Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Lives of the Past Informing the Future | Page 19

sweet auburn | 2019 volume ii
many of whom are buried at Mount Auburn, such
as Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), Lot 4987 Spruce
Avenue, and Ednah Dow Cheney (1814–1904),
remembered in a cenotaph on Lot 953 Fir Avenue.
Both were revered and honored, celebrated in their
day and remembered in ours.
Harriot Kezia Hunt
Harriot Kezia Hunt was born into a nurturing and
supportive family of modest means in Boston’s North
End. She began practicing medicine at an early age,
in 1835, making her a first for women in medicine in
America. Her approach, according to recent medical
articles, was “exceedingly contemporary,” stressing
good nutrition, exercise, and hygiene. She listened
to women’s stories of their “heart histories” and
then prescribed treatment based on that knowledge.
She twice petitioned to attend lectures at Harvard
Medical School and was rejected because of her
sex, but she was rewarded with an honorary degree
of Doctor of Medicine from the Female Medical
College in Philadelphia. She was an important figure
in Boston on three fronts: as a woman in medicine;
as a powerhouse in the abolition and suffrage
movements; and as an organizer of the first New
England Woman’s Rights Convention in 1850 in
Worcester.
To celebrate her life, Harriot commissioned the
sculptor Edmonia Lewis to create a life-sized statue
in marble of the Goddess of Health, Hygeia, for her
lot at Mount Auburn (pictured left). Lewis delivered
the statue in 1872; Harriot died three years later. On
Harriot’s monument nearby is written:
Harriot Kezia Hunt
daughter of
Joab and Kezia Hunt
Nov, 9, 1805
Jan 2, 1875
Aged 69 years
For forty years
a Physician in Boston
She has done what she could.
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was born into an affluent
mixed-race family. Her mother was English and
white; her father, who came from Martinique, was a
prosperous clothes dealer and a founder of a Boston
Zion Church. Josephine knew segregation early: as
a young child, she was unable to enroll in a Boston
Public School because of her race. She married
George Lewis Ruffin, also from an affluent African
American Boston family. The Ruffins were prominent
among the ranks of Boston Abolitionists, taking an
early role in recruiting for the Massachusetts 54 th and
55 th Colored Volunteer Regiments during the Civil
War.
The road to African American women’s rights and
equality, like the woman suffrage movement itself, was
long and wide, encompassing the African American
woman’s right to vote and raising awareness of her
competence. Josephine Ruffin’s name was widely
connected to nineteenth-century efforts to bring this
about. She was many times a “first.” She was the first
African American woman to be invited to the New
England Women’s Club, founded in 1868 (she joined
in 1890). Shortly thereafter, she started The Woman’s
Era, the first newspaper for African American women
to be published by an African American. Then she
founded the Woman’s Era Club to support African
American women in society. With the help of her
daughter, Florida Ruffin Ridley, the indefatigable
Ruffin convened the National Federation of Afro-Am
Club Women, and in 1910 being a charter member of
the Boston Chapter of the NAACP.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is “a place of comfort
and inspiration for the living and a natural setting to
commemorate the dead.” These remarkable women,
buried here, transformed the lives of others in the
process of transforming their own lives. They lived
authentically and inspiringly, lifting up a vision that
would make this world a better and fairer place. It is
fitting for us to honor them with our words and to
follow with our deeds.
Harriot published her autobiography, Glances
and Glimpses, in 1856. More than a 160 years later,
historian Myra C. Glenn wrote a much-deserved
biography of Harriot: Dr. Harriot Kezia Hunt: 19th
Century Physician and Woman’s Rights Advocate.
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