Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Mary Hartwell Catherwood (December 16, 1847 – December 26, 1902) was an American writer of popular historical romances, short stories, and poetry. Early in her career she published under her birth name, Mary Hartwell, and under the pseudonym Lewtrah (Hartwell spelled backwards, with the final letter dropped). She was known for setting her works in the Midwest, for a strong interest in American dialects, and for bringing a high standard of historical accuracy to the period detail of her novels.

Family and education

She was born Mary Hartwell in Luray, Ohio, one of three children of Marcus Hartwell and Pheba (Thompson) Hartwell. When she was nine, her father, a physician, moved the family to Milford, Illinois. Both of her parents died shortly afterward, and Mary and her siblings were raised by their maternal grandfather in Hebron, Ohio.

Mary obtained a teacher's certificate when she was just 13 and began teaching children in local schools the following year.

Around 1865, Mary enrolled in the Granville Female College. She graduated in 1868, completing the four-year course in three years. She taught school again for a time thereafter, and in 1875 moved to Cincinnati for a year to work as a writer. She left when the economic downturn of the Long Depression damaged the market for writing.

In 1877, she married James Steele Catherwood of Hoopeston, Illinois, a businessman and later a postmaster. They had a daughter, Hazel (b. 1884). The Catherwoods lived mainly in Hoopeston, where a Mary Hartwell Catherwood Club was formed after she gained recognition as a writer. They also spent three years in Indianapolis (1879–1882). In 1899, Catherwood decided she needed to spend more time in Chicago to be nearer her publishers and for her daughter's schooling, so she took an apartment there that was her second home until she died.