Eliza Farnham (1815–1864)

[Eliza Wood Burhans].  American philanthropist, born at Rensselaerville, NY, in 1815; wife of Thomas Jefferson Farnham. In 1844 she became matron of the New York state prison at Sing Sing, and in 1848 became connected with the management of the institution for the blind at Boston. From 1849 to 1856 she was in California, and in 1859 organized a society in New York to assist destitute women to find homes in the West. Subsequently she returned to California. She wrote Life in the Prairie Land (1846); California: Indoors and Out (1856); My Early Days (1860); Woman and Her Era (1864); The Ideal Attained (1865). She died in New York City, on the 15th of December 1864.