|
Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Mary L. Bonney Rambaut 1816 ~ 1900
Mary L. Bonney Rambaut
Miss Bonney was born June 8, 1816, in
Hamilton, Madison County, New York. Her father was a farmer in
good circumstances. Her mother had been a teacher before her
marriage. Religion and education were prominent in their
thoughts and directed the training of their son and daughter.
Miss Bonney was a pupil for several
years of the Female Academy in Hamilton and also under Mrs. Emma
Willard, in Troy Seminary, at that time the best institution for
young ladies in this country. Her father's death occurred when
she was quite young, obliging her to take up the profession of
teaching.
In 1850 she decided to establish a
school of her own and provide a home for her mother. In
connection with Miss Harriette A. Dillaye, one of the teachers
in Troy Seminary, and a friend of her earlier days, she founded
the Chestnut Street Seminary, located for thirty-three years in
Philadelphia and later, in 1883, enlarged into the Ogontz
Seminary, in Ogontz, Pennsylvania, one of the famous schools for
girls in the United States.
Here, for nearly forty years. Miss
Bonney presided. Her attention was first attracted to the cause
of the Indians through a newspaper article in regard to Senator
Vest's efforts to have the Oklahoma lands opened to settlement
by the whites. It was at this time Miss Bonney formed the
friendship with Mrs. A. S. Quinton, and these two women began
their task of aiding in righting the wrongs done by the
government to the Indians.
Miss Bonney gave freely from her own
income to this cause. She became the first president of the
society and devoted the latter years of her life to this work.
While in London, in 1888, as a delegate to the World's
Missionary Conference, Miss Bonney met and married Rev. Thomas
Rambaut, D. D., LL. D., a friend of many years and also a
delegate to the conference. Mrs. Rambaut died in 1900.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
|