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Introduction.
In presenting to the public this memorial volume, its compilers deemed that a brief biographical introduction was necessary; and as a labor of love I have not been able to refuse their request to prepare it.
Lydia Maria Francis was born in
Medford, Massachusetts, February 11, 1802.
Her father,
Convers Francis, was a worthy and substantial citizen of that town.
Her brother,
Convers Francis, afterwards theological professor in Harvard College, was some years older than herself, and assisted her in her early home studies, though, with the perversity of an elder brother, he sometimes mystified her in answering her questions.
Once, when she wished to know what was meant by
Milton's “raven down of darkness,” which was made to smile when smoothed, he explained that it was only the fur of a black cat, which sparkled when stroked!
Later in life this brother wrote of her, “She has been a dear, good sister to me: would that I had been half as good a brother to her.”
Her earliest teacher was an aged spinster, known in the village as “Marm
Betty,” painfully shy, and with many oddities of person and manner, the never-forgotten calamity of whose life was that
Governor Brooks once saw her drinking out of the nose of her tea-kettle.
Her school was in her bed-room, always untidy, and she was a constant chewer
