Eunice Hale Cobb

After marrying married Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, she assisted him in his religious work as a Universalist preacher. Their eldest son, Sylvanus, Jr., developed a faculty for storytelling from his mother's practice of telling stories when he was a child.

• Name — Eunice Hale Cobb • Birth Name — Eunice Hale Waite • Born — January 27, 1803 • Birthplace — Kennebunk, Maine, U.S. • Place of death — East Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. • Resting Place — Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts • Notable Works — "The First Article" • Relatives — Stanwood Cobb (grandson) • Children — 9, including Sylvanus, Jr.; Cyrus; and Darius (twins)

Eunice Hale Waite was born in Kennebunk, Maine, January 27, 1803, the second child of Elizabeth Stanwood and Captain Hale Waite. Her father had removed to Kennebunk from Ipswich, Massachusetts, a short time before Cobb was born, and he returned there soon after her birth, so that Ipswich was associated with her earliest childhood. Captain Waite died when Cobb was five years old, leaving a widowed mother and four children, two of whom died at a very early age. After her father's death, Cobb was cared for by her maternal grandparents, who were Calvinists. At the age of ten, her mother married Samuel Locke (1784-1873), of Hallowell, a man of liberal education who was a school preceptor by profession. He was known to have exerted an influence on his stepdaughter. Thoroughly imbued with the Calvinistic doctrine by her grandparents, Cobb, at an early age, became a prominent member of the Baptist church of Hallowell. Asking her stepfather for spiritual guidance, he responded: "I will not try to shake your faith, but I would have you study candidly, patiently, intelligently, fearlessly, the Bible."

Of her genealogy, the following was contained in a son's memoir: — Thomas Waite of Ipswich is first mentioned in 1658. He was appointed sergeant in 1664. His wife was complained of before the court for wearing a silk dress, but it was decided that she was entitled to do so. From various circumstances, it is supposed that Thomas Waite was of the same family with the Maiden Waites, and with'them descended from Samuel Waite of Wethersfield, Essex County, England; but the evidence of such descent seems unattainable. Of his five children, the second son, John, was born in 1658, died May 21, 1736. He married for his first wife, Kathren Carroll, August 14, 1685; for second wife, Hannah Dorr, November 16, 1712. Their children numbered eight. Jonadab, the third son, was born February 20, 1690, married Hannah Adams, September 11, 1725, and died July 6, 1761. They had one child, John, baptized August 17, 1729. He was married to Sarah Kimball, November 30, 1749; died in February 1752, leaving his widow, Sarah Waite (who in 1773 married John Hodgkins), and two children, of whom John, the youngest, was born April 24, 1752. In the year 1773 he married Eunice Hale of Newbury. March 1782, she died; and December 29, 1785, he took for his second wife, Judith Hale. John Waite died August 6, 1789. Of the three children by his first marriage, Hale was the second, born April 30, 1779; died 1807. He married Elizabeth Stanwood, and had two daughters, the youngest of whom was Eunice Hale, who married Sylvanus Cobb. In March 1684, Sergeant Thomas Waite was granted land on which to build a house for his son John; and it was in that house that Hale Waite, the father of Mrs. Cobb, was born. Philip and Jane Stanwood were living in Gloucester in 1653, and from them Elizabeth was directly descended. Isaac Stanwood, born May 2, 1755, married Eunice Hodgkins of Ipswich, February 26, 1778. Their second child, and first daughter, was Elizabeth, born September 29, 1781; baptized October 14, 1781.

Cobb's life was spent in work for the public welfare, including Sunday schools. She had interests in all the great reforms of her day. In the cause of temperance, she was an effective worker and speaker. She was a champion for the rights of woman in the broadest sense. While she was not identified with the public advocates of woman's rights, she counted among her warmest and most devoted friends eminent leaders of this reform, and sympathetically interchanged views on this topic. She attended, by invitation, the first Woman's Rights Convention held in Massachusetts – at Worcester. Cobb and her husband joined with Professor Charles P. Bronson in founding the Ladies' Physiological Institute of Boston, the leader of all similar institutions in this country, Rev. Cobb obtaining the charter for it. Professor Bronson acted as president, by courtesy, the first year. Cobb then became the first elected president, and served until old age compelled her to resign the leadership. She continued her official connection with the organization by serving as corresponding secretary until a short time before her death.

She married Rev. Sylvanus Cobb in Hallowell, Maine, in 1822. They had nine children, including: • Sylvanus, Jr. (1823–1887) • Samuel Tucker (1825-1897) • Eunice Hale (1827–1871) • Ebenezer (1829–1898) • George Winslow (1831-1909) • Sarah Waite (1832–1853) • Cyrus (1834–1903) • Darius (1834–1919) • James Arthur (1842–1852) Five of her family served in the American Civil War: four sons, Sylvanus, Jr., George, Cyrus and Darius, as well as Lafayette Culver, husband of her daughter, Eunice Hale. Sylvanus, Jr., commanded at Fort Kittery, Maine, and the others served in Virginia and North Carolina. Stanwood Cobb was a grandson. Rev. Cobb died October 81, 1866, age 68, of hypertrophy of the heart. He was the author of a "Commentary on the New Testament," a "Compend of Divinity," and several other works. He founded, and for many years edited, the "Christian Freeman". He had been a Freemason. Cobb was told that her name was inscribed on the Masonic record in such a manner as virtually to make her an honorary member of the order. She was also a prominent and active member of the Independent Order of Rechabites, a temperance association organized by women. The first sign of her failing health was a paralytic shock. She had always desired to die in the old rocking chair in which her mother and grandmother died, while the Sunday morning bells were ringing; her wish was met. Cobb died at the residence of her son, George, on May 2, 1880, in East Boston, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts. Her papers, including diaries and biographical material, are held by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

* * * *