Hannah Tobey Shapleigh Farmer was an American philanthropist who founded a “Rosemary Cottage, ” its purpose being to afford shelter and food to weary and needy women and children
Background
Hannah Tobey Shapleigh Farmer, wife of Moses Gerrish Farmer, was born in Berwick, Maine, the third daughter of Richard and Olive (Tobcy) Shapleigh.
Her father was primarily a public-school teacher but, while not a lawyer, maintained a law office in association with another. He was a practical and accurate surveyor, justice of the peace, deputy sheriff, and representative for several terms in the General Court at the state capital. In this environment Hannah grew up and earned the reputation in her early girlhood of “a lass with a great deal of pluck. ” Sadness entered her life at an early age with the death of a little brother, and within a month of each other two sisters near her own age died of tuberculosis. When she was seventeen her father died of the same disease, leaving his family destitute except for a house in Eliot, Maine. To this place the widow moved and there Hannah was obliged to assist her mother in maintaining the home. This she did with her needle as a mantua-maker, going from house to house and earning twenty-five cents a day.
Career
During the earlier years of her married life the family income was severely limited but Mrs. Farmer was in entire sympathy with her husband’s electrical experimentation and invention and was of great assistance to him in the development of many of his important discoveries. She, too, apparently acquired the trend of thought of the inventor for she received a patent rather late in life, on December 11, 1883, for a “head protector. ” As the family means permitted, she became active in charitable and philanthropic work in and about Bostsn. With the outbreak of the Civil War and throughout that struggle she originated and conducted public benefits for the soldiers by which large sums of money and supplies were realized and distributed especially through the Christian Commission and other benevolent channels of Boston. In 1888 she built in Eliot a large dwelling in memory of her infant son.
Before her death this institution was given over to the care of the City Missionary Society of Boston. She died in Eliot, survived by her husband and daughter.
Achievements
She received a patent rather late in life, on December 11, 1883, for a “head protector. ”
She organized a “Rosemary Cottage, ” its purpose being to afford shelter and food to weary and needy women and children.
Interests
Under the pen name of Mabelle, Mrs. Farmer wrote both prose and poetry, contributing it chiefly to the general press, the theme for most of these writings being for the advancement of the various civic betterment movements in which she was interested.
Connections
On December 25, 1844, she married Moses Gerrish Farmer who was a preceptor of the Eliot Academy and lodged with her mother.
