Woman of the Century/Lucy H. Washington

WASHINGTON, Mrs. Lucy H., poet and temperance reformer, born in Whiting, Vt., 4th January, 1835. Her maiden name was Lucy Hall Walker. She is descended from New England ancestry running back to 1642. Her paternal lineage is traced to Deacon Philip Walker, of Rehoboth, Mass., one of the founders of the commonwealth and also one of the principal characters in the bloody drama of King Philip's War. On her maternal side her descent is from Samuel Gile, one of the eleven first settlers of Haverhill, Mass., in 1640. From her mother she inherited a love for the beautiful in nature and an ear and soul attuned to song. Her early educational advantages were such as the common school, select school and academy of her native State afforded. Her first printed verses appeared at the age of fourteen. LUCY H. WASHINGTON. With active intellect and strong ambitions, she resolved to enter upon a wider course of study, and became a pupil in Clover Street Seminary, Rochester, N. Y., where she was graduated with honors in 1856. In the seminary her talent met cordial recognition, and the aid of her muse was often invoked for special occasions. From that time her verses have frequently appeared, with occasional prose sketches. After graduation she devoted three years to teaching and was at the time of her marriage preceptress of the Collegiate Institute in Brockport, N. Y. Her husband. Rev. S. Washington, a graduate of Rochester University and of Rochester Theological Seminary, has during his professional life served prominent churches in both eastern and western States, and is now pastor of the Baptist Church in Port Jervis, N. Y. In Jacksonville, Ill., in 1874. Mrs. Washington was made a leader in the crusade movement, and in response to the needs of the hour was brought into public speaking. Her persuasive methods, Christian spirit and eloquent language made her at once an effective speaker, acceptable to all classes. Her first address in temperance work, outside of her own city, was given in the Hall of Representatives in Springfield, Ill. Commendatory press reports brought her to extended public notice, led to repeated and urgent calls and opened a door to service which has never been closed. During the succeeding years she has in various official capacities been largely engaged in Woman's Christian Temperance Union work, having given addresses in twenty-four States and extended her labors from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the great campaigns for constitutional prohibition in Iowa, Kansas, Maine and other States, she has borne a helpful part. In difficult emergencies her electric utterance has been decisive of interests great and imperiled. With equally vigorous body and mind, she has yet much history to make. She is the mother of four children, a son and three daughters, all finely educated and worthy of the parents who have so planned for their care as to enable their mother to devote much time to public work. In 1887 she published "Echoes of Song," a volume containing numerous selections from her poetical writings from early girlhood. She has subsequently added many contributions of merit, which, with selections from her first volume, were published under the title of "Memory's Casket" (Buffalo, 1891). She has contributed to the "Magazine of Poetry," and many other periodicals, and some of her hymns have been sung throughout the country.