This is a transcription of the Mary Ann (Powers) Filley biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 127.
Mary Ann (Powers) Filley
MARY ANN, daughter of Jonathan and Anna Kendall Powers, was born in Bristol, December 12, 1821. Her earliest recollections are of the falling waters of Newfound river, and rugged Kendall hill, her grandfather’s home, in Hebron. In her early childhood the family removed to Lansingburg, N. Y., where her mother died when she was eleven years of age, leaving six little children, and she, being the eldest daughter, filled, for a time, a mother’s place. Later she went to reside with Mrs. Deborah Powers, an aunt; but soon, impelled by a desire for independence, she went to Newark, N. J., to learn tailoring. Becoming proficient, she returned to Lansingburg, where she was engaged until her marriage, in 1851, with Edward A. Filley, a native of that city, then a prosperous merchant of St. Louis, Mo., where they made their home, (though coming to New England for the summer,) and where a son and two daughters were born. Living a quiet life, though in full sympathy with the reform movements of the day, Mrs. Filley felt no call to work in them until the fall of 1872, when the passage of a bill legalizing houses of prostitution, aroused the spirit of womanly indignation, and, with other prominent women of St. Louis, inspired by a desire to save their city and their sons from resulting disgrace, she labored with voice and pen until the repeal of the law was secured. Espousing the cause of woman’s suffrage, she has also labored in its interest, going once before the United States Senate committee, with Susan B. Anthony and others, to urge the enfranchisement of women. Temperance, and the higher moral life have been subjects ever near her heart, and earnestly discussed in the New England home which she bought in 1880, in the town of Haverhill, where, for many years, she has resided, caring for the large farm, yet taking clue interest in every movement for the betterment and uplifting of her townspeople, of womankind, and of the world at large, and rejoicing in the progress that is made.