, Macy gained widespread critical attention with the publication of his third book, The Spirit of American Literature (1913). The work championed a new realism in American writing and singled out for praise both Edith Wharton and Theodore Dreiser, who would eventually be acknowledged as major contributors to the American literary canon.
After a brief stint as literary editor of the Boston Herald newspaper (1913-14), politics as well as literature became Macy's focus. Increasingly opposed to warfare, he tried to join an American ambulance corps serving in France during World War I but could not afford the travel expenses: an appeal to his Harvard classmates for financial support went unheeded. Macy further alienated himself from the then conservative university when he published Socialism in America (1916), a sympathetic history of the movement in the United States. The book reportedly caused such consternation among alumni that he was later denied membership in the Harvard Club of New York.

Increasingly devoted to a belief in service to society, Macy focused his next book, Walter James Dodd: A Biographical Sketch (1918), on one of his own personal heroes, a pioneering roentgenologist. He continued to write essays on both literary and political subjects, and in 1922, two years after moving to New York City, he became literary editor of the Nation, a left-leaning, vintage political weekly. The association lasted only a year, in part because Macy, always sympathetic to the underdog, assigned reviews on the basis of personal need rather than expertise on the part of the reviewer.

After moving to New York in 1920 Macy had begun a relationship with a young sculptor who was also a deaf mute; the couple had a daughter together. Macy begged Sullivan for a divorce but she refused. The sculptor, whose name has not been publicly revealed, died in the late 1920s, leaving Macy to care for the child.

Hard-pressed to earn a living, Macy wrote several notable works for hire during the 1920s, including the essay "Journalism," published in Harold E. Stearns, ed., Civilization in the United States, an Inquiry by Thirty Americans (1922), and the book Massachusetts (1923), part of the history series These United States, edited by a friend, the future politician Ernest Gruening. During the 1920s he also published The Critical Game (1922), a collection of literary essays, and The Story of the World's Literature (1925), a handbook for the general reader. In 1926 Macy finally achieved stable employment when he became a literary editor at the publishing house William Morrow & Company, and that association continued until his death.

Macy was also the author of About Women (1930), a somewhat reactionary volume that criticized the feminist movement and called upon American men to resist what he called the feminization of American culture. With Blanche Colton Williams he co-authored Do You Know English Literature? (1930), another essay collection aimed at the general reader. In addition, he was the editor of American Writers on American Literature (1931), calling in his preface for a robust, lively literary criticism freed from academic restraints and accessible to the public.

Although Macy was in declining health for many years because of his alcoholism, his sudden death from a heart attack was unexpected. It occurred, appropriately, during a lecture series on American literature that he was presenting to trade unionists in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
 

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Bibliography
Limited biographical information on Macy can be found in the archives of Harvard University. A brief sketch of his life and career is included in George E. DeMille, Literary Criticism in America; a Preliminary Survey (1931). Although Macy was considered a major literary critic at the time of his death--one of the most important in America, according to his obituary in the New York Times, 27 Aug. 1932--he is now remembered mostly for his association with Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. There are numerous biographies of Keller and Sullivan that discuss their relationships with Macy; the most reliable, extensive, and informative is Joseph P. Lash's monumental study Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan Macy (1980). See also Nella Braddy, Anne Sullivan Macy: The Story behind Helen Keller (1933). In addition to the New York Times obituary, see death notices for Macy in Publishers' Weekly, 3 Sept. 1932, and the Nation, 4 Oct 1922.
By Ann T. Keene

In this photograph taken at Wrentham, circa 1905, John is seated in three-quarter profile between Helen and Anne. Helen stands in front of him and Anne stands behind him. She leans against the back of his chair with her right hand on his shoulder. He is holding a manuscript and looking up at the camera while manually signing into Helen's hand. John wears a light colored suit with a darker necktie that seems to be tied in a soft bow. Anne wears a dark, two-piece dress with a white blouse under the jacket. Helen's dress is also dark, with a deeply curved white collar, a high waist, and full three-quarter length sleeves with net ruffles at the elbow.

John, Anne, and Helen are shown standing with a dog in a garden, under a wooden structure covered in leaves, circa 1905. John is leaning slightly to his left, holding the dog's collar. He wears a light colored suit with a white shirt and dark tie. Anne wears what appears to be two-piece dress with a long dark skirt, a matching hip-length jacket and a white blouse. Helen's dark dress is long, with a high waist and a white collar. The full, three-quarter length sleeves have a dark net ruffle at the elbow.

John Macy swiftly learned the manual alphabet to communicate directly with the then twenty-two-year-old Helen Keller. He helped her edit her book The Story of My Life, which was published in its entirety by Doubleday, Page and Company in 1903. Macy married Anne Sullivan.

Portrait of Anne Sullivan, circa 1887

This head and shoulders photographic portrait of Anne in profile shows her looking quite glamorous. She wears what appears to be a large jeweled barrette in her hair. Her Empire-style dress has a square neck and gathered bodice. Two long strands of sparkling beads are attached to the shoulder straps of the dress. Photo circa 1910.

This photograph shows Anne Sullivan Macy, center, receiving an honorary degree from Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1932. Polly is second from the left and Helen is third. All three women, as well as the four male faculty members, are wearing caps and gowns. They are standing in front of the glass doors of a large stone building. Photo credit: Acme Newspictures, Inc., New York.

This photograph appeared in the Illustrated Daily News. It shows, from left to right, Franklin Ardell, Anne Sullivan Macy, Sieglende (the dog), Helen Keller, and Margaret Vail in front of a car. They are taking part in a strike by actors in 1919. The car resembles an old Ford motor car. All three women wear splendid hats with wide brims. Anne and Helen appear to be wearing furs around their necks. Sieglende, in the center, is sitting on the hood of the car and Margaret Vail holds a banner that reads "THOSE NOT FOR EQUITY ONLY 27' (Guaranteed Harmless spirits)."

From The House in Wrentham
Today’s Heroine – Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936)
Letter from John Albert Macy to Alexander Graham Bell, April 4, 1903

Mrs. Macy Is Dead; Aided Miss Keller

October 21, 1936

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES Mrs. Anne Mansfield Sullivan Macy, who for nearly fifty years was the kindly, patient and brilliant teacher of Miss Helen Keller, noted blind and deaf woman, died yesterday at their home, 71-11 Seminole Avenue, Forest Hills, Queens. She had been suffering from a heart ailment, which became acute early this Summer. Mrs. Macy was 70 years old.

