Asenath Nicholson

Asenath Hatch Nicholson
by Anna Maria Howitt
Born Asenath Hatch
February 24, 1792
Chelsea
Died May 15, 1855
Jersey City
Nationality USA
Occupation teacher, boarding houses, writing
Known for writing, philanthropy

Asenath Hatch Nicholson (February 24, 1792 – May 15, 1855) was an American vegan, social observer and philanthropist. She wrote at first hand about the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s. She observed the famine as she distributed bibles, food and clothing.

Life

Nicholson was born in Chelsea in Vermont in 1792. Her family were members of the Protestant Congregation Church and this was the source for her given name. She trained and became a successful teacher in her hometown before she married a man with three children and went to New York. She and her new husband, Mr. Nicholson, became interested in the diets recommended by Sylvester Graham. In the 1840s they opened boarding houses that offered the vegan diet proscribed by Graham.[1] Amongst her guests were Irish immigrants and she was intrigued by their accounts of Ireland.

In May 1844, she left New York for Ireland and when she arrived she walked around Ireland visiting every County but one. She noted that people lacked work and they relied almost entirely on their crops of potatoes. She left for Scotland in August having observed Ireland just before the outbreak of the Irish Famine.[2]

She returned in 1846 during the second crop failure which together with high unemployment was creating a national disaster. Nicholson was concerned that she would just have to witness the suffering but she wrote to the New York Tribune and The Emancipator in New York and assistance from their readers was organised.[2] In the following July five barrels of corn arrived from New York although it has been noted that on the same ship there was 50 barrels for the Central Relief Committee, but Nicholson preferred to go it alone.[2]

She wrote at first hand about the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s. She observed the famine as she distributed bibles, food and clothing.[1]

Nicholson died in Jersey City in 1855.[3]

Works include

  • Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger: Or An Excursion Through Ireland, in 1844 & 1845, for the Purpose of Personally Investigating the Condition of the Poor (1847)[4]
  • Annals of the famine in Ireland in 1847, in 1848 and 1849 (1851)[5]

References

  1. 1 2 "Review: Compassionate Stranger: Asenath Nicholson and the Great Irish Famine, by Maureen O'Rourke Murphy". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "Protestant New Yorker who saved hundreds of Irish famine victims". IrishCentral.com. 10 March 2017. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  3. ↑ Maureen O'Rourke Murphy, ‘Nicholson, Asenath Hatch (1792–1855)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 12 November 2017
  4. ↑ Asenath Nicholson (1847). Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger: Or An Excursion Through Ireland, in 1844 & 1845, for the Purpose of Personally Investigating the Condition of the Poor. By A. Nicholson. Baker and Scribner.
  5. ↑ Asenath Nicholson (1851). Annals of the famine in Ireland in 1847, in 1848 and 1849. E. French.
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