Woman of the Century/Mary Seymour Howell

MARY SEYMOUR HOWELL. HOWELL, Mrs. Mary Seymour, lecturer and woman suffragist, born in Mount Morris, N. Y., 29th August, 1844. She is the only daughter of Norman and Frances Metcalf Seymour and a lineal descendant of the Seymour family, well known in English history through the Puritan representative, Richard Seymour, who settled in Hartford, Conn., in 1639. She received a classical education and has devoted much time to the higher educational interests of New York. Under the care of lecture bureaus she has delivered many historical and literary lectures and has done much work for the cause of temperance. Ten years ago she became interested in securing suffrage for women, and has addressed audiences in many of the cities and villages of the North and West, as well as in New England and her own State. She has repeatedly plead the cause of women before committees of State legislatures and of Congress. Mrs. Howell is the only woman ever asked to speak before the House of Representatives of Connecticut. In 1890 she delivered the address to the graduating class of South Dakota College. Her addresses are enlivened with anecdotes and through them all runs a vein of sentiment. She is a very magnetic orator. Her speeches have always been received with enthusiasm, and the press has spoken of her in terms of highest praise. She is broad in thought, liberal in spirit, holding justice as her guide in all the relations of life. She was appointed in 1891, by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to represent that body in the National Council of Women in Washington. Mrs. Howell's home is in Albany, N. Y. She is the wife of George Roger Howell, of the State Library. Mrs. Howell's only child, Seymour Howell, a young man of great promise and lofty integrity, died a junior in Harvard University, 9th March, 1891.