Mrs. Macy taught Miss Keller to read, speak and know the world about her by use of her fingertips. Their lifelong devotion to each other was internationally famous and one was seldom seen or heard of without the other. Blindness, which had shadowed the child Anne Sullivan's life and which she had conquered before she met Miss Keller, had returned to darken her last days, and Miss Keller had to become the teacher and Mrs. Macy the pupil.
Miss Keller yesterday paid this tribute: "Teacher is free at least from pain and blindness. I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again."
Miss Polly Thompson, Miss Keller's secretary, said yesterday that Miss Keller was "bearing up magnificently" under her loss. During the last week Miss Keller was almost constantly at Mrs. Macy's side. Mrs. Macy was in a coma from Thursday until she died. On Wednesday she said: "Oh, Helen and Polly, my children, I pray God will unite us in His love."
Mrs. Macy, so long the link to light for Miss Keller, lost the sight of her own right eye in 1929, due partly to a cataract, for which an operation was performed. In May, 1935, a cataract operation was done on her left eye, but thereafter she was able to distinguish only light and color with it. She could no longer read or guide her beloved Miss Keller, who, despite her own handicaps, devoted herself to her friend.
Pupil Guides Teacher in Braille As early as 1933 Miss Keller had commenced to teach Mrs. Macy to read Braille. But the Braille system had changed since Mrs. Macy taught it to Miss Keller and the teacher found it difficult.
When it became known that year that Miss Keller, who had been led out of the black silence in which she had existed since childhood by the ingenuity, perseverance and patience of her teacher, was in turn preparing her teacher to "see" with her fingers, THE NEW YORK TIMES, in an editorial, said:
"The 'blind leading the blind' will henceforth have a new meaning wherever the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller is known. They who have been exiled from the light have been able to demonstrate the power of the mind to overcome limitation."
Mrs. Macy was 21 years old when she met Helen Keller. Born in Feeding Hills, near Springfield, Mass., on April 14, 1866, the daughter of Irish immigrants, John and Mary Mansfield Sullivan, Mrs. Macy suffered the loss of her mother when a young child. For a year or two she was supported by poor relatives, but at the age of 10 she was sent to the State Infirmary, Tewksbury, Mass.
She was already partially blind and at the infirmary two eye operations were performed, but her sight did not improve. She was led to believe that Frank B. Sanborn, chairman of the State Board of Charities, who sometimes visited the infirmary, might be able to aid her. She pleaded with him and he arranged for her entry into the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, where lived Laura Bridgman, blind and deaf, who had been trained there.
Underwent Two Eye Operations Mrs. Macy entered the Perkins Institution in 1880, made there a brilliant scholastic record and learned to study with her fingers, and later, after two operations had restored her sight, to use her eyes. She learned the manual, or finger, alphabet, so as to be able to talk to Laura Bridgman. In 1886 she was graduated as valedictorian of her class.
Not long after her graduation Helen Keller's father wrote to the institution asking for help for her. Miss Sullivan was chosen to be her teacher and, after familiarizing herself with the details of her new work, went to Helen's home in Tuscumbia, Ala.
The two who were to mean so much to each other until Mrs. Macy's death yesterday met first on March 3, 1887, three months before Helen was 7 years old. Miss Keller said later that it was "the most important day I remember in all my life."
Working carefully, so as to bring Helen under some sort of discipline without breaking her spirit, Mrs. Macy began spelling words into her hand. With no understanding of what they meant, Helen began repeating them.
The teacher persisted, spelling the word doll when she gave her a doll, bread when she gave her bread, candy when she gave her candy. In less than a month Helen realized that everything had a name and that she had a way, the finger alphabet, of calling the names.
Teaching Along New Paths One day Mrs. Macy tried to teach Helen the difference between a cup and the water in the cup. She took her to a pump, pumped water over one hand and spelled water into the other hand. Helen at last understood. She pointed to Miss Sullivan, who spelled teacher, and "teacher" she was to the close.
Mrs. Macy educated Helen, using always the finger spelling, but treating her like any other child. After preliminary lessons in speaking, Helen learned from Mrs. Macy to converse and even speak from a platform.
Teacher and pupil remained for a time at the Perkins Institution. Then, in 1894, Helen was enrolled in the Wright-Humason Oral School for the Deaf in New York. Later Miss Sullivan took her to a school in Cambridge to prepare her for Radcliffe College and finally Helen passed triumphantly her entrance examinations, entered Radcliffe and in 1904 was graduated cum laude.
Throughout the college course Mrs. Macy was with Helen, spelling into her hands the words of the textbooks and the books of required reading. Miss Keller's career thereafter brought her more and more into the public eye. She became famous as an author, she raised huge sums for the blind, she traveled, she was everywhere acclaimed, and Mrs. Macy went everywhere with her.
"My own life," Mrs. Macy said once, "is so interwoven with my Helen's life that I can't separate myself from her."
Honored by Foreign Lands When Mrs. Macy's sixty-seventh birthday was celebrated Miss Keller proposed a toast:
"Here's to my teacher, whose birthday was the Easter morning of my life."
In 1931 Mrs. Macy received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Temple University and the Order of St. Sava from the King of Yugoslavia.
In 1932 she became an honorary fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. Mrs. Macy stayed in seclusion for several months in 1933 in Scotland while Miss Keller nursed her. Mrs. Macy's blindness grew more pronounced and on her return from Scotland she said:
"Helen is and always has been thoroughly well behaved in her blindness as well as her deafness, but I'm making a futile fight of it, like a bucking bronco. It's not the big things in life that one misses through loss of sight, but such little things as being able to read. And I have no patience, like Helen, for the Braille system, because I can't read fast enough."
Early this month the Roosevelt Memorial Association announced that Roosevelt medals "for a cooperative achievement of heroic character and far-reaching significance" would be presented to Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy. In a telegram of sympathy to Miss Keller yesterday Hermann Hagedorn, executive director of the association, said that presentation to Miss Keller would be postponed from Oct. 27 to next year.
Mrs. Macy was married to John Albert Macy, author and critic, in 1905. He died in 1932. There are no immediate survivors.
A funeral service will be conducted at 2 P. M. tomorrow at the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1,010 Park Avenue, by the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick and the Rev. Edmund M. Wylie, the pastor.
After the service, cremation will take place, in accord with Mrs. Macy's wish, at the Fresh Pond Crematory, Queens.
The honorary pallbearers will be M. C. Migel, president of the American Foundation for the Blind, which Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy greatly aided; Robert Irwin, executive director of the foundation; Harvey D. Gibson, Russell Doubleday, Dr. Conrad Berens, Dr. Philip S. Smith, Dr. William F. Saybolt, Dr. John H. Finley, Louis Bamberger, the Rev. Dr. Edward E. Allen, director emeritus of the Perkins Institution; Dr. William Allan Neilson, president of Smith College, and William Ziegler Jr. 
 From the Scrapbooks of DOR @ the Macy Colby House archives some great info on descendants of Thomas Macy

Captain Robert Todd Lincoln

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Harvard Beats Dartmouth 1901

From Boston Sunday Herald November 17, 1901

Eben Francis Stone of Newburyport MA

A memorial held April 1895 and Memorial from Bar Association
Eben F Stone mayor of Newburyport in 1867, then a state representative, and subsequently a congressman, 1881-1887.Civil War

 

Memorials of the Essex Bar Association: And Brief Biographical Notices of Some of the Distinguished Members of the Essex Bar Prior to the Formation of the Association 

There are few more impressive thoughts than those which come to us of departed friends. They have been taken from us in the bloom of youth, in the strength and glory of manhood, and in the maturity of age, nevermore to be known on earth. In a moment the book of their earthly life has been closed. With Christian faith, trusting in an Infinite Wisdom far transcending the conception of mankind, we meet this— to us—impenetrable mystery. With us who survive, all thoughts of the departed are in the solemn past. We cherish in memory the virtues of the deceased and the lessons of their lives.

