with lessons of
industry and self-denial well learned, and with her life all before.
She lived in a period when women of genius had vindicated their right
to be recognized in art, science, literature, and government, and
through many of the great events that have made the United States a
Nation. It was such a combination of influences that developed
Lucretia Mott into the exceptional woman she was.

In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his
honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he
did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family
devolved upon the mother, who had remarkable tact, energy, and
courage. Both parents were ambitious for their children, and did all
they could for their education; that was one thing about which all
Quakers were tenacious. In her fourteenth year Lucretia and her elder
sister were sent to "The Nine Partners," a Friends boarding-school in
Dutchess County, New York, and there pursuing her studies with patient
zeal, she remained two years without once going home for a holiday
vacation. At fifteen, a teacher having left, Lucretia was made an
assistant, and at the end of the second year, was tendered the place
of teacher, with the inducement beside, that her services would
entitle a younger sister to her education.

Her well-balanced character enabled her to meet with calmness, all
life's varied trials, of which she had her full share. As one of eight
children in her father's house, with his financial embarrassments, and
sudden death: and afterward with five children of her own, and her
husband's reverses; Lucretia's heroism and strength of mind were
fairly tested. In both of these financial emergencies, she opened a
school, and by her success as a teacher, bridged over the chasm.

In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according to
Quaker ceremony, became husband and wife, the result of an attachment
formed at boarding-school, which proved to be an exceptionally happy
union, and through their long wedded life, of over half a century,
they remained ever loyal to one another. James Mott, though a Quaker,
was in all personal qualities the very opposite of his wife. He had
the cool judgment, she the enkindling enthusiasm. He had the slow,
sure movement; she the quick, impulsive energy. He enjoyed nothing
more than silence; she nothing more than talking. The one was
completely the complement of the other. She p