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Mrs. George Luther Stearns.
The following resolutions were presented to the Society January 20, 1902, and adopted unanimously by a rising vote:—
Your committee are convinced that irrespective of religious belief and political affiliations, the members of the Medford Historical Society unanimously respect the memory of their late honorary member, Mrs. Mary E. Stearns:
Therefore, be it resolved, That the Secretary shall enter this minute in the records of the Society, and transmit a copy to the bereaved family of this truly public-spirited lady.
Mary Elizabeth (Preston) Stearns, the devoted wife and faithful widow of Major George Luther Stearns, whom we are proud to count as a life-long Medford citizen, the friend of John Brown the chain breaker, and the real Moses who pledged his life and fortune, as it were, at the scaffold of Brown, to the enfranchisement and uplifting of the African race in America, and grandly kept his pledge, was a most fit consort for such a man.
She was born at Norridgewock, Me., on January 21, 1821; married Mr. Stearns in 1843, coming to live with him in Medford from Bangor, Me., and died in Medford November 28, 1901, being buried by her request on December 2, the day of execution of John Brown, to whose memory the day had been kept sacred for many years in her household.
She was related to Lydia Maria Child, and was of the stock of New England transcendentalists to whom we owe the poets Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, and also Emerson and Channing, Parker, Frothingham and Margaret Fuller.
Ole Bull, the wonderful violinist, and Emerson, Samuel Longfellow, Frothingham, David A. Wasson, Dr. Hedge, the Hallowells, Frank B. Sanborn, James J. Myers, present Speaker of the Massachusetts House of
