LETTER: ALS, "Almira Lincoln Phelps," to "Mr. N.R. Monachesi," April 21, 1875, Baltimore, MD.
ALS, "Almira Lincoln Phelps," to "Mr. N.R. Monachesi," April 21, 1875, Baltimore, MD.
8vo.; one leaf, two pages.
Phelps writes about her subscription to a book series whose publication has been delayed.
Connecticut-born educator Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793-1884) was the daughter of Samuel Hart, and was a lineal descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford, Connecticut. She was educated by her sister, Mrs. Emma Willard, taught in her father's house at nineteen years of age, and subsequently was in charge of the Sandy Hill, New York, female academy. She married in 1817 Samuel Lincoln, of Hartford, who died in 1823, and she soon afterward became associated with Mrs. Willard in the Female Seminary in Troy, New York. In 1831 she married Judge John Phelps, of Vermont. She took charge of a seminary in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1838, and afterward taught in Rahway, New Jersey. In 1841, on the invitation of the bishop of Maryland, she became associated with her husband in the charge of the Patapsco Institute, a diocesan female school, which soon attained a high reputation. After the death of Judge Phelps in 1847, she conducted it alone for the succeeding eight years. She then settled in Baltimore, and spent her latter years in retirement.
Almira was the second woman elected a member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and read before that body in 1866 a paper on the religious and scientific character and writings of Edward Hitchcock, and in 1878 one on the “Infidel Tendencies of Modern Science”. Her educational works, which had a large sale, were devoted mainly to natural science. She also wrote a few novels, and edited Our Country in its Relation to the Past, Present and Future (Baltimore, 1868), for the benefit of the Christian and sanitary commissions.
Her son Charles fought in the Civil War, was elected to Congress as a Unionist in 1864, reelected in 1866, and at the expiration of his term resumed the practice of law in Baltimore. In 1867 he declined the appointment of judge of the Maryland court of appeals. In 1877 he raised a volunteer regiment to serve during the riots of that summer. In 1882 he was elected associate judge of the superior court of Baltimore, for a term of fifteen years. Judge Phelps, too, was for many years a member of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, was president of the board of school commissioners of Baltimore, was president of the Alumni Association of Princeton, and professor of equity in the Baltimore law school. In 1880, at the request of the Maryland Historical Society, he delivered the address in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Baltimore. (Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM)
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