Background

Lucy Newhall Colman descended from Nicholas Danforth, an Englishman emigrating to New England in 1634. She was born on July 26, 1818 at Sturbridge, Massachusetts, United States, the second of four daughters of Erastus and Hannah (Newhall) Danforth. Her mother was a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden.

Education

Lucy received the scanty education in public schools.

Career

At the age of twelve, thrown on her own resources, Lucy became a teacher. About 1835 she started to work in a girls’ school in Philadelphia. In 1854 Lucy secured a position as teacher of “the colored school” of Rochester, New York, at a meager salary. A year later, unaided, she accomplished its abolition, thereby removing educational discrimination against the African Americans of Rochester. In another position, she publicly used her influence against corporal punishment in schools.

A long-standing desire to strike at slavery led her to abandon teaching and to secure through friends appointments as an anti-slavery lecturer. From 1856 to 1860, she worked first with the Western Anti-Slavery Society and then with the American Anti-Slavery Society. She spoke in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; endured various hardships in the crude homes and country hotels of ante-bellum days; attacked slavery always in vigorous, even violent language; defied social and religious conventions; exposed sham. Though encountering determined opposition—misrepresentation, insults, and grave perils—she escaped actual physical harm. She adopted a young colored woman for a time as a fellow traveler. Sometimes she mingled in her protests the wrongs of blacks and the wrongs suffered by woman.

After the outbreak of the Civil War she became matron of the National Colored Orphan Asylum at Washington, where she substituted kind treatment and sanitation for mismanagement. She served as superintendent of certain colored schools supported by the New York Aid Society in the District of Columbia, instructing the pupils in morals and cleanliness. She secured interesting interviews for Sojourner Truth with Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.

Later she returned to New York State, making her home after 1873 in Syracuse, where she was active in the Spiritualist Society and as a Freethinker. She joined the J. S. Mill Liberal League, becoming a contributor to the Truth Seeker.

Achievements

• Lucy Newhall Colman became prominent for her active role in the abolitionist, women’s suffrage and Freethinker movements. She was also noted for her service in promoting the education of African Americans.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Reminiscences...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Personality

Colman was a small woman, whose face gave evidence of intelligence, independence, and determination.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Lucy N. Colman, in whom the ardor of youth finds no ashes in snowy age, and the silver morn is radiant ever . .. Mrs. Colman is radical in every direction. She is opposed to white slavery as well as black slavery, and has devoted herself to woman's rights as well as to the rights of man. She is a radical Freethinker, having outgrown superstitions of every kind. She has not lost her interest in any living question. She has had a busy and eventful career; has mingled with the world, among its characters and great movements, and has done her share to bring about the great gains of the present time. She has shown what a woman can do who has self-reliance, energy, and devotion to truth and right. Her name shines in the annals of progress. "- Samuel Porter Putnam

Connections

in 1835 Lucy married John Mabrey Davis, who died of tuberculosis six years later. In 1843 she married a railroad engineer, Luther N. Coleman, who was killed in a railroad accident in 1852.

Father:

Erastus Danforth

Mother:

Hannah (Newhall) Danforth

Spouse:

Luther N. Coleman

Spouse:

John Mabrey Davis

References

• Abolitionists Remember: Antislavery Autobiographies and the Unfinished Work of Emancipation