jamin,3 Jr., and Susan (Cheever) Leach, of Manchester, Mass., and on the paternal side a descendant of Robert Leach, an early settler of that town, and his father, Lawrence Leach, who is said to have come to Boston from Scotland in 162S. Susan Cheever Leach, Miss Gould's maternal grandmother, was a grand-daughter of the Rev. Ames3 Cheever, of Manchester, and his wife, Sarah Choate, and great-grand-daughter of the Rev. Samuel2 Cheever, of Marblehead, who was son of Ezekiel1 Cheever, the famous schoolmaster of the olden time in Massachusetts and Connecticut, for forty years the head of the Boston Latin School.
In Chelsea, whither Mr. and Mrs. John A. Gould removed when their children were young, they resided for about thirty years, the city then being noted for its good society, numbering among its leading families the Osgoods, Frosts, Fays, Sawyers, Shillabers, and others. Mr. Gould for a number of years served as one of the School Committee, also as a member of the Common Council, and was chairman of the Music Committee of the First Congregational Church. Mrs. Gould was one of the foremost in works of benevolence, and was much loved and respected. She died in Chelsea in 1893. A daughter Susie, who had unusual musical talent, was the "little rosebud of a Chelsea girl" who sang at one of the public readings of Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1872, being thus mentioned in Mrs. Fields' biography of Mrs. Stowe.
Elizabeth Porter Gould, the eldest daughter, was named for her grantimother Gould's sister Elizabeth, the wife of Dr. John Porter, of "Fairfields," the old Porter estate in Wenham. With Miss Gould the possession of talent has been a call for its improvement. The pleasant paths of learning in which her mental powers were developed easily led into equally pleasant fields of useful activity. Whenever congratulated upon the many patriotic services she has rendered, she has always declared with her kinsman. Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, that her "ancestry made it a necessity." And so in regard to her many acts of kindness, her intelligent sympathy in behalf of so many causes, she simply says: "I was born in a house dedicated to God and humanity. I can't go back on that." Questioned, she tells how the house in Manchester-by-the-Sea, where she first saw the light of this world, June 8, 1848, was dedicated like a church by a kinsman of her mother's, who, on its completion, called together people from far and near for a service of prayer and praise.
An inspiring leader and adviser of clubs during her long residence in Chelsea, after the club era began, she was also for years an intelligent power among the society women of Boston, Brookline, Newton, and other places, by her "Topic Talks," opportunities for which came to her wholly unsolicited. In fact, they seemed to be thrust u])on her, for it was clearly noted that this author of varied learning and reserve force had the power of expressing herself in extemporaneous speech, as well as on paper, a rather rare gift.
As an officer in philanthropic and educational organizations, she has struck important chords in the line of reform. Her brochure, "How I became a Woman Suffagist," preluded a membership in the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, and led to the casting of her annual ballot at school board elections. As a director from the first of the Massachusetts Society for Good Citizenship, she entered by voice and pen into the good government work of that organization. As an officer for years of the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women, her good judgment and wise counsel have been of service. As a member of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, she is able, as she says, to become a seed-sower in behalf of the broader education of foreign women. She has written convincingly in the interests of the American college on the Bosphorus and in other lands. Her article in the Century for 1889 on " Pundita Ramabai" was but an outline of the lecture which, with those on "John and Abigail Adams," "John and Dorothy Hancock," "Holland and the United States," "The Brownings and America," and others, she has delivered before numerous women's clubs and other organizations. Her gratuitous platform work in behalf of the George Washington Memorial Association led her as far south as Richmond. Her lecture in Charlottesville was the first ever delivered at
