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Part Taken by Women in American History


New England parentage, in her writings dealt powerful blows for freedom, temperance and other reforms. She had lived the life of a philanthropist, and when the war broke out she gave voice and pen to the right, speaking, editing and writing. When the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued she freed herself from other cares, and found her mission among the freed slaves. Four of her own boys were in the Union Army, and in the autumn of 1862 she went, without appointment or salary, to Port Royal, where she labored fourteen months. She returned North in 1863 and lectured on her experiences among the freedmen, rousing others to labor for the welfare of the colored race. Her name will live forever among the noble and faithful women who "remembered those in bounds as bound with them," and who cared for the soldier and the freedman, to whom God had already said: "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Mrs. Lucy Gaylord Powers was another true friend to the soldier and the freedman. Her last active benevolent work was begun in 1863. This was the foundation of an asylum at the capital for the freed orphans and destitute aged colored women, whom the war and the Emancipation Proclamation had thrown upon the country as a charge. But she was in feeble health, and died while on her way to Albany on July 20, 1863.

Maria Rullann, of Massachusetts, proved herself worthy of her kinship to the first secretary of the Board of Education in that commonwealth by her faithful service as a teacher and philanthropist in Helena, Arkansas, and afterward as a teacher in Washington and Georgetown.

Mrs. Josephine Griffin, always an advocate for freedom, was faithful in her nursing during the war, and afterward took charge of the good work in Washington. One of her philanthropic methods was the finding of good places for domes-