Peabody, Mary

One of the famed "Peabody Sisters" of Salem, Mary Peabody (1806-1887) shared her sister Elizabeth's passion for education and writing. Her sister Sophia married the author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Mary married the prominent educator Horace Mann in 1843.

Mary raised three sons while her husband served in the U.S. Congress and toured America lecturing on temperance, education and abolition.

After her husband's death in 1859, she briefly ran her own school and worked for her sister Elizabeth's kindergarten in Boston.

Mary later wrote a biography of her late husband, a Christian cookbook, and a romance set in Cuba.

See Also

• Salem Women's Heritage Trail by Bonnie Hurd Smith, p. 20-1, 30, 44

• The Peabody Sisters: three women who ignited American romanticism by Megan Marshall