Representative women of New England/Grace B. Faxon

by Mary H. Graves

GRACE B. FAXON was born in Lynn, Mass., October 21, 1877. Daughter of George and Mary Alice (Boardman) Faxon, she is of the ninth generation of the Faxon family in New England. Her paternal grandparents were George⁷ Faxon {James,^{6 5} Richard,⁴ Thomas,³ Richard,² Thomas¹), born in 1796, and his wife Abigail, daughter of William and Abigail (Newcomb) Baxter and a descendant of John Alden. The ancestral line is given below.

Ruth Alden (daughter of John and Priscilla) married John Bass, Mary Bass married Christopher Webb, Sarah Webb married Seth Arnold, Mary Arnold married John Spear, Prudence Spear married Daniel Baxter, and was the mother of William Baxter and grand-mother of Abigail.

Miss Faxon's maternal grandparents were Israel Putnam Boardman and his wife Caroline Elizabeth, the former a son of Nathaniel and Nancy (Putnam) Boardman. Israel Putnam, father of Nancy, was of the sixth generation of the family founded by John¹ Putnam, of Salem Village, from whom he descended through his son Nathaniel.²

Mrs. Caroline E. Boardman's maiden name was Gould. Daughter of Moses and Mehitable (Upton) Gould, she was descended from Zaccheus Gould, of Topsfield, and from John Upton, founder of the New England family GRACE B. FAXON of this name, also from Governor Endicott, from the Rev. Samuel Skelton, and other early colonists.

Seven of Miss Faxon's ancestors served in the Revolutionary War, among them being Captain Edmund⁵ Putnam (father of Israel⁶ above named), who commanded one of the companies of militia that marched from Danvers in response to the Lexington alarm of April 19, 1775.

George^ Faxon dying when his daughter Grace was ten years of age, she went with her widowed mother and family to reside with her maternal grandparents in Danvers, Mass. Her school life was but little prolonged beyond the early years of her girlhood. Miss Faxon has, however, been a wide reader and diligent home student. Prompted by a fondness for the Bessie books, when only seven she wrote a series of stories; at eight she had read all of Dickens; and at sixteen she was teaching a district school in which many of the pupils were older than she. She continued teaching for four years, having charge of schools successively in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Possessed of a strong dramatic temperament, she early became interested in the stage as a profession, and even while engaged in school-teaching she studied under Rachel Noah and other leading teachers of dramatic art in Boston. Taking part in amateur theatricals in different parts of the country, she gained some reputation as an actress, and later continued her studies in New York. On account of family opposition she finally relinquished the idea of going on the stage, but frequently appeared in lectures and readings.

At the age of twenty she turned her attention to writing for publication. Her first ventures in this field took the form of short stories for children and adults. Afterward she wrote for teachers' magazines, and in less time than a year was called to New York City to join the editorial staff of the New York School Journal, for which she contributed freely to every issue, writing on school-room subjects and arranging many original school-room entertainments. She resigned that position to become editor-in-chief of Werner’s Magazine, This monthly, devoted to the stage and platform, she ably conducted for two years. Going abroad in 1902, where she witnessed the coronation ceremonies of King Edward VII., she studied along such lines as would fit her for writing upon and teaching dramatic subjects. Miss Faxon has written a play for the Daughters of the American Revolution, entitled "Maids and Matrons." She has been prominent in New York City club life, belonging to the New York Woman's Press Club, the Professional Woman's League, Actors' Church Alliance, Sunshine Society, and Daughters of the American Revolution.

Removing to Boston in the summer of 1903 to be near her family, she accepted the position of literary adviser in a Boston publishing house, meanwhile contributing to that city's dailies and weeklies. A few months later she took the position of editor of the Suburban, an illustrated weekly publication designed for home reading, combining news and social items with fiction and magazine features. She has a keen interest in all that pertains to the advancement of her sex, believing in equal suffrage, and her constant theme in writing is "Woman's Loyalty to Woman."

In the Normal Instructor she conducts a department of expression (the only one of its kind), of the benefits of which teachers all through the United States enthusiastically speak. Miss Faxon is in religious affiliation an ardent Unitarian.