Background
Born Mary Hawley Beecher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Samuel Peck Beecher, a farmer, and Caroline Matilda Beecher (née Walker), she grew up in Bedford Township, Michigan.
Born Mary Hawley Beecher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Samuel Peck Beecher, a farmer, and Caroline Matilda Beecher (née Walker), she grew up in Bedford Township, Michigan.
She was educated at Battle Creek public schools and Albion College, after which she became a teacher.
She funded the first King James Version of the Bible in Braille and was a patron of the arts, education and benevolent organizations. As her husband"s business ventures, particularly in timber and mining, became successful, they became one of the wealthiest couples in Michigan. They built a mansion in Marquette, overlooking Lake Superior, but they also became benefactors of the arts, education, and of efforts to help the blind.
When Southeastern Railway wanted to lay track through their property, the Longyears decided to move.
Knowing that the mansion would be difficult to sell or reproduce, they had the house dismantled and shipped by train 1,300 miles to Brookline, Massachusetts, where it was rebuilt and enlarged. The feat was mentioned in Ripley"s Believe lieutenant or Not.
In 1919, Mary Beecher Longyear offered J. Robert Atkinson $5,000 a year to create a Braille copy of the King James Version of the Bible. The project took five years.
In 1923, she established the Longyear Foundation, which later became the Longyear Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Longyear was a member of a number of organizations, including the Women"s International League for Peace and Freedom, Daughters of the American Revolution, The Boston Author"s Club, Sulgrave Manor Institute in England, and the Marquette County Historical Society, which received a bequest from Longyear"s will, enabling them to purchase a building in 1937.