Caroline H. Dall

"Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, wife of Rev. Charles H. A. Dall, was Caroline Wells Healey, daughter of Mark and Caroline (Foster) Healey. She was born in Green Street, Boston, in which city her father was a prominent India merchant. Inheriting the blood of many of the old Massachusetts-Bay families, of Winthrop, Dudley, Rogers, Bradstreet, and Symonds, she traces her lineage back through an almost unbroken line of clergymen for fully three centuries, and numbers among her ancestors, on both sides, William Whittingham, the translator of the Geneva Bible, and Katharine Jacqueman his wife, heiress of Turvyle and Gouteron, whose only sister was Idolette de Bure, the wife of John Calvin. She early learned the modern languages, and began to write for the newspapers when only thirteen years of age. Her first book, consisting of moral and religious essays which she had used in the course of Sunday school instruction, was published in 1849, and was written when she was but eighteen. She was married to Mr. Dall while he was minister at Baltimore, where with him she became much interested in the slaves, made a first census of the free colored people of the district in which she resided, taught the negroes how to read, and contributed articles on the general subject to the Northern journals. She began her annual contributions to the 'Liberty Bell' in 1850; at Toronto, was correspondent editor of the 'Una,' a woman's paper, published at Providence, R.I., and was the agent of a society for assisting fugitives from slavery; in 1855 aided in calling a Convention at Boston to discuss the Rights of Woman, and brought in a Report on the laws relating thereto of the several New-England States; and afterward, during successive winters, gave series of lectures upon topics connected with the new reform, that were first given to the press in various small books, and that were still later collected, revised, and enlarged, and issued by Lee & Shepard in a single volume, under the title, 'The College, the Market, and the Court; or, Woman's Relation to Education, Labor, and Law.'

...In addition to these philanthropic labors and literary productions, are to be mentioned her continued interest and service in Sunday Schools, her life-long devotion to the poor and suffering children in Boston, her instruction of classes of adults in Philology, Biblical Criticism, Shakespeare, and Herodotus, her agency in the formation of the Social Science Association, her frequent preaching in Unitarian pulpits, and her numerous lectures and periodical contributions other than those which have been referred to. Her writings attest her superior intellectual ability and her ample range of learning, while she is a recognized leader in organized charities, and in various other enterprises or movements that seek the general welfare. She still continues her work of usefulness in the city in which she was born, and in which she has resided since her husband went to India."

--Alfred P. Putnam, Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1875), pp. 530-531. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103020200