Waterston, Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy, 1812-1899 (original) (raw)

Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy was born June 27, 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the youngest daughter of Josiah Quincy III, who served as president of Harvard University, U.S. Representative, and Mayor of Boston. Her mother was Eliza Susan Morton Quincy. Anna's grandfather, Josiah Quincy II, had also served as mayor of Boston, as did her brother, Josiah. Her other siblings were: Eliza, Abigail, Maria, Margaret, and Edmund.

On April 21, 1840, she married Rev. Robert C. Waterston (1812–93). After passing two years in Europe, and, just as they were all about to return home, their daughter, Helen Ruthven Waterston (1841 - July 25, 1858), died at Naples, Italy.

Some of Waterston's verses were printed in 1863, in a small volume. She also published articles in the Atlantic Monthly. Her sobriquets included, "A. C. Q. W.", and "W. A. C. Q.".

In 1870, after visiting Jeanne Carr, Waterston left Oakland, California for Yosemite. Waterston was able to gather around her a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. She knew well and was intimately associated with many of the most distinguished people of the former generation. When her father entertained Lafayette, she was a school girl, but the occasions made such an impression upon her mind that she retained a vivid remembrance of it in later years. The cause of the blind was important to her ever since the establishment of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind.

Waterston died October 14, 1899, at her home, No. 526 Massachusetts Avenue, in Newton, Massachusetts, where she lived since 1860, and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. Her carved marble bust was sculpted by Edmonia Lewis and is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2003, her diary, written at the age of seventeen, was posthumously published under the title A Woman's Wit and Whimsy.