Hannah Johnston Bailey

Photograph of Hannah Johnston Bailey [likely taken ca. 1869] Hannah Johnston Bailey (July 5, 1839 – October 23, 1923) was an American Quaker teacher, pacifist, activist, and advocate for peace, temperance, and women's suffrage.

Personal life Hannah Clark Johnston was born in Cornwall, New York, in the Hudson Valley, the eldest child of David Johnston and Letitia Clark Johnston. Her parents were both Quakers, and her father was a tanner and a farmer as well as a minister. David Johnston moved the family to Plattekill, New York in 1854 for health reasons (likely caused by operating the tanning business) where they operated a commercial fruit farm and raised livestock. She was the eldest of eleven children. Although they were Quakers, two of her younger brothers (Francis (Frank) Clark Johnston who fought with Merrill's Horse and Joseph Hoag Johnston who fought with the 124th New York Infantry Regiment known as the "Orange Blossoms") enlisted and fought in the American Civil War. This reflected the mixed responses of the Quaker community to the war, with some feeling that in order to end slavery the war was a necessary evil. While Frank survived, Joseph was wounded on 5 May 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness and subsequently spent three weeks in Rebel captivity before being rescued by Union cavalry and transported to Armory Square Hospital in Washington D.C. Hannah spent much of the summer and fall caring for Joseph at the hospital, and then in November had him transported to their home in Plattekill where he died on November 17, 1864.

The excerpts and letters below give a personal sense of H.J.B. during the war:

(Excerpt, Hannah C. Johnston to Frank C. Johnston 1 October 1861.)

(Excerpt, Hannah C. Johnston to Joseph H. Johnston, 7 January 1862.)

Home May 15, 1864

Washington D.C. June 9, 1864

This direct experience of the consequences of war cemented for Hannah Johnston a commitment to peace.

Following the war Hannah involved herself in teaching and setting up Sabbath Day schools in Ulster County. Then, in 1867, she embarked on a six month Quaker mission with Quaker minister Hannah S. Fry, traveling over 2,300 miles between Nantucket Island and the Canadian border with Maine visiting and preaching at Quaker meetings, churches, prisons, and alms houses. Toward the end of this mission, while visiting the Winthrop, Maine area, she met the prominent Quaker businessman Moses Bailey. Bailey, along with his brother Charles Martin Bailey, owned and operated a successful oilcloth manufacturing enterprise. Moses' first wife, Betsey Jones, had passed away after long illness in March of that year, and the widower was seeking companionship to ease his bereavement. The two women stayed at Moses' home while preaching in the area, and then Moses joined them for several weeks while they finished their mission journey.

The following year Hannah Johnston married Moses Bailey and moved to Winthrop which was her home for the rest of her life. In 1869 they had a son, Moses Melvin Bailey, and three years later a daughter was born who died at birth. Hannah spent the next ten years raising her son and helping her husband run and expand the business as Moses' health gradually failed. When Moses died in 1882 Hannah took over the business operations which now included a retail outlet in Portland, Maine and a factory in Camden, New Jersey.thumb Home built by Hannah J. Bailey for her parents in Plattekill, N.Y. Photo from August 1888, 50th wedding anniversary of David and Letitia Johnston thumb Photograph of Hannah J. Bailey's family at her parents home in Plattekill, N.Y.

Hannah made three trips abroad, the first in 1884 to Europe with two of her siblings, Charles and Henrietta, the second in 1896 with her niece Theo Edna Johnston to Italy, Egypt, and Palestine where she visited the Ramallah Friends School in Ramallah, and the third in 1900 with her son to Scotland and Scandinavia. The Friends School in Palestine was founded by Eli and Sybil Jones of China, Maine in the 1860s. Hannah's sister Henrietta taught English there starting in 1889, and her grandson, Moses Melvin Bailey Jr. served as headmaster for the school for several years beginning in 1919.

She built a summer house she called the "Pine Cliff Chalet" on Belle Isle in Cobbosseecontee Lake in the late 1890s where she often entertained guests, friends, and family during the last decades of her life. Visitors included Rufus Jones (writer) and family; Palestinian Khalil Totah, A. Edward Kelsey, Rosa A. Lee and others associated with the Ramallah Friends School, and various international guests. Many who signed her guest books referred to her as "Aunt Hannah" and left affectionate comments regarding their visits.

Hannah died at her son's house in Portland on October 23, 1923. She is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Winthrop, Maine.

Her home in Winthrop Center, Maine, the Moses Bailey House, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Her papers are archived in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

Career Bailey taught school in Plattekill, New York from 1858 to 1867. She ran her late husband's businesses, a factory producing oilcloth and a carpet store, from 1882 until 1889, and 1891, respectively.

In 1883, she joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and worked with Lillian M. N. Stevens to establish a reformatory for women in Maine. She represented Maine at the National Conference of Charities and Correction. In 1887, she became head of the WCTU's new Department of Peace and Arbitration, and through the organization worked to oppose war and violence in all forms, including capital punishment, lynching, prizefighting, military conscription, even toy soldiers and military drills in schools. In 1898 she was elected president of the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, the publishing arm of the WCTU, succeeding Matilda Carse. She also served as business manager.

She was editor and publisher of two WCTU peace periodicals, Pacific Banner and Acorn (intended for young readers), from her home in Winthrop, Maine. [issues of these publications are available online through the Swarthmore Peace Collection archive ] She retired from her WCTU posts in 1916, as World War I began and the WCTU endorsed American involvement.

From 1891 to 1899, she was president of the Maine Woman Suffrage Association, and from 1895 to 1899 she served as treasurer of the National Council of Women. She was also a member of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

It took nearly a quarter century from the date of this speech until the Anthony Amendment was ratified in 1920.

She was a well known and respected figure among her contemporaries as attested by this biographical sketch published in 1900 in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

Bailey wrote a biography of her late husband, Reminiscences of a Christian Life (1885).

Selected works Reminiscences of a Christian Life (1885)