Ellen Hardin, author, lawyer and activist, was born on
October 20, 1832. Not a time when empowering women was prevalent. She is a
woman I admire because she believed in the importance of studying history and
in historic preservation.
At the age of 20, Ellen married Mansfield Tracy Walworth,
her stepfather’s youngest son. She had eight children with Mansfield but he was
a violent man who physically abused her. The last assault was when she was pregnant
with her youngest child, Sarah, and at that point, she obtained a “Limited
divorce,” giving her the right to live separately but not remarry.
Unfortunately, Mansfield continued to threaten Ellen and, in
1873, her eldest son, Frank, shot his father to death and was sent to prison.
Ellen studied law to find a way to get her son’s conviction overturned and was
successful in 1877, on the grounds he was insane.
Needing a stable income for her family, Ellen opened the
family homestead in Saratage, New York, as a boarding school for females and
then later as a summer hotel.
Now, one would think this difficult, busy life would have
been enough for Ellen, but like most great women, she strove to make the world
a better place in many, many ways, which I will talk about in my next blog.