We have been called upon to part with a brother who not only earned distinction at the Bar, but exerted a wide and beneficent influence in the performance of many important public duties.

Eben Francis Stone was born in Newburyport, Aug. 3, 1822, and died Jan. 22,1895. His parents were Ebenezer and Fanny (Coolidge) Stone. His first ancestor in this country was Elias Stone, who settled at Charlestown, and was married to Abigail Long in 1686. On the maternal side Mr. Stone was descended from the Coolidges and Storers, of Boston, and from the Moodys and Titcombs, of Newbury. His ancestors were largely engaged in commercial pursuits.

Mr. Stone's father was a man of sterling character. Caleb Cushing, in speaking of him to a friend, said he considered "Major Stone (he was a major in the militia) a model citizen, and altogether the best man in the town." His mother was a woman of estimable qualities, of great enthusiasm in good works, and possessed of a cultured literary taste. She died in Newburyport at the age of eighty-three. Mr. Stone's home

in his boyhood was a very delightful one. His first teacher was Mr. Alfred W. Pike. Afterwards he attended the school of Mr. Charles Pigeon, and for a short time was a pupil in the High School. At the age of fourteen he entered Franklin Academy in North Andover, where he remained until fitted for college. While at North Andover he lived in the family of the Rev. Bailey Loring, the father of the late Hon. George B. Loring. He entered Harvard University in 1839, and was graduated in 1843. He then entered the Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated in 1846. He was for about one year librarian of the Law School Library. He was admitted to the Bar in Essex County in 1846, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession in Newburyport, which from that time to the time of his death was his home.

Mr. Stone was married to Miss Harriet Perrin, of Boston, Oct. 20, 1848. By this marriage there were born to them three daughters,—Harriet Child, now Mrs. Alfred Hewins, Fannie Coolidge, and Cornelia Perrin.

Mr. Stone had little inclination for the general practice in the courts. This may be accounted for in part by his early interest and employment in public affairs. The routine of the ordinary business in the courts was irksome to him. Although for many years he tried cases, and tried them well, yet he failed in that love for and enthusiasm in the trial of causes which are necessary to the proper discipline of the faculties for the work. For success in the trial of causes involving facts, quick conceptions, a mind always on the alert, and the faculty of thinking on one's feet are essential; and these come largely from practice. 

(Photo of Eben Stone from Clipper Heritage Trail)  But upon questions of great interest, in which principles were involved, he showed very great ability. It required an important and exciting occasion to bring out his full powers. He was learned in the law, and possessed of a sound, discriminating, and impartial judgment, which gave him great influence in the various public and private affairs in which he engaged.

It is a somewhat general but mistaken view that the reputation and usefulness of a lawyer are confined to his practice in the courts. However valuable and popular his skill in the examination of witnesses, and great the delight in his powers of advocacy, yet a large field for reputation and usefulness is open to him in the performance of the more unostentatious duties of his profession.

The services of the profession are of very great value in all of the more important positions and vocations of life. A large proportion of the members of Congress and of the Legislatures of the several States are men educated in the law. This results, not from any claim of precedence on the part of the profession, but from the fact that the education and discipline of its members best qualify them for the most important of the duties of legislation. The public needs their services, for which it makes requisition.

So in the conduct of the great business affairs of the world their knowledge and advice are a necessity.

They perform a very useful service in checking litigation. Few outside the profession know the difficulty of preventing parties from engaging in lawsuits. Honest-meaning men, warmed in a controversy, not only insist on bringing suits, which once commenced, are sure to entail protracted and unhappy disputes, but in their zeal fail to disclose to their counsel important facts favoring their opponents. It requires wisdom and experience to deal with such parties, skill to draw out all the facts, and patient and dispassionate reasoning to dissuade the beginning. Instead of encouraging lawsuits, it is one of the most difficult of a lawyer's duties to prevent them. There is no profession more open to the wit of the satirist than that of the law. The characterizations of the practitioners are proverbial. Yet, as one of the best lawyers in this county remarked, "although all men abuse lawyers, no one abuses his own lawyer." The client, in his distress, will disclose to his counsel what he will not to a man of any other profession, and will trustfully confide to him his dearest and most important interests. When I speak of lawyers I mean lawyers, not the reptiles which infest not only the legal, but every other profession.

Mr. Stone, in his admirable address at the dedication of the Court House in Salem, expressed his feelings in regard to the ordinary trials, which, in the early days of his profession, and much more since, in accordance with the spirit of the time, have been largely contests for pecuniary ends, in his description of "a clever practitioner who has sufficient knowledge of cases and of the rules of practice in the courts to conduct a case skilfully from its entry on the docket, through its ordinary stages, to judgment and execution, and sufficient shrewdness to deal successfully with the arts and devices by which a doubtful case is brought to a favorable conclusion. Such men may do good and useful work, and acquire and deserve a respectable standing with the distinction that comes from pecuniary success ; but he has no high aim, no adequate conception of the true office of jurisprudence."

Mr. Stone was a member of the Senate of Massachusetts in 1857, 1858 and 1861. The legislature of 1861 convened at a most critical period. We were then on the eve of our sectional war, when the whole country was in a state of the greatest excitement. War was imminent, and measures were adopted in anticipation of it. The " Personal Liberty Bill," as it was called, containing unconstitutional provisions, and being justly considered as offensive by the people of the South, was referred to a committee of the legislature for examination, and, if necessary, for revision. Mr. Stone was chairman of that committee. From his known anti-slavery views those who did not know the fibre of the man were apprehensive that the radical pressure against any modification of the act might influence him.

After a full hearing and consideration of the subject, Mr. Stone, for the committee, reported to the Senate a bill for the repeal of the obnoxious features of the act. This was met by a strong opposition from the radical members. The Senate was nearly equally divided on the measure. At a time when Mr. Stone was engaged in a committee room theopponents of the measure succeeded in bringing it before the Senate. Mr. Stone received information of the fact. In a few minutes, while the subject was under discussion, he entered the Senate chamber. He thought that he had been unfairly treated by this attempt to pass upon the report of the committee in his absence; and the moment an. opportunity offered he addressed the Senate in an impassioned and very eloquent speech, denouncing the attempt that had been made and defending the report of the committee. Upon a vote the subject was postponed. After various and strenuous efforts to defeat the measure, it was finally adopted by a small majority.

A few weeks after the close of the session Fort Sumter was fired upon. Governor Andrew conferred with prominent members of both Houses; and, after the preparation of bills it was deemed necessary to pass, he called an "extra session," which was held. Mr. Stone took an active part in the preliminary work, and himself drew up the bill for the support of the families of volunteers, and was very influential in the important work of the session.

In November, 1862, Mr. Stone was commissioned by Governor Andrew, colonel of the 48th Regiment, which was enlisted for nine months, but was in service about one year at Baton Rouge and at Port Hudson.

Judge Edgar J. Sherman, a captain in the Regiment, writes:—

"Colonel Stone was a conscientious and painstaking officer, looking carefully to the health and efficiency of his command, faithful to every call and duty, and calm and courageous in the hour of danger. The officers and soldiers in his command entertained great respect for him as an officer and ever-increasing admiration for him as a man."

