Woman of the Century/Caroline Brown Buell

BUELL, Mrs. Caroline Brown, temperance worker and philanthropist, was born in Massachusetts. Her ancestry was New England and Puritan. She is a daughter of Rev. Thomas G. Brown, of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her early life was passed in the way common to the children of itinerant ministers. Hard work, earnest study and self-reliance CAROLINE BROWN BUELL. developed her character on rugged and noble lines. She had a thirst for learning that caused her to improve in study all the time that the only daughter of an itinerant minister could find for books. Arrived at womanhood, she became the wife of Frederick W. H. Buell, a noble and patriotic young Connecticut man, who had enlisted in the Union army at the beginning of the Civil War. During the war her father, husband and three brothers served the Union, three in the army and two brothers in the navy. Her father was the chaplain of her husband's regiment, and in war he earned the name of "The Fighting Chaplain." During those dreary years Mrs. Buell worked, watched and waited, and in the last year of the conflict her husband died, leaving her alone with her only son. She soon became identified with the temperance reform and in 1875 was chosen corresponding secretary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Connecticut, which had been partially organized the previous w inter. She entered heartily into the work, and her sound judgment, her powers of discrimination, her energy, her acquaintance with facts and persons, and her facile pen made her at once a power in the association She came into office when much was new and experimental, and she gave positive direction to the work and originated many plans of procedure. She was the originator of the plan of quarterly returns in Connecticut, a system that has been quite generally adopted in other States. In 1880, in the Boston convention, Mrs. Buell was chosen corresponding secretary of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and in that exalted and responsible position she has done good and effective work with pen, hand and tongue for the association. She has been re-elected to that office regularly for twelve years. She is a dignified presiding officer and an accomplished parliamentarian, and in State conventions she has often filled the chair in emergencies. The war record of her family makes her a favorite with the veterans of the Civil War, and she has, on many occasions, addressed conventions of the G A. K. Of singularly gentle nature and quiet manners, they are combined with exceptional force of character.