Mary Cummings
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Mary Phelps Cowles (Hall) Cummings (August 5, 1839 in Elyria, Ohio – December 23, 1927) was the eldest daughter of Reverend John P. Cowles and Eunice Caldwell Cowles; John was a professor of Greek, Latin, Syriac, French, German, and Italian. at Oberlin College; Eunice was the first principal of Wheaton Female Seminary, now Wheaton College.
In 1844 she and her family moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts where she was educated in the Ipswich Female Academy which was reopened by her parents.
From 1859 Through 1862 Mary taught at Abbott Academy (founded in 1829 as the first school for girls in New England and merged with Phillips Academy in 1973) in Andover. On November 21, 1864 Mary married Dr. Adino Brackett Hall, a prominent Boston physician. In 1880, Dr. Hall died. Later, in 1885, Mary would donate the funds to build a library in her late husbands name, located in Northfield, New Hampshire
On September 1, 1881 Marry Cummings married John C. Cummings, president of Shawmut Bank and owner of a farm and tannery in Woburn, Massachusetts. During his life, John Cummings also served in both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Massachusetts Senate. John Cummings died in 1898.
Mary Cummings died on December 23, 1927 leaving her 236 acre farm in trust, to the City of Boston for use as a recreational park for the public, now known as Mary Cummings Park. Along with the land, she left a substantial trust fund to be supported by income from an office building next to Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston. She also donated 9 acres of land upon which her husbands tannery had been located to the City of Woburn for a playground.
