Phebe A. Hanaford

Phebe Ann Coffin was born on May 6, 1829, in Siasconset on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts to Phebe Ann (Barnard) Coffin, who died a month later) and George W. Coffin, a shipowner and a merchant. Phebe's father remarried the following year, to Emmeline Cartwright; from this union, Phebe gained an older step-brother and seven younger half-siblings. The Coffins were a Quaker family descended from the early Nantucket European settlers Tristram Coffin, Peter Foulger, and Mary Morrill; further back, her ancestry traces to Degory Priest, the Mayflower pilot. She received an advanced education both at home and in public and private schools on Nantucket, studying math and Latin at home. She left school at the age of 17 to care for her paternal grandmother. ==Career==

At the age of 20, she began teaching school in Siasconset, Massachusetts. and composed two sonnets inspired by the sculptor and her work. Death In 1914, Hanaford departed New York City for Rochester, New York, where she died on June 2, 1921, at the age of 92 despite her dream of living to 100. She left a brief unpublished memoir of her early life, Old Time School Days in Nantucket. ==Personal life==

The same year that she was ordained, Hanaford separated from her husband, though they never officially divorced, and took her children with her. She began living with a woman named Ellen Miles, a situation that caused controversy in her first New Jersey congregation, which referred to Miles as the "minister's wife". There was resentment over Miles assisting Hanaford in certain official duties, including philanthropic disbursements. Church officials first tried to pressure Hanaford to leave by threatening a salary cut from $2500 to $1500. When Hanaford accepted the cut, church officials then demanded that Hanaford dismiss Miles. When Hanaford refused, the congregation voted not to renew Hanaford's contract. Hanaford then left to start the Second Universalist Church, where Ellen Miles ran the Sunday School. Although the nature of Hanaford's relationship with Miles is uncertain, their letters testify to a "deep friendship". They remained together for 44 years until Miles' death in 1914. ==Books==

• Lucretia the Quakeress (1853) • Chimes of Peace and Union (1861, with Mary Trask Webber) • Life of Abraham Lincoln (1865) • ''The Soldier's Daughter'' (1867) • Life of George Peabody (1871) • Women of the Century (1876) • Daughters of America (1882) • Heart of Siasconset (1891) ==References==