In 1865 Mr. Stone entered into a law partnership with Caleb Cushing in Washington, with a view to removing there, but after a practice of about one year, he became dissatisfied with the place, and returned to Newburyport.

Mr. Stone was a member of the House of Representativesof Massachusetts in 1867, 1877,1878 and 1880, and in the fall of 1880 he was elected a representative to the Forty-seventh Congress, and was re-elected to the Forty-eighth and Fortyninth Congresses. During the time of this service Mr. Stone was on important committees, and performed a large amount of labor. No one can read his very able speech on the proposed breakwater at Rockport without a feeling of deep regret that he did not oftener address the House. That, I am informed, was the feeling of those in the House who knew him best.

Besides the qualities and accomplishments which have been mentioned, Mr. Stone was a man of letters. His address at the dedication of the new Court House in Salem is a model of literary excellence, and his speech in Congress upon the River and Harbor Bill, and his papers on Governor Andrew and Tristram Dalton, read before the Essex Institute, and printed in its Collections, are very finely written. He was among the last of the type of lawyers of the county who associated letters with the law. In his address at Salem he made a quotation from a recent article in the London Spectator upon the retirement from office of two eminent Scotch judges, of which I give a part:—" In Scotland, as elsewhere, the competition for the loaves and fishes is becoming keener in all professions, and the lawyer finds himself hustled out of literature by the trained public writer and man of letters." In his comment on this Mr. Stone said, " This change is inevitable. As society progresses the conditions of success in the various pursuits become more and more scientific and exacting. And yet there was a charm in the social condition which caused the old alliance between law and letters, which we cannot lose without regret. Life was then more interesting and picturesque. Each man's work was less sharply defined, and the distinctions that now separate classes did not exist. Men were selected for special service, not because of special training, but because of supposed natural fitness. The judge on the bench was not the learned lawyer, but the man who was thought by his fellow-citizens to have the judicial

faculty. Every man of natural superiority took two or three different parts. The minister was doctor and farmer as well. The lawyer was the squire of the village, who supplied the demand for literary or oratorical services in default of the scholar and the trained man of letters,—the fruit of a more luxurious and advanced civilization."

There can be no better evidence of the respect with which the people of his native city regarded him than his election or appointment to so many local offices of trust and responsibility affords. Besides the public offices which have been stated, he was, at different times, mayor of the city, a member of its Common Council and its president, city solicitor, a member of the School Committee, and director in or trustee of the most important financial, educational and charitable institutions of the city.

Mr. Stone was especially distinguished for his integrity and native nobility of character. He was modest and unassuming in his manners, and never made any attempt at display, or did anything for sensational effect. He had an ambition for preferment, but never did, or could, resort to any of the arts of the politicians. He stood simply for what he was. He held decided opinions, which he never disguised or compromised for political ends. He stood solely on his merits as understood by those from whom he sought support. He was independent, yet never defiant or censorious. He was very tolerant of the opinions of those from whom he differed. He was never narrow in his views, and his mind was ever open to the arguments of his opponents. He was never a strictly party man. He believed fully in the necessity of united action by those of the same general political beliefs, but reserved the right of individual judgment upon all measures proposed. He never fully consented to all the policies of his own party. All measures were subjected to the crucible of his "unclouded reason." He had great moral as well as physical courage. He felt a personal responsibility in the performance of his public duties, and did right as his reason pointed out the right, without inquiring whether his course would be popular or how it would affect his political future.

In private life Mr. Stone was beloved and respected by all who knew him. With a mind eminently practical, and stored with knowledge derived from books and from his large and varied experiences, he was most interesting and instructive in conversation and in discussions in literary societies. He was true and unswerving in his friendships, and most happy in the delights of his family circle. He left to his friends and this community a priceless legacy in the example of an honorable and useful life.

Such a life as Mr. Stone's is a contribution to the great tide of human advancement through influences which cannot be weighed, or measured by time.

Letter from Eben F. Stone to Samuel Downer accepting his invitation to the reunion

The Berry's of Andover Andover Townsman Historical Series

Looking into the Berry family in Andover I found some interesting info in Dr. Daniel Berry and his wife Susan Farnham Berry. Here is a little earler background from Andover history.
Berry Pond Andover MA 

The "Berry House"; the Blunt tavern in the time of the Revolution; afterwards owned by Ezra Holt Captain Isaac Blunt brought home the elm tree when a sapling and set it out here about 1790. (Miss Dora S. Berry's, Salem Street.) From

Title: Blunt Tavern in the 1890's

Publisher: Phillips Academy

Date: 1890

Description: Berry House was the final name for what had been Blunt Tavern, built sometime before 1765 by Captain Isaac Blunt. Blunt had a son who was one of the first thirteen students at Phillips Academy in 1778. Three generations of Blunts lived in the house until it was sold to Mr. Holt who in turn quickly sold it to the Berry family. This date also places the Tavern/Inn in the Berry Family hands. Green was the color of the day as well in the 1930's as it is today. When the house came down the floor boards were reused in another house.

Subject: Phillips Academy -- Buildings

Collection : History of the Academy

Tags : Berry House, Blunt Tavern, Phillips Academy

Citation : "Blunt Tavern in the 1890's," in NOBLE Digital Heritage, Item #16259, http://heritage.noblenet.org/items/show/16259 (accessed July 25, 2014).

 

Dr Daniel Berry b. 7 Feb 1777 in Andover, MA d. July 1851 in St. Louis. His wife, Susan Farnham Berry b. 1784 in Andover d. July 1851 in St. Louis. Dr Berry graduated Harvard 1806
Listings of Berry Graves Andover MA 
From History of Nashville, Tenn

Nashville Female Academy was chartered in 1817, Dr. Daniel Berry serving as principal. August 4, 1817, the Nashville Female Academy was opened, with Dr. Daniel Berry and wife, of Massachusetts, as principals. A charter was granted by the legislature on the 3d of the following October. The charter appointed a board of seven trustees—Robert White, Robert Searcy, Felix Grundy, John L. Erwin, John Baird, Joseph T. Elliston, and James Trimble— who were to act until the first Monday in January, when they were to give way to a new board of seven trustees chosen by the stockholders of the academy. Thereafter once a year a new board appointed in the same way was to supplant the old one. Dr. Berry and his wife severed their connection with the academy in July, 1819, and were succeeded by Rev. William Hume. The Nashville Female Academy was one of the first institutions of its kind in the United States. A number of gentlemen associated themselves together for the purpose of its establishment early in 1816. 

For the use of the proposed academy, these gentlemen, on the 4th of July, 1816, purchased three acres of land of David McGavock, the land lying on the south side of the town, and costing $1,500. Contracts were entered into for building part of the academy house, which was ready for occupancy in July, 1817. On the 2d of this month the trustees of the academy announced that they had at length succeeded in securing suitable teachers for this school, from which so much was expected (and from which so much was realized). The teachers selected were Dr. Daniel Berry and his wife, of Salem, Mass., who were recommended by some of the leading citizens of that State as possessing superior qualifications. Dr. Berry and lady, the trustees said, had arrived, and their bearing and manner had very highly and favorably impressed the trustees, who were happy to add their approbation to that of the citizens of Massachusetts.

