Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren
(The Massachusetts Historical Society) Mercy Otis Warren was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, where she lived until 1754, where she married James Warren and moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts.  She was born into a family of boys.  She became a Patriot writer.  She wrote plays, poems, and other writings which supported the cause for American independence.  It was there in Massachusetts that Mercy Otis Warren found herself at the center of a lively Patriot family.  Both her husband and her brother James Otis took active parts in Massachusetts politics, and the Warren home became a common meeting place for revolutionaries.  She also participated in the Patriot cause, beginning with the 1772 publication of her play "The Adulateur", the first in a long line of similar propagandistic pieces published anonymously.  She developed friendships with Abigail and John Adams at this time and corresponded with both throughout her life.  Warren continued to write and publish after the war, issuing a volume of poetry under her name in 1790 and in 1805 publishing her three-volume "History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution." 

When she was a small girl, Mercy learned to express her ideas through reading, writing, and discussing politics.  She met her husband through the Harvard Commencement.  She married him in November 1754 and lived in the Warren family estate at Eel River, Plymouth, Massachusetts.  They both bore three sons.  She did not like the fact that women didn't have the right to participate in politics.  She believed women would have more rights if the colonies were independent from Great Britain.  She also believed women should've had the right to vote as well.  She believed strongly in independence, liberty, and the power of the written word.  She died on October 19, 1814, at Winslow House in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

(Traitors, Seamstresses and Generals: Voices of the American Revolution).  This was another website source used in this blog post.