Eliza Ware Farrar

Early years

Eliza was born in Dunkirk, France, as Eliza Ware Rotch to Benjamin and Elizabeth Rotch who were a family of successful whaling merchants. During her early life, she and her family left France during the French Revolution and moved to England where she was educated. Due to bad investments, her family lost everything and she was sent to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to live with her grandparents. Here, she was an active member of the Friends Meeting, a religious society for Quakers; however, she was eventually disowned by this organization for her liberal views as a New Light.

Career

In 1828, she married John Farrar, a professor of mathematics at Harvard.

Between the years 1830 and 1837, Eliza was most active in her writing, and most of her works were published in Boston, Massachusetts. With these publications, she was recorded as Mrs. John Farrar, but even still she was a known name and revered as a respectable individual based on her works. In 1834, she appeared in the American Annals of Education for the announcement of her upcoming book The Letter-Writer. Although there is not a public version available, Eliza also wrote "Memorials of the Life of Elizabeth Rotch, Being the Recollections of a Mother, by her Daughter, Eliza Farrar." This memorial, along with a collection of correspondences between Eliza and her family, is held by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and the Massachusetts Historical Society also has a collection of the Rotch's which includes personal correspondences of Eliza.