154 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
was related to Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Webster and she related 
the following amusing story to the writer in a letter dated December 
22, 1897. After saying that it was not necessary to thank her every 
time she sent a trifling specimen or botanical note she. continued, 
“T recall my cousin (somewhat removed) Benjamin Franklin’s sug- 
gestion to his father to ask a blessing over the whole barrel of pork 
instead of seeking it all winter long for the portions that appeared on 
the table,— an example that you can follow. The Doctor is not my 
own first cousin, because I live too late in the centuries, but two of 
my ancestors, one on my grandfather’s side and the other on my 
grandmother's, stood in exactly that relation to him." Mrs. Owen 
had a keen sense of humor that constantly cropped out in her letters. 
In regard to some of her ancestors she writes under date of Novem- 
ber 17, 1895, “I am eligible to the same societies [Colonial Dames, 
ete.] on other grounds. Four pilgrim fathers and mothers, and back 
of them John Robinson, the Leyden pastor, ministers and elders in 
Boston and Salem of the very earliest settlers, and a very near rela- 
tionship to Benj. Franklin are some of the qualifications I should put 
forth. I am content for the present, however, with being a Daughter 
of the American Revolution." 
She attended the Nantucket “Coffin School," founded by Admiral 
Sir Isaac Coffin, her grandfather's cousin. It was a kind of high- 
school devoted to the classics and incidentally free to all members of 
the Coffin family, but a private school to all others. It was endowed 
by the Admiral and is still in existence, though its course of instruction 
has been changed. Mrs. Owen's grandfather Coffin was the first 
president of the trustees of the school. She also attended the private 
school of her uncle, Rev. Cyrus Pierce, and, in 1838, when the High 
School was opened, with him as principal, Maria Tallant was one of 
the thirty-five pupils. 
Mrs. Owen's early life was passed in Nantucket and she seems to 
have always been fond of the flowers about her. Her aunt, Mrs. 
Pierce, was a good botanist, and it was natural that, surrounded by 
such influences the child should imbibe the taste for that science. 
Her mother and her sisters were all women of marked ability and of 
botanical tastes and the daughter Maria with her remarkable memory 
and scientific turn of mind went farther than her predecessors. Her 
interest never flagged throughout her long life. Her sister-in-law, 
Mrs. Henry P. Tallant of Philadelphia, very near and dear to Mrs. 
