Woman of the Century/Lucy Stedman Lamson

LAMSON, Miss Lacy Stedman, business woman and educator, born in Albany, N. Y., 19th June, 1857. Her father, Homer B. Lamson, was a lawyer of note, who died in 1876. Her mother, Caroline Francis Brayton Lamson, was a woman of culture and died at an early age, leaving three children, Lucy S., Hattie B. and William Ford. Miss Lamson was educated in a private school and in the public schools of Albany. LUCY STEDMAN LAWSON. She was a student of the Albany high school for one year and attended the Adams Collegiate Institute, Adams, N. Y., four years, where she was graduated in 1874. Since that time she has taught in the public schools of Adams, Cape Vincent, Albany and Brooklyn, N. Y., and Tacoma, Wash. In 1886 she was graduated from the State Normal School in Albany, N. Y., and in the following year she studied with special teachers in New York City. In September, 1888, she accepted a position in the Annie Wright Seminary, Tacoma, Wash. During 18S8 and 1889 much excitement prevailed in regard to land speculations, and Miss Lamson, not being in possession of funds, borrowed them and purchased city lots, which she sold at a profit. In March, 1889, she filed a timber claim and a pre-emption in Skamania county, Wash., and in June, in the beginning of the summer vacation, she moved her household goods to her pre-emption, and, accompanied by a young Norwegian woman, commenced the six months' residence required by the government to obtain the title to the land. The claim was situated nine miles above Cape Horn. Washougal river, a branch of the Columbia. Having complied with the law and gained possession of the timber claim and pre-emption. Miss Lamson sold both at an advantage and invested the proceeds in real estate. In September, 1890, she accepted a position in the Tacoma high school. She has charge of one-hundred sixty pupils in vocal music, elocution and physical culture, and instructs the city teachers, one-hundred-ten in all, in music and gymnastics. In the fall of 1890 she built a small house in the northern part of the town, which she makes her home.