Maria Haskell herrick bray (1828-1921)

Maria Bray was one of seven children.  Her father was very active in local government.She was a highly educated woman who applied her academic training to lead a very different life than many women of her time. Bray was a writer, editor, abolitionist, temperance leader, suffragette (President of the Women’ s Suffrage Association in Gloucester),botanical collector and a phycologist (which is a botanist specializing in algae).

Her local fame however is mainly due to her actions during a winter storm when she was living at the lighthouse on Thatcher Island with her husband, Alexander D. Bray, keeper of the station.While there in 1864, alone with her 12 year old nephew, a blizzard hit, stranding her husband on the mainland. From December 21 to December 25,  she kept the lighthouse lights lit to assure any ships in the area could navigate during the storm.

Prior to this, Bray was an acknowledged expert in marine algae and in 1876 she participated in the national Centennial Exposition. There, she presented her herbarium collection in the Women’s Building and also acted as a correspondent for a French publication.

In 1880 John Robinson published The Flora of Essex County, Massachusetts and in it he credited her collecting expertise with providing many specimens used in the book and in his research. She also wrote scientific essays on snails and trap-door spiders.

Alpheus Baker Hervey also acknowledged her expertise as a Phycologist in his 1882 book Sea Mosses: A Collector’s Guide and in the introduction to the Study of Marine Algae.

As a member of the Essex Institute, she hosted meetings and led members on a botanical field trip. Frank Shipley Collins said that Bray helped to inspire his interest in algae.(He was a noted collector and naturalist of the times.) In 1890 she was the first superintendent of the Bethany Home for Young Women located in the South End of Boston. This was the first women’s shelter in Massachusetts and she ran it for three years.

Bray joined five local leaders to form the Cape Ann Scientific and Literary Association in 1875. This formed the groundwork for the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester.

Because her husband was a deacon in the Universalist Church, her interests and activities spread into religion. She gave lectures on the missionary spirit and the apostle, Paul.She served as president of the Women’s Universalist Missionary Society of Massachusetts in the 1860’s. 

She continued to volunteer until very late in her life  in various positions, always doing what she could to direct society toward more charitable intentions.

Bray died in June of 1921 and is buried in Beechbrook cemetery in West Gloucester.

In 2000 the US Coast Guard named a 175foot coastal buoy tender the Maria Bray to honor her accomplishments.

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