Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 7.

Of Fanny Blanchard, Peggy Swan and Sallie Richardson, I have failed to find anything authoritative.

In the summer of 1803, Mrs. Rowson moved her school from Medford to Newton; in 1807, to Washington street, and in 1811, to Hollis street, Boston. In 1822, on account of her failing health and declining years, after twenty-five years service, she was forced to withdraw. She died on the second day of March, 1824, at the age of sixty-three years. Mr. Knapp, a contemporary, in an obituary said of her, ‘Mrs. Rowson was singularly fitted for a teacher. Such intelligence as she possessed was then rare among those who took upon themselves the task of forming the characters and enlightening the minds of the young. To her scholars she was easy and accessible, but not too familiar. Her manners were polished and dignified, without distance or affectation. Her method of governing her school was strict, cautious, and precise, without severity, suspicion or capriciousness.’

That no good thing is ever lost, but that a noble influence is abiding and far reaching is well illustrated by extracts taken from a book of recent date. I refer to ‘The People of the Whirlpool,’ by the author of ‘Garden of a Commuter's Wife.’ In it I find the following, in Martin Cortright's letter to Barbara, he says:

My mother came of English, not Knickerbocker stock like my father, though both belonging distinctly to New York, and female education being in a somewhat chaotic state between the old regime and the new, her parents, desirous of having her receive the genteel polish of courtly manners, music and dancing, sent her, when about fifteen, to Mrs. Rowson's schoool, then located at Hollis street, Boston. The fame of this school had travelled far and wide, for not only had the preceptress in her youth, as Susanna Haswell, been governess to the children of the beautiful Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, one of the most accomplished women of her day, and profited by her fine taste, but her own high morals and literary gifts made her tutorship a much sought privilege.