Woman of the Century/Esther J. Trimble Lippincott

LIPPINCOTT, Mrs. Esther J. Trimble, educator and reformer, born on a farm near Kimberton, Pa., 2nd March, 1838, and died in the house of a relative in Wilmington, Del., and June, 1888. ESTHER J. TRIMBLE LIPPINCOTT. She was the only child of her parents, Joseph and Rebecca Fussell Trimble. Her father died when she was about eighteen months of age. As her mind developed, she manifested a strong love for literature, and finally chose its study as her life-work. Her proficiency was such that she was invited to become an instructor in that branch in Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania. There she accomplished an admirable work. Later she became a professor of literature in the normal school of West Chester, Pa. From her early womanhood her feeling of independence led her to take pride in self-maintenance, and her filial piety and devotion bade her to care for her widowed mother. Her married life with Isaac H. Lippincott, of Woodstown. N.J., lasted but a brief period, as he died at the end of two years. After she became a widow, she visited Europe in pursuance of her studies. As an author she was successful in the preparation of a "Chart of General Literature," a "Hand-Book of English and American Literature " and a "Short Course of Literature." These have become standard works in schools and colleges. She left behind her manuscripts of great value, which she was exceedingly anxious to publish before her death. She was deeply interested in all questions pertaining to the welfare of man, and held as of first importance the cardinal duty of obedience to the "Inner Light," recognized so clearly by the Society of Friends, of which she was a member. A paper prepared by her, entitled "Law versus License," indicates her feeling on the temperance question. In every effort for homes for invalids she w;is in special sympathy, and before her death, left a substantial token of her interest in the founding of several such homes in Philadelphia. Mrs. Lippincott was laid to rest in the Friends' Burial Ground, in Merion, near to her father and mother.