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- The Bent Family, by Allen H. Bent, pub. 1900.
page78-79
#111 in Bent family.
Mary Avery (6) Bent (Samuel B. (5), David (4), David (3), John (2), John (1)) was born in Middlebury, VT., Jan. 7 1819, and died Jan. 11, 1890, at Las Vegas, NM, while on the way to California to visit a daughter. She married, Sept. 19, 1838, Rev. Jonathan Blanchard who was born in Rockingham, VT., Jan. 19, 1811, and died in Wheaton, Ill., May 14, 1892. He was educated at Middlebury College, VT, Andover and Lane seminaries; taught school; lectured in the anti-slavery cause; was American vice-president of the World's Anti-slavery Convention in London, 1843; was pastor of the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, OH., from 1838 to 1845; President of Knox College (founded in 1837), Galesburg, IL, from 1846 to 1860, and President of Wheaton Collge, Wheaton, IL., from 1860 to 1882; devoted much of his time to the Christian Association opposed to Secret Societies.
Mary Avery Bent left her home in the spring of 1835, when only sixteen years old, and , with a young friend, set out for the then distant State of Pennsylvania. The beginning of the following year found her principal of the Girls' High School in Harrisburg, where she first met her future husband, then on an anti-slavery lecturing tour. Securing her position in Harrisburg for her sister, she set out in 1837 for Montgomery, AL., where she taught a few months in the Female Seminary, and then returned to her Vermont home. The following fall, a nineteen-year-old bride, she bade farewell to her native hills and began her duties as a minister's wife in Cincinnati. She was a woman of true piety, gentle but resolute, and in her home, in the church, and in the reforms so ardently espoused by her husband, was always ready with her untiring energy and unfailing judgement.
Children, i to iv. born in Cincinnati, v. to xii. born in Galesburg, IL.:
i. Jonathan Edwards Blanchard, b. July 24, 1839
ii. Mary Avery Blanchard,b. Jan. 7, 1841.
iii. William Walter Blanchard, b. Dec. 16, 1842.
iv. Catherine Lucretia Blanchard, b. July 13, 1844.
*** v. MARIA ELIZABETH BLANCHARD, b. Oct. 30, 1846,
vi. Charles Albert Blanchard, b. Nov. 8, 1848.
vii. Williston Blanchard, b. Sept. 13, 1850.
viii. Nora Emily Blanchard (twin), b. April 3, 1853.
ix. Sonora Caroline Blanchard (twin), b. April 3, 1853.
x. Julia Waters Blanchard, b. April 16, 1855.
xi. Cyrus Louis Blanchard, b. July 11, 1857.
xii. Geraldine Cecilia Blanchard, b. Oct. 15, 1859.
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