Woman of the Century/Mary Canfield Ballard

BALLARD. Miss Mary Canfield, poet, born in Troy, Pa.. 22nd June. 1852. On her mother's side Miss Ballard is related to Colonel Ethan Allen, of Revolutionary fame. Her father was a self-made man and accumulated considerable property in Bradford county, Pa. She was sent to the State Normal School when about fourteen years old, but, growing homesick, she returned to her home in Troy where she finished her education. She is the youngest of a large family, but, her brothers and MARY CANFIELD BALLARD. sisters being married and her father and mother dead, she lives alone. She is devoted to painting, music and literature and has been a prolific contributor to periodicals under the name Minnie C. Ballard ever since she sent her first poem to William Cullen Bryant, who gave it a place in the "Evening Post." Her early literary efforts were very ambitious ones. When she was only thirteen years old, she wrote a continued story about a hair-pin, managing to introduce an elopement, an angry father, tears, repentance and forgiveness. She also wrote an essay on Sappho. She began to write poems at the age of sixteen, but her first published productions made their appearance when she was twenty-one years old. Since her bow to the public in the poets' corner of the "Evening Post," she has contributed occasionally to some thirty periodicals. She has published "Idle Fancies" (Troy, Pa.. 1883), for private circulation, and a new edition for the general public (Philadelphia, 1884).