Chace, Elizabeth Buffum (1806–1899)

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Chace, Elizabeth Buffum (1806–1899)

American abolitionist and suffragist. Born Elizabeth Buffum, Dec 9, 1806, in Providence, Rhode Island; died Dec 12, 1899, in Central Falls, Rhode Island; dau. of Arnold Buffum (abolitionist) and Rebecca (Gould) Buffum; sister of Sarah Buffum Borden and Rebecca Buffum Spring (who m. Marcus Spring); m. Samuel Buffington Chace (Quaker), June 1828; children: several, including Arnold C. Buffum (chancellor of Brown University) and Elizabeth Buffum (writer known as Lillie Buffum Wyman).

Helped form the Fall River Female Anti-Slavery Society in Rhode Island (1835) and served as vice president; an important antislavery organizer, her home became a way station on the Underground Railroad; served as a founder of National Free Religious Association in Boston, MA (1867), of which she became vice president (1881); served as vice president of American Anti-Slavery Society (1865–70); with Paulina Wright Davis, organized a Rhode Island association of New England Woman Suffrage Association and served as president (1870–1899); supported American Woman Suffrage Association (1869); worked (unsuccessfully) for woman suffrage amendment in RI and pushed for admission of women to Brown University; published Anti-Slavery Reminiscences (1891); was also active in prison reform.

See also Lillie B.C. Wyman and Arthur C. Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace (2 vols., 1914).

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Chace, Elizabeth Buffum (1806–1899)

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