era when few New Englanders were Catholic. She never married, and had no children, attracting additional attention at a time when women were generally expected to marry young, remain at home, and raise families. In 1865 she published under a pen name a book of her own poetry, a life of the Virgin Mary called The Mystical Rose. From 1867 to 1882 Hemenway published four more volumes of the renamed Vermont Historical Gazetteer. She had collected material for sixth and seventh volumes, but financial setbacks caused her to delay publication. She subsequently moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she continued to edit materials for the Gazetteer and even set type in her apartment in an effort to continue publication. When a fire destroyed materials for the sixth and seventh volumes, she collected them again and continued her work. Death and burial In 1886 Hemenway was run over by a sleigh and suffered a broken collarbone. She continued working on the planned sixth volume until she died in Chicago after suffering a stroke on February 24, 1890. She is buried at Pleasant View Cemetery in Ludlow. Continued publication Hemenway's sister published the sixth volume of the Gazetteer in 1891. The materials for the planned seventh volume passed through several hands until they were destroyed in a fire in North Carolina in 1911, so that volume was never published. Legacy The six published volumes of the Vermont Historical Gazetteer (five plus the one Quarterly Gazetteer), which include local histories on 13 of Vermont's 14 counties (Windsor County is the exception), are still used as the primary historical reference on Vermont in the 18th and 19th Century. They contain invaluable information, including the names and terms of service for local office holders, names and terms of service for clergy members, and genealogical information on the early white residents of Vermont. Hemenway's pioneering legacy as a publisher in an era when few women worked in the field, and her efforts to change the concept of history as a social science were rediscovered in recent years after publication of a 2001 biography, Deborah Pickman Clifford's The Passion of Abby Maria Hemenway. References External links 1828 births 1890 deaths People from Ludlow (town), Vermont Schoolteachers from Michigan 19th-century American women educators American women poets 19th-century American historians American book editors American book publishers (people) Converts to Roman Catholicism from Baptist denominations Burials in Vermont Writers from Vermont