Background
Sarah Towne Smith Martyn was born on August 15, 1805 in Hopkinton, N. H. She was the daughter of the Rev. Ethan and Bathsheba (Sanford) Smith, both descendants of seventeenth-century settlers in New England.
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Sarah Towne Smith Martyn
Edit ProfileEducation
Her early education was directed by her father, a scholarly clergyman, who, as a youth, had served in the Revolution, and afterward graduated from Dartmouth College. Under his tutelage she studied Greek and Hebrew and learned to translate readily from modern languages. She spent a brief period at a school for young ladies in New York City, where her considerable talent for music received some training.
Career
As she grew older she shared with her father his ardent interest in the temperance and anti-slavery movements. She was warmly sympathetic with Oberlin College in its early efforts and was invited to act as one of the first principals of its "female department. " This honor she declined, feeling that her work lay in another direction. She was active in the Female Moral Reform Society of New York after 1836 and assisted in editing its journal, the Advocate of Moral Reform, until 1845, when dissension within the society caused her to secede from it with the disaffected minority. In March 1841 she married her brother-in-law, Job H. Martyn, a clergyman in New York City. She lived in New York until 1868, with the exception of three years (1850 - 53) spent in Waukesha, Wis. , while her husband was in charge of a church in that place. After her marriage Mrs. Martyn continued her devotion to religious and reform movements. In 1842 she acted as editor for a few weeks of the Olive Plant and Ladies' Temperance Advocate. Following her separation from the Advocate of Moral Reform she was connected for a short time with a rival, the True Advocate. In April 1846 she began the publication of the White Banner, an undertaking that gave place the following month to the Ladies' Wreath, "a magazine devoted to literature, industry, and religion. " This periodical she edited from 1846 to 1850, writing a large part of its decorous contents herself. In addition to these editorial ventures she wrote for the American Tract Society many unpretentious volumes designed for juvenile readers. She died on November 22, 1879 in New York City and was buried in Cheshire, Connecticut.
Achievements
Views
Martyn's approach to biblical women is highly romanticized; for instance, she asserts that the Book of Ruth is "full of thrilling interest and pathos" and indicates that Ruth herself is a "young and beautiful woman, " even though there is not a word in the Old Testament narrative to imply that Ruth is either particularly young or physically beautiful. Martyn's warmly appreciative nature is the greatest strength of her work; for example, she evaluates the ode sung by Samuel's mother, Hannah, as "one of the finest specimens of Hebrew poetry extant. " Throughout, Martyn stresses the marriage and motherhood of biblical women; but 19th-century women might have been stimulated to additional ambitions by her emphasis on their "rare endowments of mind as well as heart. "
Personality
She was known among the literati of New York as a gracious hostess in whose home well-known writers and reformers frequently assembled. After the death of her husband in 1868, she divided her time between New York and Connecticut, living with her children and sharing their interests.
Connections
Sarah Towne Smith was married. Three sons and a daughter were born of this marriage, the eldest, William Carlos, becoming a well-known minister and writer.
References
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Born
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Died
January 22, 1879 (aged 73) -
Nationality
American