Unitarian denomination, being one of the best known of its women speakers in its national and local gatherings. She has been for a number of years an active worker in the National Association for the Advancement of Women. Though not an ordained minister, she often preaches. She has more calls to preach and lecture than she can possibly fill. Few speakers are so perfectly at home before an audience, or have so great power to hold the attention of all classes of hearers. No woman in Ann Arbor, where her home has been for many years, is more esteemed by all than is she. She is especially honored and beloved by the young women students of the university, who find in her a constant and ever-helpful friend.
SWAFFORD, Mrs. Martina, poet, was born near Terre Haute, Ind. She is widely known by her pen-name, "Belle Bremer." Her parents were Virginians, and each year she spends part of her time in the South, generally passing the winters in Huntsville, Ala. She was reared in Terre Haute, and received a liberal education, which she supplemented by extensive reading and study. She is troubled by an optical weakness, which at times makes her unable to read or write, and her health is delicate. She was a precocious child and at an
early age showed by her poetical productions that she was worthy to be ranked with the foremost of the rising authors of the Wabash Valley.
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MARTINA SWAFFORD.
Her first literary work was stories for the Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post." She became a contributor to "Peterson's Magazine" and other periodicals, east, west and south, and her poems were extensively read and copied. The Atlanta "Constitution" introduced her to its extended southern constituency, and some of her best work appeared in that journal. Much of her work has been done during her winter residence in Huntsville. In poetry she belongs to the romantic rather than to the aesthetic school, though her verse is characterized by melody and a noticeable artistic treatment.
Her muse is preëminently heroic and ideal, as her subjects generally indicate. She has published one volume of poems, entitled "Wych Elm" (Buffalo, 1891). Her husband. Dr. Swafford, is a prominent
physician in Terre Haute. Her home is a social and literary center, and her time is devoted to good works and literature.
SWAIN, Mrs. Adeline Morrison, woman suffragist, born in Bath, N. H., 25th May, 1820.
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ADELINE MORRISON SWAIN.
Her father. Moses F. 'Morrison, was a graduate of the medical department of Dartmouth College and a distinguished practitioner. Her mother, Zilpha Smith Morrison, was a woman of ability and intelligence. Though burdened with the many cares arising from a family of three sons and five daughters, she managed to acquaint herself with the questions of the day. Both parents were
free-thinkers in the broadest and highest sense of that term, and both were in advance of the times. The home of the family was a continuous school, and what the children lacked in the preparation for the higher seminary and college course, they succeeded
in gaining around their own hearthstone, assisted by parental instruction. At the age when most girls were learning mere nursery rhymes, Adeline Morrison spent a large portion of her time in pursuing the study of a Latin grammar. She received an education beyond the ordinary. She was accomplished in the fine arts, and her paintings have been recognized as works of superior merit. She
taught several languages for many years in seminaries in Vermont, New York and Ohio. In 1846 she became the wife of James Swain, a prominent business man of Nunda, N. Y. In 1854 they removed to Buffalo. N. Y., where they resided several years. There her attention was called to the subject of spiritualism. She devoted much study to that subject, and finally accepted its claims as conclusive, and became an avowed advocate of its
