Hannah Lyman

Hannah Lyman (1816 – February 21, 1871) was an American educator. She was the first Lady Principal of Vassar College. Lyman took an active interest in missionary operations through her whole life, maintained a constant correspondence with several distinguished Christian missionaries in foreign lands, and did much by the power of her enthusiasm to kindle and foster the missionary spirit, not only among her pupils, but in the wide circle of social influence which she filled for many years. In the city of Montreal, surrounded by her nearest relatives, she commenced a select class for young women which speedily grew into a seminary of a very superior order. For twenty-two years, though often oppressed with anxiety, by sorrow, by failing health and most of all, by the deep sense of her own insufficiency, she persevered in her work. Her reputation as a successful and inspiring teacher had been so widespread that she had received frequent invitations to take the superintendence of large public educational institutions, which she had uniformly declined. In 1865, however, she received an urgent request to become first lady principal of a newly organized woman's college on a very large scale -Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York- an institution founded on a munificent bequest, with aims and resources greater than perhaps any other such institution in the world. Early life and education Hannah Willard Lyman was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1816. She was of Puritan ancestry. Along with the Edwardses, the Stoddards, the Strongs, and others, the Lymans were members of old families who originally settled that region. Her parents were Theodore Lyman and Susan Willard Whitney. She was a sister of Henry Lyman, the missionary, who, with his colleague, Samuel Munson, was murdered in Sumatra. His martyrdom made a deep impression on her, as was evinced in the biography of him which she wrote years after. Other brothers included Theodore Lyman and S. J. Lyman. Lyman's advantages of early education were the best that New England afforded for her gender. While she was yet a child, her parents removed to Amherst, Massachusetts, where she grew up amid the intellectual and social influences characteristic of a New England college town, and formed numerous acquaintances with educated and professional people, that were of immense value to her in subsequent life.