The second session of this academy commenced February 2, 1818, under the direction of Dr. Berry and his wife. Mr. Leroy was professor of music, and was assisted by his wife and her sister. There were in attendance at that term one hundred and eighty students. Miss Gardette, of Philadelphia, and Miss Payson, of Portsmouth, N. H., were engaged as " auxiliary tutoresses," in May, 1818. The semi-annual examination of this school, July 13 and 14, 1818, was attended by a large number of citizens, including the trustees.

The third session of this school commenced August 12, 1818, and closed December 19 following, and was still under the care and supervision of Dr. Berry and his wife. The number of students was one hundred and eighty-six. On Monday, January 4, 1819, Robert Whyte, Felix Grundy, James Trimble, John P. Erwin, Joseph T. Elliston, William Hume, and Oliver B. Hayes were elected trustees. Robert Whyte was again elected President; John P. Erwin, Secretary; and Joseph T. Elliston, Treasurer. The fourth session commenced January 17, 1819, and closed June 25, Dr. Berry and wife still in charge, assisted by Miss

Payson, Miss Carl, Miss Owen, and Mrs. Jane Maney. The number of students received was two hundred and eighteen.

In July, 1819, Dr. Berry and wife retired from connection with the academy, and on the 23d of August John P. Erwin resigned his position as trustee, and was followed by Thomas Claiborne. Mr. Claiborne was appointed Secretary. On the 2d of December, 1819, James Trimble resigned, and John P. Erwin was elected a trustee in his stead. Felix Grundy resigned, and Thomas Crutcher was elected a trustee in his stead. Thomas Claiborne resigned, and Alfred Balch was elected a trustee in his stead. John P. Erwin was elected Secretary. The fifth session commenced July 19, 1819, and closed on the 23d of December. Rev. William Hume was principal as the successor of Dr. Berry, and was assisted by Miss Payson, Miss Carl, Miss Childs, Miss Stearns, Miss Owen, and Mrs. Maney. The number of students received that term was one hundred and thirty-seven.

More @ Tennessee Historical Quarterly
Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Volumes 19-20
Higher Ed in Tenn

[St. Louis; Dr. Daniel Berry; Completed; Beyond; Live]

Date: Thursday, August 7, 1851
Paper: Salem Register (Salem, MA) 

article no. 125 published July 29, 1904 Andover Historical Society

The earliest records spell the name Berry and Barry, but always Berry by those who knew how to spell, and it was perhaps pronounced variously. The ancestor of (1) Thaddeus Berry of Lynn, Rumney Marsh (Chelsea) and Boston. His estate was divided between the children in 1718, record in Boston. The eldest son, John, of Wenham (near Danvers line) looked after mother Hannah, and had brothers (2) Samuel, Thomas and Daniel, sisters Elizabeth, wife of Joseph Townsend, Hannah, wife of Edmond Needham, Sarah, wife of Thomas Stockton, Rebecca, wife of William Bassett, and Abigail, of John Bassett, Jerusha of Ebenezer Merriam, while the inevitable spinster of the family, (2) Mehitabel, closed the list in 1720.

We must follow the fortunes of (2) John in a limited paper like this. His mother was Hannah Farrar, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth of Lynn. Bodge gives the record of Thaddeus in "King Philip's War", 1676, in Col. John Whipple's Company, that was credited to Lynn, and as a soldier grantee in the award to Narragansett fight men, his claims lay in Buxton, Maine, in 1735, and were taken by John Mitchell and Mary Mitchell and Ambrose Berry, whose connection with Thaddeus, whether of blood of "commercial" I have not traced.
 The wife of (2) John Berry, of Wenham, was Rachel, whose family has not yet been stumbled upon. He moved into Danvers about 1709, when he appears upon the minister's tax, and in some depositions of 1719 said he was of Wenham 26 years before. In 1722 he had returned to Wenham, apparently buying a large estate for 540L in Salem of Edward Fuller, the village blacksmith, near the Boxford line. This estate was a little later set off to the present town of Middleton, where, in 1727, he divided 60L in value of Fuller land to four sons (said land lying near their own) - (3) Samuel, (3) Ebenezer, (3) Ben. The land at Chelsea had been sold by father (2) John to his brother (2) Thomas as most of the second generation remained in the vicinity of Boston, while the line of (2) John built the town of Middleton.

   There were other prominent Berrys in the colony, besides the line of Thaddeus. Newbury and other towns had lines which will probably be taken up in July issue of the Essex Antiquarian. Mariners and traders abound, but Thaddeus and his descent were plain farmers for years, till intermarriage changed the bent. Some of the Berrys elsewhere were prominent as physicians. Barnstable County had many early like Richard, Edmond and Anthony, and the connection between these emigrants may be placed sometime by research abroad. Capt. Thomas Berry, of Boston, who died on the voyage from Jamaica in 1685, buried at sea, left an only son who was a Harvard graduate, married the president's daughter, and left a son, Col. Tom, a physician of note, ancestor of the late Henry Dutch Lord, a genealogist, who did very good work on Berry lines.

   (3) Joseph Berry, whose first wife Sarah, has escaped us, was the first to enter Andover records. Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Farnum and Hannah Hutchinson, married Obadiah Holt in 1726, and in 1739 he died up on the Kennebec in camp, perhaps on a prospecting or trading trip. Whether his family had ever lived there, or whether Joseph Berry was a companion, I did not discover, but in 1742, Joseph, having lost Sarah, annexed the widow Rebecca Holt and her Holt tribe to his band of Berrys and they raised one half brother (4) John Berry, born 1743, who married Eunice Howe and lived around Boxford way in 1773. This record in Andover is somewhat broken. Joseph, born 1726, (4) Sarah 1727, (4) Hannah wife of Andrew Foster, Jr., of Andover, in 1753, (4) Abigail 1733, (4) Bartholomew Nov. 3, 1734, wife Elizabeth Hayward of Reading about 1757, (4) Mary 1737, children of Sarah are all I could recover of this family. The record of (3) Ben, the other Andover ancestor, is more obscure, and I am hoping the Antiquarian may give us family records to piece out.

