Susanna (Haswell) Rowson (1762 - 1824)

Born 1762 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

Ancestors

Died 2 Mar 1824 at about age 62 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA

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Biography

Susanna Rawson (neé Haswell) 1762-1824
"Her father was a British naval officer, and she lived alternately in America and England throughout her youth. She was an author, actress and educator. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was her patron. Susanna went to America again with her husband and started a school in Boston for young women running it for 25 years. She wrote eight novels of which Charlotte Temple was the first. It was published in England but became a major best seller in America. She also wrote poetry and text books for children."^[1]

"By Revolutionary times, girls' boarding schools had sprung into existence in large towns, and certainly filled a great want. One New England School, haloed with romance, was kept by Mrs. Susanna Rawson, who was an actress, the daughter of an English officer, and married to a musician. She was also a play-writer and wrote one novel of great popularity, Charlotte Temple. Eliza Southgate Bowne give some glimpses of the life at this school in her letters. She was fourteen years when she thus wrote to her father:"

Hon. Father:

I am again placed at school under the tuition of an amiable lady, so mild, so good, no one can help loving her; she treats all her scholars with such tenderness as would win the affection of the most savage brute. I learn Embroidery and Geography at present, and wish your permission to learn Musick. . . I have described one of the blessings of creation in Mrs. Rawson, and now I will describe Mrs. Lyman as the reverse: she is the worst woman I ever knew of or that I ever saw, nobody knows what I suffered from the treatment of that woman.^[2]

"Mrs. Susanna Rawson, the proprietor of an overflowing boarding-school for girls in Boston, presuming that a country location would be better for herself and her pupils, canvassed various localities, and, settling upon Medford, leased Mr. [Joseph] Wyman's [of Woburn] premises, and became his successor. That her school had many patrons, and was regarded with much favor by the town, is evinced by the following:"
May 12, 1800. Voted that the second and third seats in the women's side gallery in the meeting-house be allowed to Mrs. Rawon for herself and scholars; and that she be allowed to put doors and locks on them.
"Mrs. Newton succeeded Mrs. Rawson, occupying the same house from 1803 to 1806.^[3]

One of her students was: Caroline Jackson.

Sources

1. ↑ Kesley, Jennifer C., A Voice of Discontent: A woman's Journey Through the Long Eighteenth Century, (Leicester: Matador, 2009) p. 222
2. ↑ Earle, Alice Morse, Child Life in Colonial Days (NY: Macmillan Co., 1909), p. 113
3. ↑ Brooks, Charles; Usher, James, History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex, Massachusetts (Boston: Rand, Avery & Co., 1886), p. 298

See also:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Rowson

Acknowledgments

Thanks to James Allen for starting this profile. Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by James and others.