Mary Mathews Adams

Mary Mathews Adams (previously, Mary Mathews Smith and Mary Mathews Barnes; October 23, 1840 – December 11, 1902) was an Irish-born American writer and philanthropist. The author of thirty or more hymns, it was her Shakespearian study in which she won repute. She became wealthy after marrying Alfred Smith Barnes and distributed numerous benefactions. Early life and education Mary Jane Mathews was born in Granard, County Longford, Ireland, October 23, 1840. She was the oldest child of John Mathews (d. Staten Island, April 1, 1869), a Protestant. Her mother, a Catholic, was Anna (Reilly) Mathews (d. Brooklyn, ca. 1850). All of the children —Mary Jane, Robert, Anna, John, and Virginia Scott (born in New York City)— were reared in the Catholic Church but all save the youngest left the church early in life. Emigrating to the United States about 1846, when Adams was six years old, the family grew up in Brooklyn. When she was 12 or 13 years of age, Adams became a student at Packer Collegiate Institute, which she left in 1855 at the age of 15, without graduating. From this, she passed into a graded school. Career Family tradition has it that she was a school teacher at the age of seventeen years. The records show that from 1862 to 1868, she taught in Public School No. 15, Degraw Street, Brooklyn.