Esther Morgan Park McCullough was born in
North Bennington, Vermont, to Eliza Hall (Park) McCullough and
John G. McCullough, an attorney and future
governor of Vermont. She and her siblings Hall, Eliza, and Ella were raised in their mother's family mansion, now known as the
Park-McCullough Historic House. McCullough wrote novels such as
Archangel House (1935) and
The Five Devils of Kilmainham (1955). The latter, which was about the effect of murder on families living on the fringes of Dublin in the 1880s, was praised by critics as a masterpiece of suspense. Her largest project was
As I Pass, O Manhattan (1956), a 1200-page anthology of writing about life in New York from its earliest days that encompassed some 200 authors and ranged from poetry to biography. Hailed as a "magnificent tribute to a mighty city", this compendium of "literary New Yorkiana" is still being used by other writers. Her unpublished biography of painter
Harriet Blackstone is among the Harriet Blackstone Papers in the Smithsonian Institution. McCullough was also a musician and served for a time as director of the
Vermont Symphony Orchestra. ==Personal life==