Martha Coffin Wright
Martha Coffin Wright
- Born: December 25, 1806 in Boston, MA
- Died: January 4, 1875 in Auburn, NY
- Buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, NY
- Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007
Diehard suffragist. Organizer of the first Women’s Rights Convention.
When it came to equal rights advocacy, Martha was the real deal. She joined the abolitionist movement at age 26 and opened her home as a station on the Underground Railroad, welcoming Harriet Tubman and other freedom seekers on their way to Canada. She and Harriet Tubman would remain close friends throughout the rest of their lives.
In 1848, at age 42, Martha and her slightly more famous sister, Lucretia (Coffin) Mott, joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and two other women in organizing the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. Wright remained active in the suffragist and women’s rights movement for the rest of her life, working closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony on both state and national levels.
Martha’s legacy, following her passing in 1875, lived on through two of her daughters and then through a granddaughter, who all continued her fight for women’s rights. Clearly, the brave-woman gene runs strong in the Wright family.
In a letter to her daughter, Martha wrote about freedom seekers who came to stay at her home:
“…We have been expending our sympathies, as well as congratulations, on seven newly arrived slaves that Harriet Tubman has just pioneered safely from the Southern Part of Maryland.”
Learn more about Martha Coffin Wright
More about Martha’s legacy can be discovered in museums across the FInger Lakes, including the NYS Equal Rights Heritage Center in Auburn and the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls.
