Born: May 6, 1829, Siasconset, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.
Died: June 2, 1921, Rochester, New York.
Buried: In an unmarked grave in Orleans Cemetery, Phelps, New York, next to her daughter, Florence Hanaford Warner.
Phoebe was the daughter of Phebe Ann Barnard and Quaker ship owner George F. Coffin, cousin to feminist Lucretia Mott, and wife of Dr. Joseph Hubbard Hanaford (married 1849).
A gifted writer, she was published in the local paper by the time she was a teenager.
She studied Latin and mathematics and taught school for a few years before marrying. She and her husband lived in Newton and Reading, Massachusetts, and had two children.
She edited a Universalist magazine, and, urged by Rev. Olympia Brown, eventually became a Universalist minister.
She was the first woman ordained in New England, and the first female chaplain to the Connecticut state legislature.
She served churches in Hingham and Waltham, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Phoebe produced poetry, children’s stories, essays, and biographies (her biography of Abraham Lincoln sold 20,000 copies). Her works include:
Dear fainting pilgrim on life’s weary road,
Lone voyager on life’s stormy, restless sea,
Faint not: though dark the lowering clouds may spread,
At evening time it shall be light for thee.
Thus He who loves thy soul trod weary ways,
Thus floated lonely on a starless sea;
Yet His the promise—be to Him the praise!
At evening time it shall be light for thee.
Now clouds and darkness are His children’s lot;
But soon a blissful dawn for them shall be—
Glory beyond the stretch of mortal thought,
Visions of beauty mortals may not see.
Hope on! unwavering, press thou through the gloom!
The Cross must be thy pillar-cloud by day,
Thy blazing guard by night, till, nearing home,
At evening time it shall be light for thee.
Faint not. The Voice which spake the word of yore,
And was obeyed, o’er surging Galilee,
Speaks to thy soul in every stormy hour,
At evening time it shall be light for thee.
Dear voices hushed in death’s unpitying sleep,
Thou mayest not hear this side the narrow sea:
They echo on that shore where none may weep;
There shalt thou greet them when ’tis light for thee.
There shalt thou see the Crucified and Crowned,
Thy chosen Master here, whose smile shall be
A full assurance that thine heart hath found
At evening time ’twas surely light for thee.
Phebe Hanaford
From Shore to Shore, and Other Poems, 1871