1869 LAKE ERIE FEMALE SEMINARY. Original Poetry by Students. Hub of Suffrage & Abolition.

A very attractive original folio sized journal entitled, “Mary J. Maginnis, Collamer, Ohio. June 20^th, 1869” on the first sheet. 

Nearly all of the manuscript content was composed or extracted and copied by students and alumna of the Lake Erie Female Seminary.

LEFS was founded in 1859 in Painesville, Ohio as a sort of Western extension of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. It was one of the first Colleges in America with a female President and entirely female Faculty.  The school was a hub of suffrage and abolitionist activity and sentiment, hosting both Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony as special guests and lecturers.

Mary Maginnis was daughter of Rev. Franklin A. Maginnis of Rome, Ashtabula Ohio. 

The first significant number of pages are primarily comprised of what seem to be fully original [and quite competent] compositions by Mary. These would be among the earliest poems we have from a female poet of Ohio. 

The pages Include:

The Recording Angel. s Stanzas. Apparently Original. Untraced.

Legend of an Alsace [on the early death of young people]. Apparently Original. Untraced.

Be Kind. 6 stanzas. Apparently Original. Untraced.

Washed Ashore. 4 stanzas. Apparently Original. Untraced.

Leaves that are Fairest. 2 stanzas. Apparently Original. Untraced.

Beyond the Shadows [Written for the comfort of a dear friend who had been speaking of one gone before, and saying, ‘Oh how I think of her at night, lying out in the cold churchyard, when the snow is on the ground.’”] 22 stanzas. Apparently original. Untraced.

One Step More. Copied from a fly leaf in my Mother’s Bible. 10 stanzas. Originally by John Sweney.

Imperfect. Copied from a fly leaf in my Mother’s Bible. 8 stanzas. Extracted.

A Little While. 7 stanzas. Extracted from Horatius Bonar.

Coming. Coming. Lengthy poem on the Return of Christ by Barbara Macendrew. It was a Dispensational and other Adventist-oriented groups’ classic. Extracted.

What Then? 4 stanzas. Extract and written by Eva H. Burton of Lake Erie Female Seminary.

The Fountain of Tears. Extracted from Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy and written by Emma M. Parker of Lake Erie Seminary, from San Francisco, California.

To M.M. 5 stanzas. Apparently Original. Untraced. Written by Nellie Caspar of Lake Erie Female Seminary, from Ohio.

Dead Love. Extracted from Phoebe Cary. 9 stanzas. Not signed.

Weary – So Weary! 6 stanzas. Copied by Jennie E. Remington of Lake Erie Seminary. Original by Mrs. Alexander McVeigh Miller.

In Memoriam. 4 stanzas. Copied by Lizzie Gulick. Original by Mrs. E. C. Pearson.

Interesting inscription “to my dear son, Cain” and then Lewis Carroll’s How Doth the Little Crocodile, followed by a plea from Cain’s father and mother, Adam and Eve, to learn from the “wee animal.” Written at Lake Erie Seminary.

Down to Sleep. 4 stanzas. Copied by Luly M. Taylor of Manlapasalai India at Lake Erie Female Seminary. This seems to perhaps be important Methodist missionary, William M. Taylor.

Endurance. 5 stanzas. Copied by Carrie H. Stephenson of Lake Erie Female Seminary.

An original prose composition on the brevity of life, regret, and Christian zeal.

Charming poem, apparently original, called “Der Chigger” on getting chiggers. Written in a broken German accent.

My Darling’s Shoes. Paraphrased for the use of a friend on the death of little Benjamin, by L. A. Maginnis [original in this state]

Etc., etc.,

Further content include: Under the Daisies; I Have no Mother Now; Regret by Jean Ingelow; Finish Thy Work; No Sect in Heaven;There’s Crape on the Door; Weighing the Baby by Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers; Hope’s Song by Joseph Parker; St. Agnes’ Eve by Tennyson; The Race of Life; Rustic Coquetry; How Much a Man is Like His Shoes;

Additional names include: Meille A. Armstrong; Emma S. Hohner of Buffalo, N.Y.; Mary E. White of Buffalo, N.Y.; M. Francis King of Painesville, Ohio; Alice Francis Hale; Susie A. Hubbard of Buffalo, N.Y.; Lizzie Black of Chicago, IL; Flora E Chester; Hatty N. Chester; etc. 

Scrapbook includes items from the Cleveland Presbytery; Account of a Revival from the Presbyterian Magazine by F. Maginnis of Rome Ashtabula [our journal owner’s father]; The Dying Hymn of Musculus; A Night in Libby Prison – Written by a Captive Captain in Libby Prison, 1864; The Fall of Fort Sumter; The Sailor Boy’s Farewell; The Rum Crusade; A Soldier Boy from Ohio; An Ode to Abraham Lincoln;