L. H. Sigourney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney (September 1, 1791 – June 10, 1865), née Lydia Howard Huntley, was an American poet, author, and publisher during the early and mid 19th century. She was commonly known as the "Sweet Singer of Hartford." She had a long career as a literary expert, publishing 52 books and in over 300 periodicals in her lifetime. While some of her works were signed anonymously, most of her works were published with just her married name Mrs. Sigourney. During the lyceum movement that flourished in the United States in the 19th century, women named literary societies and study clubs in her honor.

Early life

Mrs. Sigourney was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to Ezekiel Huntley and Zerviah Wentworth. Their only child, she was named after her father's first wife, Lydia Howard, who had died soon after marrying Ezekiel. In her autobiography Letters of Life, Sigourney describes her relation to her parents, her decision to care for them, and her intent to avoid marriage because it would interfere with this relationship.

I had... reason for avoiding serious advances. My mind was made up never to leave my parents. I felt that their absorbing love could never be repaid by the longest life-service, and that the responsibility of an only child, their sole prop and solace, would be strictly regarded by Him who readeth the heart. I had seen aged people surrounded by indifferent persons, who considered their care a burden, and could not endure the thought that my tender parents, who were without near relatives, should be thrown upon the fluctuating kindness of hirelings and strangers. To me, my father already seemed aged, though scarcely sixty; and I said, in my musing hours, Shall he, who never denied me aught, or spoke to me otherwise than in love-tones, stretch forth his hands in their weakness, "and find none to gird him"? (241).