   Born 1709, (3) Ben married Priscilla Smith in 1736, and was then called a resident of Andover. From my own search, and notes from the Stiles' sketch of Middleton in the Essex County Standard History, I conclude he was the Ben who bought the old Samuel Farnum estate of the Andover line, near his land in Middleton. His eldest son, (4) Ben, was recorded in Middleton in 1739, married very young and seems to be in Andover with wives Mary and Phebe all before 1776. (4) Sarah, born 1758, after a long gap filled up by a son recorded without name in Andover in 1743, and (4) John both 1756, baptized in our North church, and later with a wife, Polly annexed still to be explored, are all I could find by the wife Priscilla Smith.  
In 1775 he was Capt. Ben, and married in Andover, widow Ruth Estes, whose maiden name I have not got, and a son (4) Daniel Berry, recorded in baptisms of North church, 1777, was Dr. Daniel Berry of Salem, who married Susanna Farnum, of Andover, in 1809, and a son, (4) Ebenezer, still younger, and called a minor in the probate notices of (3) Ben in 1789, was father of (5) Ebenezer Gardiner Berry of Danvers, who married Elizabeth Abbott of Andover, and the children are well known here through the relatives, Asa and Sylvester Abbott, at whose home Elizabeth was "raised". The only surviving daughter, (6) Emily Gardiner Berry, widow of John Sylvester Learoyd, spends her summers with us, and one son, (7) Charles, is a prominent young physician of Taunton. This family will probably be fully given in the Berry genealogy. 
The old and famous Berry tavern of Danvers Square was started by the (4) Ebenezer of Andover, who, according to Stiles, owned a farm where he was born, last house on North Andover line of Middleton, on the North Road, a cellar hole visible in 1880 - near railroad. This was the Farnum estate, bought by (3) Capt. Ben on a mortgage. (4) Ebenezer left this farm and was owner of the Danvers tavern. (5) Ebenezer at the age of 80 told this to Mr. Stiles, who sent it to the Townsman in Mr. Carpenter's day, when we had a regular weekly historical column. A second sketch will give the lines to date.
The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry By Harlan Lane, Richard C. Pillard, Ulf Hedberg 

Vital Records of Andover, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849

May Eliza Wright Sewall

Mary Wright Sewall was born in Wisconsin in May 27 1844 (She later changed her name to May). May died July 23, 1920, Indianapolis, Indiana. See Mary Wright Materials
 Mary Eliza Wright was born on May 27,1844 in Greenfield, Wisconsin, the daughter of Philander W. Wright and Mary W. Wright. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1866, and a master's degree in 1868, from North Western Female College. She married Edwin W. Thompson in 1872 and moved with him to Indianapolis, Indiana where he died in 1875. She became interested in women's suffrage, attending a national conference in 1878. She married Theodore Lovett Sewall in 1880 and became involved in the Boys' Classical School he founded and then in the Girls' Classical School which they jointly founded. She was elected president of the National Congress of Women in 1891 and the International Congress of Women in 1899. She was a member of Henry Ford's Peace Expedition in 1915, and she was a proponent for peace for many years. She sold the Girls' Classical School in 1907, having headed it after her husband's death in 1895. She made a living as a lecturer and author. She died July 23, 1920 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Sewall, May Wright. Indiana Historical Society.
"Sewall, May Wright". Pictorial and biographical memoirs of Indianapolis and Marion County, (p.322-325). (1893), Goodspeed Brothers, Chicago, IL    See also Sewall-Belmont House
From Pictorial and biographical memoirs of Indianapolis and Marion County 

mrs. May Wright Sewall, the chairman of the committee on a World's Congress of Representative Women, convened under the auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Colombian Exposition, is a native of Wisconsin; her parents, however, were both from old New England families. After graduating from the Northwestern University at Evanston, I1l., Mrs. Sewall taught public schools in Michigan and was soon made the principal of the high school. She became, later, the principal of the high school in Franklin, Ind., and teacher of English and German in the high school of Indianapolis. From this position she resigned in 1880, upon her marriage with Mr. Theodore L. Sewall, principal of a private school for boys in that city.
In 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened a private school for girls, known as the Girls' Classical School, which was immediately successful and has become widely known. Mrs. Sewall's profession is thus that of a teacher, her specialty being English literature; her school duties occupy the first and highest place in her attention and demand and receive a large share of her time. From her infancy Mrs. Sewall was trained to a strong belief in the right of women to wider opportunities for education and to a fuller share in the honors and the profits of business, professional and industrial activity than they have hitherto enjoyed. Her energies were enlisted in these reforms soon after reaching womanhood and for twenty years she has been a strong ally of every cause that promoted the advancement of women. She was first actively connected with National Woman Suffrage Association, in which her power was immediately recognized and in which she held for many years the arduous and responsible office of chairman of the executive committee. She was one of the promoters of the International Council of Women, which convened in Washington in 1888, and conceived the idea of perpetuating its influence through permanent international and national councils of women. In the organization of both of these bodies she subsequently aided. Mrs. Sewall was one of the committee that formulated the plan for the general federation of women's clubs. She is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Women, an honorary member of the Union Internationale des Sciences et des Arts, of Paris; a member of the American Historical Association, of Sorosis, etc.
In her own home Mrs. Sewall has played a most active part in the work of organization for social reform and other purposes. Thus she was one of the founders of the Indianapolis Woman's Club, of the Indianapolis Art Association, of the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society, of the Indiana State Suffrage Society, of the Indianapolis Ramabai Circle, of the Indiana branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, of the university extension work in Indianapolis under the auspices of this latter society, of the Indianapolis Local Council of Women; of the Indianapolis Woman's Exchange, and of the Indianapolis Contemporary Club. She also originated the plan of the Indianapolis Propyheum, an incorporated joint stock company of women, which has erected a handsome building for social and educational purposes.
Mrs. Sewall was appointed by Gov. Hovey a member at large of the Board of World's Fair Managers for Indiana, and is chairman of the committee on women's work and a member of the committee on education in that body. Being president of the National Council of Women and acquainted with many of the leading women of Europe from several summers spent in England, France, Germany and Italy, Mrs. Sewall was made the chairman of the committee on a World's Congress of Representative Women, to the success of which she has devoted her energies and her time for the past twelve mouths, spending the summer in Europe for the purpose of explaining to foreign women its importance and its scope. In Berlin Mrs. Sewall held many conferences with small groups of prominent women, and later visited Homlmrg by appointment with the Empress Frederick, who granted her an hour's interview and who was deeply interested in the work as outlined by Mrs. Sewall. In Brussels Mrs. Sewall addressed the Woman's League of Belgium and in Paris she gave an address in the Mairie St. Snlpice before a large company of leading men and women. This address was widely noticed in the press of Russia. France, England and Italy, and the leading facts of the congress were thus widely disseminated. Mrs. Sewall devoted two weeks in Paris to conferences with individuals and organizations in the interest of the congress.

See Power of the People by Skip Berry
Mrs. Sewall's public work is thus, it will be seen, devoted to the furtherance of organization among women. She has always labored with a broad view, careless of the letter if the spirit can be secured. Her work is all done above the plane of personalities and she cares little for the honors that it brings her in comparison with the good of the cause. She has worked steadily for harmony and consolidation among conflicting interests, with an eye single to the permanent good. She labored earnestly and successfully, with others, to accomplish the union of the American and the National Suffrage Associations and of the eastern and the western branches of the Association of Collegiate Alumnse. She is widely known as a warm friend, a generous and fair opponent, sympathetic with all workers for the good of humanity and especially of women. Mrs. Sewall has many lectures on social, educational and reform topics and her services as a lecturer are widely sought for. She is perhaps at her best as an extemporaneous speaker, her style being clear, cogent and eloquent, with full command of her subject. As a presiding officer she is uniformly successful, being dignified, clear-headed, impartial and quick to seize a point.

