Loretta Cody
Biography
Press
Lectures
Phebe Hanaford
Biography
Suffragist
Minister
Author
Feminists
Jane Croly
Olympia Brown
Antoinette
Brown Blackwell
Lucy Stone
Rev. Phebe A. Coffin Hanaford
Minister
|
|
The Reverend
Hanaford |
In 1866 Mrs. Hanaford joined the Universalist Church because it was the most liberal church available to her. She received a License to preach that same year. Rev. Olympia Brown asked her to preach in her church and encouraged Hanaford to seek ordination. She was accepted, passing the necessary examinations without attending a seminary. She was ordained February, 1868 in Hingham, Massachusetts. She served as pastor in Hingham and Waltham, Massachusetts until 1870 when she accepted a position as pastor of the First Universalist Church in New Haven, Connecticut. Her husband, Dr. Hanaford, refused to go with her and from that time on she maintained a separate household with her children. In 1874 she accepted a position in Jersey City’s First Universalist Church. From 1873 until 1883 she served as Vice President of the Convention of Women preachers which became the Women’s Ministerial Conference founded by Julia Ward Howe. Rev. Hanaford chaired the Universalist Committee on Fellowship, Ordination, and Discipline and was an ex officio member of the General Convention. She retired from active ministry in 1891 having actively served as pastor of Universalist parishes for 23 years.
Rev. Hanaford is the first New England woman ordained to the ministry and the third in the country. She was appointed chaplain, and officiated in the Legislature of Connecticut, which she did in 1870 & 1872 several times in the Senate and the House of Representatives becoming the first woman in the world to officiate in such a capacity in a legislative body of men. She was the first mother to offer the ordaining prayer and later exchange pulpits with her son. She was the first woman to officiate at the marriage ceremony of her daughter. She was the first woman minister who ever gave charge at the ordination of a male minister.
She said scripture "retarded the progress of woman for centuries, but not for all time." Her pioneering spirit contributed to the progress and freedom of women by setting a precedent for later women ministers of all denominations. She did this by excelling in her work. In Hingham it was said she preached "more effectually than any man they had had for the last twenty years." She traveled distances to services to demonstrate that "women can perform all pastoral duties." She faced with intelligence and dignity the men who thought they were doing God a service by blocking women’s way. On one occasion she wrote to Olympia Brown, that she felt she could not continue because of the opposition she faced as a woman minister. When asked to leave her parish in New Haven, she did not hesitate during her final sermon, "The Finished Work" to remind them of her achievements during her years as their minister. In conclusion, she said it was better to separate in peace than to remain in strife. She left behind the first "Historical Sketch" of their Society.
When pastor of the First Universalist Church in Jersey City, she was secretary of the State Convention of Universalists. Newspaper accounts showed interest in the success of the "lady preacher" and expressed surprise when a church meeting voted 47 to 42 in favor of her dismissal. When asked by those in favor of women in the ministry to continue as their pastor, she formed the Second Universalist Church in Jersey City. At first declared schismatic, the accusation was withdrawn and Rev. Hanaford was reinstated in the Universalist Convention. Her life expressed her belief "the endurance of woman matches that of man, as far as pulpit and pastoral work is concerned."
© 1999 Loretta Cody
All Rights Reserved