SARAH SHEDD.
Miss Shedd may be called the philanthropist, par excellence, of the early mill-girls. Her whole life was one of self-sacrifice. Her early years were devoted to earning money for the support or the education of members of the family; and at its close she bequeathed the sum of $2,500 for the establishment of the free library in her native town of Washington, N.H.
Her parents were in narrow circumstances; but they had endowed her with a good mind, and had given her a fair education, which was supplemented by tuition under Mary Lyon, of Holyoke Seminary, one of the first women preceptors of her time. She had a great desire to further continue her education, but was obliged to do it unaided. She began to teach a summer school when fifteen years of age, and worked in the cotton-mill in the winter, and thus was enabled to help her family, as well as to gratify her taste for reading and study.
In early life she educated a brother; and later she nearly supported him, and also assumed the whole expense of her aged mother’s maintenance. And yet, in spite of these large drains upon her resources, she saved, solely from her own money, enough to start the library which bears her name, that her townspeople might enjoy the advantages she had so much desired. The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, was one of her pupils, and he delivered the address at the dedication of The Shedd Free Public Library, in 1882, speaking thus in praise of his well-beloved teacher:—
“The first school I ever attended was kept by her, in the front room of the store opposite the post-office. Her genial smile won the hearts of the children.... We longed for her coming, regretted her going. She wandered with us over the hills and fields, gave us instruction from her heart and mind, as well as from the books we used.... Her genial disposition lighted the pathway of many a boy and girl, and gave them glimpses of a mind and soul, which in themselves make her memory as fragrant as spring flowers.”
Miss Shedd was not a prolific writer, and her contributions for The Offering were always of a serious nature. She spent no money on fine clothes nor ornaments; I remember her as a tall, spare, stooping woman, most plainly dressed in calico. We younger ones did not understand her, and were awed by her silence and reserve. But later some of us came to recognize her character as that of one studious, gentle, and self-sacrificing. She remains in my mind as one of the “solitary” among us. She died in Washington, N.H., April 5, 1867.
It is one of the coincidents of history, that, at about the same time Miss Shedd’s money was given towards founding this library, another native of the same little town, Mr. Luman T. Jefts, who had also worked his way up and earned every cent of his money, should supplement Miss Shedd’s gift by adding a sum large enough to erect a suitable library building to contain the books bought by her bequest.
And thus their names are linked together by their grateful townsmen, not only as benefactors of their kind, but also as two earnest and sincere persons who have struggled with adversity and narrow surroundings, have conquered, and fulfilled their cherished aim in life.