Mrs. Sewall is also a prolific writer, but her work is not of a character to be easily cataloged, consisting chiefly of newspaper editorials and correspondence, constitutions, programs, reports and addresses on educational, reform and social subjects. To the various activities outlines above Mrs. Sewall adds those of a housekeeper who oversees all the affairs of her household in minute detail. She is widely known as an entertainer and plays her full part in the social and even the fashionable life of Indianapolis, her Wednesday afternoon receptions being a feature of the intellectual and social life of the city. Among prominent western women of to-day few, if any, take a higher rank than Mrs. May Wright Sewall, of Indianapolis, Ind. She has gained this prominence, and national recognition as well, through her remarkable and rare executive ability. So sure footed is she in all of her efforts that her name in connection with any undertaking is regarded almost as a talisman of success. She is one of those in whom action becomes unconsciously a synonym of leadership, and by instinct and by choice her attention has been turned largely to public matters, in which the interests of numbers are involved. This has made her a market! figure in nearly all public movements in her home city, in her State and in the nation. Yet the time she gives to those things is what for another woman would be her leisure hours. The usual working hours of each day she devotes conscientiously to her model school for girls.

 

Memorial Banner ”In Memory of May Wright Sewall” hot pink cotton twill face, with yellow painted lettering with four hanging loops across top edge, cream colored cotton twill backing. Machine stitched. Canvas interfacing.

Mrs. Sewall is by birth and by her most noticeable characteristics and special sympathies a western woman. She was born in Milwaukee, Wis., then a frontier settlement, whence her parents had come from New England. She received her early education in the district schools; later she spent two years in a private academy. She was afterward for a time under the care of private tutors, who prepared her to enter, at an early age, the Northwestern University of Evanston, where she was graduated with the degree A. B. in 1867. The degree A. M. was conferred upon her three years later. She served her apprenticeship as an educator by taking private pupils and by teaching in different graded schools of Michigan. She was soon called to more advanced work and filled with success the position of principal successively in the high schools of Plainwell, Mich., and Franklin, Ind.
In 1874 she became instructor in German in the high school at Indianapolis. In 1880 she became the wife of Theodore L. Sewall, a prominent educator of Indianapolis, and for several years gave her chief attention to home and social duties. Domestic duties were then a comparatively unknown field to Mrs. Sewall, but with her characteristic energy and determination to master whatever work might be set before her she fitted herself for a model housekeeper by doing all of her own work until she had learned thoroughly all branches of housekeeping. As a result of this training her domestic affairs, to which she still gives her personal supervision, run like clock-work and her servants are examples of faithfulness and efficiency.
In 1883 Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened the Classical School for Girls in Indianapolis. To this school Mrs. Sewall gives her life work and the fairest fruit of her genins. In its brief existence it has become large and flourishing and the cherished plan of its principals, of making it a school complete and thorough in every department from the lowest primary to the collegiate, has been carried out. It provides everything except a college course, to which its senior class is a stepping stone. Mrs. Sewall is probably more widely connected in an active way with local and national organizations than any other woman in the country. She is interested first of all in the advancement and higher education of women. She was one of the founders and a most enthusiastic member of the Woman's Club, an influential literary club of Indianapolis.

She has been a moving spirit in the Indianapolis Ramabai Circle, in the Indianapolis Suffrage Society and in the Propylseum, an organization which deserves much more than a passing notice. It is a woman's stock company, organized in 1888, which has recently carried out its chief purpose, the erecting of a handsome club building for club meetings and public entertainments, which is not only a useful and ornamental structure but promises to be a profitable investment for the stockholders. Mrs. Sewall is and has been from its beginning the president of the organization and its success is largely due to her business tact and skillful management.
Mrs. Sewall is an enthusiastic member of the Indianapolis Art Association, which holds yearly exhibitions, and is exercising a wide influence in cultivating artistic taste. And last, but by no means least, in her connection with local affairs she was the first president of the Contemporary Club, a literary club organized a year ago, whose large membership includes both men and women prominent in her city and State. Mrs. Sewall is a warm advocate of the political rights of women, and has been for a number of years prominent in the work of the Indiana and the National Equal Suffrage Societies. She is president of the National Council of Women, vice-president of the National Federation of Woman's Clubs, and one of the vice-presidents of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. She is a member of Sorosis, of the Association for the Advancement of Women, of the American Historical Society, and of the International Council of Women. In 1889 she was a delegate to the Woman's Congress in Paris, and made an address in French which received praise for its eloquence from M. Jules Simon and others. Mrs. Sewall has since been made au honorary member of the Union Internationale cles Sciences et des Arts, Paris.
The latest public honor done to Mrs. Sewall is her appointment by Governor Hovey to a place on the Board of Commissioners for the World's Fair. If we add that Mrs. Sewall is in frequent demand as a lecturer on literary, education and reform subjects, her almost phenomenal capacity for public work may be more fully estimated. But this is not all of her achievements. Her versatility of talent and tireless energy have enabled her to do also a great deal of literary work. Her contribution on the education of women in the Western States to the recently published "Woman's Work in America" is one of the most interesting chapters in that wholly interesting and valuable work. Mrs. Sewall is still a young and youthful looking woman. She is fond of society and of social life, and has exerted a wide and good social influence in Indianapolis. She presides over an elegant and hospitable home, where her friends are frequently entertained, and where many strangers also, men and women of note who visit Indianapolis, are made welcome. Her weekly informal Wednesday afternoon receptions are always largely attended, and have become a prominent feature in the social life of Indianapolis. Probably no woman in America so completely represents the life of modern woman with its marvelous round of occupations and duties. Mrs. Sewall is a fine embodiment of the practical ideas of the day. Her unvarying success is due largely to the system and thoroughness underlying her smallest as well as her greatest undertakings, and to the religious care she takes of her bodily health. A worker, a thinker, a writer, of virile ability,
Mrs. Sewall is withal a most womanly woman, loving pretty dresses, pictures, books, and perhaps most of all, fine china. She has a beautiful collection, gifts of friends and souvenirs, whose history she delights to relate to sympathetic listeners. A large number of contributions to the press, on varied subjects, historical, literary, reform; in particular contributions, editorial and other, to the Woman's Journal, Boston; the American Woman's Journal, New York; the Indianapolis Journal; the Woman's Tribune; Dress; Journal of Speculative Philosophy; the Woman's Magazine; the Arena; the Cycle; the Union Signal; the Indianapolis Times; the Boston Traveler; the Woman's Penny Paper (London, England).

