The year 1838 looked promising for Wabash.
After six years of tireless work and unceasing worry since the founding, the College seemed on a firm footing. There were
91 students. Edmund Hovey was teaching, not traveling to raise money. The College had a committed faculty of four, including an energetic new president, and July had seen the College’s first "commencement" for the two men who had completed their courses.
Work was nearly completed on the new building known simply as "the College." The Library was stocked with generous donations and $6,000 worth of scientific equipment was in place. Accommodations for up to 60 students were ready, and many students had already moved in. It was an autumn of great potential.
Late one September night, all of that changed.
In a letter written a month later, Mary Carter Hovey wrote of the disaster:
"The scenes of last Saturday morning can never be blotted from our memory. At half-past-two on that morning we were awakened by the cry, ‘The College is on fire.’ The flames had then burst through all the windows in the north end, which was unfinished, and this whole roof was one sheet of fire. For a moment the library and all were forgotten in the thought, Where are the students? We know some were sleeping in the third and perhaps fourth stories and the fire was rapidly descending the staircases. But we rejoice to add that the lives of all were saved, though many left all of [their] earthly goods behind to be consumed by the fire."
Mary wrote that the fire seemed to have been caused by the work of the "tinners" on the roof. The faculty and friends of the College all watched as their work was consumed by the flames. The loss totaled over $22,000.
Many thought that was the end of this dream. The College was burned, the prospects were bleak.
Into the darkness of those days was born Mary Freeman Hovey, the only daughter of Edmund and Mary Hovey. Born just five days after the fire, baby Mary brought joy and delight to the weary residents of Hovey Cottage. In a letter from October, Mrs. Hovey’s sister Martha White mentions the funny, warm letter they had received from Edmund carrying the good news that both mother and daughter were healthy.
Rising with the College from the ashes of the fire and tempered by a hearty religiosity, Mary Freeman Hovey would leave her mark on hundreds of students. Like her father, she would spend her life in the service of education. Mary attended the Reverend Johnson’s school here in town, then continued her education at a female seminary in Ohio. In a letter to her sister-in-law she speaks of her busy social schedule on campus and hours of study in French and German.
Mary returned to Crawfordsville to teach in local private schools. By 1865, with the Civil War in its fourth year, the College was finding it increasingly difficult to find instructors. In the minutes of the Prudential Committee of the Board of Trustees for March 15, 1865 we read, "Committee authorized the faculty to employ Miss Mary Hovey to give instruction to the Junior and Senior classes in the German language, during the winter term of 1865." Thus we have the notice of the first female teacher at Wabash College.
In 1869 Mary left the comforts of home for Manhattan, Kansas to join the faculty of the Kansas Agricultural college where she taught German and English Literature for the next three years. An article in the Wabash Magazine of the time expresses the students’ respect for Mary: "We venture to say that there are very few gentlemen better able to fill this position than Miss Hovey…
It is difficult to decide whether Miss Hovey or the College in which she has accepted a professorship, should receive the most hearty congratulation."
Mary taught at Kansas State for three years when she resigned for reasons that still aren’t understood. It seems that there was a change of focus at Kansas State from the liberal educational model to much more of a technical model.
Mary returned to Crawfordsville and started her own school for young ladies. The Wabash Magazine of January 1873 notes her new venture, which was located at the corner of Main and Green Streets in the Fischer Building:
"Miss Mary Hovey is teaching a high (three stories) school for young ladies. She has a class in chemistry which intends to attend senior lectures at the College next term."
An item in April 1873 continues, "Miss Mary Hovey’s class in chemistry has been attending the chemical lectures with seniors this term. This is a step toward co-education." While the student writers were overly optimistic regarding the possibility of co-education, evidently Miss Hovey’s girls were welcome in her father’s chemistry lectures.
Mary, now 27, was a great comfort to her parents. Mrs. Nora Hopkins, the College’s first Archivist, wrote that Mary, the first daughter of Wabash, was described by those who knew the family as her father’s "pal" and his "right hand man." Exhibiting a love of the natural sciences inherited from both parents, Mary worked with her father cataloging over 5,000 specimens in the college cabinet. The pair also created the Hovey Scrapbook, still here in the Archives, which gives us the early history of Wabash, including programs, catalogs, letters, and many other artifacts. A priceless piece of our historical record.
When Edmund O. Hovey died in March 1877, Mary and her mother went to stay with her brother Horace and his family in New Haven, Connecticut. Mary taught in the public schools there for three years before she and her mother returned to Crawfordsville. For the rest of her life Mary taught her students, volunteered extensively in the community, and tended to her mother. She writes of her life in a letter to a friend from Kansas in March 1882: "My mother and I live quietly together here at our old home. I have a pleasant school of over 20 girls. This keeps me busy and as my schoolroom is in our own house, I can relieve my mother of much of the housekeeping."
Though she never married, all indications are that her life was full of depth and meaning. The Hoveys of Wabash College were a happy, supportive family who valued learning and faith. Mary Freeman Hovey, born into troubled times, seems to have lived a rich life committed to the education of young minds, service to others, and the love of her family.
She died June 4, 1897 at age 59 in her father’s house on the campus of the College that he founded, built, and loved.