Eliza Lee Cabot Follen was an author and prominent member of the Massachusetts anti-slavery group.
Background
Eliza Lee Cabot Follen was born in Boston, the fifth of the thirteen children of Samuel and Sarah (Barrett) Cabot. Her father, a descendant of John Cabot who, coming from the island of Jersey in 1700, settled in Salem, Massachusetts, was engaged in foreign commerce.
For a number of years during Eliza’s girlhood he was in Europe where he served as secretary of the commission to England under the Jay Treaty to settle the American spoliation claims.
Her mother, a woman of strong character and notable mental attainments, was the daughter of Samuel and Mary (Clarke) Barrett, the latter a daughter of Richard Clarke, and sister of Sussannah Farnum Clarke who married John Singleton Copley.
Education
Eliza received an excellent education, and became a cultivated woman of marked intellectual ability, deeply interested in religious and social problems, and firm and outspoken in her convictions.
Career
After the death of her father in 1819, her mother having died ten years earlier, she and two of her sisters established a home of their own. Her family connections brought her into contact with many of the leading people of Boston; she was prominent in literary and religious circles, and numbered among her friends such personages as William Ellery Channing and Henry Ware.
In 1841-42 she published in five volumes The Works of Charles Follen, with a Memoir of His Life.
For two years beginning in April 1828, she edited the Christian Teacher’s Manual; and from 1843 to 1850, the Child’s Friend. Her books for the young were voluminous, some of them passing through numerous editions. The Well- Spent Hour (1827) was especially popular. Writing from Liverpool, Mrs. John T. Kirkland remarked in a letter dated August 23, 1830: “Among the literary productions of America which have found their way across the Atlantic is our cousin Follen’s Well-Spent Hour and Christian Teacher’s Manual.
She seems to be considered one of the lights of the New World, associated with Dr. Channing and Mr. Ware” (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2 ser. , vol. XIX, 1906). Mrs. Follen also published Selections from the Writings of Fenelon, with a memoir of his life (1829); The Skeptic (1835) ; Sketches of Married Life (1838); and Poems (1839).
Every one respected her, but not every one loved her. J. Peter Lesley wrote to his stepmother, June 21, 1847, “We called together on Mrs. Follen, relict of the lamented Dr. Follen who perished in the Lexington, last evening and found her one of those enthusiastic, partisan souls, who can see no faults in friends, nor virtues in enemies” (Mary Lesley Ames, Life and Letters of Peter and Susan Lesley, 1903).
In general, however, she was spoken of with great reverence. James Russell Lowell, writing of the women who conducted anti-slavery bazaars in Faneuil Hall, characterized her thus: Her death, occasioned by typhoid fever, was coincident with her “annual festival, ” the meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
In addition to her writing she undertook the work of preparing her son and other boys for Harvard College; and was active in the support of the anti-slavery movement, furnishing numerous tracts and poems, and serving on the executive committee of the American AntiSlavery Society.
Views
Mrs. Follen’s interest in the education of children and her connection with the Sunday-school movement gave direction to her literary activity.
Membership
She was an author and prominent member of the Massachusetts anti-slavery group and a member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society.
Connections
She was one of a little group of men and women who established a Sunday-school in connection with the Federal Street Church, and with other members of the group was accustomed to meet once a week in Dr. Channing’s study for the discussion of religious questions. The woman in Germany to whom he was engaged refusing to leave home and friends for America, on September 15, 1828, he and Miss Cabot were married.
Thereafter their fortunes were joined until his tragic death a little more than eleven years later. A son, Charles Christopher, was born to them on April 11, 1830.