A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Phelps, Almira H. Lincoln
PHELPS, ALMIRA H. LINCOLN,
Was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1793. The character of her father, Samuel Hart, is described in the memoir of her eldest sister, Mrs. Emma Willard. Her mother was Lydia Hinsdale, a woman of great energy and sound judgment. Almira, the youngest of a large family, was indulged in childhood; but love of knowledge, and an ambition to excel, induced her, as she grew older, to seek her chief pleasure and occupation in intellectual pursuits and moral Improvement; religious truths, also, early exercised great influence over her. She was, for some years, the pupil of her sister Emma, and after the marriage of the latter to Dr. Willard, passed two years with her in Middlebury, Vermont. When about eighteen, she spent a year, as a pupil, at the then celebrated school of her relative. Miss Hinsdale, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She married, not long after, Simeon Lincoln, who succeeded William L. Stone as editor of the "Connecticut Mirror," in Hartford, Connecticut
At the age of thirty, Mrs. Lincoln was left a widow, with two children, and with two perplexed estates, those of her husband and his father, to settle, which she successfully accomplished. At that time, she began the study of the Latin and Greek languages, and the natural sciences, and also applied herself to improving her talent for drawing and painting, in order to prepare herself for assisting her sister, Mrs. Willard, in the Troy Seminary, where she passed seven years, engaged in alternate study and instruction.
In 1831, Mrs. Lincoln married the Hon. John Phelps, a distinguished lawyer of Vermont, in which State she resided for the next six years. In 1839, she was called on to assume the office of Principal of the West Chester (Pa.) Female Seminary, which invitation she accepted; she subsequently removed to the Patapsco Female Institute, near Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, where she now presides over one of the most flourishing and best-conducted institutions of the country. Mr. Phelps, by whose assistance and advice his wife had been aided and guided in establishing the Institute, died in 1849.
The first work published by Mrs. Phelps was her larger Botany, generally known as "Lincoln's Botany," printed about 1829. Few scientific books have had a greater circulation in America, and, for the last twenty years, it has kept its place as the principal botanical class-book, notwithstanding numerous competitors. Her next was a "Dictionary of Chemistry," which, though it purported to be a translation from the French, contains much, in the form of notes and an appendix, that is original. With the learned, this work gave the author great credit, as it evinced much research, and a thorough knowledge of the science which it illustrated. After her second marriage, she prepared her "Botany" and "Chemistry for Beginners;" and also published a course of lectures on education, which had been addressed to the pupils of the Troy Seminary, and which now constitutes, under the title of the "Female Student, or Fireside Friend," one of the volumes of the "School Library," published by the Messrs. Harper.
A larger and smaller "Natural Philosophy, for Schools," a "Geology for Beginners," with a larger Chemistry, soon followed; and a translation of Madame Madame Necker de Saussure's "Progressive Education," by Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps, with notes, and "The Mother's Journal" as an appendix, by the latter, was published in 1838. Her next work was a small volume, "Caroline Westerly, or the Young Traveller," which constitutes volume sixteen of Harpers' "Boys' and Girls' Library for Beginners." The works we have enumerated were all written by Mrs. Phelps within about eight years, during the first two of which she was connected with the Troy Female Seminary, and much occupied by important duties connected with its supervision. During the six remaining years, she resided in Vermont, where she became the mother of a son and daughter, and presided over the household affairs of her home with tact and ability equal to those who make housekeeping the chief pursuit of their life. The only book published by Mrs. Phelps since she has been actively engaged in education, is "Ida Norman, or Trials and their Uses," which was written for the benefit of her pupils. Some of her addresses at the public examinations and commencements of the Institute have been published, and we understand that it is her intention soon to issue a volume of her addresses to her pupils, on moral and religious subjects.
In her girlhood, Mrs. Phelps wrote occasional poetry, and commenced a record of her reading, observations, and the events of her life, which she has continued to the present time; and probably, had she chosen to court the muses rather than cultivate the sciences, she might have been equally successful. But it is as a teacher that her fine talents and good influence have been most beneficial to her sex and to her country. The office of instructress to the young, is a mission of great power and responsibility, which Mrs. Phelps has fulfilled, and still continues to fulfil, in a manner deserving high honour. It was for her pupils that her scientific works were prepared; no woman in America, nor any in Europe, excepting Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Somerville, has made such useful and numerous contributions to the stock of available scientific knowledge as Mrs. Phelps. Yet had she not been a teacher, and found the need of such works, it is very doubtful whether she would have prepared them.