I was born in 1824 in Beverly, Massachusetts. I was one of 10 children. One of my sisters was Emmeline Larcom. My father was a sea captain and he died when I was very young. My mother moved my family to a mill town when I was 10 years old. I started work then. Once I wrote that I arrived at work with a light heart. My mother was a boardinghouse keeper. A year later, Emmeline and I went to Lowell and worked in the mills there. I went to a Unitarian Universalist Church every Sunday. I went to school half the year and worked the other half of the year. I believed that slavery was wrong. I wrote for the Lowell Offering. I wrote against slavery, about the mills’ conditions and about the low pay. I worked in the Lowell Mills until I was 22. When I was 22, I moved to Illinois with Emmeline and her husband, Rev. George Spaulding. In Illinois, I wrote many poems, hymns and some stories. I wrote all my life because I loved to write. 

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