Woman of the Century/Lydia White Shattuck

SHATTUCK, Miss Lydia White, educator, born in East Landaff. now Easton, N. H.. 10th June, 1822 The Shattuck family was prominent in early New England days. Her Grandfather Shattuck went from eastern Massachusetts to New Hampshire in 1798. LYDIA WHITE SHATTUCK. Her father was Timothy Shattuck, who was married on 28th January, 1812, to Betsey Fletcher, of Acton, Miss. Lydia was their fifth child, and the first of their children to reach maturity. She grew up on a farm in the Berkshire Hills. In her youth she was an artist and a poet. At the age of fifteen she began to teach school, and after teaching eighteen terms she went to South Hadley, Mass., where she studied for a time. She next went to Haverhill, where she attended the academy for one term. She then taught in Center Harbor, N. H. She entered Mount Holyoke in 1848, and paid her own way through that school. She was graduated in 1851 and was engaged to remain in the seminary as a teacher. She was scientific in her tastes and made specialties of botany and chemistry. In 1887 she visited the Hawaiian Islands and made a study of the flora there. She was connected with the Penikese Island summer school in 1873. In 1869 she traveled in Europe. In 1876 she made an exhibition in the Centennial Exposition. Her whole life was spent in research and teaching. She died in South Hadley on 2nd November, 1889.