Elizabeth F. Lummis Ellet

Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet was an American writer, historian and poet born in Sodus Point. She was the first writer to record the lives of women who contributed to the American Revolutionary War. She published her first book, Poems, Translated and Original, in 1835 and her most important work, The Women of the American Revolution, was published in 1845.

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Ellet was the first historian to write about the relationship of women to the American Revolution. She felt that women shaped history by their influence, which was done through "sentiment" and "feeling". This was so hard to define that she stated "History can do it no Justice".^[35]

Elizabeth Fries Lummis was born in Sodus Point, New York, on October 18, 1818. Her mother was Sarah Maxwell (1780–1849),^[2] the daughter of American Revolutionary War captain John Maxwell. During the Revolution, Maxwell was lieutenant of the first company raised in Sussex County, New Jersey. He was promoted to captain and attached to the Second Regiment Hunterdon County Militia.^[3] He was also a captain in Colonel Spencer's regiment of the Continental Army from February 7, 1777, to April 11, 1778. He later joined the army of General George Washington as captain of a company of 100 volunteers known as Maxwell's Company.^[4]

Her father was William Nixon Lummis (1775–1833), a prominent physician who studied medicine in Philadelphia under the famous Dr. Benjamin Rush.^[4] In the early part of 1800, Dr. Lummis left Philadelphia and purchased the Pulteney estate in Sodus Point, Wayne County, New York.^[5] Elizabeth Lummis attended Aurora Female Seminary in Aurora, New York, where she studied, among other subjects, French, German and Italian. Her first published work, at age 16, was a translation of Silvio Pellico's Euphemio of Messina.^[6]