Eliza Townsend

Eliza Townsend (June 1788 - January 12, 1854) was a 19th-century American poet who wrote anonymously. She was the first native woman poet whose writings commanded the applause of judicious critics; the first whose poems evinced any real inspiration, or rose from the merely mechanical into the domain of art. Nicholas Biddle said that a prize ode which Townsend wrote for ''The Port Folio'' while he was editor of it was in his opinion the finest poem of its kind which at that time had been written in the United States. Many of her other pieces received the best approval of the period, but, as she kept her authorship a secret, it did not enhance her personal reputation. In much of her work, there was a religious and poetical dignity, with all the evidences of a fine and richly-cultivated understanding, which entitled her to be ranked among the distinguished literary women who were her contemporaries. Townsend died in 1854. Provided by Wikipedia