Woman's Party Booth at San Francisco Exposition Spring 1915. L-R, Front - 1 Mrs. May Wright Sewall, 2 Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett (Alexandria, Va), Rear - 3 Miss Anita Whitney (Cal.), 4 Mrs. Mary Bear, 5 Miss Vivian Pierce, 6 Miss Margaret Whittemore 
A large number of pamphlets and monographs, principally on educational and reform topics, in particular relating to organization and work among women. Among these may be mentioned: Disinherited Childhood (published by the Moral Education Society, of Washington, D. C, 1881); Report on the Position of Women in Industry and Education in the State of Indiana (prepared for the New Orleans Exposition, at the request of the Commissioners for Indiana, 1885); Women as Educators (an address before the Association for the Advancement of Women, New York, October, 1887); The Domestic and Social Effects of the Higher Education of Women (an address read before the Western Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Ann Arbor, December, 10, 1887); Report on the Higher Education for Women in the United States (read at the session of the International Council of Women, March 2, 1888; printed in the Report of the proceedings); The Industrial Relations of Women to the State (an address prepared for the Indiana Board of Agriculture); Woman's Work in America (the chapter on the Education of Women in the West; Holt & Co., 1891); Exposition Day in the Schools (prepared at the request of the Committee on Education of the Indiana Board of World's Fair Commissioners, Indianapolis, 1891; Preliminary Address for the World's Congress of Representative Women, Chicago, 1892; Form of Constitution of Local Councils of Women, Indianapolis, 1892; Pamphlet outlining the work of the Committee on Woman's Work of the Indiana Board of World's Fair Commissioners, 1892; History of the Indianapolis Art Association (Vouge's Art Folio, March, 1892; The General Federation of Women's Clubs (in the Arena, August, 1892); Introduction to a Symposium on Woman's Dress (in the Arena, September, 1892).
See More @ The Sewall Papers
May Wright Sewall: Hoosier Victorian Women's Rights Advocate , Educator, and Advocate of the Arts

The Illustrated AmericaN Volume 13

Mrs. May Wright Sewall.

Among the features of the World's Fair celebrations will be a congress of representative women from all parts of the world. This congress will have no specific object beyond bringing together from all parts of the world individuals and organizations laboring for the same ends, or interested in any department of intellectual activity, in philanthropy, or reform.

The chairman of this committee is Mrs. May Wright Sewall, whose name is as familiar to the West as that of Mrs. Potter Palmer. Mrs. Sewall is already on the board of commissioners for the World's Fair, and deserves her place by virtue of her acquirements and her services for the benefit of the public.

Born in Milwaukee, Mrs. Sewall's chief characteristics and special sympathies are Western. She was graduated from the Northwestern University, in Illinois, and at once began her apprenticeship as an educator by teaching in the different schools in Michigan. In 1880 she becam: the wife of Theodore L. Sewall, himself a prominent educator at Indianapolis, and for several years she devoted her entire attention to her home and to society.

Mrs. Sewall is widely and actively connected with organizations throughout the country. She was one of the founders of the Woman's Club at Indianapolis and is still an enthusiastic member. In the Ramabai Circle and in the Indiana Suffrage Society she is a moving spirit; she has also a large interest in the Propytasum, a woman's stock company which has erected a handsome building for club meetings and public entertainments. The building has been a profitable investment, and its success is largely due to Mrs. Sewall's business tact and skillful management. She is an enthusiastic member of the Indianapolis Art Association, which holds yearly exhibitions and is exercising a wide influence in cultivating artistic taste.

Mrs. Sewall is a warm advocate of the political rights of women. She is president of the National Council of Women, vice-president of the National Federation of Woman's Clubs, and one of the vice-presidents of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae She is a member of Sorosis, of the Association for the Advancement of Women, of the American Historical Society, and of the Industrial Council of Women.

In 1889 Mrs. Sewall was a delegate to the Woman's Congress in Paris, and made an address in French which received unstinted praise for its eloquence from M. Jules Simon. At that time she was made an honorary member of the " Union Internationale des Sciences et des Arts," of Paris. A Progressive Woman. Mrs. May Wright Sewall a Leader in the National Council of Women Date: Thursday, September 27, 1894 Paper: Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, NJ) Page: 8

See The Propylaeum Historic Foundation, Inc
From Pictorial and biographical memoirs of Indianapolis and Marion County 
Theodore Lovett Sewall was born in Germantown, Ohio, September 20, 1853. His mother, Louise K. Lovett, belongs to the old and substantial Lovett family, of Beverly, Mass. His father, Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr., belongs to a family that has been distinguished in Massachusetts annals for two centuries and a half, including in its direct line, Chief Justice Samuel Sewell, the Diarist (died 1730), Rev. Joseph Sewall of the Old South Church, Boston (died 1796), and a second Chief Justice Samuel Sewall (died 1814). The family is of English stock.

Mr. Sewall received his early education in a private school at Wilmington, Del. He entered Harvard College in 1870, and graduated in 1874, being the seventh Sewell in a direct line to receive his education and his degree from this institution. Mr. Sewall remained in Cambridge two years longer taking the course in the Harvard Law School, receiving the degree of LL. B. in 1876. Spending the summer of 1876 in Indianapolis, Ind., he was invited by prominent citizens of that place to open a preparatory school for boys, which he did in September, 1876, naming it the Indianapolis Classical School. In 1880 Mr. Sewall married May Wright Thompson, a lady descended from the Wright and , Brackett families of New England, and who is well known for ability in educational and reform movements, especially, such as affect women (see May Wright Sewall). In 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened a Girls' Classical School, with a course of study conforming to the Harvard requirements for admission. These schools were among the first private schools in the West, to meet fully the highest collegiate requirements for admission, including Greek and mathematics for girls; and to introduce the systematic work of the gymnasinm, under competent teachers, in connection with the other school work. A girls' boarding department was opened in 1886. Both institutions have had more than a local influence. The girls' school, especially, draws pupils from all sections of the country, and has graduates in all the prominent woman's colleges in the country. In 1889 Mr. Sewall transferred the boys' school to other hands, and Mr. and Mrs. Sewall have since then devoted their entire time to the school for girls. Mr. Sewall received the degree of A. M. from the Indiana University, in 1887. He has done considerable literary work, and has lectured frequently on social and literary subjects. For ten years he was the secretary, and, later, the president, of the Indianapolis Literary Club. Mr. and Mrs. Sewall have spent four summers traveling in Europe.

The Harvard Graduates Magazine By George P. Sanger, Sec.
940 Exchange Building, Boston. Theodore Lovett Sewall died at Indianapolis, Ind., Dec. 23 1874. He was born at Germantown, Ohio, Sept. 20, 1853. Both his mother, Louise Kilham Lovett, and his father, Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr., were of old Massachusetts families. In the direct line are included Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, who died in 1730 ; the Rev. Joseph Sewall, of the Old South Church, Boston, who died in 1796; and the second Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, who died in 1814.
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Theodore Sewall attended a private school at Wilmington, Del. He entered Harvard in 1870, and was graduated in 1874, the seventh Sewall in the direct line to receive his degree at Harvard. He remained at Harvard two years longer, attending the Law School, and received, in 1876, the degree of LL. B. While visiting Indianapolis in 1876, he was invited to open a preparatory school for boys, and in the fall of that year he started the Indianapolis Classical School. In 1880 he married May Wright Thompson. Two years later Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened the Girls' Classical School, with a course adapted to the Harvard requirements for admission. Both the boys' and girls' schools were conducted by the Sewalls until 1889, when the boys' school was transferred to another management, and the attention of the Sewalls was turned to the girls' school exclusively. Mr. Sewall was interested in literary work. He was for ten years secretary, and for one term president of the Indianapolis Literary Club. For four years he was secretary of the Contemporary Club, which was organized under his direction at his house. He was also a member of the Art Association. In religious belief be was a Unitarian; in politics, an Independent.